Beatles' Let It Be (33 1/3) (11 page)

On the next day, recording, overdubbing and mixing of “Let It Be” took place’back at Abbey Road. In addition to the cast from the day before, Glyn Johns was in attendance. It would be the last official recording date at Abbey Road by the Beatles (although only Paul, George, and Ringo attended) until the time of the
Anthology
sessions in the 90s.

On January 5, work continued at Olympic. Glyn Johns mixed “Across the Universe” and “I Me Mine.” Once again, he attempted banding and compiling an album. This time, though, he was told that the album would be a soundtrack for a film to be entitled
Let It
Be.
The new lineup would be the same as the previous one, except this time “Teddy Boy” would be dropped and “Across the Universe” and “I Me Mine” would be added.

Of the many projects coming out of Apple, both Beatles-related and otherwise, one hit a slight snag on January 27, 1970. John Lennon had released two solo/Plastic Ono Band singles up until that point. The first was “Give Peace a Chance,” recorded during his second bed-in for peace, at the Hotel Reine-Elizabeth in Montreal, where John and Yoko were staying from May 26 through June 2, and released in July of 1969. The second single, “Cold Turkey,” produced by John on September 25, 1969, at Abbey Road, directly addressed his ongoing problems with heroin and was released in October of 1969. “Instant Karma,” the song that would become his third single, nearly wrote itself on that January morning. However, while at Abbey Road Studios that day, John was having problems getting the right take of it. The track, which would become one of his most anthemic songs, was classic John Lennon and embodied his love for the frisky three-minute single. John still loved the idea of making singles in the vein of the seminal American R&B records that so heavily influenced the early Beatles. John’s homage to those wonderful 45s is evident from the three minor-key piano chords that opened the song. They are the very same three notes that grace
the opening of Richie Barrett’s “Some Other Guy,” which was released in 1962. Although John wrote the song quickly and it even had his unmistakable opening, he had no idea how to record the song. It was very much a follow-up to “Give Peace a Chance,” but was more empowering and hopeful. Like “Give Peace a Chance,” it was an electronic broadside whose meaning could best be conveyed with a simple, concise sound.

At the suggestion of George Harrison, who was playing on the song, Phil Spector was brought in to produce the track. Spector showed why he was one of the greatest, if not
the
greatest record producer in rock history that evening. The session began at around 7 p.m. in Studio Two at Abbey Road. The song, which featured John on acoustic guitar and piano, George on electric guitar and piano, Alan White on drums and piano, Klaus Voorman on bass and piano, and Billy Preston on piano, was recorded in ten takes between 7 p.m. and midnight.

Klaus Voorman, a German artist who designed the cover of
Revolver
and the
Anthology
releases, had played with John at the Plastic Ono Band’s two live shows in 1969 at the Lyceum Ballroom, on Wellington Street in London, on December 15 and at the University of Toronto on December 20. He would also go on to play in the studio with him, George, and Ringo. Voorman talked about the “Instant Karma” session, which was his introduction to Spector:

I didn’t even know who this little man was. He had PS on his cuff links and he started talking in this little voice and I didn’t quite know what this guy was doing, because John never told us. He just rushed in the studio and played this song and this little squeaky voice came from the control room and started telling us things that were very strange. We took a take and everything was arranged, and we went back in the control room and there was this guy sitting in the control room. It was filled with all the equipment from the whole of EMI Studios. Every tape machine was rolling and blinking and tapes were running left and right and center, and he said, “I’m going to play it to you now.” Then he played it to us and he turned the volume full up. Then this big sound came toward us and it was just mind-blowing. I said to myself, “This guy must be Phil Spector.” It’s the first time I met Phil Spector. So he really convinced me that he was a great master.

Overdubs commenced after midnight. The chorus was aided by, among others, Yoko, Mal Evans, and late-night revelers pressed into duty from Hatchetts, a London club. Starting at 3 a.m., Spector began the final mixing. The fourth stereo mix, completed at 4 a.m., became the one used for the U.K. single, which was released on February 6.

