art review: The Beatles in India

  

by Allan Tong

"I need to find myself," Paul Saltzman proclaimed in late 1967. Life lacked meaning for the 24-year-old Toronto filmmaker. Only India attracted him, and by chance he caught wind of a documentary crew needing a sound man to record there. So, what if never recorded audio? He bluffed the job interview, begged someone to teach him sound and, with $200 in his pocket ($1,800 today), Paul flew to New Delhi on December 4. 

During the filming of Juggernaut somewhere near Rajasthan, Paul received a letter from his girlfriend back home. She wrote she was breaking up with him and, even worse, was moving in with another guy. A knife plunged into his heart. Screams gripped his skull. Then, one of the crew members suggested he try meditation to ease the heartbreak.

In early February, Paul journeyed to Rishikesh in northern India, nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas, so he could study under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, one of the world's most famous gurus. In fact, The Beatles' embrace of the Maharishi put him in the spotlight. Though Paul had attended a Beatles concert in Toronto back in 1964, he wasn't a huge fan and didn't know the band were in Rishikesh. In fact, Paul couldn't enter the ashram because The Beatles were there. He had to wait eight days before he was allowed in.

 "I was taught meditation in five minutes, and I did meditation for 30 minutes. It was a complete miracle. The knife in the heart was gone. The screaming in the head was gone. I was in a state of bliss."

After a few days, The Beatles started chatting and joking with Paul. One day, he was sitting with John when the head Beatle asked, "So, what are you doing here?" Paul revealed his heartbreak.

Replied Lennon, "Ah, yes, love can be very hard on us, can't it, Paul?"

"Yes," agreed the Canadian.

Lennon looked away, then glanced back and said, "You know, the great thing about love is you always get another chance."

Lennon's reassuring words were a gift, but Paul could not have known that Lennon himself was probably talking about himself. Lennon was secretly in love with a new woman, Yoko Ono, and would soon leave his wife, Cynthia, who was part of the ashram here. Paul had noted the icy distance between the married couple in the ashram.

Paul's other key memory of that week happened when he was sitting alone with George Harrison. "I'm just going to practice the sitar," said The Beatle who had introduced his band mates to meditation and helped launch Indian music in the West. "Do you want to come?"

Recalls Paul, "We go to his small meditation room, small, like our knees are almost touching. He picks up the sitar. Everything else was white, except the wood on the sitar. He starts to play and I close my eyes. It was a transcendent experience. I don't know if he played 10 or 40 minutes. It was timeless. As he finished playing, I opened my eyes, and I could see energy in the room--I had never seen that before--because I was in a state of bliss."

With no trace of ego, Harrison then said, "The Beatles have all the money you can dream. We have all the fame you could wish for. But it isn't love. It isn't health. It isn't peace inside." 

Paul chokes back tears as recalls that moment to a room full of people who've come to view his photographs of The Beatles in Rishikesh 57 years later in Toronto. "That was life-changing. He was a man of profound humility. True humility is recognizing your size in the universe.

 

Paul was speaking at a special reception hosted at the splendid Space* / Markham Street Gallery in downtown Toronto on a humid early evening on July 24. Many of his 54 photos of the Beatles adorn the walls on one floor of this new gallery. There are photos of John and Paul in white kurtas and sandals as they strum guitars, of Ringo aiming his 8mm home movie camera, of George relaxing in the shade. Photos capture some of the Beatles' celebrity entourage, including Donovan, Beach Boy Mike Love, Mia Farrow and her sister, Prudence, who inspired John Lennon to write The White Album ballad, Dear Prudence. They all came to literally to sit at the feet of the Maharishi, as captured in the exhibit's centerpiece.

 

Paul didn't unearth the photos for 30 years until his daughter, who became a Beatles fan, learned that her had met The Beatles and wanted to see the images. Since 2000, Paul has exhibited the photos around the world, published books, and made a film about his fateful week. He's been organizing 16-day tours across India to Rishikesh (22 days including a pilgrimage to Bhutan), even at the age of 82. When he first showcase his photos in the early 2000s, The Beatles legally challenged Paul, who later won. By 2005, at least Ringo had changed his tune--he signed several photos (all bought by a local collector, confirms a Space* manager.)   

