Number 27 - Patti and Eric's Party

Beatles Involved:

Paul, George, Ringo

Listenability:

No recording is known to exist.

In May 1979 Paul, George and Ringo all attended a party to celebrate Eric Clapton and Patti Boyd's wedding, which had taken place back in March. Different accounts of Patti's state that Paul, George and Ringo got up on stage all at the same time at and played a number of songs, including Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This was part of a broader jam session that included other musicians. While the three former Beatles did attend the party, it is not 100 % certain that the three former Beatles all played together at once on stage. None of them have said they did and there are no photos of the three of them on stage. This is an important reunion however, as the three of them did at least hang out together for a photo and it is possible that the three of them did jam together.

What they said about it:

Ringo: Later that month I was at Eric and Pattie Clapton’s wedding. That was a really good day except that Ronnie Lane was there and he had just found out that he had multiple sclerosis. I said, ‘Hey Ronnie. How are you doing?’ He said, ‘I’m melting.’

Zak and Jim Capaldi were playing drums because Eric had a band set up on stage. I have fond memories of that day. (Taken from Postcards From The Boys p.85)

Paul: We were having a booze-up and a laugh and suddenly we were playing together again. It felt pretty good to me...It'll be great to do one like that again, with just the four of us, once Sean [Lennon] is 5 and John starts playing again.
(Taken from The Daily Gazette, January 28, 1994 - A newspaper from Schenectady, New York. Original quote is from 1979 or 1980, although the original source is not stated. 'You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup' p.262 attributes a nearly identical, but shorter version of this quote to Ringo. The language used and the openness about the topic however sounds far more like that of McCartney. McCartney did a lot of interviews during this period.)

Patti Boyd: In May, when Eric was home briefly between tours, Roger organised the most extravagant wedding party for us at Hurtwood Edge. Three hundred people came – Eric’s family, my family, the Ripleyites, the local farmers and tradespeople, and lots of great musicians, who jammed together. We had Jeff Beck, Ronnie Wood, Bill Wyman, Donovan, Robert Plant, Robert Palmer and Jack Bruce. George, Paul and Ringo came – for some reason John wasn’t invited, but he said he would have come if he’d been asked, which was sad because if he had, it would have been the first and last time the Beatles played together since the break-up – the next year he was dead.

Lonnie Donegan turned up, uninvited, and said, ‘Where are they all?’

I took him up to the smallest room in the house where they were smoking joints and said, as I opened the door, ‘Guess who’s here?’

They all jumped up and tried to hide the evidence, then George said, ‘I remember when I was a little boy and I knocked on the door of your house and asked for your autograph,’ and Donegan said, ‘That’s why I’m here. I want it back!’ 

(Taken from Patti Boyd's autobiograph. Woderful Tonight p.211 to 212)

Eric Clapton: One of the first things that Pattie did when she got back to England was set about organizing a party for all our English friends to celebrate our wedding. It was set for Saturday, 19 May, when there was a break in my tour schedule, and was to take place in the garden at Hurtwood, where a huge marquee had been erected.

The first person I remember arriving was Lonnie Donegan,…There was a stage in the marquee, the idea being that the band would consist of anyone who felt like getting up and playing. A succession of great musicians joined in the jam session that took place later in the evening, including Georgie [Fame] and Lonnie [Donegan], Jeff Beck, Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, Jack Bruce and Denny Laine. I remember Denny’s wife, Jo Jo, getting up to sing and then we couldn’t get her off, so whoever was at the mixing board had to keep switching off whichever mike she was using, and she would just move to another one. George, Paul and Ringo also played, only missing John, who later phoned me to say that would have been there too if he had known about it. How that came about I’ll never know, suffice to say I had little to do with the invitations.

(Taken from: Eric Clapton, The Autobiography p.199 -201)

Denny Laine: It's lucky nobody made a tape. The music was terrible, absolute rubbish.
(Taken from: You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup p.261)

The coloured photo of Paul, Lonnie Donegan, George and Ringo to have surfaced.

Paul, George and Ringo with skiffle musican Lonnie Donegan
(The original of this photo is double exposed with a photo of a baby.)

Paul, George, Ringo and Lonnie Donegan

Paul, Ringo and others.

Number 26 - Oh My Love

 Beatles Involved: 

John and George

Listenability: 

4.5 out of 5

Co-written by Yoko this track is arguably one of John's greatest ballads. It features some delicate, melodic guitar picking by George which adds to the richness of the song. The lyrics, chord structure, John's piano playing (which is augmented by Nicky Hopkins on keyboard) all combine to produce a gentle, affective sound. 

