Rare music from George Harrison, Martin Scorsese doc out on CD, DVD

Filmmaker Martin Scorsese released a well-received documentary last year about the creative life of the quiet Beatle, “George Harrison: Living in the Material World,” an intimate and revealing look at Harrison deep in his work. Fans were sure to notice that the film featured not just a trove of archival film footage and home movies but also some first takes, alternative tracks and other audio material that had never been released.

Much of that music is now available on a new CD, “Early Takes Volume 1: Music From the Martin Scorsese Picture Living in the Material World,” released this week in tandem with the DVD/Blu-ray release of Scorsese's film. The album is available as a stand-alone CD as well as part of a deluxe set that includes the Scorsese film, the CD and an accompanying 96-page book that Harrison’s widow, Olivia, assembled last year.

“We really were doing it for the fans,” Olivia said recently in a joint interview with producer and musician Giles Martin, who oversaw production of the CD and who is the son of legendary Beatles producer George Martin. “They wanted to hear it, they’ve asked for it . . . They’re so close to the songs, and these early takes really get to the essence of the songs. You can almost hear the excitement in George singing these songs, which he’d written maybe a few months earlier, or perhaps the year before. It’s always an exciting time for a musician when you’re writing a new song -- or for any creative person, when you create something that’s new.”

“Early Takes” encompasses songs that figure into Scorsese’s film, which helped Olivia Harrison and Martin sift through the piles of archival material that George Harrison left behind when he died in 2001 of cancer.

There’s his embryonic recording of “My Sweet Lord,” his biggest solo hit and the song that became the first No. 1 single from a Beatle after the group broke up in 1970.

How early is the “Early Takes” version?

“It’s Take No. 1,” Martin said. “It’s not from the Phil Spector sessions” that became his watershed solo album “All Things Must Pass.” “It’s just George laying down the songs. It was the first time he played his songs with a band. It just shows the quality of his voice, the quality of his songwriting.”

Other works-in-progress versions of songs from “All Things Must Pass” are included: “I’d Have You Anytime,” which he wrote with Bob Dylan; “Awaiting on You All”; “Run of the Mill”; the title track; a late-'70s composition, “Woman Don’t You Cry for Me”; and his interpretation of Dylan’s “Mama You’ve Been on My Mind.”

“Early Takes” doesn’t include any of Harrison’s songs that the Beatles recorded. “A lot of Beatles material was touched on in the ‘Anthology,’ ” Martin said, referring to the 1995 TV miniseries that brought Fab Four outtakes and other archival material public for the first time in official form. “I do think it’s important that people are not sold the same thing over and over again.”

In addition to the hard copy of Olivia Harrison's companion coffee-table book that was published last year, the book is available this week in e-book form.

One of the more revealing moments among several bonus features on the Scorsese film is an in-studio conversation among Harrison’s son, Dhani, and both George and Giles Martin.

As they play back the original tapes for “Something” -- Harrison’s song that (along with “Yesterday”) is one of the most widely recorded of all Beatles compositions -- Giles Martin points out that it was the first Harrison song for which his father wrote an orchestral accompaniment.

George Martin had crafted string parts for Lennon and McCartney songs as early as 1965 with “Yesterday,” on through the signature orchestral tornado that creates the climax of “A Day in the Life.” He even scored the music for the animated Beatles feature “Yellow Submarine.”

But it wasn’t until the band’s final recording sessions for 1969’s “Abbey Road” that he extended the favor to some of Harrison’s music, and he has said in other interviews that one regret during his years as the Beatles’ indispensable fifth man was that he didn’t devote more time to nurturing Harrison’s music.

Olivia Harrison decided to label the audio disc “Volume 1” because she anticipates releasing additional tracks in the future. Among those she most prizes on this first release are “Woman Don’t You Cry for Me,” which takes on a benedictory tone in the wake of Harrison’s premature death, and her husband’s rendition of the Everly Brothers’ “Let It Be Me.”

“I remember the Everly Brothers had just come to England and that’s when he recorded that song,” she said. “Anything he did when I was around was special for me. I really wanted those tracks on there.”

