Any Major Dude With Half A Heart

Fifty years ago on May 8, the final Beatles album was released, almost a month after Paul McCartney had announced that the band had split. If proof was needed that The Beatles had reached the end of the road, this uneven set seemed to provide it.

Of course, most of it was recorded before the masterful Abbey Road, so who can tell how much juice was still in that apple. Be that as it may, Let It Be was the swansong. The last bit of work was done in February 1970, with Paul and George doing some tinkering with I Me Mine, which had been recorded in January 1970, without John’s contribution.

Few fans will list Let It Be as their favourite Beatles album, and only a few tracks on it were widely covered. Naturally, the three stand-out McCartney were liberally covered: Get Back, The Long And Winding Road and the title track. Others found few takers: Dig A Pony, I Me Mine, One After 909, For You Blue…

Still, what we have here is a pretty decent compilation. Even the superfluous Dig It, from Laibach’s song-by-song copy of Let It Be, is, at least, interesting.

One of the artists featured here as a cover act actually played with The Beatles during that period. Billy Preston was even co-credited on Get Back, though that song is featured here in the cover by Motown songstress Chris Clark (released after the single was out and before the LP was released). On his 1970 LP Encouraging Words, Preston covered I’ve Got A Feeling (he also played, uncredited, on the Beatles version), as well as Harrison’s All Things Must Pass and the first recording of My Sweet Lord.

Harrison’s song For Your Blue is covered here by his son Dhani; and on David Bowie’s cover of Across The Universe, we have John Lennon playing guitar.

One track here isn’t even a cover, but precedes Let It Be by 13 years. The version of Maggie Mae — a traditional song from Liverpool which was the first non-Beatles composition the group recorded since Act Naturally on Help! — is by the The Vipers Skiffle Group, a very popular skiffle outfit in the 1950s that was at times produced by… George Martin. Their Maggie May was the b-side of the Top 10 hit The Cumberland Gap; it seems plausible that the young Beatles were familiar with this recording.

So this brings to an end this series of Beatles albums covered song-by-song, all posted on the 50^th anniversary of each album. But I got into it only in 2014 with A Hard Days’ Night. I’m playing with the thought of recovering the first two albums.

1. R. Dean Taylor – Two Of Us (1970)
2. California Guitar Trio – Dig A Pony (2016)
3. David Bowie – Across The Universe (1975)
4. Beth Orton – I Me Mine (2010)
5. Laibach – Dig It (1988)
6. Bill Withers – Let It Be (1971)
7. The Vipers Skiffle Group – Maggie Mae (1957)
8. Billy Preston – I’ve Got A Feeling (1970)
9. Willie Nelson – One After 909 (1995)
10. Ray Charles – The Long And Winding Road (1971)
11. Dhani Harrison – For You Blue (2013)
12. Chris Clark – Get Back (1969)

GET IT! or HERE!

BEATLES RECOVERED:
Beatles Recovered: Please, Please Me
Beatles Recovered: With The Beatles
Beatles Recovered: A Hard Day’s Night
Beatles Recovered: Beatles For Sale
Beatles Recovered: Help!
Beatles Recovered: Rubber Soul
Beatles Recovered: Revolver
Beatles Recovered: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club  Band
Beatles Revovered: Magical Mystery Tour
Beatles Recovered: White Album
Beatles Recovered: Yellow Submarine
Beatles Recovered: Abbey Road
Beatles Recovered: Let It Be

Wordless: Any Major Beatles Instrumentals
Covered With Soul Vol. 14 – Beatles Edition 1
Covered With Soul Vol. 15 – Beatles Edition 2
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1962-66
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1967-68
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1968-70
Any Bizarre Beatles

Beatles Reunited: Everest (1971)
Beatles Reunited: Live ’72 (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Smile Away (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Photographs (1974)
Beatles Reunited: ’77 (1977)
Beatles Reunited: Let It See (1980)

More Beatles stuff

September 26 marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Abbey Road, the album which many regard as The Beatles’ true masterpiece. I count myself among those, even as I prefer to listen to Help. Abbey Road certainly was an audacious album, with its collection of half-finished songs on Side 2.

And what a collection of half-finished songs they are. Because none of them were singles or feature on compilations, they are The Beatles’ “hidden” treasures. The people who feature here obviously saw the genius that runs through the medley, and most covered these tracks as songs in their own, full right.

It is Side 2 that deserves genius status, from Here Comes The Sun — the side’s only fully-fledged song — to The End (we’ll disregard McCartney’s silly coda to the queen as the unnecessary gimmick of a royalist toady which it was). Side 1 is rather hit-and-miss. Of course, Something is a stone-cold classic, and Come Together is great, if you don’t get annoyed by it. But until the great slow-burning blues of I Want You, with its moog-created wind effect, there’s a trio of entirely dispensable songs.

Of those, Paul’s attempt at doing soul, Oh Darling, can be said to have some value, but the Yellow Submarine sequel Octopus’s Garden is a weak point on the album. Some suggest that Ringo’s song is still better than Paul’s murder ballad Maxwell’s Silver Hammer. Here Paul again went into dancehall mode, as he did on Sgt Pepper’s with When I’m 64 and on the White Album with Honey Pie.

Not surprisingly, few artists have bothered to cover Maxwell’s Silver Hammer with great seriousness. The version here is in German by a Brazilian singer called Teddy Lee who seems to have been part of The Rotations, who had an early 1970s hit in Europe with Ra-Ta-Ta. His version is what the song deserves: not lacking in respect, but nothing that merits huge respect either.

On the other hand, the great a cappella band The Persuasions deliver an appealing version of Octopus’s Garden, and Oh Darling produced three strong contenders. In the event, I picked Roberta Flack’s slow-burning version over those by Joy Unlimited and The Persuasions (whose lead singer Jerry Lawson died shortly after I compiled this mix).

There are four bonus tracks of songs which The Beatles released on single during the Abbey Road timeframe. Of those, Get Back gets a gratuitous airing, since it will reappear (in a different version, obviously) on Let It Be Recovered.

As ever, CD-R mix, home-zebracrossed covers. PW in comments.

