In the studio

The Beatles performed partial or complete versions of literally hundreds of cover versions and original songs in January 1969. These ranged from traditional songs and rock and roll classics to unreleased works-in-progress and those that eventually appeared on Let It Be, Abbey Road, and The Beatles’ early solo albums. Among them were versions of ‘Love Me Do’, ‘Child Of Nature’, ‘Something’, ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, ‘All Things Must Pass’, songs by Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Bob Dylan, George Formby, The Beach Boys and others, as well as blues-based improvisations, aimless jams, off-the-cuff song sketches and many hours of dialogue.

The Beatles worked at Twickenham from 2-14 January 1969. On 10 January George Harrison quit the band, after separate disagreements with John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

For me, to come back into the winter of discontent with The Beatles in Twickenham was very unhealthy and unhappy. But I can remember feeling quite optimistic about it. I thought, ‘OK, it’s the New Year and we have a new approach to recording.’ I think the first couple of days were OK, but it was soon quite apparent that it was just the same as it had been when we were last in the studio, and it was going to be painful again. There was a lot of trivia and games being played.

As everybody knows, we never had much privacy – and now they were filming us rehearsing. One day there was a row going on between Paul and me. It’s actually in the film: you can see where he’s saying, ‘Well, don’t play this,’ and I’m saying, ‘I’ll play whatever you want me to play, or I won’t play at all if you don’t want me to play. Whatever it is that will please you, I’ll do it…’

They were filming us having a row. It never came to blows, but I thought, ‘What’s the point of this? I’m quite capable of being relatively happy on my own and I’m not able to be happy in this situation. I’m getting out of here.’

Everybody had gone through that. Ringo had left at one point. I know John wanted out. It was a very, very difficult, stressful time, and being filmed having a row as well was terrible. I got up and I thought, ‘I’m not doing this any more. I’m out of here.’

George Harrison
Anthology

After Harrison walked out of the Twickenham rehearsals, the other three Beatles carried on performing without him. At one point Yoko Ono wailed some vocals over their jamming. John Lennon can be heard on the tapes suggesting that if Harrison didn’t return within a few days they should replace him with Eric Clapton.

George left because Paul and he were having a heated discussion. They weren’t getting on that day and George decided to leave, but he didn’t tell John or me or Paul. There’d been some tension going down in the morning, and arguments would go on anyway, so none of us realised until we went to lunch that George had gone home. When we came back he still wasn’t there, so we started jamming violently. Paul was playing his bass into the amp and John was off, and I was playing some weird drumming that I hadn’t done before. I don’t play like that as a rule. Our reaction was really, really interesting at the time. And Yoko jumped in, of course; she was there.
Ringo Starr
Anthology

Harrison was persuaded to rejoin on 15 January, during a five-hour meeting in which he insisted he would only rejoin if the idea of a live show was dropped. He also demanded that sessions be moved from Twickenham to a new studio in the basement of Apple’s headquarters in Savile Row, London. He didn’t object to The Beatles being filmed making their album, and his conditions didn’t rule out a live performance for the cameras.

I was called to a meeting out in Elstead in Surrey, at Ringo’s house that he bought from Peter Sellers. It was decided that it would be better if we got back together and finished the record. Twickenham Studios were very cold and not a very nice atmosphere, so we decided to abandon that and go to Savile Row into the recording studio.
George Harrison
Anthology

The Apple Studios sessions began on 21 January 1969. From the following day, until the end of the Let It Be recordings on 31 January, they were joined by keyboard player Billy Preston, who was in London performing with Ray Charles.

The Beatles knew Preston from their Hamburg days, and George Harrison invited him to participate in the sessions to help alleviate the tensions. Five of the songs on Let It Be featured Billy Preston on organ or electric piano, as did ‘Don’t Let Me Down’, the b-side to the ‘Get Back’ single, also recorded during the sessions.

Billy came down and I said, ‘Remember Billy? Here he is – he can play the piano.’ He got on the electric piano, and straight away there was 100% improvement in the vibe in the room. Having this fifth person was just enough to cut the ice that we’d created among ourselves. Billy didn’t know all the politics and the games that had been going on, so in his innocence he got stuck in and gave an extra little kick to the band. Everybody was happier to have somebody else playing and it made what we were doing more enjoyable. We all played better and that was a great session. It was more or less just as it is on the record.
George Harrison
Anthology

Apple rooftop performance

As at Twickenham, The Beatles performed a large variety of songs at Apple, although the original material became more focused. The sessions culminated with the famous rooftop performance on 30 January 1969, and with a live studio set the following day for those songs which were less well suited for an outside performance.

Three of the Let It Be songs – ‘Dig A Pony’, ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’ and ‘One After 909’ – were taken from the 30 January 1969 rooftop performance on the top of the Apple building. Dialogue from the event was also added to the end of a studio take of Get Back, with John Lennon closing The Beatles’ book with the line: “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves, and I hope we’ve passed the audition.”

From the final studio session on 31 January, versions of ‘Two Of Us’ and ‘Let It Be’ were used on the album, and various other performances from the day were used in the film.

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