Beatles final album

May 8th is the anniversary of the release of the LAST studio Beatles album. "Let It Be" released in 1970, almost a month AFTER they broke-up and was actually recorded before the "Abbey Road" road album, but released in reverse order. They only recorded as "The Beatles" for 7 years ?!

Also, on January 30, 1969, the "Let It Be" rooftop concert was the final public performance of the Beatles. The audio was recorded by engineer Alan Parsons (yes, THAT Alan Parsons!) and film director Michael Lindsay-Hogg brought in a camera crew to capture several angles of the performance—including reactions from people on the street. The performance was cut short by the police after complaints about noise. The concert came to an end with the conclusion of "Get Back", with John Lennon saying, "I'd like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we've passed the audition."

The Beatles official website

Beatles Influences

The Beatles influenced a lot of groups after them, but who influenced the Beatles? Since they grew up in post-war Liverpool (a seaport), the sailors would bring vinyl from the USA. The Beatles were drawn to acts like Chuck Berry (Roll Over Beethoven), Carl Perkins (Honey Don't) and Little Richard (Long Tall Sally). Their vocal harmonies were very much influenced by American Motown groups like The Marvelettes (Please Mr. Postman).

For extra bonus fun, check out each of these songs by the original artist and writer (linked above) and then The Beatles version (linked below).

Roll Over Beethoven

Honey Don't




Long Tall Sally




Please Mr. Postman

The Beatles debut

I want to post a few items about The Beatles. I've been thinking about them lately and just need to share.

Their first album was released March 23, 1963 (in the UK). The oldest of The Beatles at this time was 23 years! Did you know they recorded their debut album in ONE DAY! Because they had so much experience performing live, they just went in the studio and laid it down. It's estimated they had played 1200 live shows before "Please Please Me" album. Lennon-McCartney writing team had many great songs on this album, but it still included several covers, including one written by Carol King (Chains), and another by Burt Bacharach (Baby It's You).

Initially, George Martin had only a morning and afternoon session booked; the evening session was added later. Therefore, at 10:00 am on Monday, 11 February 1963, the Beatles began working their way through their live set song by song, the number of takes varying on each, and finished at 10:45 pm—less than 13 hours later— capturing in essence an authentic representation of the band's Cavern Club-era sound. The day ended with a cover of "Twist and Shout", which had to be recorded last because John Lennon had a particularly bad cold and Martin feared the throat-shredding vocal would ruin Lennon's voice for the day. This performance, caught on the FIRST TAKE!, prompted Martin to say: "I don't know how they do it. We've been recording all day but the longer we go on the better they get." Mark Lewisohn (historian/author) would later write: "There can scarcely have been 585 more productive minutes in the history of recorded music".

The first 3 links below are tracks directly from the album, the last track, Twist and Shout is a LIVE video performance in Sweden in 1963 !

 Please Please Me
 Chains
 Baby It's You
 Twist and Shout