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Photo of George Harrison circa 1970. Credit: The George Harrison Estate.

Johnny Depp, Natalie Portman star in 3 new Paul McCartney videos

A clip from a new music video starring Johnny Depp and Natalie Portman for a song from ex-Beatle Paul McCartney’s new “Kisses on the Bottom” album has leaked, one of three videos for the song “My Valentine,” all three of which will be officially released at an as-yet-undisclosed location today in Los Angeles.

The 25-second excerpt now up on YouTube is described only as “Johnny Depp Video,” and there’s no sound, just the actor and amateur musician doing sign language while cradling a guitar in his lap. It can be seen here:

Reportedly, Depp stars in one video, Portman stars in a second, and they appear together in the third. The Sun tabloid in England has a photo of Depp and McCartney chatting and other shots of Depp and Portman from what is said to be the set where the videos were filmed by Oscar-winning cinematographer Wally Pfister.

McCartney himself is said to have directed all three videos, inspired by an idea from his daughter, fashion designer Stella McCartney.

The full videos are expected to go live on Saturday. “My Valentine” is one of two McCartney originals on the “Kisses” album, which consists predominantly of vintage songs McCartney loved in his youth.

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Photo of Paul McCartney during his performance at the Grammy Awards ceremony in February. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times.

Lost George Harrison 'Sun' guitar solo on 'Material World' film

Tucked in among about a dozen bonus audio and video features on the May 1 home video release of Martin Scorsese’s documentary “George Harrison: Living in the Material World” is a session that’s bound to generate excitement among Harrison and Beatles aficionados: a missing George Harrison guitar solo from one of his most celebrated songs, “Here Comes the Sun.”

It surfaces during in-studio conversation between Harrison’s son, Dhani, longtime Beatles producer George Martin and his son, Giles Martin, who has overseen recordings used in the film and on an accompanying CD.

The three are listening to, and fiddling with, tracks from the original multi-track recording of “Here Comes the Sun,” one of the two Harrison songs on the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” album in 1969.

Giles Martin brings up the orchestral score his father created for Harrison’s song, noting that the elder Martin hadn’t done much composing previously for songs written by “the quiet Beatle.” They’re isolating different aspects of the track -- the strings, George’s voice -- when Dhani pushes another button on the studio console and up comes the sound of Harrison playing a guitar solo not included on the final mix.

“That’s totally different to anything I’ve ever heard before,” says Dhani, his eyes immediately widening.

“We never used that,” George Martin responds. “I’d forgotten about that.”

“I never even knew about it,” Dhani says.

That snippet is included in the bonus DVD material, but isn’t on the bonus audio disc featuring 10 Harrison tracks from his post-Beatles career, including early or alternate takes of several songs from his watershed “All Things Must Pass” solo album, some of his latter-day material and some covers. The CD will be packaged with the deluxe DVD-Blu-ray edition of the film, and sold as a stand-alone album.

Calendar will have a more extensive interview with Giles Martin and Harrison’s widow, Olivia, closer to the release date of the package, which will be available in two-DVD set and single-disc Blu-ray editions, and the deluxe version with both formats and the audio CD. It has been released previously outside North America, but because HBO screened the film domestically, the home video was delayed in the U.S. until May. 

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Photo: George Harrison: Credit: (c) Apple Corps Ltd.

Beatles' 'Yellow Submarine' film, soundtrack to be reissued in May

The Beatles’ 1968 film “Yellow Submarine” returns to circulation in May with a new high-resolution edition coming on DVD and Blu-ray discs along with a reissue of the soundtrack album on CD.

According to a release Tuesday, the restoration for the 4K digital resolution was done completely by hand, frame by frame, without the use of any automated software because of the delicacy of the original hand-drawn animated artwork. The new editions will arrive May 29 in North America, a day after they are released in the rest of the world. "Yellow Submarine" has been out of circulation in a home video edition for several years.

The DVD and Blu-ray releases will come with bonus features, including a brief “making of” documentary, audio commentary by producer John Coates and art director Heinz Edelmann, the original theatrical trailer, interviews with several participants involved in making the film, reproductions of pencil drawings and behind-the-scenes photos.