What They Said About It:

John: 

You hear Yoko's classical influence. She was trained as a classical musician all her life, and she only went mad, avant garde, later in life, you know, (laughter) like a lot of people do. And she...
Mike Douglas: Let's be honest, John, when she met you...
No, she went bananas before she met me. (laughter) We're both bananas, that's why we fell in love. But this song, you can hear the classical influence of Yoko . . . has influenced me on this. And this is 80% her lyric and 50% her tune on this, and it really influenced me. You can hear a Japanese influence. Taken from conversation on Mike Douglas Show.

Yoko:

We wrote it together... Taken from conversation on Mike Douglas Show.

In most love songs you're making people feel hot or whatever about each other. But instead of that, he's saying, "I see it clearly for the first time." It's not so much about sexual interest or "I miss you" - it's more to do with true love. Taken from Rolling Stone 2010 - An article in which Yoko placed 'Oh My Love' at the top of her Top 10 John Lennon songs.

 Other Bits and Pieces

• Bono of U2 fame is also a fan of 'Oh My Love'. In a 2005 interview with Jann Wenner of Rolling Stone magazine he said:

I remember John singing “Oh My Love.” It’s like a little hymn. It’s certainly a prayer of some kind – even if he was an atheist. “Oh, my love / For the first time in my life / My eyes can see / I see the wind / Oh, I see the trees/ Everything is clear in our world.” For me it was like he was talking about the veil lifting off, the scales falling from the eyes. Seeing out the window with a new clarity that love brings you. I remember that feeling. Taken from Rolling Stone November 2005

• There is a lot of footage available of this song being recorded. The following clip is one of the most interesting. It includes John playing the piano and calling out the chords to George who is playing along on guitar. John doesn't know the name of one of the chords and has to ask Yoko. Later in the clip George and Yoko briefly converse and then John borrows George's steel guitar and is suitably impressed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=qD06sTxFA9w#at=509

•  The 1971 version has little in common with the 1968 demo of the same song, apart from the opening line. You can hear the demo version on the clip below.

• Here's a link to an isolated track of George's guitar playing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRHHb57mqlI

 

Number 25 - Now and Then

Beatles Involved:

John (posthumous), Paul, George and Ringo

Listenability:

No recording involving more 

than one Beatle is available.

For a few months in early 1994 and early 1995 Paul, George and Ringo utilised John's home demos of 'Free As A Bird' and 'Real Love' to create two new Beatles songs. At some point during this period they also worked briefly on a third John home demo which is variously titled 'Now and Then' or 'I Don't Want To Lose You' or 'Miss You'. The three Beatles abandoned their attempts to embellish the song shortly after they started. John's home demo reveals that the song itself isn't particularly good. It has some nice moments, but overall it is slow and lugubrious. A slightly sped up edited version of the song can be heard below.

What They Said About It:

Paul:

It didn't have a very good title, it needed a bit of reworking. It had a beautiful verse and it had John singing on it. But George didn't want to do it. 

Taken from: Daily Express. Sun, April 29. 2007

And there was another one, that we started working on but George went off it (grumbles imitating George’s voice) ‘...rubbish this is’. It’s like, ‘No George, this is John’. He said, ‘It’s still... rubbish!’ ‘Oh, OK then’. So that one’s still lingering around too. I’m gonna nick in with Jeff and do it, finish it, one of these days.                       Taken from Mr Blue Sky - The story of Jeff Lynne and ELO (BBC documentary) 

Ringo:

And we also did another song that we didn't finish because that's not how The Beatles worked. We didn't just do John songs, or Paul songs. We needed a couple of George tracks, a couple of Paul's, and my track, to make it more real.               Taken from Q. December 1995 p.128

Yoko Ono:

I sent those songs to them when the situation was quite different. Now that George is gone, I don't know if the same would apply. I will consider the possibility, that is, when I get the call.Yoko in 2005 responding to media reports that the song could be finished as a Beatles song. Taken from: The Washington Post Sunday, August 21, 2005 

Jeff Lynne:

Question: They didn't work on any other songs than the three you mentioned? Didn't work on "Grow Old With Me," as a lot of press reports said? 

No. It was only the three.

Question: How many sessions were there for the third song? 

It was one day - one afternoon, really - messing with it, because a lot of the words weren't on there. We did the backing track, a sort of backing track, a rough go of one that we didn't really finish. We got an arrangement kind of going but we didn't finish it and went straight on to "Real Love" because of the time factor. 