Paul never thought of asking the band for autographs, but gained their permission to snap a few photos.The images are significant, because they captured the most influential band of their era about to enter a new phase of their careers. Only five months earlier, the band had lost their manager, Brian Epstein to an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. They left London as they were about to launch their new company, Apple, to protect their earnings from Britain's punitive supertax of the time, but would ironically  destroy the band. In mid-February 1968, their Magical Mystery Tour, was riding the top of the American album charts, while the revolutionary Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was still in the top 20, nine months after release. Despite this material success, The Beatles, led by George and his wife Pattie, sought spiritual peace thousands of miles away in the hills of India. 

Only twice did Paul Saltzman pull out his Pentax, capturing the Beatles at their most relaxed and unguarded. They are unshaven and smiling. They play music in the sun and shade. The pressures of being a Beatle are miles away. The riffs and songs that John, Paul and George composed in Rishikesh wound up on the celebrated White Album nine turbulent months later. There's no trace of psychedelia in these images, no hint of the furor that will arise later in 1968: The Beatles fighting in the studio, Apple bleeding money soon after lauching, and the public turning against John and his new soulmate, Yoko.

Paul Saltzman's photos capture The Beatles in their last moment of group unity, when the sky remained limitless.

Now and Then - the last Beatles single and the start of AI

 

by Allan Tong

Beatle fans around the world released their collective breath this morning at 10:00 am EST to hear the new--and last--Beatles single, Now and Then. They were not disappointed.

John's vocal is clear and drives the song. The strings are subtle and add depth, not sappiness. Paul's new lyrics complete John's sentiment. The harmonies, new ones from Paul and existing lines lifted from Because, Eleanor Rigby and Here, There and Everywhere, do not intrude. Same with Ringo's drums--it gets the job done. Paul's solo is finely delivered on slide guitar in tribute to George.

On the whole, the song works. What began as John's home recording c.1977 at a piano on a boombox has been expanded into a fully realized production. Now and Then has gone from a sketch into a fully framed painting.

Of course, it would have been impossible without the technology of AI (artificial intelligence). Full marks to filmmaker Peter Jackson for employing AI to isolate and highlight the various voices and instruments in the Get Back documentary which showed Paul, Ringo and their fans what this technology can do. What AI does on Now and Then is divorce John's vocal from his piano which were locked on a single mono track. Listen:

Paul, George and Ringo attempted to record Now and Then in 1994-5 for the Anthology project and would have found it a place on the third installment of that CD series, but George vetoed the song's inclusion because of the 60HZ him that ran through the demo tape. The technology simply didn't exist in the mid-90s. I suspect that with AI today George would have granted his blessing.

Now and Then is the last Beatles single ever. It's appropriate that it's coupled with the band's very first 7", Love Me Do, released in October 1962. This too has been touched by AI magic to separate the mono track into two: John's harmonica and Paul's bass guitar in the left channel, acoustic guitar and drums on the right and the vocals in the centre, which follows the formula that Giles Martin has applied to all the Beatles remixes since 2017's Sgt. Pepper. The left and right bleed slightly to avoid the "hard panning" that has afflicted many 1960s stereo mixes. Listen to the results, especially on earbuds: 

 

The effect is subtle, yet revolutionary. AI has liberated the old mono recordings into stereo to let each instrument and vocal breathe. John's harmonica has never sounded so distinct, You can hear layers of background vocals and instruments that were buried in the mono mix all these years. Yes, we've heard Love Me Do a million times, but never like this.

Today's release is a canny way to promote the forthcoming 1962-66 re-release (on Nov. 10 along with 1967-70) that has been expanded from the original 26 tracks to 38. Thirty are new remixes, and I'm eager to hear them with the AI touch, especially She Loves You, which exists only in mono (because EMI Records lost the master tapes years ago). That said, fans have already "demixed" this song into stereo and the results sound pretty good. Can Apple surpass it?