They also will include a new essay from Pixar Animation founder John Lasseter, who writes, “As a fan of animation and as a filmmaker, I tip my hat to the artists of ‘Yellow Submarine,’ whose revolutionary work helped pave the way for the fantastically diverse world of animation that we all enjoy today.”

View the trailer here:

 

“Yellow Submarine” was the brainchild of animator Al Brodax, who had created “The Beatles” animated TV series, which originally ran for two seasons on ABC and another two seasons in reruns. Brodax wrote the script with Lee Minoff, Jack Mendolsohn and Erich Segal, and it was directed by George Dunning. It introduced a psychedelic  pop-art sensibility into animated feature films, which were then largely the domain of Walt Disney’s studio.

Walt Disney Pictures had been exploring a remake to be directed by Robert Zemeckis, but abandoned the project about this time last year.

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Animated image of the Beatles in "Yellow Submarine." Credit: Subafilms Ltd.

Garth Brooks, 2 others chosen for Country Music Hall of Fame

Garth Brooks, Connie Smith and pianist Hargus “Pig” Robbins are the newest members of the Country Music Hall of Fame, hall officials announced Tuesday.

Brooks has been tapped as this year’s “modern era artist” inductee, while Smith fills the hall’s “veterans era artist” slot and Robbins enters in the category for “recording and/or touring musician prior to 1980.” The latter rotates every third year with “nonperformer” and songwriter inductees.

“I am astounded and honored to be in the Country Music Hall of Fame,” Brooks said in a statement. "At the same time, I can't help but feel guilty going in when there are so many deserving artists that came before me who are yet to be inducted.

“There's a room that the best days in your career stand in,” Brooks added through his spokeswoman. “This honor will  stand beside being inducted into the Opry, playing the 100th anniversary of Cheyennne with Chris LeDoux and getting to be part of Oklahoma's centennial celebration.”

Brooks is the biggest-selling country artist of all time and ranks third on the Recording Industry Assn. of America's list of top-selling artists in all genres, behind only the Beatles and Elvis Presley.

Smith, who placed nearly 50 hits on the country music charts from 1964 to 1985, starting with the song that spent eight weeks at No. 1 in 1964, “Once a Day,” said her induction is “so touching, it’s difficult to find the words to express my gratitude.” Last year, Smith put out her first new album in 13 years, "Long Line of Heartaches."

Robbins, who played on hundreds of sessions in Nashville and elsewhere and toured with dozens of top country performers, said: “I’ve always considred myself  lucky and I guess my good luck has struck again.”

They will be formally welcomed into the Hall of Fame at an induction ceremony slated for later this year.

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Photo: Garth Brooks performs at a 2008 benefit show in Los Angeles. Credit: Los Angeles Times.

27 Beatles songs now available on iTunes as ring tones

Hello hello?

Beatles fans can now set their cellphones to alert them to incoming calls with “Hello Goodbye,” take a call from IT support with “Help!” or signal a call from an angry partner with “We Can Work It Out” as the Fab Four’s music has become available for the first time as cellphone ring tones.

The group has licensed ring tones from its 27 U.S. and British No. 1 hits, from “Love Me Do” in 1962 through "Hello Goodbye" in 1967 to “The Long and Winding Road” in 1970, replicating the track lineup of the “1” compilation CD, which just surpassed 12 million copies sold in the U.S. since its release in 2000.

The 30-second ringtones, also downloadable to iPads and iTouches, are available exclusively through iTunes for $1.29 each — the same amount charged for downloading the entire song.

It’s the latest incursion of the group’s music into the digital realm after long being withheld from legal downloading. That ended just over one year ago, when the group's catalog was posted on iTunes in November 2010.

Because only the No. 1 hits are available now, it looks like we’ll have to wait for the next round of ringtones for hopes of getting that wake-up call to “Good Morning, Good Morning” or “Good Day Sunshine,” a cellular sign-off in the evening with “Good Night” or a warning to unknown call numbers coming in at dinnertime, “Don’t Bother Me.”