Question: Is there a possibility you will all get together to finish that song?  

There was never anything said about that. 

Taken from Beatlefan #97. Parts of this same interview were also published in LA TIMES Nov 18, 1995

Question: How about that? So will we ever hear "Grow Old With Me" or "All For Love" or "Help Me To Help Myself"? 

I don't think we'll ever hear the extra one. There was one other song that we listened to and I think we may have played on it once - or they may have played once through it - but it was never done or finished or anything like that.
Taken from: The Examiner, February 15, 2013.

Question: I understand there was a third track you worked on with Paul, George and Ringo called 'Now and Then.'

We started on it. It was good, but it never got finished. It never got developed enough as a song for us to ever go back and seriously finish it, but it could be finished one day. Taken from: Gold Mine Interview, 'Jeff Lynne revists his roots with ELO and classic covers projects. 24 June 2013 

Geoff Emerick:

We did start work on it, but it was obviously unfinished from a writing point of view, so we thought, we'd work on 'Real Love' which had a complete set of words. It'll need to be completed as a song before everybody decides what to do with it, and it's not hard to imagine who would finish writing it. 

Taken from: SOUND ON SOUND Magazine (December 1995). Geoff Emerick is the recording studio audio engineer who worked with The Beatles on a number of their later albums and their 1990's studio reunions.

Other Bits and Pieces:

• A number of 'fake reunion' versions of the song 'Now and Then' exist on the internet featuring overdubs to remake the song in the style of The Beatles. Two of these are featured below:

Number 24 - Beautiful Night

Beatles Involved:

Paul and Ringo

Listenability: 3 out of 5.

A Paul piano ballad from the 1980's that he dug out and rerecorded in 1996 for his Flaming Pie album. Ringo plays drums on the track and other highlights include George Martin's orchestration at the end with Ringo adding some lead vocals for the extended coda. The song's chords are nice and the melody is passable. The lyrics go nowhere and detract from the overall quality of the song.

What They Said About It:

Paul:

For years I’ve been saying to Ringo, ‘cause we’d never really done much work outside The Beatles, oh it’d be great to do something you know. Because we got our friendship going again with The Anthology. And I’d had a song called Beautiful Night which I wrote quite a long time ago. And I’d always liked it, and people who’d heard it had liked it. But I never felt it was the right version of it. I just felt I just hadn’t quite pulled it off.

And so I got Beautiful Night out, sorted it out, got the chords and stuff and all that. It goes really nice, I sat down, I sat on the piano and he just started and it was just like old days and I realised we haven’t done this for so long, you know. And it was so comfortable, because you know, it is that thing, if you’ve know each other that long and done so much work with them, unless you both completely lose the plot it’s sort of still there you know. So it very much was and it was lovely to work with him again. And as we’re coming away from the...into the control room, Ringo sort of [said] ‘Come on, on your way.’ He was doing like a doorman so we left that on the end of the track.

Ringo:

He invited me to play on the track ‘Beautiful Night’ so I said ‘Sure’. ‘Cause I think it’s a beautiful track and we found the time when I was in England and we spent the day with him and Linda and record, Barbara and I. I still feel really comfortable playing with his bass playing. Well playing with him really, but you know, the drums and bass. It’s, I think you know we have all that history and it comes into play when we play together. You just can’t dismiss that.

Other Bits and Pieces 

• The following video shows Paul recording the track and includes some footage of Ringo and George Martin.

• Vocal group 'Blake' recorded a cover version of Beautiful Night and released the following video clip in early  2013.

Back Off Boogaloo

What if John and George were still here?

Paul....

If John and George were still here it’s highly likely we would’ve had a Beatles ­reunion. I think we would’ve mellowed to the point where we would’ve said, ‘Come on, let’s do it.'

The thing was whenever we got ­together, no matter if we were arguing, we played great. We knew each other so well; we read each other. So if Ringo would speed up a little bit, we all would speed up. So we were like hands in a glove....It would’ve been great, but I’m not a great believer in ‘What if?’ You can’t do it, but I suppose it’s nice to speculate. Taken from The Daily Express (UK) Sun, October 2, 2011

Ringo....

Question: Would The Beatles have reunited by now had they all survived, after all their Sixies arch-rivals the Rolling Stone are back on the road again and due to headline Glastonbury next month for the first time?

 Don’t know, it’s a crazy question... but... I’d like to think, yes, we would. Paul still goes out with his band, I go out with mine and John would probably have been going out with his. George was not big on touring so I’m not sure about him. But who knows... it could have come together. Taken from The Daily Mirror 10 June, 2013

Olivia Harrison....

