Fifty Years of Music • The Beatles Compilation Albums, 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 • Released April, 1973

By Paul Hobbs

The Beatles ended, embroiled in a fierce battle regarding who should take over the management of their affairs. They were bleeding money. They were growing apart. But, they convened once again at EMI studios, later to be officially renamed Abbey Road Studios, to record the album, named for the road on which the studio is located.

John Lennon would later speak, dismissively, about Abbey Road, but was enthusiastic when interviewed by Alan Smith for New Musical Express in 1969. He talked about how much he and Paul were writing individually and that he was going to Paul’s to write with him at the conclusion of the interview — they were working on Abbey Road.

The narrative we got, on the other hand, was immediately redirected by the release of Let It Be, the album and accompanying film. They had been shelved indefinitely, due to the extensive editing needed on the film, and subsequent production of the album being handed over to Phil Spector as the Beatles washed their hands of it. They were released, respectively, as the last Beatle album, and a film of a band in the process of writing and recording that album. It also showed them in the process of falling apart.

The album is considered by many Beatle fans to be the weakest in their canon, and the film shows them to be, constantly, at odds with one another. It’s presented as the Beatles at the end of the line. Very depressing! And then they were gone.

I and my fellow Beatle fans were shocked and saddened. We carried on loyally following the solo careers of John, Paul, George, and Ringo, but it would never be the same. Three years crept by. It seemed like 30. And then…

The Beatles Red (1962-1966) and Blue (1967-1970) albums were released simultaneously — on April 2nd, here, and April 19th in England — in 1973. All the fanfare of this new collection of old Beatle songs, and not-as-old Beatle songs, reawakened the passion of Beatle fans everywhere. It had been three years, man! They were thirsting for more Beatles. It didn’t matter that true Beatle fans had most of this stuff in their record collections already. The two albums sold like hotcakes.

This release heralded the new trend of repackaging songs in various forms. They had the quintessential Red and Blue, Rock and Roll, Love Songs, Past Masters (Volumes 1 and 2). The album featuring all their singles that reached number one, 1, not only sold well, but catapulted the band back to the top of the charts when it was released in November of 2000.

The Beatles Discography

They even repackaged the first eight Beatle albums released by Capitol in the 60s as two, separate boxed sets that also sold astoundingly well. These were the albums that Dave Dexter, the A&R man for Capitol Records, whose job it was to facilitate the integration of British acts on American radio, had assembled. EMI, who owned a 97% share of Capitol, sent all The Beatles’ singles to him, all of which he passed on before, according to some sources, he was directed to accept I Want To Hold Your Hand. He was responsible for borrowing tracks from one album to add to another, and for brazenly adding reverb to tracks that George Martin and The Beatles had painstakingly mixed to perfection before Dave got his hands on them. Sorry, I digress.

The Beatles were further reimagined, if you will, with the highly anticipated film Get Back. Here they were shown to ultimately love each other, some of the time, and on one occasion, George and John, are seen expressing an openness to work on side projects and reconvene for Beatle albums. Oh, what could have been!

At any rate, the record companies, and The Beatles are still raking it in. Those Beatles: the gift that keeps on giving.

The Beatles/1962-1966

 

The Beatles/1967-1970

Fifty Years of Music • Eagles, Desperado • Released April 17, 1973

 

I'm as pleased as an outlaw in a sleepy town bank to write this post.

First hitching post.

It's September, 1975 and I've just moved into the Toltec dorms at San Diego State University as a junior transfer. It's my first time living away from home and I'm teamed up with another junior, Kevin Kuhlmeyer from Pasadena, California. 

We become friends and share our love for the Eagles. Kevin has just bought the new Eagles album that came out in June 1975, One of These Nights. Kevin quickly proclaims it as the "best" Eagles album. I too love One of these Nights, but in a fun dorm room debate stake my claim that Desperado is indeed the best Eagles album. 

During that 1975-76 school year, we will share each others records on our respective turntables as we both have complete stereo systems in our little 10' x 12' cell block dorm room. So one day during the spring semester, I walk into the room and Kevin is sitting with his friend, Debbie Phelps listening to Desperado, and he says to me, "Doug, I think Desperado is now my favorite Eagles album." Rest in peace my friend, I'll always cherish our year together.

Second hitching post.

YouTube was started in 2005, and then was purchased in 2006 by Google for $1.65 billion dollars. (In 2022, YouTube is estimated to be worth $180 billion dollars.)

If you're old enough to remember the wild west of streaming music back in the early 2000's, you might recall that thing called, "Napster" was shot down like a dirty dog in the street in 2001. Another outlaw online streaming service, Limewire was hung in the public square in 2011. I say this in context as various bands like The Beatles and Eagles were slow to embrace the new streaming format for music. The Beatles didn't appear on the very "legit"  iTunes until 2010, for example.

Since the early 2000's, most famous bands and artists eventually put all their content on YouTube, Spotify (2006), and Amazon Music (2007) as they figured pennies on the dollar were better than no pennies at all. 

