Yesterday and Today

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Episode 52 – Beatles ’71 pt6 Jan 28, 2019

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The success of the Imagine LP was a welcome one for John and Yoko, who were settling into their new permanent residence of New York City in the fall of 1971. Immersed in both the art scene and the radical political underground, the couple had fallen in love with their new home and immediately set to work on a myriad of creative projects. On October 9th, Yoko’s This Is Not Here art exhibition premiered in Syracuse, which featured contributions from Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and others in addition to Yoko’s showcased body of work. Noticeably absent from the festivities (aside from a drunken singalong by John & party-goers of Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey) was Paul McCartney, still warring with his bandmates and stinging from Lennon’s vicious How Do You Sleep? Cut off of Imagine. McCartney was busy putting an as-yet-nameless band together, including RAM drummer Denny Seiwell, former Moody Bluesman Denny Laine and wife Linda McCartney. The group was already in rehearsal for a new LP, choosing to double down on musical endeavors rather than be swallowed whole by the endless turmoil of the Beatles split. Inspiration for a name soon came with the birth of Paul and Linda’s second child, Stella, when complications and an emergency c-section gave Paul a vision of angel’s wings saving his sweet new baby daughter. With George championing Ravi Shankar’s Apple film Raga, and Ringo knee-deep in a saddle on the set of the spaghetti western Blindman, all four former Beatles continued to stay active and productive as fall turned to winter...

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Episode 51 – Beatles ’71 pt5 Jan 21, 2019

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John Lennon was not about to back down from a challenge. With his former songwriting partner achieving commercial success with the runaway US single Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey from the UK #1 RAM album, John’s solo work took a turn toward the charts. The Imagine LP was in many ways the culmination of everything John’s music had been over the years - equal parts catchy, light, heavy, political, hard-rocking, tender and introspective - missing only the kinds of radical experimentation that had alienated the general public in the past. From the downright bubbly Oh Yoko, to the haunting ballad Jealous Guy (a re-worked “Child of Nature” which had been kicking around since Rishikesh), to the iconic title track, Imagine was a home run for both critics and fans alike. John’s spite and anger toward Paul was on full display in the vicious How Do You Sleep, which Lennon explained to confused Beatle fans as a retort to Paul for messages directed toward him on RAM. The partnership was no more, but in its place a heightened sense of competition would drive both Lennon and McCartney to interesting new heights in the decade to come. But perhaps the biggest change for John Lennon as Summer turned to Fall in 1971 was his permanent relocation to New York City, where he (unbeknownst to him at the time) would call home for the rest of his life, and never again return to his native England...

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Episode 50 – Beatles ’71 pt4 Jan 14, 2019

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With RAM sitting high atop the charts, It Don't Come Easy blaring across radios worldwide and the finishing touches being placed on the Imagine album, the summer months of 1971 were bustling with former Beatle activity. Though mocked for its perceived underperformance by George and John, Paul McCartney's second outing was a steady seller that leap-frogged early criticism and seemed to only improve with age, even to this very day. But while a success for Paul was welcome news in the McCartney camp, it was another former Beatle in the summer of '71 that would steal the show...by putting one on. The Concert for Bangladesh was conceived and executed by George Harrison after his friend and mentor Ravi Shankar expressed to George the plight of refugees from war-torn Bangladesh. George was moved by his friend's plea and hastily prepared what was, at the time, an unprecedented benefit concert that included the likes of Eric Clapton, Billy preston, Leon Russell, Billy Preston, Ringo Starr, Badfinger, Jesse Ed Davis, Klaus Voorhman and, perhaps most surprisingly of all, Bob Dylan. It was a charitable event that would go on to inspire an entire movement, from Live Aid to Farm Aid and many more in the decades beyond. The spotlight may have been uncomfortable for Harrison, but in the summer of 1971 it was blazing as brightly upon him as the star underneath, and George rose to the occasion.

