Rockument News

Let It Be... Naked -- Beatles to Release New Version

No, this is not a Yoko Ono project (although she recently performed her famous "Cut Piece" in Paris, in which people from the audience come up and use scissors to cut off pieces of her clothing, all in the name of peace). The two remaining Beatles, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, have decided to put out a new version of the classic Let It Be album. But this version would leave out the often-derided enchancements and editing by the legendary Phil Spector (mostly the orchestra overdubs that Paul hated).

The new version will be released by EMI in November, 2003. The Beatles have often spoken about how Phil Spector drowned their sound in orchestration on the original Let It Be release in 1970 and Paul has vowed to rewrite history by having the version "originally intended" finally released. A statement from Paul says: "If we'd have had today's technology back then, it would sound like this because this is the noise we made in the studio. It's all exactly as it was in the room. You're right there now". Ringo Starr agrees: "When I first heard it, it was really uplifting. It took you back again to the times when we were this band, the Beatle band".

Let It BeŠNaked's track listing differs from the 1970 release; background dialogue, "Dig It" and "Maggie Mae" have been taken off the album and "Don't Let Me Down" has been added to the running order, which now is as follows:

Get Back
Dig A Pony
For You Blue
The Long And Winding Road
Two Of Us
I've Got A Feeling
One After 909
Don't Let Me Down
I Me Mine
Across The Universe
Let It Be

A bonus 20 minute CD will be released with the album featuring extracts from the original sessions (which should be complementary to the material on the Beatles Anthology). Let It BeŠNaked will also come with a booklet that features historic photography of the recording sessions and extracts of band dialogue from the original booklet that first accompanied early copies of the 1970 album.

Source: Undercover Music News, Paul Cashmere
(Sept. 18, 2003)

The Who to Record First Album Since 1982

The Who has agreed upon a work plan for the band for the coming year and beyond. At present founder Pete Townshend is involved in setting up a team to do a 5.1 remix of Quadrophenia, which will be released along similar lines to the upcoming Tommy release. An extended version is also planned for the same release, opening the story up for future theatrical and DVD versions.

Pete's main creative work will be songs for a new Who album. These will be based on his story, now complete, titled "The Boy Who Heard Music". He and founder Roger Daltry (the only surviving original member along with Pete, as John Entwistle died in 2002 and Keith Moon died in the seventies) plan to demo the new material before the end of the year prior to going into record the album in March 2004. This of course will be the band's first studio album since 1982's It's Hard.

The proposed release date for the album is the early summer 2004 and the idea is to follow it up with a US and UK tour, taking in other regions in 2005. Pete and Roger hope that the recording sessions will be filmed for Webcasting and that some live, interactive sessions, via the Web site, will also take place. To tie in with this period of activity the www.petetownshend.com chatboard will reopen on Oct 2, 2003. For more information, visit Eel Pie on the Web: http://www.eelpie.com/

Source: http://www.eelpie.com/
(Sept. 22, 2003)