The Beatles – Great Scott! It’s… The Beatles (MasterJedi MJ1052 – 5/6)
DISC 1
Paperback Writer, takes 1-2 / Rain, RS1 / Strawberry Fields Forever, take 1 / Strawberry Fields Forever, takes 2-4 / Strawberry Fields Forever, takes 5-6 / Strawberry Fields Forever, take 7 / Strawberry Fields Forever, take 25 minus track 2 / Strawberry Fields Forever, take 26 minus beginning vocal / Strawberry Fields Forever, take 25 / Strawberry Fields Forever, take 26 / When I’m 64, take 3 announcement only / A Day In The Life, RS1 / A Day In The Life, RS2 / A Day In The Life, RS3 / A Day In The Life, RS4 / A Day In The Life, RS5 / A Day In The Life, RS6 / A Day In The Life, RS7/ A Day In The Life, RS8 / A Day In The Life, RS9 (73:16)
DISC 2
All You Need Is Love, take 59 / Flying, take 8 + overdubs 1-5 / Hello Goodbye, take 1 / Lady Madonna, take 4 / Lady Madonna, take 5 / Lady Madonna, RS1 / While My Guitar Gently Weeps, take 1 / Hey Jude, Las Vegas Tune, St. Louis Blues / Hey Jude, take 9 / Not Guilty / What’s The New Mary Jane, take 4 / Because, vocals only – Bonus – Can’t Buy Me Love, take 4 without guitar solo / When I’m 64, take 3 reconstruction. (65:26)
Besides all the demos, acetates, control room monitor mixes, etc that have sneaked out under the Beatles unofficial cannon there is always another annex to be explored and – taking his lead from a general discussion question on the Beatles bootleg boards on the internet – Masterjedi (or at least that’s the labels name) have produced an exceptional set covering the the released out put from the stash of the Roger Scott tapes. Mr. Scott an unwitting accomplice to the bootleg industry (Some may disagree however) after his Beatles recordings – Roger was a big friend to the band along with fellow DJ Kenny Everett and also narrated the Abbey Road Video Tour in 1983 – found their way in to unofficial hands. The Author John C. Winn has a brilliant write up on the Roger Scott tapes in his book ‘Lifting Latches’ which is still available from Amazon.
The Masterjedi label have done their full research from the information available that pieces together the recordings and presented us with the audio. A multitude of recordings have been used from the most famous sources to come from the vaults and it shows.
Volume 3 represents the final parts of the Beatles studio sessions collected by Scott from the first two takes of “Paperback Writer”, through the various takes of “Strawberry Fields Forever” through it’s various incarnations, multiple takes of “A Day In The Life”, Songs from ‘Magial Mystery Tour’ (The album), The White Album, the “Hey Jude” outtakes from the ‘Music’ video and finally ‘Abbey Road’ with a smattering of extra reconstructions of “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “When I’m Sixty-Four” – Not chronological but as they’re deemed to be a little more frankenstein, they have been added to the end of the disks for that reason.
Shortly after the issue of the ‘fifth’ disk (Or rather, Volume 1, disk 1) – there was an extra discovery – A unique mix of SFF was noted to be doing the rounds. Thankfully, the manufacturers of this disk have taken heed and pressed the latter version. One of the benefits of internet released projects is that everyone notes and chips in so despite the thoroughness of the original compiler, mistakes can always be corrected at a later point.
The tracks here have been expertly spliced and stitched together to form the longest versions of these outtakes and they sound great as you might expect – clapper boards and clicks, take announcements and stray studio chat all complete for that real fly on the wall experience and as Apple and the Beatles’ and their respective estates have now negotiated new contracts for the Beatles songs resulting in the cessation of their official bootleg series downloads, the best place to catch up with these outtakes in this beautiful studio quality.
All of the works on here, it goes without saying, you’ll have heard before but this is a great anthology of the tracks that were captured by the Roger Scott tapes and the effort made by Scott and John Barrett to catalogue them.
These CDs are silver pressed disks but they feature the original artwork that was produced for this series – a handsome hard days night pastiche in various different colours featuring Roger’s image alongside the fabs and getting an almost equal footing along side the lads who recorded those tracks. Props also to the great disk art – Almost secondary to the sleeve itself sometimes, this one is basic but very, very nice! The only thing that the liner notes is missing is a run down of the sources that the songs are taken from – I’ve reproduced the sources below this review.
An excellently produced collection, similar in style to the Barrett tapes set that MasterJedi have previously produced (‘Bare It All’) and because of this being the first time that the pieces have all appeared in the same jigsaw, a great set to own.
Sources used;
URT: Ultra Rare Tracks (Swingin’ Pig)
TIO: Take It Off (HMC)
S2S: Studio 2 Sessions at Abbey Road (Yellow Dog)
FAAB: Free As A Bird CD Single (Apple)*
Boot63: The Beatles Bootleg Recordings 1963 (Apple)
Mono: Beatles in Mono CD Box Set (Apple)*
SS: Studio Sessions (Tobe Milo)
Anthology: The Beatles Anthology CDs (Apple)*
MTA: Message to Australia (Yellow Dog 2004)
TM: True Masters (Geritol)*
AHDNBlu: A Hard Day’s Night Blu Ray 5.1 soundtrack*
UM: Unsurpassed Masters (Yellow Dog)
Red: The Beatles 1962-1966 UK Red Vinyl (Pbthal)*
CCC: Complete Christmas Collection (Yellow Dog)
UCC: The Ultimate Christmas Collection (Yellow Dog 2003)
AHOTBY: Sgt Pepper: A History Of The Beatle Years (RMW)
Audifon: Anthology (Audifon)
UT: Unsurpassed Masters (Unique Tracks)
ADITL: A Day In The Life (Yellow Dog 2001)
MM: More Masters (Roaring Mouse)*
MT’05: Miscellaneous Tracks (Yellow Dog 2005)
USB: The Beatles USB Box Set (Apple)*
RT: Rare Tracks (Red Square)
MT(UC): Ultimate Collection Miscellaneous Tracks (Yellow Dog)
PST: The Peter Sellers Tape (Masterdisc)*
RB: Rockband Multitracks*
* indicates non-Scott sources used for short augmentation only