1. Gladys Knight & The Pips – Come Together (1975)
2. Isaac Hayes – Something (1970)
3. Teddy Lee – Maxwells Silberhammer (1969)
4. Roberta Flack – Oh! Darling (2012)
5. The Persuasions – Octopus’s Garden (2002)
6. George Benson – I Want You (She’s So Heavy) (1969)
7. Nina Simone – Here Comes The Sun (1971)
8. Gary McFarland – Because (1970)
9. Sarah Vaughan – You Never Give Me Your Money (1981)
10. The Bee Gees – Sun King (1976)
11. Cornershop – Mean Mr. Mustard/Polythene Pam (2009)
12. Los Lonely Boys – She Came In Through The Bathroom Window (2009)
13. Carmen McRae – Golden Slumber/Carry That Weight (1971)
14. London Sympathy Orchestra – The End (1987)
15. Tok Tok Tok – Her Majesty (2005)

Bonus Tracks
Jessi Colter – Get Back (1976)
Randy Crawford – Don’t Let Me Down (1976)
Teenage Fanclub – The Ballad Of John And Yoko (1995)
Leslie West – Old Brown Shoe (2004)

GET IT!

More Beatles Recovered:
Beatles Recovered: Please Please Me
Beatles Recovered: With The Beatles
Beatles Recovered: A Hard Day’s Night
Beatles Recovered: Beatles For Sale
Beatles Recovered: Help!
Beatles Recovered: Rubber Soul
Beatles Recovered: Revolver
Beatles Recovered: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club  Band
Beatles Revovered: Magical Mystery Tour
Beatles Recovered: White Album
Beatles Recovered: Yellow Submarine
Beatles Recovered: Abbey Road
Beatles Revcovered: Let It Be

Wordless: Any Major Beatles Instrumentals
Covered With Soul Vol. 14 – Beatles Edition 1
Covered With Soul Vol. 15 – Beatles Edition 2
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1962-66
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1967-68
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1968-70
Any Bizarre Beatles

Beatles Reunited: Everest (1971)
Beatles Reunited: Live ’72 (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Smile Away (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Photographs (1974)
Beatles Reunited: ’77 (1977)
Beatles Reunited: Let It See (1980)

As I have already done with albums by Bruce Springsteen, Carole King, David Bowie and many Beatles albums, here’s another track-by-track covers mix. Except there are some songs on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road for which no covers seem to exist, so I have filled gaps with three live performances by Elton John himself, from his Hammersmith Odeon concert on 22 December 1973. One song had to be omitted altogether, for lack of any alternative versions.

In 1973 there was no indication that one day Elton John would become one of the leading Friends of Dorothy, but he unintentionally hinted at the yet-to-be-invented codeword with the metaphors in the title and on the cover of his double album.

The album’s title, also the name of the lead single, seems to be at odds the artwork on the cover. Both, song and cover, take their imagery from The Wizard Of Oz, in which the yellow brick road played as much a central role as any thoroughfare ever did in the movies. Where the song tells of disillusion at the end of that bright road, the cover promises the beginning of an escape from reality as Elton– spangly mauve platforms instead of ruby slippers – steps into a poster and on to a yellow brick road.

The poster is on a tatty wall, covering a previous poster (the font of which suggests that it might have advertised a music hall), with chimneys in the background telling of a drab existence, quite at odds with Elton’s flamboyant get-up.

The cover was drawn by the illustrator Ian Beck, who was 26 at the time. Beck has since illustrated magazines, greeting cards, packaging and a few children’s books. He has also written a few novels.

Beck came to LP cover design through John Kosh, whose credits included the Abbey Road cover. They shared a studio at 6 Garrick Street in London’s Covent Garden when Kosh arranged for Beck to do illustrations for an LP cover he was designing for Irish folk singer Jonathan Kelly, Wait Till They Change The Backdrop.

Elton John bought that album on strength of the cover, and wanted the same graphic for his new album. Beck told him that this was not possible but offered to create new artwork for the cover.

He was given tapes of the songs (which included future classics like Benny And The Jets, Saturday Night Is Alright For Fighting, Candle In The Wind and the title track), and typed lyrics sheets, and began working on a concept. His friend, fashion illustrator Leslie McKinley Howell, stood in as a model for Elton John in polaroids which Beck took (hence the long legs) in preparation for his watercolour, pastel, and coloured crayon pencils artwork. The piano on the front cover and the teddy bear at the back were placed there at the request of Elsie, as Beck only later realised Elton was known to his staff.

It was the last LP cover Ian Beck designed, though this had nothing to do with his experience of creating the iconic sleeve for one of the great double albums in a decade of many double albums.

The album is regarded by many as Elton John’s finest work. It is indeed filled with many great songs, too many to be released on single, and too many to find inclusion on retrospectives. Songs like Sweet Painted Lady (a song Paul McCartney might have written), I’ve Seen That Movie Too, This Song Has No Title, Roy Rogers and Harmony could have been hits (and Harmony was intended to be the album’s fourth single release); now they are remembered only by fans of the album.

1. Dream Theater – Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding (1995)
2. Sandy Denny – Candle In The Wind (1977)
3. Paul Young – Bennie And The Jets (2006)
4. Sara Bareilles – Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (2013)
5. Elton John – This Song Has No Title (Live) (1973)
6. The Band Perry – Grey Seal (2014)
7. Judge Dread – Jamaica Jerk-off (1977)
8. Elton John – I’ve Seen That Movie Too (Live) (1973)
9. Bridget St. John – Sweet Painted Lady (1974)
10. Elton John – The Ballad of Danny Bailey (1909-1934) (Live) (1973)
11. Emeli Sandé – All The Girls Love Alice (2014)
12. Imelda May – Your Sister Can’t Twist (But She Can Rock ‘n’ Roll) (2014)
13. The Who – Saturday Night’s Alright (For Fighting) (1991)
14. Kacey Musgraves – Roy Rogers (2018)
15. Jesse Malin – Harmony (2008)
Bonus: Diana Ross – Harmony (1976)
Hickoids – Bennie & The Jets (2011)

GET IT!