In fact, anyone who can get their hands on the right AI software can demix at home. Witness this fan's remix of Free As A Bird, where John's vocal is no longer muddied and buried in the track (it too originated from a home demo), but shines in the forefront:

What this means is extraordinary for music history. AI can demix old recordings of not only The Beatles and their contemporaries, but of Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, Billie Holliday and others to enhance the sonic quality of their music, present it to today's audience and capture new listeners. Of course, the demixing has to be done with care and taste. The new  Love Me Do mix preserves the original overall sound of the single, but brings out the performances of each musician that were previously overlooked. Fans have already successfully demixed old Beatles demos and even the December 1962 Star Club tapes, which sound primitive. Rumour has it that Peter Jackson wants to demix these tapes. Why not? The Beatles were always innovating with new technology. 

November 3, 2023: A day after the audio release comes the video. Inserts of John and George over contemporary footage of Paul and Ringo recording the track brings home an overwhelming sense of closure. Though these inserts are technically clumsy at times and overdone, they are at other moments poignant. The closing montage of black-and-white photos of the band members growing ever younger is moving. It's impossible not to feel moved, that the final chapter to a grand story has been written. 

book review: Dressing The Beatles

 

Virtually everything has been written about The Beatles by now, but their impact on fashion has been largely overlooked. Renown Toronto arts journalist and Beatlesfreak, Deirdre Kelly, has taken a deep dive and just published a highly detailed study of the band's sartorial impact on culture in the 1960s and beyond.

Kelly's done her homework, interviewing former tailors, including the cutter of Dougie Millings, Beatle experts like Piers Hemmingsen. and even the band's ex-hairdresser. Her book describes the wardrobe of John, Paul, George and Ringo in exquisite detail that fashionistas will respect and Beatlefreaks (like myself) will enjoy. 

The four Beatles dressed in stylistic unison, starting with their punk look of leather jackets and sneers c.1960 (15 years Punk Rock itself), through their elegant-yet-hip Mod phase of the mid-1960s (dogstooth jackets, turtlenecks), and into their Indian-influenced psychedelic phase where they raided Carnaby Street. Each time the Beatles changed their look, so did Western youth. Kelly's book credits the band for boosting the British fashion industry, something that few historians have done.

Kelly isn't afraid to dish out the dirt on some questionable characters. Dutch designers, The Fool, represented hippie excess and exploitative behaviour. Similarly, the Apple Boutique, which showcased The Fool's garish clothes, was a short-lived money pit that proved The Beatles were genius musicians, but lousy businessmen.

Fashioning The Beatles offers the most revelations in the final years of the band (White Album, Abbey Road, Let It Be), a period that is hard to define sartorially. John went through his white phase courtesy of wife Yoko Ono. They all sprouted grew beards and wore denim (the working class uniform). Formalism lingered though, as there are three Beatles sporting suits designed by Tommy Nutter on the cover of Abbey Road. In this period, their fashion choices reflected the members asserting their identities, though their overall casual style remained uniform. (Ringo emerges in this book as the sharpest-looking Beatle.)

Fashioning The Beatles bursts with detail (there are 20 pages of sources) and is highly accurate. Kelly knows her stuff, and her book is an enjoyable and illuminating read.

film review: REVIVAL69: The Concert That Rocked the World

 

 

Directed by Ron Chapman

Review by Allan Tong

ChinoKino score: A

"It was the end of the Beatles."

Documentarian D.A. Pennebaker describes the climax of the set performed by John Lennon, Yoko Ono and the Plastic Ono Band on September 13, 1969 at Toronto's Varsity Stadium. Lennon had ordered his bandmates, including Eric Clapton, to lean their guitars on their amps which sparked feedback that howled alongside Ono's avant-garde vocals. "It was such a fantastic ending," said the legendary Pennebaker who filmed the concert, because it knew it would be historic. After the Toronto show, Lennon would return to London and indeed break up the Beatles. A remarkable new documentary tells the chaotic, hilarious and pivotal story behind this one-day rock fest that nearly collapsed several times.