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Episode 49 – Beatles ’71 pt3 Jan 07, 2019

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While the rift between Paul McCartney and his former bandmates grew wider by the day, the bond between John, George and Ringo seemed to only strengthen in the summer of 1971 against their common enemy. The RAM album was slow to gain momentum, though eventually found its footing at #1 on the UK charts, and “Beatle Ed” (as the other ex-Beatles privately dubbed him) had recently won the first round of litigation in his bid to free himself from the Beatles contract. The anger was palpable and tensions at their peak when Lennon was pushed over the edge by several antagonistic messages left for him within the RAM album itself by Paul. John was quick to pen a rebuttal in the form of the stinging How Do You Sleep, who enlisted George to play a brutal slide solo and lend his support to John against Paul. This track and several others were in development for Lennon’s new solo LP, a more commercial-sounding follow-up to the acclaimed but depressing Plastic Ono Band LP from the year prior. Ringo Starr, who was still basking in the glow of the #1 single It Don’t Come Easy, stay above the fray as best he could and spent his summer portraying a bloodthirsty bandit in a new spaghetti western movie titled Blind Man. While George, himself still riding high from his uber-successful solo releases, was busy participating in records from Badfinger and pal Ravi Shankar. While recording Ravi’s album, the sitar master expressed deep sadness toward the Bangladeshi refugee crisis which would set the gears into motion for George to hatch a plan to help...

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Episode 48 – Beatles ’71 pt2 Dec 30, 2018

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With the solo efforts of John, George and Ringo still on the charts, the spring of 1971 saw Paul McCartney putting the final touches on the follow-up solo release that he hoped would help restore his name as a hit-maker and cement his status as a contender with the likes of his former bandmates. The result was RAM, a more polished studio LP that included an abundance of pure McCartney sound and Beatle-esq melody. From the sprawling Back Seat Of My Car to the stripped-down, almost Yer Blues/For You Blue-esq Three Legs, McCartney proved he had more in him than the results of his hand-made solo debut the year prior. But despite a massive hit with the quirky Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey and record advance preorders, the public reaction was cooler toward RAM than Paul had hoped. Critics weren’t sure what to make of Paul’s production and while no one could deny it was a step in the right direction, it fell short of the massive expectation Paul’s contemporaries assumed he was capable of. But this album would prove to grow beyond those initial reactions and stand as an LP ahead of its time. If an initial burst of success was out of reach for Paul, John Lennon too struggled to find commercial footing with the political anthem Power To The People failing to top the charts. Only George and Ringo seemed capable of conquering all they touched in the first half of 1971, a feat no one in the Beatles could or would have predicted…

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Episode 47 – Beatles ’71 pt1 Dec 23, 2018

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While the year prior began with uncertainty, 1971 began with a clear message: The Beatles were no longer together. But in the fall of the group that had meant so much to so many, came a spring of new creative energy from its former members, unrivaled in quantity since the heights of Beatlemania. George Harrison was celebrating a #1 LP and #1 single in America with his solo debut, and John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band was the kind of critical success he had hoped for but had yet to achieve with his solo efforts prior. Ringo’s two LPs from 1970 were hardly chart-toppers, but the beginning of 1971 saw Ringo’s star on the rise with the imminent release of his own soon-to-be #1 hit single: It Don’t Come Easy. John, George and Ringo’s success was well-earned, but ultimately overshadowed by the court action of Paul McCartney, who, in an attempt to break free from Allen Klein’s Apple, was forced to sue his fellow former bandmates to dissolve the group legally and unfreeze the mountain of money they had accrued over years. Paul’s action was done with a heavy heart, as he continued to bear the brunt of the blame for the demise of the Beatles. But a new album was on the horizon for McCartney, who was putting his final touches on the “good one” Lennon had predicted Paul would make…

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Episode 46 – Beatles ’70 pt7 Dec 17, 2018

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As the year 1970 draws to a close, the holiday season brings with it even more releases from the now-former Beatles and other Apple Recording Artists. Alongside John Lennon’s own Plastic Ono Band LP that December comes a companion album from wife Yoko titled Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band. While the cover is nearly identical to John’s, the songs on this collection most certainly were not, as John, bassist Klaus Voorman and fellow fab Ringo Starr laid down some heavy jams in support of Yoko’s wild vocal stylings. On the more commercial side of the former Beatle pool, George Harrison, who was himself celebrating the #1 All Things Must Pass triple LP, ALSO celebrated a corresponding #1 single on December 26th with the hymnal pop opus My Sweet Lord. Defying expectations once more, George achieved a success rarely duplicated in pop music and handily became the most successful ex-Beatle of the four by leaps and bounds. Paul McCartney had been himself contemplating an end-of-year release with the album he had recorded in New York and had begun mixing back home, but it’s rumored that upon hearing George’s output, decided to take another pass at polishing the record that would later become RAM. It was a year of drastic change, and one the Beatles as a group did not survive...but through the hardship and the pain would be the silver lining of creative outpouring from John, Paul, George and Ringo; older and wiser for having redefined the world of popular music forevermore…