More Recovered albums:
Blue (Joni Mitchell)
What’s Going On (Marvin Gaye)
Tapestry (Carole King)
Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Springsteen)
Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (Bowie)
Every Beatles album

More Cover Mixes
Previous great album covers
More CD-R Mixes

Coming just over six weeks after the release of the White Album, The Beatles released the soundtrack LP for the animated Yellow Submarine movie on 13 January 1969. Its release exactly fifty years ago yesterday was not massively popular, partly since Side 2 comprised only George Martin instrumentals, and in any case, it was always going to be overshadowed by the epoch-making double album.

The Beatles weren’t too keen either; they put together their contribution only because of a contractual obligation to United Artists, which was releasing the film.

Two of the six songs on Side 1 had been previously released on single (All You Need Is Love and the title track). George Harrison’s sarcastic Only A Northern Song was recorded during the Sgt Pepper’s sessions in February 1967, but rejected for that album.

All Together Now, which McCartney called “a throw-away track”, was recorded in May 1967 for the film project, as was John Lennon’s Hey Bulldog, recorded in February 1968. May 1967 also saw the recording of Harrison’s LSD-influenced It’s All Too Much.

A song that might have been included was Across The Universe, which was first recorded in February 1968, then appeared in its original version on a charity album in 1969, and then in a rearranged form on Let It Be in 1970.

A cover of Across The Universe, by folkie/poet Rod McKuen, is included in this collection of covers, as part of a putative Side 2, which might also have included single tracks and their b-sides that were released in 1968.

Ella Fitzgerald gives Hey Jude a whole new treatment (it was on the b-side of her cover of Sunshine Of Your Love by Cream), as does Richie Havens on his cover of Lady Madonna.

The most interesting interpretation here, however, is the jazzy slow-burn by Jimmy McGriff and Junior Parker of Harrison’s The Inner Light, which divests the song of its Indian sound.

Of the Side 1 stuff, it’s rather unexpected to have hirsute Tony Soprano-favourites Journey cover the formerly druggy It’s All Too Much, with a hard-rocking guitar solo.

But most surprising – other than a soul band deciding to cover the banal Yellow Submarine – is the fine version here of the otherwise pedestrian (and annoying) All Together Now by German soul band Joy Unlimited. The group was fronted by the late Joy Fleming, who had a mighty and soulful voice which the bland pretenders of the likes of Adele would kill for. And the band strips the Beatles song of its triteness and infuses it with a gospel vibe, supported by Fleming’s committed ad libbing.

I’ve posted Elvis Costello’s Live Aid version of All You Need Is Love before. Oddly, there aren’t many very good covers of that song.

One Beatles performance is included here. Not Guilty was one of several songs recorded during the White Album sessions that were rejected for inclusion. Those tracks were pretty bad; Not Guilty is the least bad of the lot.

1. The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band – Yellow Submarine (1967)
2. Sun Dial – Only A Northern Song (1991)
3. Joy Unlimited – All Together Now (1970)
4. Bill Deal & The Rhondels – Hey Bulldog (1970)
5. Journey – It’s All Too Much (1976)
6. Elvis Costello – All You Need Is Love (1985)
7. Ella Fitzgerald – Hey Jude (1968)
8. Jimmy McGriff & Junior Parker – The Inner Light (1970)
9. Richie Havens – Lady Madonna (1968)
10. Rod McKuen – Nothing’s Gonna Change My World (Across The Universe) (1971)
11. The Beatles – Not Guilty (1968)
12. Sesame Street – Yellow Submarine (1976)

GET IT! or HERE!
(PW in comments)

BEATLES RECOVERED:
Beatles Recovered: Please, Please Me
Beatles Recovered: With The Beatles
Beatles Recovered: A Hard Day’s Night
Beatles Recovered: Beatles For Sale
Beatles Recovered: Help!
Beatles Recovered: Rubber Soul
Beatles Recovered: Revolver
Beatles Recovered: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club  Band
Beatles Revovered: Magical Mystery Tour
Beatles Recovered: White Album
Beatles Recovered: Yellow Submarine
Beatles Recovered: Abbey Road
Beatles Recovered: Let It Be

Wordless: Any Major Beatles Instrumentals
Covered With Soul Vol. 14 – Beatles Edition 1
Covered With Soul Vol. 15 – Beatles Edition 2
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1962-66
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1967-68
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1968-70
Any Bizarre Beatles

Beatles Reunited: Everest (1971)
Beatles Reunited: Live ’72 (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Smile Away (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Photographs (1974)
Beatles Reunited: ’77 (1977)
Beatles Reunited: Let It See (1980)

Among my most treasured albums is a limited edition CD of The Beatles’ “White Album” which is a miniature replica of the double LP, including the lyrics sheet/poster and four cardboard posters of the four.

In the original release, released 50 years ago today, on November 22, the packaging was as extravagant as the decision to stretch the material recorded for the album to four sides. That extravagance was offset, of course, by the plain white design of the cover and the singularly unimaginative album title (adopted when the working title, A Doll’s House, was abandoned. Just over a year after the colourful titles Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour, the new album’s plain title, simply The Beatles, and white cover were ostentatiously austere. Almost immediately, the informal title was jazzed up to “The White Album”.

Musically, the album had several highlights. Most of them were provided by John Lennon, especially the sublime Happiness Is A Warm Gun. Lennon also provides the low-light, the avant-garde and very much acquired-taste Revolution #9 (represented here in a bearable version). George Harrison’s While My Guitar Gently Weeps is another contribution of genius, and Long Long Long and Savoy Truffle are fine.

But the White Album is the low-point in Paul McCartney’s Beatles output. That isn’t to say that all of his contributions are poor; Helter Skelter, Back In The USSR and Blackbird are superb, and Mother Nature’s Son is good. But there are also what Lennon called “granny music shit” like Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da and Honey Pie, and disposable tracks such as Martha My Dear and Why Don’t We Do It In The Road?. Had I Will appeared on Revolver or earlier, I’d love it. But on the White Album, it might as well be followed by a “yeah yeah yeah” track.