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Photo: The Beatles in 1966. Credit: Apple Corps

Grammys 2012: Paul McCartney rehearses 'My Valentine'

You could sense there was something special in the air at Saturday morning rehearsals for the 54th annual Grammy Awards, and with good reason --  Beatle Paul McCartney was in the house.

The final day of prep for the Sunday night awards show on CBS began with none other than McCartney, who did three run-throughs of his new song "My Valentine," a dreamy, bittersweet ballad. Diana Krall joined him on piano and Joe Walsh strummed guitar while, behind the three veteran artists, an entire orchestra gave body to the forlorn melody.

Afterward, Walsh sighed when he spoke of the song. "It's a beautiful song," the Eagles guitar hero said. "He wrote that for his wife. He just did an album of standards, something he wanted to do for a long time. It's a side of Paul we never really heard before. It's a side he never really heard before. He didn't know it was in him."

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Walsh (whose brother-in-law happens to be a fellow named Ringo Starr) has become friends with McCartney in recent years, and they have talked about the curious rhythms of genre experimentation.

"He was trying to sing these songs and he found that they are different. It's real easy to get Vegas, you know? But he got in there and found a style. And now we have a new side to Paul McCartney."

McCartney may be seeking his inner Cole Porter these days, but he's still in touch with his teenybopper heritage; at the end of the second take of "My Valentine" he curled his hands in front of him and, pressing his thumbs together, he made a heart symbol -- yes, that's right, the sweet salutation favored by modern-day moptop Justin Bieber.

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Photo: Paul McCartney digs into his rock 'n' roll songbook at the Hollywood Bowl in 2010. Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times.

Grammys 2012: Paul McCartney feted as MusiCares Person of the Year

This post has been updated. See the note at the bottom for details.

Is anyone surprised that Friday night’s MusiCares Person of the Year gala honoring Paul McCartney shattered the record for the fund-raising event, generating more than $6.5 million for the Recording Academy’s division that provides medical care and other support for musicians in need?

For the price of a ticket (2,800 people paid a minimum of $1,500 to attend), audience members got to hear McCartney perform a handful of numbers as well as a cadre of peers sing his songs, from 25-year-old pop princess Katy Perry to 85-year-old pop music institution Tony Bennett, with the Foo Fighters, Coldplay, Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Alison Krauss, Duane Eddy, Alicia Keys, Norah Jones, James Taylor, Diana Krall and Sergio Mendes joining them.

PHOTOS: MusiCares Person of the Year gala | Show

The entertainment started with a presentation by what appeared to be the full Cirque du Soleil cast of the Beatles “Love” show in Las Vegas, after which McCartney and his regular touring band appeared and started the live music with his Wings-era single “Junior’s Farm.”

The Foo Fighters took on “Jet,” Keys sang “Blackbird,” Krauss handled “No More Lonely Nights,” Bennett and his combo turned “Here, There and Everywhere” into a swinging jazz tune, Eddy brought his deep twang guitar to “And I Love Her,” Jones took “Oh! Darling,” Perry sang “Hey Jude,” Young bashed through “I Saw Her Standing There,” Mendes emphasized the Latin groove in “The Fool on the Hill,” Coldplay did “We Can Work It Out,” Krall sang “For No One” and Taylor crooned “Yesterday.”

Paul McCartney gets his star on Hollywood Walk of Fame

There's no shortage of stars, real and imagined, visible along Hollywood's Walk of Fame, but even by Tinseltown standards, Paul McCartney ramped up the quotient Thursday in getting his own belated star.

The former Beatle drew several hundred fans who packed a cordoned-off section of Vine Street outside Capitol Records for the ceremony.

He brought several Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member pals along for the ride, including Neil Young, who gave McCartney a cheery introduction, Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh and pop music power couple Elvis Costello and Diana Krall. Jazz great Herbie Hancock was there as well as musician-producer Don Was and former Electric Light Orchestra leader/Traveling Wilburys member Jeff Lynne. McCartney's wife, Nancy, and son, James, also attended the ceremony.