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Episode 45 – Beatles ’70 pt6 Dec 10, 2018

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It’s the winter of 1970, and there are three new LP’s from three former Beatles for fans around the world still mourning the band’s demise. With the Nashville-tinged Beaucoups of Blues LP, fans got a taste of Ringo’s vocals alongside the very top talent in country music. A novelty such as it was, Ringo’s album was quickly overshadowed by the two other projects he had contributed to in the summer and fall: new albums from George Harrison and John Lennon. First up, the epic triple album All Things Must Pass - a monster smash success and brilliant musical statement that propelled George to a new stratosphere of acclaim and stardom. If anyone thought for a moment that The Beatles were purely the sum of Lennon and McCartney’s talents, All Things Must Pass quickly silenced those naysayers with a collection of songs that ranged from the intensely personal, to the wildly commercial, all treated with the gentle yet biting care and respect of the man himself. And speaking of the intensely personal...John Lennon’s masterful Plastic Ono Band LP, which followed George’s on the release schedule, gave listeners a whole new insight into the depths of his pain and the heights of his abilities. From the inner torment of Mother, to the Beatle-esq Remember, fans who had hoped for a Fab Four reunion need only to have listened to the litany of denunciation in the track God to hear for themselves that the dream was, indeed, over…

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Episode 44 – Beatles ’70 pt5 Dec 03, 2018

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Despite the breakup of The Beatles, or perhaps because of it, 1970 was one of the single most creatively prolific periods in the lives of its former members.George Harrison’s epic double album sessions were in the final stages of mixing, and this oversized debut would be the kind of jaw-dropping musical statement to his bandmates and the world that he had always deserved. John Lennon was back in the studio recording his own statement, the kind of intensely personal and back-to-basics album that the Get Back project could have only ever dreamed of becoming. Joining John was pal Ringo Starr, whom had just released his second LP of the year: the pure country Beaucoups of Blues. While few could have predicted that Ringo would be the first out of the gate with two solo LPs in the span of a year, the former Beatle whose commercial expectations were sky high remained in his Scotland retreat...but Paul McCartney would not be down for long. Battered in the press and shouldering the blame amongst fans for breaking up the Beatles, Paul struggled to establish his freedom from Allen Klein’s Apple - and the only way to do so would be to sue his former bandmates. As an escape from the madness back home, The McCartneys travelled to New York and began holding auditions for a new musical project. By the waning days of fall, sessions would begin for an all-new Macca LP…

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Episode 43 – Beatles ’70 pt4 Nov 26, 2018

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Despite a record-setting #1 LP and a #1 single to match, the top-selling Beatles were no more. Paul’s announcement sent shockwaves throughout the world, as friends and fans tried to make sense of the bitterness that had consumed such a beacon of peace, love and positivity for so many. John Lennon was quick to assign blame, set the narrative against his former writing partner and dive headfirst into an album of intensely personal, all-new material. Under the therapeutic guidance of Primal Scream founder Arthur Janov, Lennon mourned the loss of the musical force he had set into motion over a decade prior, and worked through the many other traumatic splits from throughout his young life. George Harrison, whom had been more forgiving of Paul in the press, was eager to show his former bandmates, himself and the world what he was capable of. On May 26th and spanning nearly the entire summer, sessions began for George’s as yet untitled solo LP of new material - material which had ballooned into a massive collection of songs ranging from Beatle rejections to intimate reflections on the hectic circumstances of his chaotic life. Ringo Starr, who contributed to George’s sessions that summer and whom has released his very of LP of crooner standards earlier in the year, connected with Pete Drake where the idea of an all-country Ringo album was hatched. All the while McCartney made a retreat to his home in Scotland, wracked with depression and wondering what his next move would be…

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