Last night while checking out some music I found a few fascinating choices, including another version of the so-called rooftop concert by The Beatles. This version was slightly blurry, but I watched it anyway.
Video of that rooftop performance has been around for years, since a portion of it had been included in the original "Let It Be" movie — but it didn't include all the songs The Beatles played that day.
Beatles fans are hoping for more when the upcoming Peter Jackson film "Get Back" is released exclusively on Disney+, also called Disney Plus, on Nov. 25, 26 and 27. With three segments of two hours each planned, there's plenty of time to air the whole thing.That would be great because The Beatles rooftop concert marked the last time all four Beatles played in-concert together. Previously, their last performance had been before a stadium-full of fans in 1966, at San Francisco's Candlestick Park.
Following their so-called White album, the group decided to write a batch of new songs and present them in concert for television. Various ideas were floated, including suggestions to perform aboard an ocean liner, at the ruins of a Roman colosseum in Tunisia, or at the Gaza Pyramids in Egypt.
Someone also had the idea of filming The Beatles as they wrote new songs planned for the big event. Not only were they charged with coming up with new songs from scratch — they were going to be filmed during the writing process!
How well that worked out depends on what film you see. The original "Let It Be" film by director Michael Lindsay-Hoggs, showed The Beatles snipping at each other, while initial reports say the upcoming Peter Jackson version will focus on them as fun-loving fellows.
The 1970 movie "Let It Be" marked the first time the public had seen the band in such unguarded moments. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr had always been "on" much of the time when previously in the public view. While they were certainly aware they were being filmed, they soon became less conscious of the ubiquitous cameras that were present day-in and day-out.
Their occasional snipping led to George Harrison temporarily leaving the band. During that time, he attended a Ray Charles concert in London, where a member of Charles' band included their old pal, American keyboardist and singer Billy Preston.The Beatles knew Preston from their pre-Beatlemania days in 1962, when he'd toured England as part of Little Richard's band.
By the time Harrison saw Preston again, he'd cooled down. Harrison not only returned to The Beatles, he invited Preston along too.Preston's presence eased tensions within the group and they made more of an effort to be on their best behavior.
As the sessions lingered, logistics of playing at the Pyramids or a colosseum in Tunisia started to lose their appeal. Plans for a television show were dropped — but director Lindsay-Hoggs still needed a special moment for the film's climax.
Sessions had started at the cavernous Twickenham Studios in London, not the famed Abbey Road studios where The Beatles usually recorded.
The Beatles moved the project to a more comfortable setting — the basem*nt studio in their Apple Corps building at 3 Saville Row in London. Someone suggested the band could perform on the roof of the five-story building, where they would play their songs live in the heart of the Saville Row district, which included lots of tailor and fashion shops.
Some of The Beatles got cold feet — which would soon get colder — about performing live on the five-story Apple Corps rooftop in the midst of a London winter. While the temperature stood at 45 degrees, a blustery wind whipped around the rooftops that January day.
Some accounts say both Harrison and Ringo were ready to drop the idea, until Lennon said "Let's do it!" Even so, Lennon borrowed Yoko Ono's fur coat and Ringo borrowed his wife Maureen's bright red raincoat, which accounts for some of the unusual fashions that day.
Watching The Beatles on the rooftop, with the wind whipping Lennon's hair around, I can almost sense them shivering.
As they ripped into "Get Back" — which hadn't been released at the time — people on the sidewalks below started looking upwards toward the source of the music, with pedestrians crowding sidewalks and traffic jams and blaring horns ensuing.
I don't think I'd ever stopped to consider before that many of those below may not have been aware that The Beatles were playing their songs "live" on the rooftop. The Beatles could not be seen from the streets below. For all people on the streets knew, they could be listening to a tape or record played through a loudspeaker.
Still the voices of Lennon and McCartney — the only two who sang that day — would have been very familiar to their fans. It's likely some of the pedestrians gathering on the streets were tuned into the fact they were listening to a special Beatles event.
I'd always given nods to Harrison for the simple, but effective, country-style guitar solo on "Get Back" — but it's Lennon playing those guitar licks on his hollow-body Epiphone guitar, with Harrison to his left, slogging on the rhythm.
Next, the band ripped into a soulful version of Lennon's "Don't Let Me Down" — sounding in excellent form, even if Lennon does flub some of the lyrics and ends singing what's amounts to gibberish disguised as some unknown foreign language. Lennon gives a big smile, finds his way and finishes the song in style.
One of the best things about The Beatles' rooftop concert is it shows they were still a formidable live band,Although three microphones were set up, I never saw Harrison singing into his, That could have been his choice, since he's been portrayed as the least enthusiastic about the playing on the roof that day.
Another thing is that great harmony singing between Lennon and McCartney, with Lennon singing high harmony to McCartney's lead vocals, and McCartney returning the favor by adding high harmony to Lennon's leads.
When they perform "I've Got A Feeling," at one point they are simultaneously singing different melodies and lyrics over the same set of chords — quite a feat! McCartney sings "I've got a feeling, a feeling deep inside," at the same time Lennon's singing "Everybody had a hard year, everybody had a good time."
Too bad the concert didn't last as long as The Beatles wanted. Members of the Metropolitan Police, who had a station close to the building, were bombarded by some of stuffy businessmen along Saville, complaining about the loud noise emanating from the Apple rooftop.
They supposedly gave The Beatles organization some warning, telling them they had 10 minutes before police entered the building. They weren't totally heartless. Even after police initially stopped the music, McCartney tore into another round of "Get Back" — with some new spoken-word lyrics improvised at the end:
"Get back, Loretta. You've been playing on the roofs again. Your momma doesn't like it. She's gonna have you arrested!"
I'd never heard that before. It seemed like a hilarious way to end the rooftop concert— but Lennon had a zinger of his own:
"I'd just like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we passed the audition."
Watching British police break up the rooftop concert reminded me of a story my friend Trevor Dunbar told me about a time when he and some of his friends had set up their guitars and amps and were rocking away at full volume in the back yard.
It didn't take long for a couple of McAlester police officers to stop by and tell them there had been complaints about the loud music. The musicians agreed to turn it down, when one of the officers asked Trevor to hand him his guitar and the other officer asked the bass player to do the same.
Wow! I asked were the police going to make sure you guys put the instruments away, or even worse, impound them for evidence?
"Nope," said Trevor. "They started playing 'Iron Man.'"
Contact James Beaty at jbeaty@mcalesternews.com.
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