The Squire Presents

2021 has been a busy year for Beatles related material. There has already been deluxe box sets of Lennon’s ‘John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band’ LP as we as Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’. Ringo Starr has released two EPs of new material where as McCartney has seen the release of ‘McCartney III Imagined’ album. There is even the forthcoming ‘Let It Be’ reissue and ‘Get Back’ TV show to look forward to. Beatles fans have needed very deep pockets to pay for all of this.

With ‘Let It Be’ the last album The Beatles released which contained new material, there has always been speculation of what another album by the band would have sounded like if they had stayed together. I had a look at what The Beatles back catalogue could have been like if they had not split up in 1970, and continued on until the mid part of that decade when Lennon decided to help raise his second son, Sean. Well, with the release of the aforementioned 50th anniversary editions of Lennon’s ‘John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band’; and Harrison’s “All Things Must Pass’ album, I thought it would be an opportunity to look at this subject again, but from a slightly different perspective. Where as before, I compiled a series of double albums including singles and EP releases from the releases the solo Beatles put out between 1969 and 1975, this one will concentrate on 1970 alone. First, a little bit of history. 

The break up of The Beatles can most probably be traced back to the unfortunate death of their manager, Brian Epstein in 1967. Lennon is quoted as saying that the band were in trouble as soon as this happened as he did not have any misconceptions about their ability to play anything other than music. This would turn out to be true. Even though the overall standard of music  did not drop, inter band relations started to deteriorate as personal interests and business ventures took over. These included:

1. Apple. The Beatles as businessmen, maybe not their best idea. Encompassing everything from music publishing, computers, electronics, retail and a record label, the company was run by members of the bands entourage regardless of their experience or capabilities. Harrison would say later “Basically, it was chaos … John and Paul got carried away with the idea and blew millions, and Ringo and I just had to go along with it.”

2. Recording of ‘The Beatles’. Tensions in the studio ran high as the band recorded the follow up to the ‘Sgt. Peppers’ album. At one point, Ringo Starr left the band for two weeks. Lennon lost interest with working with McCartney feeling that the laters material such as ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’ was nothing more than “Granny music shit”. The group also stopped working as a band. Essentially this album was collection of songs by individuals which just happened to have the other Beatles on them essentially serving as nothing but backing musicians. Lennon also started to bring avant-garde artist Yoko Ono to sessions, breaking the unwritten rule that wives and/or girlfriends were not allowed in the studio. 

3. Not taking a break after the recording of ‘The Beatles’. The original plan for the ‘Let It Be’ film was to use the material recording for the 1968 “The Beatles’ LP, but this did not last as it was suggested it should be a record of new material. There was only a three month break between the end of the sessions for ‘The Beatles’ and work starting on what would become the ‘Let it Be’ album. The band had a bunch of new songs they had been working on but few were in anything like a competed state. Lennon had also acquired a heroin addiction and both he and McCartney were dismissive of Harrison’s material. It would be Harrison’s turn to leave the band for a short time during these sessions. 

4. Allen Klein. McCartney and the rest of the band disagreed on who should represent the bands’ business affairs. McCartney wanted to appoint Lee and John Eastman, his brother and father in law. The remaining Beatles wanted Allen Klein. McCartney lost the vote by three to one. 

5. Lennon himself. On 20th September 1969, Lennon announced to the other members of the band that he was going to leave The Beatles, but this information was not made public as they did not want to hurt sales of the their forthcoming album. 

6. Phil Spector. McCartney had wanted the ‘Let It Be’ sessions to be a back to basics recording after the amount of time the band had spent recording their previous couple of albums. Initially called ‘Get Back’, the original mix was a rough a ready affair with snippets of songs (‘Save the Last Dance for Me’), jams (‘Dig It’ & ‘Rocker’) and other that break down during a take (‘I’ve Got a Feeling’). This was rejected and Phil Spector was brought in to finish the record off for release. He edited songs and added orchestration which McCartney objected too. When his demands for these alterations to be removed were ignored, he announced his departure from The Beatles. Unlike Lennon’s, this announcement was released to the public.

This is a very brief run down of why The Beatles broke up. The accepted narrative has been that that ‘Abbey Road’ was the band attempt to go out on a high, because each of them knew that the band would not be able to function as a unit for too much longer. This was until a tape was brought to light by author Mark Lewisohn in 2019. The tape was recorded in September of 1969, and it was recorded by Lennon, McCartney and Harrison as they met up at the Apple offices in Saville Row to discuss the recording of their next album to follow on from ‘Abbey Road’. The tape was made for the benefit of Ringo Starr who could not make the meeting due to being in hospital at the time. 

