Beatles Re-Imagined by Mark Brickley
Picture yourself in a box seat at LA’s historic Hollywood Bowl. An excited deejay comes to the mic and shouts, “And now, Here They Are: The Beatles!” John, Paul, George, and Ringo run on stage to the delight of 18,700 screaming fans. The crowd is as loud as a jet engine at full throttle. The Beatles burn through “Twist and Shout,” with frenzied, layered vocals that build and explode. This is not
a dream at all. It was the first of
three breathtaking concerts recorded by the world’s most famous band.
The Beatles’ 1964/65 Hollywood Bowl
shows were the only performances memorialized by their EMI/Capitol Records
label. The initial 1977 album was overseen by Beatles producer George Martin and
engineer Geoff Emerick. Thirty-nine years later, Martin’s son Giles, with Abbey
Road Studio technicians, released the Apple/Capitol Records 2016 digital remix Live
at The Hollywood Bowl. Here’s a deep look at how those live recordings were
re-imagined.
Backtracking
Capitol Records had hoped to capture
the Beatles’ 1964 concert at New York City’s Carnegie Hall but was blocked by
the city’s musician’s union. Back on their home turf, Capitol was invited to
record the Beatles’ three Hollywood Bowl shows (August 23, 1964 and August 29 and
30, 1965). There was one caveat: union rules required that all on-stage
recording would be mixed by the Bowl’s sound engineers. All Capitol Records could
do was plug into the Bowl’s mix feed and turn on their ½ inch, three-track
tape deck.
Because the Bowl’s engineers were
most familiar with recording classical crowds, the audience mics were
immediately overwhelmed on the mix channels. It was sonic cacophony. The waves
of screams overwhelmed the recordings. You’d think that when the Beatles returned
in 1965, the Bowl’s engineers would remember their previous mistakes but there
were new audio techs, and similar errors occurred. During the first show, Paul McCartney’s
vocal mic was disabled during four songs in the set.
Martin’s Doubt
Producer George
Martin wasn’t enamored with the idea of a live concert album. His trepidation
was affirmed after hearing the Beatles’ Bowl recordings. Martin had witnessed
Beatlemania in Britain and the tumult surrounding the band’s live performances.
He surmised that a live album would never match the band’s studio recordings.
The Hollywood Bowl tapes languished in Capitol Records’ archives for six Years.
In 1971, Producer Phil Spector was asked to review them but his work did not
result in an album release.
Then in 1976, word spread
that amateur recordings of the Beatles’ 1962 performances at Hamburg’s
Star-Club would be
released on Lingasong Records. The Beatles attempted to block the Star-Club record
but lost their initial legal challenge. Apple and EMI/Capitol Records were now
motivated to issue their long-sidetracked album. George Martin agreed to
produce it and despite his reservations, The Beatles At The Hollywood
Bowl became a smash hit. It reached No.1 on the UK’s Melody Maker chart and No. 2 in the USA on Billboard’s Top 200 albums listing. In 1977, Martin said the record
captured the “electric atmosphere” and “raw energy” of the Beatles’ concerts.
De-Mixing Magic
In 2009, software engineer James
Clark had been working at Abbey Road Studios for 10 years when he was asked to
separate the instrumentation and vocals on early Beatles mono singles including
“Love Me Do” and “She Loves You.” After his initial de-mixing success, Clark
was approached to work on the Hollywood Bowl project. In 2011, he transferred the
original tapes to a digital format and then used MatLab’s programing language
to write algorithms, which recovered the track’s isolated sound sources. Clark
was also able to lower the Bowl crowd noise by 50 percent. He modeled his
computer simulations on the band’s recordings, after discovering the Bowl
performances varied only one or two seconds from the song’s studio version.
Producer Giles Martin’s remix
features the same 13 songs that his dad chose for the 1977 album, with four
bonus tracks. In 2012, they were submitted to McCartney, Starr, Olivia Harrison,
and Yoko Ono for review and were unanimously approved. What happened next?
Nothing. For four years, the new re-mixes were put on hold until the perfect
time was selected to release them. That moment coincided with Director Ron
Howard’s 2016 film, “Eight Days A
Week: The Touring Years.” His documentary had taken 13 years of
development and production to reach the big screen. Giles Martin’s
Live at the Hollywood Bowl CD/album was released September 6, 2016 and six
days later, Howard’s movie debuted in select theaters, before streaming on Hulu
TV.