Question Do you think he [George Harrison] would ever have got back with The Beatles if the others had wanted a reunion?

I think so, yes, I do, because he had great love for the others. He really did. As you get older, you value and treasure your friends so much more.
I don’t even want to think about what it would have been like. Very often there are times I think, “Oh, I wish George were here for that.” He became more and more loving towards everything. He came to appreciate his friends so much more. 

Taken from The Sun, UK 12^th June 2009

 Yoko Ono....

I wish John was here. He would've been here you know. He would've come. 

Yoko speaking at The Beatles induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which involved a partial Beatles Reunion of George and Ringo in 1988.

George Martin...

Question: Hypothetically, if John were still alive would he have gotten involve with Anthology and recorded with Paul, George and Ringo?

I think he would have taken part in it. I think he would have been very active in putting it together ‘cause John actually was an obsessive collector anyway. He would keep almost anything. I think he would have done. John actually regained himself at the end which was lovely. It was just too tragic having got back to himself that he was killed. Taken from: Rock Cellar Magazine - April 2013. 

Paul, George and Ringo in 2000. 

This photo was first published Pattie Boyd's autobiography in 2007. 

The original caption read: 

'Paul, Ringo and George at a party to celebrate Ringo's birthday at 

his house in Sussex. George being a minx, trying to get Ringo to 

drink alcohol after twenty years.'

What If...

What if John and George were still here?

Paul....

If John and George were still here it’s highly likely we would’ve had a Beatles ­reunion. I think we would’ve mellowed to the point where we would’ve said, ‘Come on, let’s do it.'

The thing was whenever we got ­together, no matter if we were arguing, we played great. We knew each other so well; we read each other. So if Ringo would speed up a little bit, we all would speed up. So we were like hands in a glove....It would’ve been great, but I’m not a great believer in ‘What if?’ You can’t do it, but I suppose it’s nice to speculate. Taken from The Daily Express (UK) Sun, October 2, 2011

Ringo....

Question: Would The Beatles have reunited by now had they all survived, after all their Sixies arch-rivals the Rolling Stone are back on the road again and due to headline Glastonbury next month for the first time?

 Don’t know, it’s a crazy question... but... I’d like to think, yes, we would. Paul still goes out with his band, I go out with mine and John would probably have been going out with his. George was not big on touring so I’m not sure about him. But who knows... it could have come together. Taken from The Daily Mirror 10 June, 2013

Olivia Harrison....

Question Do you think he [George Harrison] would ever have got back with The Beatles if the others had wanted a reunion?

I think so, yes, I do, because he had great love for the others. He really did. As you get older, you value and treasure your friends so much more.
I don’t even want to think about what it would have been like. Very often there are times I think, “Oh, I wish George were here for that.” He became more and more loving towards everything. He came to appreciate his friends so much more. 

Taken from The Sun, UK 12^th June 2009

 Yoko Ono....

I wish John was here. He would've been here you know. He would've come. 

Yoko speaking at The Beatles induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which involved a partial Beatles Reunion of George and Ringo in 1988.

George Martin...

Question: Hypothetically, if John were still alive would he have gotten involve with Anthology and recorded with Paul, George and Ringo?

I think he would have taken part in it. I think he would have been very active in putting it together ‘cause John actually was an obsessive collector anyway. He would keep almost anything. I think he would have done. John actually regained himself at the end which was lovely. It was just too tragic having got back to himself that he was killed. Taken from: Rock Cellar Magazine - April 2013. 

Paul, George and Ringo in 2000. 

This photo was first published Pattie Boyd's autobiography in 2007. 

The original caption read: 

'Paul, Ringo and George at a party to celebrate Ringo's birthday at 

his house in Sussex. George being a minx, trying to get Ringo to 

drink alcohol after twenty years.'