Lennon laid out the approach for the next album which is where he, McCartney and Harrison would each have four songs on the album, credited to them alone. It would seem that the days of the Lennon-McCartney credit on the records was over. Starr would have two songs on the record if he wanted them. There should also be a single out for Christmas. Tensions are evident on the discussion as McCartney states that he did not think Harrison’s songs were very good until ‘Abbey Road’. Lennon retorts that no one seemed to be a fan of ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’ and that songs like that should be given to artists outside of the group. This meeting occurred on 8th September and has already been noted, Lennon decided to leave on 20th. However, what would have happened if Lennon had decided not to leave and all the other bits and pieces that had gone on since Epstein’s had not derailed what is arguably the most influential band of all time? Well, he is another attempt following the template laid down by Lennon on the 8th September tape. 

In some respects, this is quite easy. Both Lennon and Harrison released great albums in 1970. McCartney also released an album so having four songs from each is quite straight forward. The issue is with Ringo. He had normally had one vocal spot on each Beatles album (the exceptions being ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Beatles For Sale’), but had not been one for writing songs in his own right. Even though he did compose ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ which would be released on ‘The Beatles’ in 1968, the songs had been written as far back as 1962. Before this, there was ‘What Goes On’ from ‘Rubber Soul’ and after this, ‘Octopus Garden’ from ‘Abbey Road’. After The Beatles split, his first two albums, both released in 1970 would be made up of covers. It would take unit 1973 for an album of original material to appear, and even then, half of the tracks were not written by Starr. His first song to be released as a single that was not a cover was ‘It Don’t Come Easy’ which did not come out until 1971 so is out of the scope of this album. So what are we left with from Starr? One song and that is ‘Coochy Coochy’ which was originally released on the B-Side of his debut singe, ‘Beacoups of Blue’. 

For the other three, McCartney is also limited in what I can use. His first solo album was criticised for being under-produced and unfinished. There was a good deal of instrumentals on this album and critics noted that apart from ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’, the material appeared to be below the standards he had set during his time with The Beatles. Having listened to it again in preparation for this project, these criticisms seem justified. This is especially true when you compare it to the albums Harrison and Lennon would put out later that year which in my opinion are classics. What McCartney’s and Lennon’s albums have in common though is the striped back nature of the recordings. 

McCartney pretty much recorded the album on his own, where as Lennon employed only two other musicians for the majority of the recordings. ‘John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band’ may have been a Phil Spector production, but the trademark Wall of Sound was absent here. However, it was there in abundance on Harrison’s ‘All Things Must Pass’. With the release of the Super Deluxe Edition of this album in 2021, the archives were well and truly opened with a staggering amount of unreleased material coming out. These recordings tend to be a bit more basic than those on the original album, so taking these along with the albums from Lennon and McCartney, this could have been the stripped down album ‘Let It Be’ could have been. 

The majority of the songs came out on those solo albums even though Ringo’s song was a B-Side. However, there was one demo that was on ‘All Things Must Pass’ which fitted in quite nicely and that was the demo of ‘Woman Don’t You Cry’. This song would eventually see the list of day as the opening song for the 1976 album, ‘Thirty Three & a Third’. 

Side A

1. Every Night – Paul McCartney
2. I Found Out (Take 1) – John Lennon
3. Coochy Coochy – Ringo Starr
4. Apple Scruff (Day 1 Demo) – George Harrison
5. Maybe I’m Amazed – Paul McCartney
6. Love (Elements Mix) – John Lennon

Side B 

1. That Would Be Something – Paul McCartney
2. Look At Me (Elements Mix) – John Lennon
3. Run Of The Mill (Day 2 Demo) – George Harrison
4. Woman Don’t You Cry (Take 5) – George Harrison
5. Working Class Hero (Take 9) – John Lennon
6. Isn’t It  A Pity (Take 27) – George Harrison
7. Junk – Paul McCartney

This playlist only covers the album. What of the single Lennon mentioned should be out for Christmas 1969? There aren’t too many candidates for this. The band could have released another single from the “Let It Be’ sessions as a way of previewing the album. ‘Let It Be’ itself, which did not come out in 1970 could have been brought forward. ‘You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)’ could still have been the B-Side. McCartney did not release a solo single until 1971 and Harrison would not release one until the recording of ‘All Things Must Pass’. Only Lennon had something in the can in the shape of ‘Cold Turkey’, which could have been used, even though a different B-Side would have been required. That is because the original B-Side was ”Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)’ which was written by Yoko Ono. There were plenty of songs the band demoed during the this that could have finished off and recorded such as ‘Child Of Nature’, ‘Goodbye’, ‘Sour Milk Sea’ or for something a bit more obscure, ‘The Palace of the King of Birds’. 

