Long Tall Sally

After the recent passing of Little Richard, the whole world was reminded that he was one of the pillars of rock and roll.  His influence was long-reaching, affecting generations of performers who have followed in his footsteps.  Most, like Mick Jagger, adopted his attitude, his strut, his swagger.  A few, like Paul McCartney, strove to imitate his vocal style.  Now, Paul has always been blessed with a beautiful, clear voice that has served him well in most instances.  But, whenever he wants to kick it up a notch and blow the roof off, he aims to sing like Little Richard.

When manager Brian Epstein got Little Richard to top a bill of twelve acts at the Tower Ballroom in New Brighton in October of 1962, only a week after the release of Love Me Do, the Beatles were awed to be in the presence of one of their idols.  And Paul took the opportunity to get a one-on-one tutorial from the master himself.

Long Tall Sally holds the distinction of being part of the group's repertoire longer than any other song - ten years, in fact.  Paul reportedly began singing it during the earliest days of the Quarry Men in 1957.  And the boys chose it to close their final show at Candlestick Park in San Francisco in 1966.

The earliest performance of the number that I have is on the Star Club tapes from Hamburg in December of 1962.  The band plays the song at a breakneck pace, almost daring Paul to keep up vocally.  By contrast, the performance on Live at the BBC from a Pop Go the Beatles broadcast in July of 1963 seems relatively tame.

The group chose to record the number on March 1st, 1964 at the sessions for the soundtrack of their first film.  One source suggests that they were considering it to close out the concert sequence in the movie, but their Beatlemania-inducing hit She Loves You wound up in that position.  The song was used instead as the title track of an EP of all-new recordings.

The track itself is breathtaking - a one-take wonder.  With producer George Martin on piano, the band demonstrates its long familiarity with the song, playing it with consummate ease.  This is a live-in-the-studio recording every bit as great as Twist and Shout, and possibly even better.  Not only does Paul get to show off his screaming vocal technique, but George is in top form for his two guitar solos, and Ringo goes into overdrive on his drum kit, particularly on the tom toms, during the last chorus.

A month and a half later, they pre-taped a recording that they could mime to for their television special Around the Beatles.  It lacks the spark of the official version and even omits the second guitar solo.  This can be heard on Anthology 1.  A somewhat better radio recording from July of '64 for the program Top Gear is available on On Air - Live at the BBC Volume 2.

Long Tall Sally served as the closing number at the boy's shows for much of their career after they became world famous, even when the screaming from the fans became so loud that nobody could hear them.  An example of this is preserved on the album The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl, recorded on August 23rd, 1964.

One of the best that I have in my possession is from a bootleg of the group's appearance in Paris in June of 1965.  They use the song as an encore, which was not standard procedure at a Beatles' concert.  On this occasion, Paul actually encourages the audience members to clap their hands and stamp their feet before the band launches into a high-octane performance that still leaves the crowd cheering for more.

Only days before that concert, the group had recorded a new number by McCartney called I'm Down, a screaming rocker in the same vein as Long Tall Sally.  It would replace the classic cut in the band's late 1965 and most of their 1966 concerts.  But as the North American tour progressed and the band's touring days were inevitably coming to an end, their fondness for the Little Richard original resulted in them playing it on a few occasions, right up to the aforementioned last date of their touring career.

If you are looking for their brilliant official recording of Long Tall Sally, it can be found on The Beatles' EP Collection, Rock and Roll Music and Past Masters, Volume One.

Long Long Long

Though we did not realize it at the time when hearing Long Long Long on the "White Album" in November of 1968, we were actually listening to a devotional composition by George Harrison, the first of many that he would write.  In the coming years, he would turn some of them into hit singles, such as My Sweet Lord and Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth).  But the lyrics to this particular number were so vague that it was easily mistaken as being a conventional love song.

This was Harrison's fifth and final offering for the double album (his first, Not Guilty, did not make the cut).  By this time, John Lennon had stopped even showing up on days when a session was earmarked for one of George's songs - a sad comment on John's lack of support for his bandmate.

But Paul and Ringo were always ready and willing to assist, and were therefore present on October 7th as George led them through a whopping sixty-seven takes of the basic track.  With Ringo on drums and Paul playing an organ, George sang and played acoustic guitar as the three of them slowly worked out an arrangement for this relatively new and unfamiliar composition.  The 50th anniversary deluxe edition of the album allows us to hear take forty-four, which breaks down around the bridge.  Unfazed, George slips into another of his uncredited new songs from the time.  All sound in good spirits despite the great deal of time being spent on the track.

It was during the ending of take sixty-five that the happy accident of the rattling bottle of Blue Nun occurred when Paul hit a certain note on the Hammond organ.  A microphone was then set up to capture the sound for the final few takes while Ringo played a little drum roll and George provided a falsetto moan above it all, thus creating a strangely ominous conclusion to the song.

