Monday, February 11, 2013

Please Please Me

Mark Lewisohn, writing in The Complete Beatles Chronicle, said: "There can scarcely have been 585 more productive minutes in the history of recorded music."
Fifty years later, they're trying to recreate those magical 585 minutes:
On Monday 11th February 1963 the Beatles’ debut album was recorded in just one day. On the 50th anniversary of that 12-hour session at Abbey Road, leading artists attempt the same feat, in the same timescale, in the same studio. Acclaimed guitarist Graham Coxon, Glenn Tilbrook and Chris Difford from Squeeze and Manchester’s I Am Kloot join soul sensation Joss Stone, The Stereophonics, Gabrielle Aplin and Mick Hucknall for the event. The results are broadcast live in exact recording order and timing, as Abbey Road links up with Western House throughout the day on Radio 2, on Monday 11th February 2013. The event will then be broadcast on BBC Four at the end of that week in an hour long special.
Keep track in real time HERE.

Good luck to the fucker who's signed up for Twist and Shout:
The final track of the day Twist And Shout, held back to the end because of fears that John Lennon's already ailing voice could be wrecked if it was played any earlier, was captured in one take. Once it was recorded, the singers voice was so wrecked it was decided the record must stand. ''Trying for a second take, Lennon found he had nothing left and the session stopped there and then - but the atmosphere was still crackling,'' wrote Ian MacDonald, the late chronicler of Beatles recordings. ''Nothing of that intensity had ever been recorded in a British pop studio.''
Follow Slate's other "Beatles 50 years ago today" bits HERE.

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