So, if it wasn’t a double album, what should stay? Making allowance for the formula of two George and a Ringo track, and cutting a few great John tracks (Bungalow Bill, Cry Baby Cry) to accommodate Paul stuff, Id go for the following:

Back In The U.S.S.R.
Dear Prudence
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Happiness Is A Warm Gun
I’m So Tired
Blackbird
Don’t Pass Me By I Will
Julia
Birthday
Mother Nature’s Son
Sexy Sadie
Helter Skelter
Long Long Long
Revolution
Good Night

But here we have the full two-CD set of cover versions. Many come from the two years after the White Album was released, though Ramsey Lewis was really quick off the mark, bring out an album of interpretations of many of the album’s songs before the year was out.

In several cases, the covers are superior to the originals. In Celia Cruz’s, even Obladi-Oblada is enjoyable. I also prefer Kenny Rankin’s version of Dear Prudence to John’s. The psych-rock of Mud (not the pop band of the mid-1970s) improves Why Don’t We Do It In The Road. Country-rockers Commander Cody sounds very 1978 but is very catchy. And look out for Prince’s guitar solo on While My Guitar Gently Weeps.

Finally, including Nina Simone’s Revolution, from 1969, is not really fair. She really samples The Beatles’ song rather than covering it. In fact, the songwriting credit excludes Lennon/McCartney. But, hell, what a track!

The two sides are time to fit on a standard CD-Rs each and include home helter-skeltered covers. PW in comments.

Disc 1
1. John Fred & his Playboy Band – Back In The U.S.S.R. (1970)
2. Kenny Rankin – Dear Prudence (1969)
3. Arif Mardin – Glass Onion (1969)
4. Celia Cruz – Ob-la-di Ob-la-da (1996)
5. Phish – Wild Honey Pie (2002)
6. Young Blood – The Continuing Story Of Bungalow Bill (1969)
7. Prince, Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne and others – While My Guitar Gently Weeps (2004)
8. Tori Amos – Happiness Is A Warm Gun (2001)
9. Madeleine Peyroux – Martha, My Dear (2011)
10. Susan Carter – I’m So Tired (1970)
11. Neil Diamond – Blackbird (2010)
12. Theo Bikel – Piggies (1969)
13. Lena Horne & Gabor Szabo – Rocky Raccoon (1970)
14. Georgia Satellites – Don’t Pass Me By (1988)
15. Mud – Why Don’t We Do It In The Road (1970)
16. Tuck & Patti – I Will (1998)
17. Charlie Byrd – Julia (1969)

Disc 2
1. Underground Sunshine – Birthday (1969)
2. Jeff Healey Band – Yer Blues (1995)
3. Harry Nilsson – Mother Nature’s Son (1969)
4. Kristin Hersh – Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey (1999)
5. Ramsey Lewis – Sexy Sadie (1968)
6. Mötley Crüe – Helter Skelter (1983)
7. Tanya Donelly – Long Long Long (2006)
8. Nina Simone – Revolution (1969)
9. Barbra Streisand – Honey Pie (1969)
10. Ella Fitzgerald – Savoy Truffle (1969)
11. Commander Cody – Cry Baby Cry (1978)
12. Kurt Hoffman’s Band of Weeds – Revolution #9 (1992)
13. Linda Ronstadt – Good Night (1996)

GET IT! or HERE!

More Beatles Recovered:
Beatles Recovered: A Hard Day’s Night
Beatles Recovered: Beatles For Sale
Beatles Recovered: Help!
Beatles Recovered: Rubber Soul
Beatles Recovered: Revolver
Beatles Recovered: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club  Band
Beatles Revovered: Magical Mystery Tour
Beatles Recovered: White Album
Beatles Recovered: Yellow Submarine
Beatles Recovered: Abbey Road
Beatles Revcovered: Let It Be

Wordless: Any Major Beatles Instrumentals
Covered With Soul Vol. 14 – Beatles Edition 1
Covered With Soul Vol. 15 – Beatles Edition 2
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1962-66
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1967-68
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1968-70
Any Bizarre Beatles

Beatles Reunited: Everest (1971)
Beatles Reunited: Live ’72 (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Smile Away (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Photographs (1974)
Beatles Reunited: ’77 (1977)
Beatles Reunited: Let It See (1980)

I first wrote this post seven years ago. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the release of 1978’s Darkness On The Edge Of Town, so it seems a good idea to revive my appreciation for the LP and its cover work, the latter by the words below, the former by a collection of cover versions of its songs, in the proper track order.

One track, Prove It All Night, isn’t a cover, but such a reworking that it might as well be, from Springsteen 1978 tour (from the Agora Ballroom gig in Cleveland, bootleg fans). Just as I was putting this set together, it was announced that Springsteen has released a remastered version of his legendary gig from the same tour at the Roxy in LA. One track here has featured before: the Flying Picket’s a capella version of Factory, which was on the Any Major Springsteen Covers mix that accompanied my review of Bruce’s autobiography.

For many years Darkness On The Edge Of Town, in my view Bruce Springsteen’s greatest album, was rather underrated. The trouble might have been that it produced no hit single, and nothing as exuberant as Born To Run on the preceding album of the same name or Hungry Hearts on 1980’s The River. The album’s title suggests an existential sense of alienation, a loss of hope and a ferocious anger, which is reflected in the songs, in their sound and in their words. The hope of Thunder Road on Born To Run gives way to the despondent resignation of Racing In The Streets on Darkness. The guitar-driven elation of Born To Run here becomes the guitar-driven anger of Candy”s Room or Adam Raised A Cain.

In the publicity blurb for the de luxe CD/DVD set of Darkness, Springsteen describes the album has his “samurai” record. I think of it as his Scorsese album. Mean Streets, the name of Martin Scorsese”s 1973 film, might have been a great alternative title for Springsteen”s only Carter-era LP. The cover complements the feel of the album perfectly. A tired-looking Bruce stands in what looks like a rather dreary apartment. His dishevelled hair calls to mind Al Pacino in Serpico, his penetrating stare Robert de Niro’s. One almost expects John Cazale to lurk behind the closed blinds, ready to embark on some ill-fated adventure or other (alas, that wonderful actor died on 12 March 1978, exactly a week before the completion of the recordings for Darkness , which begun in October 1977).

Rarely does an album cover condense in one simple photo the whole direction of an album. Photographer Frank Stefanko’s iconic photo of Springsteen did just that — without having heard the songs or knowing what they were about.

