Beatles A Day in the Life Blog posts of '1969' 'August'

John, George and Ringo watched Bob Dylan and The Band perform at the Isle of Wight Festival on this date. They were accompanied by Yoko Ono, Pattie Harrison and Maureen Starkey. Paul was not present, as Linda had given birth to their daughter Mary three days before. George and Mal Evans had met Dylan in Portsmouth on August 26th, to greet Dylan on his arrival to the UK. Dylan took the ferry to the Isle of Wight later that day, and began rehearsals at Forelands Farm in Bembridge.

The festival took place on August 30 & 31st at Wootton. Dylan's appearance was particularly notable as it was his first major public performance in three years. Around 150,000 people saw Dylan's performance and the audience included Keith Richards, Bill Wyman, Syd Barrett, Eric Clapton, Elton John and Jane Fonda. Dylan took to the stage at around 11pm and played for just under an hour.

Following the concert, the three Beatles returned to Dylan's rented farmhouse where they gave him a pre-release copy of Abbey Road. They also invited him to return to the mainland the following day in Apple's rented helicopter.

John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Ringo Starr and Maureen Starkey had traveled the day before to watch Bob Dylan perform at the Isle of Wight Festival. George Harrison and his wife Pattie had arrived the previous day. Paul McCartney didn't attend the festival as his daughter Mary had been born. 

UK release of the Jack Bruce LP Songs For a Tailor, which contains the song Never Tell Your Mother She’s Out of Tune. George Harrison, using the pseudonym “L'Angelo Misterioso,” plays guitar on the song. The LP was re=released in the US on October 6, 1969.

Mary McCartney, Paul and Linda McCartney’s first child, is born.

Each of the Beatles sells his remaining shares in NEMS Enterprises.

(Okay, what does that mean?)

The last recording for Abbey Road is over.

Today was the final studio session for the Abbey Road album - final edits of two songs, plus some unused recordings.

The session was from 2.30-8pm in Studio Two. Beginning in the control room, seven seconds were edited from the master tape of Maxwell's Silver Hammer, to remove the song's introduction.

The End was the next song to be edited.  Various sound effects were also recorded for Maxwell's Silver Hammer during this session, but they were never used.

At the end of the day with Abbey Road finally complete, the creation of a safety copy was made. Both he master and the copy were then taken away by balance engineer Geoff Emerick, who gave them to Malcolm Davies to be cut to disc at Apple. The album was the first UK one to not be cut at EMI by Harry Moss.

In the morning, John Lennon writes the song Cold Turkey. In the afternoon he rehearses it. By the end of the evening, the gut-wrenching song has been recorded.

The Beatles are not in the recording studio today.

It’s a been a booming era for rediscovered Beatles photos, from the famous lost Beatles photographs taken by their tour manager to Linda McCartney’s tender portraits to Harry Benson’s luminous black-and-white photos of the Fab Four.

On this day in 1969, two days after their final recording session, the Beatles gathered at Tittenhurst Park, where John Lennon and Yoko Ono resided, for a photo shoot they didn’t realize would be their last — an instance of those bittersweet “unknown lasts” that wedge themselves between our lived experience and our memory, sometimes violently and other times with the tender wistfulness of nostalgia.

The cast of characters on that fateful August 22, captured by photographers Ethan Russell and Monte Fresco and Beatles assistant Mal Evans, included the Fab Four, Yoko Ono, a very pregnant Linda McCartney (a photographer herself), Apple Corps’ press officer Derek Taylor, Paul McCartney’s sheepdog Martha, and two donkeys Lennon and Ono kept on the property.

Linda shot some 16mm footage on my camera. That turned out to be the last film taken.” ~ Paul McCartney