Beatles' Let It Be (33 1/3) (9 page)

While Michael Lindsay-Hogg was not quite able to pinpoint it either, he believes that Saturday may have been the day that the idea for the rooftop concert was first proposed. “After lunch,” he began, “Paul and I and Mal Evans went up on the roof and we looked around and jumped up and down on the boards and tried to figure out whether we would have to shore it up.” “I think we were originally going to do it on a Wednesday,” he continued, “but it was too cloudy and dull, so we did it on Thursday.”

Monday the 27th began with “Strawberry Fields Forever.” “Oh! Darling” was given a fairly long take and “Get Back,” nearly ready, was done several times, as was “I’ve Got a Feeling.” That would be the last time that the Beatles would do “Oh! Darling” during the “Get Back” project, and that loose version would be included on
Anthology 3.
The day ended on a high note for John, as he received word that Yoko’s divorce was now final (it wouldn’t be officially finalized until the following month).

That evening, John and Yoko met Allen Klein in the Harlequin suite (where Klein always stayed when in London) at the Dorchester Hotel on Park Lane. Klein, who had managed the Rolling Stones, had heard
of the Beatles’ unstable management situation and was interested in managing the group. The meeting came about as a result of Derek Taylor giving John’s number to Klein. Klein had previously met with Peter Brown, but Brown didn’t like him. John was immediately impressed with Klein and subsequently wrote a letter to Sir Joseph Lockwood, then the chairman of EMI, advising him that he wanted to officially appoint Klein as his manager. The letter John wrote simply said, “Dear Sir Joe, From now on Allen Klein handles all my stuff.” That one meeting and hastily scribbled note very likely sparked the chain of events that would precipitate one of the most acrimonious splits in pop music history.

On the following day, the group finally came up with finished takes of both “Get Back” and “Don’t Let Me Down,” now destined to become the A and B sides of its next single. “One After 909” was brought back after having been resurrected at Twickenham and “The Long and Winding Road” was given another workout.

George continued to bring new songs to the project. “Old Brown Shoe” and “Something” were both introduced on that day, and “Let It Down” was revived after it had appeared early on at Twickenham. “Something,” lyrically influenced by “Something in the Way She Moves,” a song from James Taylor’s self-titled Apple debut (which would be released on February 17), had been written by George during the
White Album
sessions.
It was introduced too late to be included on that album, and appeared for the first time on January 28. The group did two very tentative versions of it, the first with very incomplete lyrics.

Two songs, loosely entitled “Billy’s Song 1” and “Billy’s Song 2,” were also performed. Although it was a very productive day, there was still a great deal of uncertainty at the end of it about what exactly the group was going to do with regard to the album, the film, the rooftop performance, and the television show.

Wednesday the 29th saw the group go through a couple of tries at “All Things Must Pass,” one more go at “Let It Down,” a run-through of an oldies medley, and a rendition of two Buddy Holly covers. On that day, it was confirmed that the rooftop performance would indeed take place. It was also confirmed that the group would rehearse for it, but without Billy Preston.

The penultimate day of recording for the “Get Back” project, Thursday, January 30, has passed into Beatles lore as the day of the rooftop concert. The focus of the day would be a roughly 42-minute concert that the group would give on the roof of the Apple building, overlooking Burlington Gardens. For some of the people involved in putting on the concert, the day began very early in the morning.

Dave Harries and Keith Slaughter began the day at 4 a.m. Harries said, “We had to collect all the stuff
from Abbey Road and get it up on the roof, and it was all highly secret as well—and no one had to know about this.” Harries said they had to “get it all up there and working by lunch time.” “We had very, very little notice,” he explained, “that this was going to happen.”

Although not captured on film, but befitting the cinematic undertaking and in splendid Keystone Cops fashion, Harries and Slaughter nearly didn’t make it to Apple with the much-needed equipment. Harries explained the not-very-auspicious start to such a historic day:

We got pulled over by the police in Kings Langley—Keith and I—and we couldn’t tell them where we were going. We had funny caps on and loads of rope and lots of gear piled up, and it was four in the morning. We must have looked like we were out burglarizing someone. The police said, “Where are you going?” and we said, “We can’t tell you,” and we thought, “Oh, God, they’re going to lock us up and we’ll never get to Savile Row.” We said, “This is an EMI car,” and they checked that. They found out it was an EMI pool car and they let us go.