Illustration from front cover of Billboard Magazine Argentina November 2013.
The artist, Sebas Domenech, said,
When I was asked to do the cover for Billboard about the Beatles it was hard not to fall into the same images as always. So it occurred to me to make the 4 together, as if they were together today, because one of the topics of the cover story was the life of the Beatles and their music.To make the 4 together I had to imagine how Lennon and Harrison would be today if they were alive. Harrison was not so difficult, as he died eleven years ago and so I had some clue as to how he would look when older. But when I had to imagine Lennon I began to chat with friends and people who know the Beatles and asked them what they imagined. The person who gave me the most accurate idea...told me "look at Yoko". Also...I imagined that Lennon would be an average hipster today and came well to illustrate the launch of its application to Apple, that is why he has an iPad in his hand. I did it in four days because it was a last-minute order. But I really enjoyed doing this work, it was a huge challenge!"
Source: Original Spanish taken from: http://www.eblog.com.ar/20262/adelanto-billboard-argentina-noviembre/

Number 23 - It Don't Come Easy

Beatles Involved:

George and Ringo

Listenability: 3.5 out of 5

The official songwriting credits for Ringo's trademark song from 1970 (released in 1971) mention Ringo as the sole composer. In 1997 he revealed however that he wrote it with George Harrison who had also produced the song. Lyrically the song include lyrics about peace and love. Musically the song seems to owe some of its structure to Eric Clapton's 'Let It Rain' which was co-written by Clapton and Bonnie and Delaney Bramlett. Both songs open to similar effect with a guitar riff played through twice then share the same chord structure for the verses. The similarity is too great to be coincidental particularly given that Bonnie, Delaney, Eric and George were all playing and jamming together in 1970.

What they said about it:

Ringo:

This next song we're gonna do is gonna be called "It Don't Come Easy".I wrote this song with the one and only George Harrison! Let's hear it for George!!And we wrote it in the early seventies and, you know, George was very much into spiritual things, and so we were writing this song and we got to like the last verse and he sang "God""Oh no, George, I don't sing about God, you sing about God. "So he, hum, hum, "Hare Krishna""No, no, I don't, you sing about Hare Krishna, I don't think so""But what about "Peace" ok?""Peace, ok!"So we settled on the word "peace" and you'll hear it when we get to it." 

Taken from VH1 Storytellers.

 Other bits and pieces:

• George Harrison also sang lead vocals on an early demo version of It Don't Come Easy. Listening to this version it is to conclude that George was possibly the main song writer of the song, with Ringo merely contributing a few lyrical changes.

•  A fan has also mixed Ringo's and George's vocals and come up with this:

• Compare 'It Don't Come Easy' with Eric Clapton's 'Let It Rain':

• The connection between Delaney Bramlett and George goes beyond a few shared chords. In an interview with Mark Shapiro, Delaney reveals how George took Delaney's idea for My Sweet Lord.

Delaney Bramlett:   

George came up to me one night after a show on that tour and said “You write a lot of gospel songs and I’d like to know what inspires you to do that.” And so I gave him my explanation.I told him that I get things from the Bible, from what a preacher may say or just the feelings I felt toward God.  George said, “Well can you give me a for instance?”  He wanted to know how I would start. So I grabbed my guitar and started playing The Chiffons melody from ‘He’s So Fine’ and then sang the words My Sweet Lord/Oh My Lord/Oh My Lord/ I Just Wanna Be With You… George said okay. Then I said “Then you praise the Lord in your own way.” 

As it happened Rita Coolidge, who was on the tour, and my wife at the time – Bonnie – were sitting there and so I told them that when we got to this one part, they should sing “Hallelujah.”  They did.  We ran down the example a few times. George seemed satisfied. He said okay and that was the end of it.... 

[When] All Things Must Pass album came out and My Sweet Lord was released as the single. I was surprised and not very happy about it. I immediately called George up and told him that I didn’t mean for him to use the melody of He’s So Fine. He said “Well it’s not exactly the same,” and I guess it really wasn’t. I could tell by listening to the song that he did put some curves on it.  But I guess that didn’t stop him from being sued.

Taken from RockCellar Magazine. For more of this interview go to:

http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/2011/06/03/did-delaney-bramlett-really-write-my-sweet-lord/

• According to Delaney Bramlett's daughter Michele, Delaney also helped teach George how to play slide guitar.

Michelle:

In December 1969, “Delaney & Bonnie & Friends” played the Royal Albert Hall in London, “and all the Beatles were right there in the front row,” Dad said in an interview. He said… “George Harrison came backstage, and he said, ‘Will you teach me how to play that slide?’ And I said, ‘You ain’t done too bad, the Beatles aren’t slouches, George.’ And he said, ‘But I don’t know how to play like you play slide.’ So I did.” That was our dad’s heart…he had “a big’n” George had his first “slide bottle” placed in his hand by Dad who quickly taught George how to play slide and write a Gospel song. Out of that lesson came “My Sweet Lord”.

Taken from: An Interview with the Bramlett sisters Written by Hank “Hitman” Hart Monday, 29 March 2010

http://michelebramlett.com/art/interview-with-bramlett-sisters/