Beatles Cd - Bare It All Vol 5

The Beatles “Bare It All Vol. 5” (Masterjedi MJ1311/5)

Volume 5 – Slow Blues Jam – Plastic Ono Band / Fast Rocker – Plastic Ono Band / The Wishing Book – Ringo Starr / Nashville Freakout – Ringo Starr / Stormy Weather – Ringo Starr / Octopus’s Garden – Ringo Starr / Wine, Women, Loud Songs – Ringo Starr / Coochy Coochy – Ringo Starr / I Live For You – George Harrison / Dehradun – George Harrison / Gopala Krishna – George Harrison / Going Down To Golders Green – George Harrison / Get Back – George Harrison / Pete Drake’s Talking Steel Guitar – George Harrison (58:42)

One of the other highlights of the John Barrett tape cache was the bunch of solo Beatle outtakes that came with the set. Astonishingly, very little of which had been heard of before – We all know of the tracks that were included in the other parts of the Beatles outtakes even down to the long thought lost, “That Means A Lot” but that pales with the rest of the goodies that John had chipped out from the Abbey Road archives and for fans of Solo Beatles recordings, they were arguably just as well served as the rest. Again, Masterjedi have taken a look at the pieces that were spread between “True Masters”, Vigotone’s “Through Many Years” Unicorn’s “Abbey Road Tapes Vol. 2” and Strawberry’s “A True Legend” to piece together the parts that were missing between each labels tapes.

Slow Blues Jam – Plastic Ono Band (6:44) / Fast Rocker – Plastic Ono Band (10:24) – Precisely as they sound – outtakes from the P.O.B. album. Yoko takes the lead on these two jams – as that’s essentially what they are – and perfectly described on the labels to this release. If you’re a fan of Yoko’s version of the P.O.B. album you’ll enjoy these. Basically fashioned blues rockers at differing speeds while Yoko shouts words and phrases in Japanese or modulates her voice at will. For non-fans of Yoko’s work the best moments come at the end of the jams where, in the first instance, Yoko ponders her performance only for John to pacify her with a flippant remark or on the second take where John jokes about the length of the recording.

The Wishing Book – Ringo Starr (3:09) – Remember the quote that mentioned that the Beatles were struggling for words if they added lines about diamonds and pears to their songs? Ringo doesn’t and adds those lines to this ‘Beaucoups Of Blues’ outtake. Like an early Elvis recording but with a much less fascinating lead singer, this twee performance scrapes the barrel of even Ringo’s own career but thanks to CD can be easily skipped.

Nashville Freakout – Ringo Starr (3:10) – Much better. As Ringo is hardly heard and the title once again suggests what’s inside. As the jam was originally around 20 minutes long, the edits on the album formed the basis of the track, here we have more of the same but different parts of the same jam.

Stormy Weather – Ringo Starr (3:06) – Back to the first album, ‘Sentimental Journey’, and one of the songs that Ringo might have heard at the Admiral pub when he was a young lad. For some reason, this never made it on to the album and it’s a shame as it’s a reasonably well played out rendition of the track and suited to Ringo’s hangdog chops.

Octopus’s Garden – Ringo Starr (2:49) – This track was originally made for broadcast on George Martin’s ‘With A Little Help From My Friends’ telecast in December 1969, According to Chip Madinger & Mark Easter’s fantastic ‘Eight Arms To Hold You’ book, portions of the Beatles original (Bass, piano and lead guitar) and Ringo’s vocal were re-recorded for broadcast to avoid problems arising from rules set by the UK Musicians Union.

Wine, Women, Loud Happy Songs – Ringo Starr (2:27) – A mystery as to why this should appear. It doesn’t give much more than the official version.

Coochy Coochy – Ringo Starr (4:07) – Another Jam in the same vein of “Nashville Freakout”, again edited down from a much longer take. Not much different from the commercial version though.

I Live For You – George Harrison (3:43) – George’s outtakes all appear from the ‘All Things Must Pass’ sessions, “I Live For You” had appeared on bootlegs, mainly from acetate for a few years prior, and with a slightly different mix. It obviously never took George’s interest as it ran through a couple of tries before being consigned to the vaults.

Dehradun – George Harrison (3:33) – We knew this track from the Beatles ‘Anthology’ television series of 1996, George, when pushed, admitted that he had recorded it way back when and played a brief example of it on banjo while Paul joined in on mouth – didgeridoo. This then, was the completed studio version, obviously influenced by George’s Eastern leanings and the journey of finding the path, the combination of Ringo and Klaus (Voorman) on drums and bass respectively adds a wonderful marching pace to the track.

Gopala Krishna – George Harrison (4:48) – Another new piece to the puzzle and another track flavoured by Eastern tastes. Think ‘My Sweet Lord’ in takes of influence, more chant than dedicatedly Western pop-song. It is rather pleasing to hear in a “Witchi Tai To” way.

Going Down To Golders Green – George Harrison (2:30) – George using his waspish wit to take the piss out of this lowly, slightly less affluent, community in London. Taking a Presleyesque styled riff and running with it. Rather good fun to hear George amuse himself in the studio even if the track was never going to be taken as seriously as the rest.

Get Back – George Harrison (2:49) – Less of a specific demo more part of a recording session , George had taken to re-arranging the Beatles track for Doris Troy to sing. It’s more horns and piano than guitars for this reinterpretation – the musicians providing the brass there for the benefit of ‘All Things Must Pass’ rather than the demo – maybe they were there as part of the session rather than being on the clock so were a suitable attribution.

Pete Drake’s Talking Steel Guitar – George Harrison (5:17) – A possible ‘lets see how this works’ session as George leaps in to the control booth and takes on work from behind the glass. Pete Drake turned up at the albums sessions and George, obviously enthused by the technique of making your guitar sing, wanted to put the piece down to tape. Theres not much to this Beatle wise apart from George offering his thoughts from the studio as Pete plays guitar.