This from WogBlog. Might be interesting to raxo and Xose!
Beatles live recording to be released?
Spanish music site Efe Eme reports that a recording of The Beatles' concert in Madrid, Spain from 2 July 1965 at Plaza de toros Las Ventas is to be officially released to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the show. The Beatles: Concierto en Madrid will be a limited edition 220 gram vinyl album on Cocodrilo Records, also containing the contents of the album on an accompanying CD. Included will also be a book containing 50 photographs of the Beatles in concert and in their hotel, by the photographer Francisco Barahona. The concert will also be accessible online for free.
The concert was officially recorded with Brian Epstein's permission (a signed contract still exists) on a Grundig reel-to-reel on 2 channels with four AKG microphones, and mixed live. The concert consists of these songs:
Twist and Shout (Medley-Russell)
She’s a Woman (Lennon-McCartney)
I’m a Loser (Lennon-McCartney)
Can’t Buy Me Love (Lennon-McCartney)
Baby’s in Black (Lennon-McCartney)
I Wanna Be Your Man (Lennon-McCartney)
A Hard Day’s Night (Lennon-McCartney)
Everybody’s Tryin’ to Be My Baby (Perkins)
Rock and Roll Music (Berry)
I Feel Fine (Lennon-McCartney)
Ticket to Ride (Lennon-McCartney)
Long Tall Sally (Johnson-Penniman-Blackwell)
The concert was recorded by José Luis Alvarez, and is described to be in great quality.
Alvarez was editor of the Spanish music magazine "Fonorama", and had met up with Brian Epstein in April 1965 on one of Epstein's frequent visit to Spain, a country he was very fond of. To Alvarez' surprise, Epstein was aware of Fonorama, which had started publication in 1963. Alvarez wanted to know if The Beatles would perform concerts in Spain that year, to which Epstein replied "No." Brian Epstein was a numbers man and had thought that since The Beatles sold so little records in Spain that they weren't very popular there. The Beatles had sold only around 3 800 records in Spain, according to Epstein, whereas their records were selling in hundreds of thousands or millions in other countries. Alvarez then told him that under the current Franco regime, the number of gramophone players in the country was just around 2 000, but these players were put to good use. Putting up speakers in windows, owners of record players would put on records and street parties would form. Alvarez was able to convince Epstein that each copy sold in Spain would be enjoyed by a large audience due to these street parties. Long story short, Epstein relented and The Beatles added Spain to their European tour.
Fonorama, the magazine Alvarez edited. This is #6 from April, 1964.When in Madrid, Alvarez hooked up with The Beatles, and they gave an interview which was published in Fonorama. Whereas the other newspaper men in Spain asked the Beatles about their hair, how they liked Spain and the national dish, "paella", Alvarez and his journalist Roberto Sanchez-Miranda to The Beatles' delight asked them more serious, music related questions.
After the interview, Alvarez told Epstein that he wanted to record the concert. He had yet to set up his independent Cocodrilo Records label, but thought that other companies might be interested in releasing the recording. Unusually, Epstein agreed to this, and the pair borrowed the hotel's Olivetti typewriter and drew up a contract with only six lines. Since then, the taped performance has been gathering dust in Alvarez' archives. After the death of John Lennon, Alvarez had talks with then president of EMI records in Spain, Manolo Diaz about releasing the recording, but the two lost touch after Diaz went to Miami and then went on to live in USA.
Interview album from Cicadelic Records.In the early 1980s Alvarez offered the tape to Cicadelic Records for $10,000. The company had already released nine albums of Beatles interviews. However, Cicadelic thought the asking price was much too high, or may have concluded that the copyright belonged to the artist, which was true at the time.
Alvarez has also written a book about The Beatles' visit to Spain.In the 90s Alvarez planned writing a book about the Beatles in Spain and sought permission from Apple Records' Neil Aspinall to include a CD of the concert with his book. He was denied such permission. The book was finally released in 2009. A second edition was released in late 2013.
Life then got in the way, but the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of the concert sparked renewed interest and the project looks like it's finally coming to fruition. And with the current copyright situation in Europe still untested (recordings unreleased after fifty years are entering the public domain), the independent release may prove difficult to stop (see our earlier article about Peacock Records).
And edited:
Madrid - film at 11
As a follow up on our story earlier today of an upcoming attempt to release an audio recording of The Beatles' concert in Madrid, we have located this piece of film, which has captured several clips from the concert. The Beatles performed just once concert in Madrid in Spain. It took place at the Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, the city's bullring, where Beatles manager Brian Epstein had watched a bullfight on the previous day.
| <![CDATA[<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpdbRambP-A" target="_blank" class="aeva_link bbc_link new_win">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpdbRambP-A</a>]]> |
The Beatles arrived from Nice, France the day before, and held a press conference. The concert began the next day at 8.30pm. By this point in the tour The Beatles had become concerned at the level of violence they'd seen police use against the fans.
"The thing I remember about Madrid, where we played another bullring, was that the police were so violent. It was the first time I'd really seen police beating kids up.
I went to a bullfight there, and it was the saddest thing I ever saw. It was really sorrowful to see the bull just getting weakened and weakened. And then, when they finally kill the bugger, they wrap a chain round its leg and bring in a couple of cart-horses and drag the corpse away. I always thought it was such a miserable end. That's the only bullfight I ever went to, and I've never been interested in seeing one again."
Ringo Starr, The Beatles' Anthology.
Press conference on July 1.The police weren't just brutal to the fans who had gained entry to the concert, in his book, "The Beatles en España", author José Luis Álvarez says that only 4,000 or 5,000 people saw the Beatles in concert in Madrid, when the capacity was 18,000 to 20,000. The police is to have blocked access for as much as 10,000 people to the concert, to keep the riff raff out. Apparantly they feared scandals, for whichever reason. Álvarez says that the arrival of The Beatles to Spain was not well received by neither the Franco regime, their loyal press, or the police.
Even just before the concert was to take place, it was said that The Beatles did not yet have the appropriate permissions to perform. But because these events took place in the year which saw The Beatles receive their MBEs from Queen Elizabeth, a fact which was public knowledge at the time, the regime didn't want to upset Great Britain, and the appropriate permissions were granted.
