The surviving members of The Beatles are releasing a remixed version of their classic 1970 album Let It Be that strips away many of the elaborate string arrangements and recreates the way the band originally recorded the music.
The re-release, called Let It Be … Naked, will hit stores on November 18 according to a statement by The Beatles’ company, Apple Corps Records, on Thursday. Two songs, Maggie Mae and Dig It, have been removed from the new set, while Don’t Let Me Down and background dialogue from the studio sessions have been added.
The Let It Be … Naked package also features a 20-minute bonus disc of material culled from rehearsal sessions.
”If we had today’s technology back then, it would sound like this because this is the noise we made in the studio. It’s all exactly as it was in the room. You’re right there now,” Paul McCartney said in a statement.
According to Rolling Stone magazine most of the Let It Be material was recorded in early 1969 for an album and movie project originally to be called Get Back. The project was intended to showcase The Beatles’ returning to their roots as a four-piece rock band, but instead captured the band in the throes of their break-up.
The album was temporarily abandoned, and the film, retitled Let It Be, was released the following year. Phil Spector was later brought in at John Lennon’s insistence to compile an album from the hundreds of hours of tape.
Spector’s work, undertaken after the group had effectively split, has always been a source of irritation to Paul McCartney, who took particular exception to the string arrangement on his composition The Long and Winding Road.
”Paul was always totally opposed to Phil,” drummer Ringo Starr was quoted as saying. ”I told him on the phone, ‘You’re bloody right again: It sounds great without Phil.’ Which it does. Now we’ll have to put up with him telling us over and over again, ‘I told you.”’
The project has been in the works for two years and was approved by guitarist George Harrison prior to his 2001 death. — Sapa-DP