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

Today a session took place and Stereo mixes of Cold Turkey which was the second single by the Plastic Ono Band were worked on at EMI Studios.  The Plastic Ono Band had first recorded the song a couple of days before.

This session took place from 8pm-midnight and the final mix was similar to the single version, although missing some vocal and guitar overdubs were added on October 5th. Some electric piano, possibly played by Yoko Ono, is also audible near the end.

At the close of the session Lennon had an acetate made of the best mix. It was eventually broadcast in 1988 on The Lost Lennon Tapes radio series, although the ending was marred by a narration by the presenter. Bootleg copies later fixed this by editing in the ending of the released stereo mix.

Nothing was recorded today as far as we know.

Not much happening today.

John Lennon after 26 takes of Cold Turkey at EMI Studios didn't think the recording was good enough to be the Plastic Ono Band's second single so a second session took place today at Trident Studios.

John was on guitar and vocals, joined by Eric Clapton on guitar, Klaus Voormann on bass guitar and Ringo Starr on drums. Yoko Ono of course, was also present, and may have played some electric piano.

Abbey Road is the 11th studio album released by the English rock band The Beatles. It is their last recorded album, although Let It Be was the last album released before the band’s dissolution in 1970. Work on Abbey Road began in April 1969, and the album was released on 26 September 1969 in the United Kingdom, and 1 October 1969 in the United States.

Abbey Road is widely regarded as one of The Beatles’ most tightly constructed albums, although the band was barely operating as a functioning unit at the time. Despite the tensions within the band, Abbey Road was released to near universal acclaim and is considered to be one of the greatest albums of all time. In 2012, Abbey Road was voted 14th on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”. In 2009, readers of the magazine also named Abbey Road the greatest Beatles album.
After the near-disastrous sessions for the proposed Get Back album (later released as Let It Be), Paul McCartney suggested to music producer George Martin that the group get together and make an album “the way we used to”, free of the conflict that began after the death of Brian Epstein and carrying over to the sessions for the “White Album”. Martin agreed, stipulating that he must be allowed to do the album his way. This would be the last time the band would record with Martin.

In their interviews for The Beatles Anthology, the surviving band members stated that, although none of them ever made the distinction of calling it the “last album”, they all felt when this would very likely be the last Beatles product and therefore agreed to set aside their differences and “go out on a high note”.

With the Let It Be album partly finished, the sessions for Abbey Road began in April, as the single “The Ballad of John and Yoko” / “Old Brown Shoe” was completed. In fact, recording sessions of John Lennon’s “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” had already started in February 1969 in Trident studios, with Billy Preston on the organ—only three weeks after the Get Back sessions. Photos from these sessions are included in the book Get Back, which came along with the Let It Be album but not in the Let It Be film. McCartney is clean-shaven and Lennon has started to let his beard grow.

Most of the album was recorded between 2 July and 1 August 1969. After the album was finished and released, the Get Back / Let It Be project was re-examined. More work was done on the album, including the recording of more music (see Let It Be). Thus, though the bulk of Let It Be was recorded before Abbey Road, the latter was released first, and Abbey Road was the last album properly started by The Beatles before they disbanded. Lennon was on hiatus from the group and working with the Plastic Ono Band during the September 1969 lead-up to Abbey Road’s release, which was effectively the first official sign of The Beatles’ impending dissolution.

The two album sides are quite different in character. Side one is a collection of unconnected tracks, while most of side two consists of a long suite of compositions, many of them being relatively short and segued together.

Paul and Linda McCartney attended the premier on this date of the film Midnight Cowboy in the UK which took place at the London Pavilion on Piccadilly Circus. A camera crew from BBC News captured footage of the McCartneys arriving, alongside stars including Marty Feldman and Richard Harris.

Also, on this date, two sessions involving the Plastic Ono Band took place. John Lennon worked with engineer Geoff Emerick on the mixes and eight songs from the September 13, 1969 concert at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival were included, as was announcer Kim Fowley's introduction at the beginning.

The mix tapes were later taken by Emerick to the Apple Corps building at 3 Savile Row, London. A different mix of Don't Worry Kyoko was made on 20 October 1969 to replace this day's version. Eventually, this album was released on December 12th.

In the evening the first studio session by the Plastic Ono Band took place, again in Studio Three. The group recorded Cold Turkey between 7pm and 1.30am, although the song was later remade at London's Trident Studios.

Today Linda McCartney is 28 years old.

Nothing happened today as far as we know.

Two days after "The Beatles" broke up

The day after the Beatles broke up.