The final take - number sixty-seven - turned out to be the best, bringing the sixteen and a half hour session to an end.  The Threetles spent two hours the next day adding overdubs to the recording before turning their attention to two new songs by Lennon.  Thus, John may have been present for the early portion of this session, but he still did not participate on Long Long Long.  The overdubs include Paul's bass, a double-tracked lead vocal by George and an interesting second acoustic guitar part.  George somehow manages to make his guitar sound almost like a sitar - one source suggests this was done by a strategically-placed capo.

The final overdubs were added on October 9th, including backing harmony vocals by George and Paul, plus a piano part in the bridge by George Martin's assistant (and occasional producer at these sessions) Chris Thomas.  He was encouraged to play it in the style of the piano heard on the Moody Blues hit Go Now!

The song sits at the end of side three on the double album, serving as a calming antidote to the cacophony of the proceeding number Helter Skelter.

The Long and Winding Road

While this is one of McCartney's most profound and moving compositions, it took me many years to truly appreciate it as such.  For me, the schmaltzy production of the number sat awkwardly on Phil Spector's cobbled-together Let it Be, coming as it did after two lively group performances on the second side of that album.  Had the stripped-down version of the song been placed in that exact same position, I wonder if I might have felt differently about it.  Of course, I was unaware at the time of the contentious circumstances under which the entire project had evolved.

McCartney claims he wrote the song in 1968 with Ray Charles in mind, but he first offered it to Tom Jones on the condition that it be his next single.  Because his record company already had his next single lined up, Jones was forced to turn it down, much to his regret.

McCartney then introduced it to the Beatles at the Get Back sessions in January of 1969.  It is interesting to note that Lennon, who questioned why McCartney brought the ballad Let it Be to those sessions, always had nothing but praise for The Long and Winding Road.

The song was reportedly rehearsed on more than a few days at Twickenham Film Studios in the early part of the month.  When the sessions switched to Apple Studios in late January, it was not played nearly as often as several of the other songs were, yet it was chosen for the final day of filming by the documentary crew on January 31st.  The group, including Billy Preston, played the number until they got what was considered to be the definitive version.

But when Glyn Johns began assembling his Get Back album a few months later, he opted for an unnumbered take of the song from January 26th - the only other day that the Beatles played the song with Billy Preston.  And when producer Phil Spector was brought in a year later to make the official soundtrack album, he used that same take for his version.  He also added an orchestra and choir, had Ringo (the only Beatle present) add more drums, and actually removed one of Paul's vocal tracks to make room for all of his additions.

This was the famous last straw for Paul, who resented that manager Allen Klein, John and George had allowed Spector to tamper with his work without his permission.  His demand that the additions be toned down or eliminated were ignored, so he issued his mock interview in conjunction with the release of his solo album McCartney on April 10th, obliquely announcing the end of the Beatles.

It probably only deepened the rift when Capitol Records, with Klein's blessing, chose to release The Long and Winding Road as a single on May 11th, 1970, a week before the Let it Be album in the US.  The Spectorized version of the song wound up being the 20th and last number one single in America for the group during their career.

The song was an obvious choice for the Blue Album in 1973, and a not-so-obvious inclusion on the 1977 compilation Love Songs.  The stripped-down version of the song got its official release on Anthology 3.  This allowed fans to hear the simple beauty of the composition, despite John's clunky playing on the bass.  It was also a surprise to learn that Paul actually spoke a bit of the second bridge, which Spector had erased in favor of Richard Hewson's sweeping score.

The greatest discovery, however, came on the 2003 album Let it Be...Naked.  Here, at last, was the final performance of the number from January 31st, 1969.  The stark arrangement is the same as the familiar January 26th version, John's bass playing is a bit better, and Billy Preston turns in a basic, yet elegant solo on electric keyboard for the second bridge.  This was the performance seen and heard in the film Let it Be, and it is available on the video collection 1+.

Little Child

This is a little-known Lennon-McCartney collaboration from 1963 that probably merits its obscurity.  While the band did turn in an enthusiastic performance in an attempt to compensate for the paper-thin material, there was nowhere to hide behind this lightweight offering.

The songwriting partners were already in the habit of passing off any of their lesser compositions to others to record, all the while knowing that those songs would usually still turn out to be hits, in part because their names were attached to them.  And, in this case, they did try to pass the song off - to Ringo.  And he turned it down!  Pretty cheeky for a fellow who only had one lead vocal (Boys) on his resume at the time.  He wound up singing I Wanna Be Your Man, another hastily-written number, instead.