For the title of this album, I drew inspiration from the an article that appeared in a 1970 edition of Rolling Stone Magazine which talked about a Beatles LP you would never hear. The story went that the album was recorded but the master tapes had been stolen. This album was to be known as ‘Hot As Sun’, a track that had appeared on McCartney’s debut album. The story itself was a complete fabrication. The cover itself was found on the internet but I did not make a note of where it came from so I am afraid I cannot give a credit to the person who created it. 

It was only after competing my retrospective look at the Hendrix related discs Alan Douglas put out that I though I really should have produced one of the best tracks from the Mike Jeffereis years. These were the years between Hendrix’s death in 1970 and 1974 even though Jefferies himself died in a plane accident in 1973. What I learned from listening to these albums (and this was also noted in my previous post), is that this could be the best example of the law of diminishing returns. ‘The Cry Of Love’ and ‘Rainbow Bridge’ are very good records. However, the two that followed are not. ‘War Heroes’ has some good material but the majority is pretty substandard. It is even worse on ‘Loose Ends’ which was so bad, that Reprise who represented Hendrix in the USA refused to release it. You can tell how bad it is that when the Hendrix family took over the catalogue in the 1990’s and seem to have release every recording Hendrix made bar him blowing his nose (even though it has felt as though they may as well have done), there is still one song from ‘Loose Ends’ that has so far failed to see a re-release. 

As you can see from this double album, the majority of the cuts come from the first two releases of the Mike Jefferies era and there is some crossover with the Alan Douglas LP, but where as those tracks have session musicians on them, the Jefferies releases did keep the original players on there. Still a good album though but apart from ‘The Cry Of Love’, the Hendrix family have seen to it that these records were deleted from the Hendrix catalogue and I will surprised if they ever see the light of day again. It is not as though they are rare through as most were in production for over twenty years.  

Side 1

1. Freedom* (The Cry Of Love)
2. Night Bird Flying* (The Cry Of Love)
3. Come Down Hard On Me Baby (Loose Ends)
4. Stepping Stone* (War Heroes)
5. Astro Man (The Cry Of Love)

Side B

1. Drifting * (The Cry Of Love)
2. In From The Storm* (The Cry Of Love)
3. Dolly Dagger (Rainbow Bridge)
4. Hey, Baby, New Morning Sun (Rainbow Bridge)

Side C

1. Ezy Rider (The Cry Of Love)
2. Room Full Of Mirrors (Rainbow Bridge)
3. Straight Ahead (The Cry Of Love)
4. Izabella (War Heroes)
5. Look Over Yonder (Rainbow Bridge)

Side D

1. Bleeding Heart (War Heroes)
2. Drifters Escape (Loose Ends)
3. Earth Blues (Rainbow Bridge)
4. Angel* (The Cry Of Love)
5. Belly Button Window* (The Cry Of Love)

*These songs also appeared on the Alan Douglas Years compilation from earlier in the month. 

The cover image is an adaptation of the one used for ‘The Cry of Love’ album.

The posthumous career of Jimi Hendrix can be split into three periods. The first period was just after he died when his manager Mike Jeffery was keen to milk the Hendrix cash cow for all it was worth. The second is after Jeffery had died (in 1973) and producer Alan Douglas took over the tape catalogue, as well as paying out of his pocket for tapes that Hendrix had recorded at the Record Plant studios. The third period is from the mid 90s up until the present day where the Hendrix family took control of the guitar players recorded legacy and have put out a steady steam of releases ever since. It is the second period that this entry deals with. 

After buying all of the albums released during his lifetime, I turned my attention to the records that were put after his death. These came quite quickly with ‘The Cry Of Love’ being the first of these and was compiled by engineer Eddie Kramer as well as drummer Mitch Mitchell. The cover is a stunning piece of work and was quite successful with the record buying public on both sides of the Atlantic. Even though this cannot be considered to be the fourth Hendrix studio album because the song mixes had not been finalised by the man himself, it contained a couple of classic numbers including the lovely song, Angel.

From what was a positive start with the posthumous releases, this soon turned into a case of diminishing returns. I did not manage to secure a copy of ‘Rainbow Bridge’ but I did pick up ‘War Heroes’ and wondered what Hendrix himself would have thought of this and was it worthy of release. The nadir of the period was ‘Loose Ends’, an album considered to be so bad that the Reprise record label refused to release it in the US. 