That would not be the end of work on the song, however. Returning to Los Angeles a few days later, Spector prepared a new stereo mix of the song. Spector had wanted to work on it further, but John didn’t want
him to. Nonetheless, that is exactly what he did. The U.S version, released on February 20, was much cleaner. The master also featured “Phil & Ronnie,” hastily scribbled in Spector’s handwriting, in the run-out groove. Spector had a way of putting his inimitable stamp on everything he did, in new and imaginative ways. The song would prove to be a watershed moment for John, for the
Let It Be
album, for the Beatles, and ultimately for many of the Beatles’ future solo works.

Spector’s deft touch convinced John and George that he was just the man to take the languishing “Get Back” tapes and make them into an album. Spector would begin the process on March 23. He would also go on to produce John’s albums
Plastic Ono Band, Imagine, Walk and Bridges,
and part of the
Rock ‘
n
’ Roll
album. His work on
Let It Be,
particularly on “The Long and Winding Road,” would also become one of the many reasons for the ultimate break-up of the Beatles.

Oddly enough, despite Spector’s last-minute mix of the U.S. single release of “Instant Karma” and his eventual rift with Lennon over the
Rock ‘n’ Roll
tapes, Lennon and Spector enjoyed a productive relationship. Klaus Voorman, one of the few people to witness that collaboration up close over a long period of time, talked about their mutual respect for each other. Regarding the
Imagine
album, Voorman said:

It was very calm. Phil was very respectful toward Yoko. He never made any trouble. He liked Yoko as far as I remember. He was always on top of things. He was making jokes and keeping things together, but he was not getting out of line, not through all the sessions. The man has got lots of sides. I think it’s fantastic to see someone go ahead and do a production which had nothing to do with his sound. He’s just the servant, like everybody else, and he was trying to get onto tape what John had written.

Voorman remembered many lighthearted moments when John and Phil worked together: “The great moments were when Phil went to the piano and he was playing, for example, ‘River Deep–Mountain High’ as a ballad, or when they would reminisce—and they had a great time, because they were great pals. I think they still would be if John were still alive, because those two really got on well.”

February 23 marked the U.S.-only release of the Beatles’
Hey Jude
album. The album included songs worked on for the “Get Back” project. One of them, “Old Brown Shoe” had first been introduced at Apple on January 28, 1969, when it was run through five times. George had done a demo of the song on February 25, 1969 (his birthday), the same day he demoed “All Things Must Pass” and “Something.” “Old Brown Shoe” was properly recorded on April 16, 1969, and overdubs were
added on the 18th. All the Beatles were on the song, but only John contributed backing vocals. Billy Preston played organ on it. The song originally appeared as the flip side to “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” which was released on May 30, 1969, in the U.K. and on June 4 in the U.S. “Don’t Let Me Down,” which also appeared on
Hey Jude,
was most likely written in the fall of 1968. It was worked on extensively during the “Get Back” project at Twickenham and Apple (even during the rooftop concert), yet had been relegated to the B-side of “Get Back.”

On February 28, a mixing session took place at Abbey Road for the track “For You Blue,” produced by Malcolm Davies. The song was never released.

“Let It Be,” backed with “You Know My Name (Look up the Number),” was released on March 6, 1970, in the U.K. and on March 11 in the U.S.

“Instant Karma” had been a turning point not only for the Beatles, but also for its producer. Phil Spector had fallen on hard times. The single he produced of Ike and Tina Turner doing “River Deep-Mountain High,” released in 1966, fared miserably. Spector felt at the time that it was one of his best-produced works (which it absolutely was). Its failure cast a pall over the man and his methods, and after one more single in 1966 and three in 1967, he had retired from the music business. He then made a deal with A&M Records in 1969, which
resulted in his producing five singles that year, which continued his further plunge into obscurity. “Instant Karma” became his resurrection.

How Spector had ended up in London at this fortuitous moment is unclear. Chances are that Allen Klein, who had become a strong force in the Beatles’ business affairs, had summoned him to London. An alternate possibility is that Spector went in search of Klein so Klein could hook him up with the Beatles. Who knows? Perhaps Klein had promised to deliver Spector to the Beatles during his meeting with John and Yoko back at the Dorchester Hotel in January of 1969. One can almost see the scene: Klein, talking straight, making Lennon feel comfortable with his working-class roots. Then, knowing how much Lennon admired Spector, saying to him, “How would you like to have Phil Spector produce your next record, John?”