Stefanko, who also shot the cover of 1980″s The River, met Springsteen through Patti Smith, who had a big hit in 1978 with Because The Night, one of the many songs Springsteen had recorded for Darkness and then rejected. It was the beginning of a friendship that has survived the intervening three decades. In an interview with Pitchfork, Stefanko recalls doing a test shoot at his home in Haddonfield, New Jersey. More shoots followed, but it was that initial session that generated the cover art for Darkness.

Stefanko told Pitchfork that “the original shoot was just done with my perception of how I thought he wanted to look or how I wanted him to look […] From what I understand, when he looked at the photograph he said, “That”s the person that I’m writing about. That”s the person that is the Darkness on the Edge of Town character and that’s what I want on my cover.”

Springsteen recalled the shoot in an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian: “He [Stefanko] was a guy who’d worked in a meat-packing plant in south Jersey. He got the 13-year-old kid from next door to hold a light. He borrowed a camera. I don”t know if he even had a camera! But when I saw the picture I said, “That’s the guy in the songs.” I wanted the part of me that’s still that guy to be on the cover. Frank stripped away all your celebrity and left you with your essence. That”s what that record was about.”

In fact, Stefanko, who in 1978 was 32, had owned a camera since he was seven years old, and had been taking photos on a serious basis since the 1960s.

The Darkness photos may seem casual, snapshots taken on the fly. They were, in fact, the product of a long shoot. On the picture used for the cover, Springsteen wears a white T-shirt. On other photos taken during the same session, he wears a black shirt, and then a hideous purple paisley shirt with the leather jacket he wears on the front cover.

“We were trying to recreate these middle America, working class families; guys that were looking for redemption. It could have been done in the ’70s or ’50s or even the ’40s. The idea was that these people transcended time or space,” Stefanko told Pitchfork. “But we were trying to get something to look like an old Kodacolor snapshot. There were a lot of black and white photographs taken in those sessions too which were very striking in their own right. But the idea of this color photograph that could have been a snapshot in somebody”s drawer worked for the album.”

From all that we learn that Stefanko had pretty awful taste in wallpaper in 1978. The new owners of the house took the right decision to paper over it, but neglected to sell scraps of it, thereby missing one of the great opportunities for profiteering from a photographer”s ugly wallpaper.

Of course this mix easily fits on a standard CD-R. I haven’t made home-gigged covers for this set. PW in comments.

1. Dropkick Murphys – Badlands (2012)
2. Jeff Healey Band – Adam Raised A Cain (1994)
3. Aram – Something In The Night (1997)
4. Maria McKee – Candy’s Room (2005)
5. Emmylou Harris – Racing In The Streets (1982)
6. Frans Pollux – Belaofde Land (Dutch version of Promised Land) (2013)
7. The Flying Pickets – Factory (1984)
8. Graziano Romani – Streets Of Fire (2001)
9. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band – Prove It All Night (live, 1978)
10. The Winter Blanket – Darkness On The Edge Of Town (2005)

GET IT!

More Recovered albums:
Blue (Joni Mitchell)
What’s Going On (Marvin Gaye)
Tapestry (Carole King)
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John)
Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (Bowie)
Every Beatles album

More Cover Mixes
Previous great album covers
More CD-R Mixes

The Magical Mystery Tour LP, released 50 years ago on November 27 in the US (and in the UK on December 8 as a double EP) is something of a stepchild in the Beatles canon. The British EP comprised the original tracks from the British TV movie of the same name. On the album, those tracks make up side 1 of the LP. Side 2 of the LP are songs that appeared on single that year.

The British EP was lavishly packaged. The gatefold cover included a 28-page, full colour booklet of photos from the critically panned TV film and song lyrics. When I bought a Japanese pressing of the LP 14 years later, it came in a gatefold sleeve with the booklet, now in LP-size.

The Magical Mystery Tour LP was a success in the US, even earning Grammy nominations. And there are some stone-cold classics on that LP. Obviously the singles on Side 2 – All You Need Is Love, Strawberry Fields Forever, Penny Lane and Hello Goodbye – plus the title track, Fool On The Hill and I Am The Walrus on Side 1. Then there is the glorious Baby You’re A Rich Man, which was the b-side of All You Need Is Love but could just as well have been a hit in its own right.

Which leaves us with the quite forgettable instrumental Flying (the only Beatles song credited to all four members); Harrison’s Blue Jay Way, another one of his Indian-flavoured tracks which are unloved by most Beatles fans; and Your Mother Should Know, one of those McCartney flapper-tinged nostalgia trips.

So, a strike rate of 9/12 is pretty good going. Even if one allows that half the LP is a singles collection, it is nevertheless remarkable that they were all recorded during or just after the Sgt Pepper’s sessions that culminated in the release of that watershed in rock history, only five months before Magical Mystery Tour came out. It’s The Beatles in 1967 that needed to put out a double album, not those of 1968. Sgt Pepper’s Recovered is still up.

The cover of the German release of the Magical Mystery Tour LP, under the imprint of TV magazine HörZu.

So, here are a bunch of covers of the tracks on The Magical Mystery Tour. Oddly, it was easier finding covers for Blue Jay Way that it was for Hello Goodbye. And I fear that there will be some resistance to the cover of that song included here. This can be explained by the shortage of alternatives, but it should be put on the record that Glee produced some very good cover versions. Hello Goodbye is not the best example of that, but it is not by any means objectionable. It’s, in fact, pretty joyful. Still, when Richie Havens follows on with his version of Strawberry Fields Forever we are on firmer ground.

Elvis Costello might have featured here with his version of All You Need Is Love from Live Aid, when the crowds filled in the horn section part. It’s on the Live Aid mix which is still available. Instead, Costello is representing Penny Lane here, performed live in 2010 at the Gershwin Prize for Paul McCartney.

All You Need Is Love is done here beautifully by the wonderful Brandi Carlile. And Bud Shank turns the unremarkable Flying into an engaging jazz number.

