File Under: Beatles – 30th Anniversary Edition (Gnat Records GN70075-1)
(54:36): Come And Get It, Shake Rattle & Roll, Leave My Kitten Alone, I’m So Tired, Not Fade Away, I Me Mine, The Third Man Theme, Bad To Me, Christmas Time (Is Here Again), Goodbye, Blue Suede Shoes, If You’ve Got Trouble, Negro In Reserve, That Means A Lot, Get Back, One After 909, I Dig A Pony, dialogue
File Under: Beatles is one of the more intriguing Beatles releases. This is a vinyl release from 1983 originally pressed “Shalom” records and has never been pressed onto compact disc until recently. This is a new pressing packaged in a small yellow folder with the disc housed in a plastic sleeve. The original vinyl came with a film strip, but this comes with an insert collage of photographs from many many eras of the Beatles’ career.
At the time of its release many of these tracks were unavailable elsewhere and are still very rare. Most come from the Get Back sessions in January 1969 but others span other eras. The sound quality for most of the tracks is excellent professionally recorded stereo but a couple of the songs are from amateur demo cassettes and are in lesser quality (but still very good).
“Come And Get It” is the first track and is the demo written by Paul McCartney for Badfinger. This recording dates from July 24th, 1969 and is in great sound quality. “Shake, Rattle & Roll” is a cover of the rock and roll classic dating from January 26th, 1969 during the Twickenham sessions. “Leave My Kitten Alone” dates from August 14th, 1964 and was released on Anthology I.
“I’m So Tired” dates from the early Get Back sessions and is a version of the song with McCartney, and not Lennon, on lead vocals. The following three songs also date from these sessions including the “Third Man Theme” from the film The Third Man.
“Bad To Me” is a Lennon song written and demoed in May, 1963. Lennon gave this song to Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas who recorded it and even performed it on Ed Sullivan in 1964. “Christmas Time (Is Here Again)” was recorded in November 1967 for that year’s Beatles Christmas album for their fan-club. And “Goodbye” is a demo recorded in February 1969 by McCartney given to Mary Hopkins. The sound quality for these three songs, since they come from amateur sources, is below the quality of the rest of the collection.
“Blue Suede Shoes” is from the Get Back sessions and features Lennon reciting the words to “Help!” at the very beginning.
“If You Got Trouble” is the Lennon/McCartney song, sung by Ringo, that was supposed to be on Help! but was replaced by “Act Naturally.” It was recorded on February 18th, 1965 and remained unreleased until it appeared on Anthology 2 in 1996. The story for “It Means A Lot” is similar. It was recorded in February 1965 and meant for Help! but was deleted and given to PJ Proby to record. Both of these are good as curiosities.
“Negro In Reserve” is a fifty-two second doodle from the Get Back sessions. “Get Back,” “One After 909” and “I Dig A Pony” also date from those sessions and all of these tracks are in great sound quality. The disc ends with six minutes of dialogue of the Beatles with Peter Sellers and a short medley of “Kansas City” with “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” from The Peter Sellers Tape. Given the rarity of some of this material and the packaging, this is a very nice release from Gnat records.
