Lewisohn Q and A

[Mario Giannella]

I attended Beatlefest on Friday March 17 and Saturday March 18 (but not
Sunday March 19) and, along with others, I was able to ask Mark Lewisohn
a few questions.

BESAME MUCHO - FROM THE FIRST RECORDING SESSION:
The tapes of the first recording session were most definately destroyed at
EMI/Abbey Road. But in 1981, Besame Mucho appeared in New York. EMI
was skeptical, but it appears to NOT be a BBC track, NOR a Decca
Audition Track, but does appear to be from the first recording session
with Pete Best on drums. Only that one song exits from that session.
It's source is still a mystery.
EMI decided to include it on their SESSIONS album which was prepared in
1984 for a January '85 release. A few weeks before the release, the
remaining Beatles and Apple got a legal injunction to stop it, because
it was felt the material had been rejected years ago as sub-standard.
SESSIONS was later bootleged.

THE DICK JAMES DEMOS:
In L.R.E. King's bootleg book _Do You Want To Know A Secret?_ p.11-12
it is said that Lewisohn thinks the Beatles recorded a demo (for Dick James
and Northern Songs) for every song they ever wrote. Some of these demos
have been sold at auction.
- Lewisohn says no, they only recorded demos for Dick James for the songs
they gave away to other artists to record. They did record demos for
their own use within the group (e.g. the White Album demos recorded at
George's House). BTW, George's "Circles" was a white album demo.
George never lets go of a song - he recorded it again during sessions
for the George Harrison LP, and released it on Gone Troppo.

M.L.'s NEXT PROJECT:
He would like to take a year or two to work on Non-beatles related projects.
He has not asked, nor has Yoko asked him, but the next logical "Beatles"
related project would be to chronicle/catalog the Lost Lennon Tapes
since , of course, John's career is at an end and thus - unlike a
McCartney project - would be complete.

BEST OUTTAKES:
Tommorrow Never Knows
Strawbery Fields Forever (take 1)
While My Guitar Gently Weeps (take 1)
A Day In The Life

THE SOURCE FOR ULTRA RARE TRAX:
EMI suspects "a shady character whom they dismissed about 8-10 years ago."
He was suspected of making copies of the tapes.

RARE RECORDINGS IN PAUL'S VAULTS:
He has developed a relationship with Paul. Paul invited him to the
party for Buddy Holley Week. Paul recently asked him if he would like
to hear his next single (to be released next month), and played it for
him. Lewisohn described it as "a catchy, bright pop tune."
But Paul has NOT played for him any of the rare recordings in his vaults.
BUT, when Lewisohn was at Abbey Road/EMI he came across the storage room
that contained the recording sessions for the Solo McCartney albums.

LISTENING TO THE BEATLES TAPES:
Lewisohn listened to the tapes from 5 to 7 days a week, 16 hours per day
for 10 months. He only listened to the tapes ONCE. He would take notes
during listening, occasionally stoping the tape to catch-up.
Sometimes, as in the case for "Not Guilty", there was only one tape with
vocals, but there were many takes of backing rhythm tracks - he would not
listen to these in their entirety, but he would fast-forward the tape,
listen to a bit, fast-forward again, etc.
Why was he limited to 10 months? Because the book publishers wanted
the book out for Christmas. Also, the studio time he spent listening
to the tapes was "charged - internally to EMI - to the book project".
Could he go back and listen to the tapes again? EMI would probably want
to know why, since the book project is finished now and there would be
no reason to monopolize studio time again.

ARE ANY TAPES MISSING?
NO.

RECORDING SESSION FOLLOW-UP ARTICLES:
Would he write more articles on the recording sessions?
He could, but they would probably NOT get printed in Beatles Monthly
because the editor has strange ideas about people's interests.
It was suggested to him that Beatlefan would be another alternative.

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