1. Cheap Trick – Magical Mystery Tour (1991)
2. Stone The Crows – Fool On The Hill (1970)
3. Bud Shank – Flying (1968)
4. Siouxsie and The Banshees – Blue Jay Way (2003)
5. Damita Jo – Your Mother Should Know (1969)
6. Oingo Boingo – I Am The Walrus (1994)
7. Glee Cast – Hello, Goodbye (2010)
8. Richie Havens – Strawberry Fields Forever (1969)
9. Elvis Costello – Penny Lane (2010)
10. Martin Newell – Baby You’re A Rich Man (1996)
11. Brandi Carlile – All You Need Is Love (2012)

GET IT! or HERE!

BEATLES RECOVERED:
Beatles Recovered: Please, Please Me
Beatles Recovered: With The Beatles
Beatles Recovered: A Hard Day’s Night
Beatles Recovered: Beatles For Sale
Beatles Recovered: Help!
Beatles Recovered: Rubber Soul
Beatles Recovered: Revolver
Beatles Recovered: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club  Band
Beatles Revovered: Magical Mystery Tour
Beatles Recovered: White Album
Beatles Recovered: Yellow Submarine
Beatles Recovered: Abbey Road
Beatles Recovered: Let It Be

Wordless: Any Major Beatles Instrumentals
Covered With Soul Vol. 14 – Beatles Edition 1
Covered With Soul Vol. 15 – Beatles Edition 2
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1962-66
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1967-68
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1968-70
Any Bizarre Beatles

Beatles Reunited: Everest (1971)
Beatles Reunited: Live ’72 (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Smile Away (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Photographs (1974)
Beatles Reunited: ’77 (1977)
Beatles Reunited: Let It See (1980)

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The release of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band 50 years ago rewrote the rulebook of pop music. It’s not that it was the first concept album (in as far as it was even that in the sense we’ve come to understand the idea now), nor the first to dabble innovative studio tricks (The Beatles themselves had done so on Revolver, and Brian Wilson was perhaps even more innovative at the time). But for contemporaries, the album changed everything.

Perhaps it was also the cover that had such an impact. It was not usual to create artworks for LP covers – the Beach Boys were still goofing about with animals on snapshots for the sleeve for Pet Sounds. One could study Peter Blake’s collage for the duration of Side 1 and while away the inferior second side studying it some more,, and return to it over and over again. Even today, it is a significant piece of 20^th-century art.

But the thing is, Sgt Pepper’s is greater in its context than it is within the canon of Beatles albums. Of course, there are mighty tracks on it. A Day In The Life is a masterpiece, but I know few Beatles fans whose life would be poorer for the absence of Lovely Rita, or, indeed, Within You Without You (cleverly sequenced to start Side 2, for easy skipability). It doesn’t require clever revisionism by deliberate iconoclasts to regard Sgt Pepper’s as not the greatest album the Beatles made. But it does require the revisionism of fools to call it overrated. Sgt Pepper’s is a great album, especially the first side, and its historical impact cannot be overstated.

And if the later rule of already-released singles finding a place on albums had been in force, imagine how much better Sgt Pepper’s might have been with Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane. In the event, EMI insisted on releasing the songs, which were recorded as part of the Sgt Pepper’s sessions, as a double a-sided single.

A poster of The Beatles in Sgt Pepper’s uniforms in the German youth magazine Bravo in July 1967. (see www.bravoposters.wordpress.com for daily vintage Bravo posters)

Just a couple of weeks after Sgt Pepper’s was released, The Beatles recorded All You Need Is Love. The boys – Ringo was just turning 27; John was 26, Paul was about to turn 25, George was 24 – were on a hot streak.

Of course, Paul McCartney will turn 75 this month. But 50 years ago he was already dead, and long-standing research shows that Sgt Pepper;s provided the proof we’d have confirmed by the Abbey Road cover, by way of very clear clues. To start with, there’s a new band with one Billy Shears as the singer (well, Ringo is Billy Shears, but let’s not have Failing Fake News disturb us). In A Day In The Life John sings: “He blew his mind out in a car”, indicating the method of Paul;s death. And if you play the song backwards, you apparently can hear the phrase, “Paul is dead, miss him, miss him”. At the end of Strawberry Fields Forever, John says, “I buried Paul”. Lennon claimed he mumbled “cranberry sauce”, but why would he say “cranberry sauce” when Paul is dead and he buried him? Wake up, sheeple!

And then there’s the cover. In the foreground is clearly a grave — Paul’s grave, of course! Look at the wax figure Young Beatles: Ringo is sad, very sad, as he looks at Paul’s grave. John is putting a comforting hand on Ringo’s shoulder (George seems glad though. Was he involved in the plot to kill Paul?). On the back cover, “Paul” turns his back; even Fake Paul is trying to give us a clue, apparently trying to escape the conspiracy. And here’s the smoking gun: Place the cover in front of a mirror, and the words “Lonely Hearts” on the drum read, “1 ONE 1 X HE DIE 1 ONE 1″, as you can see very clearly below. It’s so obvious, folks.

So happy birthday to you, Sir Paul McCartney, whoever you are!

Which brings us to this selection of cover versions of songs from Sgt Pepper’s, in the proper sequence. The selection is eclectic, yet it all flows. You’d expect otherwise from a sequence that goes from psychedelic rock of Jimi Hendrix (recorded in concert in Stockholm) to bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs to soul singer Natalie Cole to rockers Status Quo to old comedian George Burns to folkie Richie Havens and so on. And still, it all fits together well. It helps that Scruggs isn’t banjoing the hell out of With A Little Help From My Friends, and that Natalie Cole rocks harder than the Quo, who sound more like Burns. On the LP, the closing song is the crowning glory. The same might be said here of War’s epic take on A Day In The Life.

I have added covers of Strawberry Fields and Penny Land to the mix. The best cover of the former is that by Richie Havens, but he already features with She’s Leaving Home. In any case, Havens’ version has featured before on one of the many mixes of Beatles covers.

Coming in at under an hour, the mix fits on a standard CD-R. Covers are included. PW in the comments section (the purpose of which is not really to declare passwords but for readers to say something).