The last album from this period of Hendrix album releases that I bought was 1975’s  ‘Crash Landing’. I think I played it once and until recently, I have never listened to it again. It just didn’t do it for me at the time. I think I was just into that psych period of Hendrix too much to want to hear his ‘I’ve moved onto something more heavy and funky’ period. ‘Crash Landing’ was the first of the Douglas releases and he would release another four ‘studio’ albums during his tenure as the keeper of the Hendrix archives. His time in this capacity has been seen by seem as controversial.

The controversy arises form he fact that Douglas replaced the original backing tracks of some of the songs on the releases he put out, utilising sessions players. These weren’t any old sessions players though, but some of the best in the business. In defence of Douglas, if he wanted to make a cash grab album, why spend money on some of the best musicians around. They would not have come cheap. He would also have needed to have updated the sound to appeal to the record buying public of 1975. The crate digging career overview box sets of today were not a thing back in the mid 70’s. As far as I can think of, only Buddy Holly & Jim Reeves had had their career prolonged in this way by releasing archive material up to that point. Using session musicians did not endure Douglas to fans of Hendrix, and it might not have helped his cause that he claimed writing credits on some of the ‘Crash Landing’ songs. 

A few months later, a second Douglas produced Hendrix album was released. ‘Midnight Lightning’ followed the same template as ‘Crash Landing’ including using the same set of session musicians. This was followed up with ‘Nine To The Universe’ which was made up of edited jam sessions, but unlike the previous efforts, Douglas used most of the original backing tracks. Apart from the repacking of already released songs and live albums, Douglas waited until 1994 to release some new Hendrix studio product. ’Blues’ contained some songs that had already been released but the majority had not been. Some of them were composites of multiple takes that were edited together to form a new song. This record also included the original backing tracks. One last Douglas album was 1995’s ‘Voodoo Soup’ which was Douglas’ attempt at creating the album Hendrix was working on when he died. The album did receive some positive reviews but there was still the criticism that outside musicians were brought in to re-record parts Douglas felt were substandard. Not long after this, the Hendrix family gained the rights to the archives and Douglas’s association came to an end.   

All of the albums released after Hendrix’s death until the release of the first Hendrix family approved albums in 1997 have been deleted from the back catalogue. However, these releases were around long time and enough copies were sold so it was not difficult to pick up the records missing from the collection, and I feel that in the past I fell into the trap many other have of dismissing Douglas’ contribution to the Hendrix legacy. The albums have good players playing on, the covers don’t look cheap (even though the Voodoo Soup one is a bit weird) and if Douglas was only after the money, why did he release so few Hendrix studio session albums. The Hendrix family have released considerably more in their time as custodians of the archive, some of it of very dubious quality. The ‘Blues’ album is also still part of the official catalogue, so if Douglas did such a bad job, why not delete everything he did? If the backing tracks that were recorded with Hendrix in the studio were so good, then why has the Hendrix family not released a studio cut of ‘Machine Gun’? Douglas did.  

I put this playlist together using the following albums; ‘Crash Landing’, ‘Midnight Lightning’ and ‘Voodoo Soup’. I did not use ‘Nine To The Universe’ as none of the tunes fitted in with this playlist,  and ‘Blues’ is still available. I wanted to see if the recording held up and there was enough for a double album. It could be presented as the best of the Douglas years and it is unlikely that the Hendrix family will never do this themselves. 

I was inspired to put this compilation together by reading an excellent blog, http://deadhendrix.blogspot.com. It goes into a lot more detail. looking at each of the albums made up of studio cuts that were put out between 1970 and 1996. It with thanks to that blogger that I listened and re-evaluated the Douglas era. It is bloggers like this that the internet needs. Putting out fresh perspectives and challenging old ideas. I salute you, whoever you are.  

Side 1

1. Message To Love (Voodoo Soup)
2. Come Down Hard On Me (Crash Landing)
3. Midnight Lightning (Midnight Lightning)
4. Gypsy Boy (Midnight Lightning)

Side 2

1. Room Full Of Mirrors (Voodoo Soup)
2. Night Bird Flying (Voodoo Soup)
3. With The Power (Crash Landing)
4. Drifting (Voodoo Soup)

Side 3

1. The New Rising Sun (Voodoo Soup)
2. Belly Button Window (Voodoo Soup)
3. Freedom (Voodoo Soup)
4. Stepping Stone (Voodoo Soup)
5. In From The Storm (Voodoo Soup)

Side 4

1. Once I Had A Woman (Midnight Lightning)
2. Machine Gun (Midnight Lightning)
3. Angel (Voodoo Soup)

The cover for this compilation as adapted from an unused Henri Martinez painting that had been commissioned by Hendrix for his next album but ultimately not used. I added a Hendrix related logo.