Member-only story
THE BEATLES
The Beatles’ Lost Album
The album The Fabs shelved
After recording some 85 hours of new music for their proposed Get Back album, The Beatles lost interest and moved on to record and release Abbey Road.
The plan for Get Back had been to ‘get back’ to their roots musically. This meant returning to the concept of a four-piece combo recording live in the studio without any overdubs, just as they’d done for their first couple of albums. The band instructed engineer and de-facto producer Glyn Johns to include studio chatter and errors for this raw ‘live’ album.
Or Glynnis as we heard Lennon refer to Glyn Johns in the Peter Jackson Get Back documentary.
The band shot a cover image for Get Back that replicated the Please Please Me album photographed in the stairwell at EMI House London to cement the get-back-to-basics connection. The updated EMI House photo was eventually used on the 1967–1970 Blue compilation album.
The Get Back sessions were difficult and at times, tortuous. Harrison even left the band at one stage. Soon after the rooftop concert, they moved on to the more rewarding Abbey Road recordings.
Glyn Johns tried to rescue Get Back and in April 1969, the Get Back / Don’t Let Me Down single was released. By May, he’d completed mixing…