1. Jimi Hendrix Experience – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1968)
2. Earl Scruggs – With A Little Help From My Friends (1971)
3. Natalie Cole – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (1978)
4. Status Quo – Getting Better (1976)
5. George Burns – Fixing A Hole (1978)
6. Richie Havens – She’s Leaving Home (1968)
7. Eddie Izzard – Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite (2007)
8. Sonic Youth – Within You Without You (1989)
9. Claudine Longet – When I’m Sixty-Four (1967)
10. Fats Domino – Lovely Rita (1968)
11. Micky Dolenz – Good Morning Good Morning (2012)
12. Stereophonics – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) (2007)
13. War feat. Eric Burdon – A Day In The Life (1976)
14. Peter Gabriel – Strawberry Fields Forever (1976)
15. Amen Corner – Penny Lane (1969)

GET IT! or HERE!

BEATLES RECOVERED:
Beatles Recovered: Please, Please Me
Beatles Recovered: With The Beatles
Beatles Recovered: A Hard Day’s Night
Beatles Recovered: Beatles For Sale
Beatles Recovered: Help!
Beatles Recovered: Rubber Soul
Beatles Recovered: Revolver
Beatles Recovered: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club  Band
Beatles Revovered: Magical Mystery Tour
Beatles Recovered: White Album
Beatles Recovered: Yellow Submarine
Beatles Recovered: Abbey Road
Beatles Recovered: Let It Be

Wordless: Any Major Beatles Instrumentals
Covered With Soul Vol. 14 – Beatles Edition 1
Covered With Soul Vol. 15 – Beatles Edition 2
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1962-66
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1967-68
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1968-70
Any Bizarre Beatles

Beatles Reunited: Everest (1971)
Beatles Reunited: Live ’72 (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Smile Away (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Photographs (1974)
Beatles Reunited: ’77 (1977)
Beatles Reunited: Let It See (1980)

August 5 will see the 50th anniversary of the release of The Beatles’ seminal Revolver album. If Rubber Soul was the moment when the besuited moptops handed over the Beatle baton to the more experimental stoners, Revolver was the moment the stoners became adults, doing things on their own terms.

George Harrison’s I Want To Tell you is perhaps most emblematic of that progression. The melody could have been on Rubber Soul, or even Help!, but the arrangement and especially the lyrics absolutely couldn’t.

The first song which the Beatles recorded for the album was one that set the scene for what innovation was to come. Tomorrow Never Knows, which was born almost exactly four months before Revolver‘s release (on April 6), was a radical departure from the pure, relatively uncomplicated pop and rock & roll which the band had produced just a year earlier on Help (which was released on August 6, 1965, almost exactly one year before Revolver. Let that timeline sink in!). The song was subject to such experimentations as tape loops and running the vocals through a speaker normally used for the Hammond organ, plus Ringo using a novel drum-pattern.

The cover of that song here is a sparse affair from 1970 by the blues/R&B singer Junior Parker, recorded a year before his death at the age of 39 during surgery for a brain tumor.

Harrison had already experimented gingerly with Indian music on Rubber Soul. Here, on Love You To, he went full Indian “” I guess it must have been even more startling to Revolver“™s first listeners than Tomorrow Never Knows. It is covered here by the Don Randi Trio, who recorded the whole of Revolver in their jazz interpretation, within weeks of the album’s release. Their version respects the original’s Indian core.

Revolver had several moments of genius. Eleanor Rigby in particular is a masterpiece, lyrically and musically (I’ll leave it to you whether Ray Charles’ interpretation trumps the original). McCartney’s other two ballads on the album – For No One and Here, There And Everywhere – are remarkable as well. Emmylou Harris features here with her gorgeous take on the often neglected For No One, from 1975’s Pieces Of The Sky LP. She might also have been included for her version of Here, There And Everywhere, recorded the same year for the Elite Hotel album. That song is covered to equally lovely effect by that other country woman of crossover appeal, Bobbie Gentry.

Lennon was more hit-and-miss on Revolver than Paul. Tomorrow Never Knows and I’m Only Sleeping tower above the serviceable but usually not unduly overlooked Dr Robert, And Your Bird Can Sing and She Said She Said, decent tracks though they are. Dr Robert was the most difficult song to find a cover for. Here it is done by an Italian band called Slow Feet (an allusion to Eric Clapton’s nickname Slow Hand), which specialises in covering classic rock songs.

In don’t know why Paul’s excellent Good Day Sunshine doesn’t receive more love. Roy Redmond’s southern soul cover reveals a depth to a song which in The Beatles’ version is “just another” Beatles pop song.

Critics don’t love Yellow Submarine, written by Paul specifically for Ringo and deliberately as a children’s song. It ought to have been only a b-side (as it also was, to Eleanor Rigby), not an album track. But while the purists hate it, the public loved it, as would be the case two long, long years later with the much maligned yet ferociously popular Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.

The Pickin’ On Picks recording was the only feasible version of Yellow Submarine that I could include here (though I include the 1976 Sesame Street version – three monsters harmonising in monstrous ways – as a bonus). The Pickin’ On Picks was a 1990s project whereby session musicians would render the catalogue of a particular artist in the bluegrass genre. Cross-genre appropriation sometimes works well, and sometimes does so only in small doses. This is such a case: one or two songs at a time are great; more than that is quite enough.

The obvious choice for a cover of Got To Get You Into My Life might have been that of Earth, Wind & Fire, or perhaps that by Thelma Houston, which surely inspired the EWF arrangement. That itself might have borrowed from the one used here, by Blood, Sweat & Tears. The EWF version previously featured on Any Major Beatles Covers: 1962-66; the Thelma Houston version you can get on the Jim Gordon Collection Vol. 2.

Naturally the mix fits on a CD-R, and includes home-renovated covers. PW in comments.

1. The Loose Ends – Tax Man (1966)
2. Ray Charles – Eleanor Rigby (1968)
3. Lobo – I’m Only Sleeping (1974)
4. Don Randi Trio – Love You To (1966)
5. Bobbie Gentry – Here, There And Everywhere (1968)
6. The Pickin’ On Picks – Yellow Submarine (1995)
7. Hedge & Donna – She Said She Said (1971)
8. Roy Redmond – Good Day Sunshine (1967)
9. Spanky & Our Gang – And Your Bird Can Sing (1967)
10. Emmylou Harris – For No One (1975)
11. Slowfeet – Doctor Robert (2006)
12. Chris Stainton & Glen Turner – I Want To Tell You (1976)
13. Blood, Sweat & Tears – Got To Get You Into My Life (1975)
14. Junior Parker – Tomorrow Never Knows (1970)

GET IT! or HERE!