Pennebaker eventually released a film about the Toronto Rock 'n' Roll Revival, a fly-on-the-wall doc made in the same vein as his innovative films, Don't Look Back, about Bob Dylan's 1965 U.K. tour, and the revolutionary Monterey Pop Festival of 1967. However, director Ron Chapman has used Pennebaker's footage as the core of an entirely new film. Chapman has new footage, including intimate super-8 film, many insightful interviews, rare stills and smart animation to tell a thrilling story.

The tale began with two young concert promoters who organized a one-day festival to honour the pioneers of rock 'n' roll: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis. But tickets didn't sell. Co-promoter John Brower, only 22 at the time, hired two notable L.A. DJ's to emcee the show, but that did nothing. Next, he booked the Doors (for $200,000 in today's money) by borrowing cash from a biker gang. But the Doors didn't move the needle either. With just days to go amid threats of the bikers collecting on their loan, one of the DJ's, Kim Fowley, urged the promoters to call John Lennon out of the blue and ask him to host.

After all, Lennon became a Beatle because of Berry et al. By chance, a Toronto rock journalist who was working for the Beatles, the renown Ritchie Yorke, vouched for Brower, so Lennon said yes. Miraculously, this exchange was captured on audiotape. However, nobody in Toronto believed Brower. Unbelievably, CHUM Radio kicked the promoters out of the station and even circulated rumours that Lennon would not show. (Shame on you, CHUM.) It took a Detroit DJ to get the word out and move tickets.

Other twists and turns abound in Revival 69, making the viewer ride a rollercoaster. The festival nearly collapsed a few times, but when it unfolded it was truly magical. Among the crowd of 20,000, Geddy Lee was a suburban longhair tripping on acid at the fest. Singer Claudia Barry was there to check out the black musicians. Both were blown away. Barry left knowing what she would do the rest of her life.

Chapman has done his homework. He interviewed Klaus Voorman and Alan White whom Lennon summoned to grab their bass and drums and meet him at the London airport. They convey the chaos, thrills and anxiety of rehearsing on the plane and racing to Varsity Stadium. Several other musicians on the bill recall that gig, namely Alice Cooper. His band were nobodies at the time, but they left Toronto as legends (Google "Alice Cooper chicken Toronto"). "We were an affront to everybody. We were the future."

Robbie Krieger of the Doors recalls headlining the festival, but remembers Jim Morrison being in awe of the the 1950s legends on stage, including Chuck Berry. Sadly, Mr. Mojo Rising balked at appearing on camera, so there is no footage of the Doors. Elsewhere, camerawoman Molly Davis recalls filming John and Yoko's limo as 80 bikers escorted it from the Toronto airport to Varsity Stadium (the head biker had a crush on her). Then there's the godfather of American rock criticism, Robert Christgau, who largely narrates the film by offering historic context and first-hand observations that are right on the money. Interviews by Lennon assistants, local musicians and other crew members contribute to a parade of colourful anecdotes.

The icing on the cake is animation by Mathew den Boer. It vividly presents the John and Yoko story which perfectly matches the crystal-clear audio recordings of their actual call with Brower. That audio is a highlight of the film.

REVIVAL69 wisely does not to focus too much on Lennon. Instead, it strikes a fine balance in telling the stories of all the musicians and characters behind the scenes. The film is a fine addition to the canon of rock docs, because it cements the significance of the 1969 Toronto Rock 'n' Roll Revival as a pivotal chapter of rock history. It marked the end of The Beatles and the 1960s and heralded the 1970s. REVIVAL69 should be held in the same regard as Woodstock and Gimme Shelter.

REVIVAL69 is currently playing film festivals. The next screening is in Oshawa at the Durham Region International Film Festival on Saturday, October 1.