While preparing the roof for the concert after their arrival, Harries and Slaughter, together with Alan Parsons, who was also helping set up the equipment, ran into another problem. Alan Parsons found the solution at the nearest branch of Marks and Spencer. “Glyn sent
me out when we had a wind noise problem,” he recalled. “So I just went round the corner to Regent St. and picked up a pair of stockings. They asked me what size and I said, ‘It doesn’t matter.’ The store person thought I was either going to rob a bank or cross-dress.”

Paul used his 1963 Hofner bass played through a silverface Fender Bass rig. John played a stripped Ephiphone Casino guitar, and George played a Fender Rosewood Telecaster guitar. They both played their guitars through silverface Fender Twin Reverb amps. Ringo played a Ludwig Hollywood five-piece, multi-colored drum kit with three cymbals. Billy Preston played a Fender Rhodes Seventy-Three keyboard, which had its own amplification. Vox speaker columns were used as makeshift monitors for the band. In order to allow the sound to be heard in the street below, a Fender Solid-State PA system with the speaker columns tilted slightly downward to face the street, was used for the vocals. Just as they had been using in their makeshift basement studio, the microphones they chose to use on the roof were the Neumann KM84i model.

During the concert George Martin was in the basement and Glyn Johns primarily engineered the live recording. Derek Taylor was in his office while the concert went on, and almost as soon as it started, the press started phoning. Peter Brown and Denis O’Dell were both on the roof.

Although the Beatles added more cameras to the film shoot when they moved from Twickenham to Apple, they added even more for the rooftop concert. Multiple cameras were also positioned on nearby rooftops and in the street. Finally, there was one in Apple’s reception area. Les Parrott said that there were probably 11 cameras in total.

The plan to execute the concert itself was uncertain the day before it was to happen. In fact, it remained shaky right up until the time it had been scheduled to begin. Michael Lindsay-Hogg recalled the last-minute mood of the Beatles: “We planned to do it at about 12:30 to get the lunch-time crowds. They didn’t agree to do it as a group until about twenty to one. Paul wanted to do it and George didn’t. Ringo would go either way. Then John said, ‘Oh fuck, let’s do it,’ and they went up and did it.”

It was a cloud-covered day, with a washed-out gray sky and a chilling wind blowing. “The day was cold in a very London fashion,” recalled Les Parrott. “It’s a cold that doesn’t bother you too much as long as you’re moving. However, if you stand still or don’t have food and warm drink regularly and it attacks, you become very miserable very quick.” Alan Parsons, who was also on the roof that day, said, “It was just a dreary wintry London day. It was certainly cold. Everyone was freezing their ass off.”

The Beatles appeared slowly and tentatively from the stairwell of 3 Savile Row and emerged on the rooftop of the building. It was the beginning of another mundane lunchtime in London. Unbeknown to the few early lunchtime stragglers on the street and those imperviously going about their business in offices and shops in the area, the Beatles were about to play their last live concert together.

The four Beatles and Billy Preston arranged themselves around Ringo’s drums. Billy Preston was perched in front of the stairwell wall, on Ringo’s right, with Paul nearly in front of Billy. John was in the middle and George was to John’s left and just a little behind him, facing sideways so he could see just about everyone. Paul seemed ready to make it a good show and was not overly animated to start. John looked very comfortable and happy. He often glanced at Paul when they sang harmonies together and smiled frequently. There was a sense that he really enjoyed being on a stage with his little band and there was an almost shy sweetness about him early on that belied any of the infighting, bad feelings, or odd behavior that had come about over the past weeks. Ringo was solid and—without even trying—he was the picture of cool. George seemed the most uncomfortable, hanging back, singing very little, and acting as if he was an aloof captive of this silly show. While Paul was smartly dressed in a dark suit and an open
collar shirt, ignoring the cold, George wore green slacks, black, low-cut Converse sneakers, and a furry black jacket over his shirt. To confront the cold elements, Ringo had borrowed his wife Maureen’s mod red raincoat, while John had borrowed Yoko’s fur coat, which looked great with his white sneakers.