PANORAMIC PHOTO: Paul McCartney star ceremony

"Let me tell you a little bit about our friend Paul here just as a musician," said Young, wearing a black leather Buffalo Springfield tour jacket. "When I was in high school and the Beatles came out, I loved the Beatles and I tried to learn how to play like them, and no one could figure out what  Paul was doing on the bass. Not only was he playing differently because he plays left-handed, he played notes that no one had put together before -- in a way that made us stand in awe of this great musician."

"I'm so proud to be doing this," he added. "As a musician, as a songwriter, Paul's craft and his art are truly at the top of his game, the way Charlie Chaplin was an actor. He has an ability to put melodies and feelings and chords together, but it's the soul that he puts into everything he does that makes me feel so good and so happy to be here."

McCartney then stepped to the microphone and first acknowledged his debt to "three other guys -- so thanks,  John, George and Ringo."

PHOTOS: Paul McCartney star ceremony

Although Starr, the only other surviving Beatle, lives in Southern California, McCartney said, "Ringo's a little under the weather, so he's not here." The comment drew sighs of disappointment from onlookers.

"When I was growing up in Liverpool and listening to Buddy Holly and the other rock 'n' roll greats, I never thought I'd ever come to get a star on the Walk of Fame," said McCartney, 69 -- a sentiment probably shared by members of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, who had been after him to accept the award ever since it was approved for him in 1993. "But here we are today," he said.

"Today," not coincidentally, was the 48th anniversary of the Beatles' game-changing U.S. television debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show." The ceremony also came synergistically just two days after the release of McCartney's latest album,  "Kisses on the Bottom," a collection of mostly pre-rock pop songs he loved as a child, supplemented by two originals.

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Always the Beatle most attuned to business matters, he closed his succinct speech by telling fans and others "around the world that I send you all hugs and kisses on the bottom."

It's a particularly busy week for McCartney: After the star ceremony, he was slated to do a live performance in one of Capitol's recording studios to be streamed live at 7 tonight on iTunes and Apple TV. On Friday, he's the guest of honor at the Recording Academy's annual MusiCares Person of the Year all-star tribute gala and fundraiser. And Sunday, he's on tap to perform during the Grammy Awards telecast. 

Many fans who showed up in Hollywood brought various bits of memorabilia in hopes of snagging an autograph: One teenage girl had a worn LP copy of his first solo album, 1970's "McCartney." Others leaned across metal police barricades with copies of "A Hard Day's Night," "Beatles for Sale," "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band," books, photos and a plethora of other items.

Only one succeeded: On his way back into the Capitol building, McCartney spotted Fullerton 18-year-old Paul Madariaga holding up a Hofner bass guitar like the one McCartney first popularized nearly half a century ago when he was just out of his teens. McCartney gave a nod and the instrument was handed to him. The world’s most famous bassist hoisted it aloft, as he often does at the end of his concerts, scribbled his name across the front with a hastily supplied Sharpie and passed it back to Madariaga.

Score one for the kid.

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Top photo: Paul McCartney showing off the plaque he received at his Hollywood Walk of Fame star ceremony Thursday. Credit: Randy Lewis / Los Angeles Times.

Center photo: Neil and Pegi Young at Paul McCartney's star ceremony in Hollywood. Credit: Randy Lewis / Los Angeles Times.

Bottom photo: Paul McCartney's new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, on Vine Street immediately outside Capitol Records. Credit: Randy Lewis / Los Angeles Times.

Album review: Paul McCartney's 'Kisses on the Bottom'

This post has been updated. See below for details.

Those of a certain age might remember the “Is Paul Dead?” rumor that swirled around the Beatles at the peak of their career. Fans played Beatles tracks backward and carefully examined photographs for “evidence” of Paul McCartney's supposed demise.

After listening to McCartney's new quaint little dalliance with the Great American Songbook, “Kisses on the Bottom,” the question that occurred to me was “Is Paul retired?”

“Kisses on the Bottom” features music McCartney used to sing around the piano with his family as a tyke in the 1940s and '50s, along with other period pieces selected by the singer and producer Tommy LiPuma, plus two new McCartney songs. The evidence is legion that Sir James Paul McCartney, 69, longtime songwriting powerhouse, may have indeed punched his final time clock.