The group had completed about half of the tracks necessary for their second album in two sessions in July.  They returned to the studio for two consecutive days in September with the aim of recording all of the remaining tracks.  On September 11th, 1963, they only attempted two takes of Little Child before deciding to leave it for the next day.  It required several more takes on that following day before they arrived at the basic track, take seven.  Then came the signature touches that really define the track - John on harmonica and Paul on piano.

Since John's harmonica is heard throughout the number, he had to play it multiple times until he got it right.  Then, a few separate attempts were needed for him to nail the high-energy solo.  Meanwhile, Paul added his overdub, playing piano for the first time on a Beatles recording.  These overdubs are so prominent in the final mix that John and George's guitars on the basic track are pretty much inaudible.

They did report to the studio one more time on October 3rd for John and Paul to sing additional vocal lines.  Oddly, these appear to have been used only in the stereo version of the track, and not on the mono.   The question for many fans remains as to whether this song is sung by John double-tracked or by John and Paul sharing the lead vocal, though Paul's voice is heard in the clear once, singing a very high "oh yeah" just as the song begins fading out.

The song can only be found on the album With the Beatles in the UK, and on its American counterpart Meet the Beatles!  It sits in the same exact sequence on both albums, right after Harrison's Don't Bother Me and just in front of Paul's cover of the Broadway tune Till There Was You. 

Let it Be

The 50th-anniversary deluxe edition of the "White Album" contains more than a few surprises.  Among them is a rather jaunty version of Let it Be captured between takes of George Harrison's number While My Guitar Gently Weeps in September of 1968.  McCartney only had one verse written at that point, and in the lyrics he is visited by Mother Malcolm, which is in accordance with a claim by the group's assistant Mal Evans that Paul had once told him that Mal was the person who came to Paul in a dream, not his mother Mary.

McCartney did not finish the song in time for the double album, but he played it in early January 1969 at the Twickenham Film Studios sessions for the Get Back project.  Lennon never understood why Paul brought this song into rehearsals that were intended to culminate in a live rock and roll performance.  Nevertheless, the group spent a great deal of time working on their arrangement of the number.  Once the sessions moved to Apple Studios in Savile Row and Billy Preston joined the lineup, his churchlike organ part added a true gospel flair to the number.

Of course, the song was not suitable for the famous rooftop performance on January 30th.  Along with two other McCartney compositions, Two of Us and The Long and Winding Road, it was played on the following day down in the basement studio.  The Beatles and Billy Preston were set up with Paul in the center sitting at a piano for the benefit of the documentary film crew as the group ran through the number several times before getting the best performance.

The entire project was put on the back burner for a few months before engineer Glyn Johns was assigned the task of compiling a Get Back album.  The guiding principle of the Get Back project was that every track would be live with no overdubs, but on April 30th, 1969, an exception would be made.  George's guitar solo on Let it Be was considered to be not good enough, so he overdubbed a new one, both lovely and melodic, onto the selected performance from January 31st.  Yet another producer, Chris Thomas, was in the control room for this session.  Glyn Johns used this version for his Get Back album, which wound up being rejected by the Beatles.

The album Abbey Road consumed the group's energies for much of the rest of the year, but by late 1969, the documentary was nearing completion, and an accompanying soundtrack album would be needed in time for the film's release.  On January 4th, 1970, multiple overdubs were added to Let it Be including a second stinging guitar solo.  Ringo added some tom toms during the final verse, and George, Paul and Linda McCartney provided some new backing vocals.  Plus producer George Martin conducted a small brass arrangement, and even added a few cellos (which for the life of me I cannot hear) near the end of the song.

The very next day, Glyn Johns decided to ignore all of these new overdubs and stuck with the April 30th guitar solo for his second attempt at assembling a Get Back album.  However, this, too, was rejected by the group.

Yet the song's importance only grew as it was chosen to be the A-side of the group's 22nd (and, in the UK, their final) single.  George Martin oversaw this release (his final task for the Beatles during their career, as well), and he used all of the new overdubs from January 4th, except for the new guitar solo.  He, too, preferred the mellower April 30th version.  This single was released in early March, 1970.

Only a few weeks later, everything changed.  The title of the film was now Let it Be, thus making the song the centerpiece of the required soundtrack album, and, most importantly, Phil Spector was brought in to produce that album.  On March 26th, Spector reinserted the stinging guitar solo from January 4th, punched up George Martin's brass overdub and Ringo's tom toms, added reverb to Ringo's hi-hats, and repeated the chorus one more time at the end via use of an edit.

The song has appeared many times over the years, usually represented by George Martin's single version.  This is the case on the Blue Album, Reel Music, the US version of 20 Greatest Hits, Past Masters Volume Two, and 1.  Anthology 3 has a take from January 25th, 1969 without Billy Preston, and Let it Be...Naked inserts a guitar solo from a different take into the January 31st, 1969 master.