The group immediately launched into “Get Back,” making all those weeks of playing together not such a big waste of time after all. Preston contributed a loose, funky keyboard to “Get Back,” which further lubricated the rollicking, boogie feel of the song and added a much-needed bright punch. Even in the cold and with the dodgy sound set-up, it sounded great. “Don’t Let Me Down” sounded equally good and John’s inability to get all the words right only added a disarming charm to the whole proceedings. John, Paul, and George harmonized well together and John and Paul frequently exchanged pleased glances. “I’ve Got a Feeling” really rocked and during it Paul finally became more animated. Ringo was superb, and even George had to smile. “One After 909” gave all those too young to have seen the Beatles play the Cavern a glimpse of the simple rockin’ sound that had launched the group only a few short years ago. “Dig a Pony” began after some tentative starts, and Lennon’s words cut through the biting winds.

During a second rendition of “Get Back,” the increase in the number of people in the street and on
adjacent roofs, combined with the hovering presence of the police, helped to create a sense that the concert could potentially break down at any minute. Dave Harries fondly remembered the police that day:

There was a policeman knocking on the door saying if we didn’t open the door he’d arrest everyone in the building, and George (Martin) looked a bit worried then. Then the policeman came in and all they did was stand around and watch. They didn’t stop it—we thought they were going to try and stop it and we said, “No, don’t stop it—leave it; everyone’s enjoying it, it’s all right. No problem, is it?” The policeman said, “Well, providing we can watch then.” When they found out who it was, they didn’t want to stop it.

With “Get Back” finished, including Paul’s ad-lib that made reference to the police in attendance and John’s singing of a snatch of “Danny Boy,” there was a lot of applause. Paul thanked Ringo’s wife Maureen for cheering so enthusiastically and then John made his famous comment: “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we passed the audition.”

The above were the performances shown in the
Let It Be
film. There were several additional performances, including two more takes of “Get Back.” There was also nearly two minutes of “I Want You (She’s So Heavy).”
“Don’t Let Me Down” was also done again. A little over a minute of another run-through of “Dig a Pony,” a couple of minutes of “God Save the Queen” and another fairly long run-through of “I’ve Got a Feeling” were also done.

It’s hard to say for how long the Beatles would have played if the police hadn’t arrived. It would have been fascinating to see them play in a more controlled environment, with proper sound and without having to battle the weather. They certainly played well and selected takes from the performance formed some of the basic tracks for the finished
Let It Be
album.

In summing up the rooftop concert, Michael Lindsay-Hogg said, “When they were doing it, they were happy. They actually kind of enjoyed it and had a lot of fun with it and each other.”

Dave Harries reflected on some of the challenges of staging the rooftop concert. “Of course it was very hard in those days. You couldn’t really have big PA rigs. You had to just use all the PA stuff that was at EMI and rig it so it was as loud as possible going down into the street. It worked quite well, actually—quite surprisingly, considering.”

Alan Parsons, who was behind the camera in the stage right corner, felt that everything went very smoothly, although he admitted that there were “possible conflicts between the film crew and the sound crew.”

In the evening, Glyn Johns again returned to Olympic Sound Studios for a 7:30 to 10 p.m. session, at which he mixed some songs from the concert into stereo and cut acetates of them. The acetates were given to the Beatles.

The day after the rooftop concert, Friday, January 31, would be the last official day of filming and recording. With the more upbeat, electric rockers such as “Get Back,” “Don’t Let Me Down,” “I’ve Got a Feeling,” and “One After 909” having been tackled the day before on the roof, the more acoustic numbers were left to be recorded. Filming on the final day was unlike all previous filming in that the performances were staged specifically for the cameras.

The three songs the group focused on were the acoustic “Two of Us,” and the two piano songs, “The Long and Winding Road” and “Let It Be,” in that order. The day started out very lighthearted, with some joking obviously influenced by the old “Laugh-In” television show. John was heard muttering “Goodnight, Dick.” It was clear, though, that the Beatles were very focused on getting some final takes. There was little chatter and only a few moments of musical ad-libs. One of the most telling moments of the day, of the whole project, and maybe of the group’s final months together, occurred after one of the takes of “Let It Be”: John turned to Paul and said, “Let It Be. Hey, I know what you mean.”
It was almost as if he was thankful that Paul was in some way acknowledging that it would be a good idea to just let the group end. Of course, that was not the central or complete meaning of the song. Yet, considering the ongoing tension and the group’s awareness that the recording phase of the album was ending that day, John’s quip succinctly summarized the entire project.