BEATLES RECOVERED:
Beatles Recovered: Please, Please Me
Beatles Recovered: With The Beatles
Beatles Recovered: A Hard Day’s Night
Beatles Recovered: Beatles For Sale
Beatles Recovered: Help!
Beatles Recovered: Rubber Soul
Beatles Recovered: Revolver
Beatles Recovered: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club  Band
Beatles Revovered: Magical Mystery Tour
Beatles Recovered: White Album
Beatles Recovered: Yellow Submarine
Beatles Recovered: Abbey Road
Beatles Recovered: Let It Be

Wordless: Any Major Beatles Instrumentals
Covered With Soul Vol. 14 – Beatles Edition 1
Covered With Soul Vol. 15 – Beatles Edition 2
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1962-66
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1967-68
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1968-70
Any Bizarre Beatles

Beatles Reunited: Everest (1971)
Beatles Reunited: Live ’72 (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Smile Away (1972)
Beatles Reunited: Photographs (1974)
Beatles Reunited: ’77 (1977)
Beatles Reunited: Let It See (1980)

The progression of The Beatles from mop tops making uncomplicated pop music to the innovators who blew the minds of their peers was at its most dramatic in the 14-month period during which they proceeded from the fine pop of You’re Going To Lose That Girl on Help (recorded on 19 February 1965) to the psychedelic workout that was Tomorrow Never Knows on Revolver (recorded on 6 April 1966).

The link between those two very different albums, whose releases were separated by exactly a year, was Rubber Soul, which was released 50 years ago on December 3. Rubber Soul recalls Help in tracks like Wait (which had been recorded for Help) or You Won’t See Me or Michelle, and it presages the future with songs like In My Life, Nowhere Man, Drive My Car or Norwegian Wood. And then there is George’s If You Needed Someone, which seamlessly incorporates the old sound and the new.

Remarkably, The Beatles wrote and recorded Rubber Soul under immense time pressure, still writing some of the songs as they were recording. In an age when thoroughly unoriginal bands take two or three years to bring out an album, it seems impossible to grasp that The Beatles began recording Rubber Soul on 12 October, less than two months before the scheduled release date. The first track recorded that day was Run For Your Life. The Rubber Soul recordings ended on 11 November with a highly pressured marathon session. The last full song to be recorded that day was Girl, which Lennon had hastily written.

On top of that, they were expected to write and record two non-album tracks for a single release. These songs turned out to be We Can Work It Out and Day Tripper. Lennon wrote the latter virtually off-the-cuff in the studio; he and Paul called it a “forced” composition. And in between all that, The Beatles were expected to create the annual Christmas record, for distribution on flexi-disc to fan club members.

The strength of Rubber Soul does not reside so much in the songs but in the album’s feel. Here our boys are high on pot, not freaked out by LSD, and it shows in the sound. It is also the most country of Beatles albums. What Goes On is the only country song on the set, but some of the covers here show just how well suited these tracks are for that genre.

The best cover here is Johnny Cash’s take on In My Life. Lennon sang the song when he had just turned 25; the song’s wistfulness is measured against the fact that the singer memories are still pretty young. Cash sung the song a year before his death. The ravages of age are reflected in his voice, and he sounds like the tired old man her is, looking back at a rich life where some places and some people have indeed gone and some have changed. I think the great video for Hurt would have been even more potent for this song, which appears on the same album.

The most radical reworking of Rubber Soul‘s songs featured here comes right at the top, with the bluesy take on Drive My Car by Humble Pie. It appeared on a 1975 LP, Street Rats, with two other Beatles covers, We Can Work It Out and Rain, as well as a cover of a Beatles cover, Chuck Berry’s Rock & Roll Music.

Nancy Sinatra, appearing here with a Lennon song which the composer despised, also recorded more than one Beatles song. On the Boots LP of 1966, on which Run For Your Life appears (as well the hit song which gave the album its title), she also sang Day Tripper.

Naturally the mix fits on a standard CD-R and includes covers. PW in comments.

1. Humble Pie – Drive My Car (1975)
2. Tangerine Dream – Norwegian Wood (2010)
3. Anne Murray – You Won’t See Me (1974)
4. Randy Travis – Nowhere Man (1995)
5. Francois Fabrice – Les Garcons Sont Fous (Think For Yourself) (1966)
6. Mindy Smith – The Word (2005)
7. King Curtis – Michelle (1966)
8. Charles River Valley Boys – What Goes On (1966)
9. The Brothers Four – Girl (1966)
10. Steve Earle – I’m Looking Through You (1995)
11. Johnny Cash – In My Life (2002)
12. Connie Evingson – Wait (2003)
13. Roger McGuinn – If I Needed Someone (2007)
14. Nancy Sinatra – Run For Your Life (1966)
Bonus tracks:
Dionne Warwick – We Can Work It Out (1968)
Whitesnake – Day Tripper (1978)

GET IT! or HERE!

BEATLES RECOVERED:
Beatles Recovered: Please, Please Me
Beatles Recovered: With The Beatles
Beatles Recovered: A Hard Day’s Night
Beatles Recovered: Beatles For Sale
Beatles Recovered: Help!
Beatles Recovered: Rubber Soul
Beatles Recovered: Revolver
Beatles Recovered: Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club  Band
Beatles Revovered: Magical Mystery Tour
Beatles Recovered: White Album
Beatles Recovered: Yellow Submarine
Beatles Recovered: Abbey Road
Beatles Recovered: Let It Be

Wordless: Any Major Beatles Instrumentals
Covered With Soul Vol. 14 – Beatles Edition 1
Covered With Soul Vol. 15 – Beatles Edition 2

Any Major Beatles Covers: 1962-66
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1967-68
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1962-66
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1967-68
Any Major Beatles Covers: 1968-70

More Beatles stuff