What’s Inside
The 2016 Live CD comes with a 24-page booklet filled with eight photos of
the Beatles’ concerts and press conference, along with two reproduced LA Times articles from 1964/65. The
first remembers the day that Beatles Hollywood Bowl tickets went on sale, recalling
the elation of those clutching tickets and the utter dejection from hundreds of
diehards who waited in line all night, only
to be turned away empty-handed. Another reviews the Beatles’ August 30,
1965 show with the band bounding on stage at 9:22 PM, powering through their
33-minute set and then dashing off to a
waiting armored car. The compact booklet also includes Rolling Stone writer David Fricke’s smart prose and Producer George
Martin’s original liner notes. The booklet is an expansive and satisfying read.
Listening
The Live At The Hollywood Bowl
tracks have surprising clarity and enriched dynamic range. Layers of sonic tarnish
have been stripped away. Lennon and McCartney’s vocals are brighter and more
powerful. You hear each crisp syllable and appreciate the rawness and force of their
vocals. The band’s instruments sparkle and Ringo’s drumming has more snap.
Listening through headphones, it sounds like you’re standing right next to him.
The power of his playing is startling while he keeps perfect time. It’s also
a treat to hear Ringo sing,
slurring/dropping off words, Scouse style. Giles Martin’s remark in the CD
booklet rings true: “The Beatles launch into every song like it’s the last time
they’re going to play it!”
Giles remembered that fans want re-mixed
tracks to be as close to the band’s organic sound as possible: “You can’t fool
around with technology to the extent it would defeat that goal.” He added, “You
want the energy and great sound quality to be true to the Beatles’ analog roots
and what they originally intended.”
Martin and Abbey Road mix engineer
Sam Okell didn’t include tracks with noticeable performance flaws. Giles revealed
that the vocal disparities in “If I Fell” could not be remedied and that during
“I’m Down,” the band temporarily fell out of rhythm before quickly coming back
together. He pointed to “She Loves You” and “Can’t Buy Me Love” as the record’s
premier songs. There are many other gems, like the
way Ringo’s drumming falls out in
“Roll Over Beethoven,” only to powerfully return four beats later.
The 2016 album holds a trove of
treasures and gives fans a front row seat to experience the world’s greatest group.
Q: When and where was the 2016 CD
remix album’s cover photo taken?
A: The cover shot was taken in Seattle by US
tour manager Bob Bonis. The Beatles were boarding a chartered flight to their
August 22, 1964 concert in Vancouver, Canada.
Q: Is there any
footage in Ron Howard’s 2016 film of the Beatles’ shows at the Hollywood Bowl?
A: Yes! At the film’s 42-minute
mark, Paul introduces Ringo to sing “Boys.” The short film clip is perfectly
synced to Ringo’s headshaking vocal. When the 1964/65 recordings were made,
Capitol Records also filmed the Bowl performances.
Q: Did the Beatles
hear their Hollywood Bowl recordings before the 1977 album was released?
A: Capitol Records President Voyle
Gilmore made copies of four tracks from the Bowl shows and sent them to the
Beatles. George Harrison agreed they were an important part of the band’s history
but fell short on the qualities of a Beatles release.
Q: What happened
to the 1977 album Live! At the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany?
A: The Star-Club record was
available until 1998, when the Beatles finally prevailed in London’s High
Court. George Harrison testified in the two-day hearing and Lingasong Records
was ordered to turn over the Star-Club master recordings to the Beatles and
cease record production. Ironically, the Star-Club tapes had been offered for
sale by saxophonist Ted “Kingsize” Taylor (who recorded the Beatles with a
single mic) and later by the Beatles’ first manager, Allan Williams, who had
acquired the recordings. Both Beatles road manager Neil Aspinall and Brian
Epstein were approached to buy the 1962 Hamburg tapes, but neither expressed
serious interest.
The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl, 1964
Showtime: August 23,
1964 at 8 PM. The single show’s 18,700 tickets had sold out four months before
the performance date. Ticket prices ranged from $3 at the top of the Bowl to $7
for box seats. Opening Acts: The
Righteous Brothers and Jackie
DeShannon.
The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl, 1965
Showtimes: August 29 and 30, 1965,
8 PM shows. Both concerts were sellouts. Tickets ranged from $3 far back to $7
for box seats. Nine of the 12 songs performed in their 1965 concerts weren’t in
the band’s 1964 set. Opening acts in 1965: The King Curtis Band, Brenda
Holloway, Sounds Incorporated with the Discotheque Dancers, and Cannibal
and the Headhunters.