Peter Brown thought for sure that Klein brought Spector in. He remarked:

Klein was determined to prove that he was not just an accountant and a clever businessman, but that he was sensitive to the music values and that he would bring in his great friend Phil Spector to fix it
[Let It Be].
Now, Phil Spector wasn’t exactly at the peak of his career, at that time—so he [Klein] wasn’t bringing in some hot producer. Phil’s “wall of sound” had become a little old by that time. It was Klein’s way of saying, “I’m brilliant, I could do all this and this
is my guy.” Everyone liked Phil and admired him, so there was no resistance to him.

The Beatles had truly admired Spector’s immense talents. The records he had produced for the Ronettes and the Crystals, among others, were the American musical Holy Grail to the Beatles. Of course, the Beatles knew Spector. They had toured with the Ronettes and Spector had even accompanied the Beatles on their first visit to America, flying with them from London to New York in February of 1964. Certainly the idea of Spector producing the Beatles was a dream for them. (One wonders why they would need Klein as an intermediary.) Now, Spector had come to Lennon’s rescue and in one night made a recording of one of John’s songs that was arguably as good as anything George Martin had ever done.

Klein and Spector both criticized Martin, referring to him as “that arranger.” Of course, their characterization of Martin was way off the mark. Martin had served the Beatles well and their relationship had been a perfect match. Did they want a little space from him for a time? Yes, they did. But that didn’t diminish the success he had had with them and the tremendous talent he possessed (and still possesses to this day).

Spector was a legend, though, and an American legend to boot. The records he had made had been at the
top of the charts and began a string of hits that came before Beatlemania had its first blush. The relationships born during “Instant Karma,” would help John and George make some of the best solo music they would ever make and would result not only in John’s albums, but in George’s
All Things Must Pass.
Years later, in 1981, Spector even produced Yoko’s excellent
Season of Glass.

Spector’s work began on March 23 in Room 4 of Abbey Road, with Peter Bown as engineer and Roger Ferris as second engineer. Also in attendance were Spector’s bodyguard and, occasionally, George Harrison and Allen Klein. Spector got right down to work mixing the upbeat rock numbers “I’ve Got a Feeling,” “Dig a Pony,” “The One After 909,” and “I Me Mine.” The lone slower-tempo track he worked on was John’s “Across the Universe.” Martin Benge, who had a long, distinguished career with EMI working on Beatles sessions, and who eventually became vice president of EMI Studios worldwide, had worked on the earliest version of “Across the Universe” in 1968. He related his memories of the song:

The session I worked on was the first recording of the song to my knowledge, which at the time had a very raw, simple, John Lennon guitar-and-vocal structure when the session started, as I recall. There were various versions that followed, but this was the first
of several sessions for “Across the Universe.” The day became enshrined in recording folklore when John decided to invite a couple of girl fans waiting in the street outside the studio to come in and sing backup vocals.

Spector took out the backing vocals, which were sung by the two girls, for the final mix of the track. Benge admitted, “As for the later versions, personally I still like the original; but then I would, wouldn’t I!”

Two days later, further mixing was done, this time on “For You Blue” and, finally, on two McCartney songs, “Teddy Boy” and “Two of Us.” The next day mixing continued on “The Long and Winding Road,” “Let It Be,” “Maggie Mae,” and “Get Back.” On March 27, mixing was done on “Dig It” and on bits of dialogue, illustrating that even Spector had not discounted the idea of the album having something of an
audio-vérité
approach.

April 1 was a key date in the saga. At Abbey Road, in Studio One and in Studio Three, Spector worked on “Across the Universe, “The Long and Winding Road,” and “I Me Mine” with recording engineers Peter Bown and Richard Lush. Also in attendance was Ringo Starr. Lush, an engineer who had worked on many Beatles sessions over the years, remembered Spector saying that day, “I wonder what Paul will think when he hears it,” referring to his remix of “The Long and Winding
Road.” It has been reported that Ringo was trying to temper Spector’s hand on the mixing that day. Ringo’s concern was genuine, as Spector had assembled 50 musicians to create the dramatic orchestral backing of the track. With Richard Hewson on hand to conduct the orchestra in following his arrangement of the song, “The Long and Winding Road” became the kind of sweeping Wagnerian musical epic that Spector loved. For all of Paul McCartney’s disdain for the track that Spector produced, it’s curious that he still uses it in concert as a reference point by following the big arrangement that Hewson wrote and the big, orchestral sound that Spector created.