However, there were a few holdouts who were not going to give it all away as the Eagles, and in particular, Don Henley was just not having it. It's like he hired Palidin from Have Gun - Will Travel as an AI bot bounty hunter taking down non-approved fan uploads of Eagles and Henley songs with his six-shooter. 

In January 2015, I started writing this blog and used another outlaw free streaming service called "Grooveshark" to build my playlists. By April, that too was strung up, and thus I made my way to YouTube that still stands tall today like Gary Cooper in High Noon as my playlist app of choice. 

Last year, I was doolin-dalton around on YouTube, and found that every song from Desperado was now actually there! By combining a 2018 Eagles greatest hits album called, Eagles - Legacy with the non-hits from Desperado, that had been uploaded in 2014, I was finally able to blacksmith a complete Desperado YouTube album playlist. Phew! (So how many of these cowboy references is he going to throw in here?)

Third hitching post.

In preparing this blog post, I came across a website called, Randy Meisner - Hearts on Fire. You have to stop and click here first, before listening to the playlist as it chronicles the outlaw photo shoot by Henry Diltz and includes many interesting articles, you'll love it!

Jackson Browne, JD Souther, Bernie Leadon, Randy Meisner, Don Henley & Glenn Frey

Enjoy the Desperado playlist my friends. 

Fifty Years of Music • April, 1973

April of 1973 finds me instantly buying Seals and Crofts Diamond Girl as the soft rock duo is at the height of their careers. 

Their 1974 follow up, Unborn Child would smack their young fans in the face with their anti-abortion stance as Roe v Wade had just been passed in January of 1973. Looking back 50 years later, I guess the duo got their wish as the Supreme Court ended Roe v Wade last June, not to mention our current political landscape. For me, Unborn Child was an awakening of how religion and rock 'n' roll simply don't mix. 

Diamond Girl, and Seals and Crofts' previous albums had played that middle ground of rock 'n' roll fan tolerance, as we all love a good song about peace and unity without dipping deep into the religious dogma. My enthusiasm for Seals and Crofts (and their fan base) dropped off instantly. Also, anybody remember Yusuf Islam?

But in 1973, I was a huge Seals and Crofts fan and wore out Diamond Girl and Year of Sunday on my portable record player in my room.

Upon the release of David Bowie's, Aladdin Sane, I hardly gave it a thought as "glam" rock was not in my orbit. However, by the summer of '73 I was dating the Judge's daughter and she had just bought that album. In any event, I heard a lot of Aladdin Sane and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars that year, and my appreciation for Mr. Bowie continues to this day, with one big caveat. Bowie, looking past the Ziggy Stardust character should have never dropped his guitar player and arranger, Mick Ronson. What a team those two made! David was always the star without having to throw out Mick Ronson with the bath water. 

If it's one thing most bands who become famous seem to forget and eventually lose, is that duality of talent that got them to the big stage in the first place. There's a lot to be said about the Rolling Stones, but you have to give a tip of the hat to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as those two seemed to figure it out through periods of separation, and not the finality of divorce.

In listening to Paul McCartney and Wings Red Red Speedway, and Stephen Stills and Manassas' Down the Road, I was a little more impressed 50 years later, but back in 1973, not so much. I was a huge fan of both and it seemed that the quality had dropped off by many of the 1960's rock 'n' roll gods.

However, three albums that came out in April, 1973 would quickly change my spirits. 

On April 17, 1973 one of my favorite albums of all-time, Desperado was released by the Eagles. That will be my feature next week.

In two weeks, Paul Hobbs returns with his take of the April 1973 release of The Beatles' two compilation albums, 1962-1966 and, 
1967-1970. 

Enjoy the playlist my friends.

#BestSongIHeardToday • Volume 21 - Analog Man

So much of everything we do these days is digital. When Joe Walsh's Analog Man came on the other day, I thought about my most enduring analog task, handwriting outline notes and
___To Do Lists
___To Do Lists
___To Do Lists.

My wife and I share a Google Calendar, but she likes her spiral notebook style calendar too. She says if she handwrites an event in, she remembers it much better than entering it in the app. The calendar, not a bad wingman for the mind.

People who handwrite a self-journal most enjoy a worn beat up cover and tattered pages. The physical vessel itself is like a broken in baseball glove, it just fits the owner.

My favorite pen of all-time is the Uni•ball Air. The pen shown here is the Uni•ball Vision Elite as I've been giving that a test run. My penmanship is crap, always has been. Sometimes I have to squint at my own chicken scratch to see what the hell I have written. 

When I was young, I feared the moment of pencil in hand staring at lined paper... what to do next? Now with a lot of years hanging over my belt, I sit in front of my laptop keyboard and the writing comes easier. I like the ying yang of shifting from the keyboard to picking up the pen and jotting down some notes, doing a doddle, recycling the blank backside page from using my printer to print something almost instantly useless.

Near the bottom of my current (pictured above) To Do List, I have listed ___ Blog Vol. 21. From the looks of things here, scratch that one off.

Enjoy the playlist my friends.