𝘈𝘕𝘖𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘙 𝘋𝘈𝘠 𝘐𝘕 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘓𝘐𝘍𝘌 EXHIBITION

 
This Thursday, October 10th, 2019, Ringo Starr extends his Midas touch to Morrison Hotel Gallery, Genesis Publications & Morrison Hotel gallery present 𝘈𝘕𝘖𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘙 𝘋𝘈𝘠 𝘐𝘕 𝘛𝘏𝘌 𝘓𝘐𝘍𝘌, an exhibition of new works made. This special showing of limited edition fine art prints to be held in conjunction with the release of the artist's monograph of the same title.

COME TOGETHER

When The Beatles got to work on “Come Together” in July ’69, John and Yoko Ono were still recovering from a serious car accident they’d been in earlier in the summer. But John was proud of his new song, which he’d begun earlier in the year as (oddly enough) a Timothy Leary campaign anthem.

Geoff Emerick, the longtime Beatles engineer who’d returned after quitting on The White Album, noticed John being less than polite to Paul right away during the “Come Together” sessions. In Here, There and Everywhere, Emerick described John going out his way to exclude Paul on the song.

It started with the electric piano part, which Paul had come up with for the track. Emerick watched John learn the part “looking over Paul’s shoulder” at his work on the keyboard. Then John worked on bumping Paul from the vocals, too.

“John not only sang the lead, but also did all the backing vocals,” Emerick wrote. “He didn’t ask Paul or George to join in, and neither of them volunteered. I could see it was getting to Paul. Finally, in some frustration he blurted out, ‘What do you want me to do on this track, John?'”

“Don’t worry, I’ll do the overdubs on this,” John replied (per Emerick). It appeared that an argument (or worse) was approaching.

Despite the harsh treatment from John, Paul seemed determined to avoid causing a scene in the studio. According to Emerick, he simply left for the day. “Paul had to have felt humiliated, but rather than having a fight or an argument about it, he chose to just get up and leave.”

And he did end up delivering the classic electric piano part on “Come Together,” according to Ken Womack in his new book, Solid State. “[John] wanted a piano lick to be very swampy and smoky, and I played it that way and he liked it a lot,” Paul said. “I was quite pleased with that.”

As for the backing vocals, Paul ended up singing on the track as well (though he didn’t sing together with John in the studio that day). In short, it wasn’t all perfect, The Beatles set their squabbling aside and through on “Come Together.”

Fans certainly responded. “Come Together” (backed with “Something”) cracked No. 1 on the Billboard charts in America that November. As for Abbey Road, the band’s final studio album held onto the top spot for 11 weeks and hung around the charts for 326 weeks altogether.

THE 50 MOST VALUABLE VINYL RECORDS ON EARTH

The mid-year 2019 report from the Recording Industry Association of America concluded that vinyl is on track to outsell CDs, with a 13% increase in sales compared to the previous year. Amidst the burgeoning vinyl boom, NobleOak, an Australian life insurance company, worked with Ian Shirley, the editor of Record Collector magazine’s Rare Record Price Guide, to determine the 50 most valuable vinyl records worldwide.

The Quarrymen, (Pre-Beatles) consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, as well as pianist John Lowe and drummer Colin Hanton, topped the list. Their 1958 demo recording of Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day,” and an original song penned by Paul McCartney and George Harrison, “In Spite of All the Danger,” is valued at $354,000. There is only one copy of the record in existence, which McCartney purchased from Lowe for an undisclosed sum back in 1981.

The Beatles  make a number of appearances on the list:
01. The Quarrymen – That’ll Be The Day / In Spite Of All The Danger ($354,000)
02. The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band ($123,900)
07. The Beatles – The Beatles (White Album) ($17,700)
09. The Beatles – Yesterday And Today ($14,160)
12. The Beatles – Introducing The Beatles ($12,390)
13. The Beatles – Please Please Me ($10,620)
29. John Lennon and Yoko Ono – Unfinished Music No. 1. Two Virgins ($5,310)

Asked what makes a record collectible, Shirley explains that the key factors are “scarcity, condition and the desire of someone to own it.” Several of the records on the list were quickly pulled because of controversial cover art, making them highly sought-after for their rarity.

Other in-demand records range from “psychedelic single[s] from the ‘60s that no one was interested in at the time” to mint, unplayed copies of records that sold in the millions.