Comprehensive six-disc boxset – guaranteed to raise a smile!
FIFTY years on, where do you start with Sgt Pepper? How about with the ending. On January 19, 1967, The Beatles began work on a song provisionally titled“In The Life Of…”. Even in an embryonic state, with just John Lennon on acoustic guitar and Paul McCartney on piano, the song is clearly on a par with the innovative studio recordings for “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” that have filled the previous weeks. This new song takes in newspaper headlines and suburban drudgery; its tone is sorrowful and poignant; its structure progressive. The only trouble is, The Beatles don’t have a satisfactory conclusion for it. “Take 1” finds assistant Mal Evans counting bars before McCartney’s piano chords simply halt. Another take, meanwhile, finds The Beatles hitting upon a more experimental approach, humming a final chord in unison with a little help from their friends. The sound is striking: part churchy hymnal, part meditative chant. The Beatles settle, finally, on a climactic major E piano chord, played simultaneously on three different pianos. “Have you got your loud pedal down, Mal?” asks McCartney. “Which one’s that?” replies Evans. “That right hand one, far right,” explains McCartney. “It keeps the echo going.”
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Kim Gordon: La Ghosts & Flowers
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'I'll Tell You The Full Story…'
During the past 12 months, a series of lavish boxsets have tracked DAVID BOWIE’s early development throughout 1968 and 1969. As this comprehensive archeological survey concludes with Conversation Piece, long-serving producer TONY VISCONTI relives the highs and lows of Bowie’s breakthrough. There are ham sandwiches, Marc Bolan impressions, the peerless “Space Oddity”, and tearful studio interludes… but, most importantly, we learn how the music made during this brief but pivotal period critically influenced one superstar in the making: David Bowie himself…
