From: dmac@julia.math.ucla.edu (saki)
Subject: Re: Harrison/McCartney
Summary: "In Spite of All The Etc."
Keywords: Paul, George
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 22:20:32 GMT

In article <Bz965E.LHu@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> jbmorris@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (jeffrey brent morris) writes:
>Of course, there is one known McCartney-Harrison tune in existance:
>"In Spite of All Danger", the B-side to their very first record,
>"That'll Be the Day".  I've never heard this, nor heard of it being
>heard by anyone!  But I do remember some band at one of the Liverpool
>conventions was going to play it one time - how did they know it?
>Has anyone ever heard "In Spite of All Danger"?  Also, as far as I
>know, only just over a minute of "That'll Be the Day" has really been
>heard.

Last August, during the British Bank Holiday weekend, Liverpool played
host to a Beatles Convention, and one of the featured speakers was
John "Duff" Lowe, ex-Quarryman and player on the much-fabled single
"That'll Be The Day" b/w "In Spite of All The Danger". Lowe, along
with Messrs. Harrison, McCartney and Lennon, recorded these songs
in 1958 in a novelty-style recording booth and had four shellacs
pressed, one for each of them. The Fabs (as they became) must have
misplaced their copies over time, but not our Mr. Lowe. He kept his
and was about to auction it off to the highest bidder several years
ago when Dr. Macca came out of the woodwork and a) sought an injunction
to prevent Mr. Lowe from selling the shellac, and b) offered Mr. Lowe
a tidy sum for it, as a consolation prize. I can't recall exactly but
I believe Macca was able to block the sale of the disc on the basis
that it contained a Buddy Holly song...whose catalogue Paul owns. Now
Paul himself owns the only remaining shellac.

Mr. Lowe spoke last August about the production of this record, as
quoted in "The Beatles Book": "John Lowe discussed the session where the
group recorded 'That'll Be The Day' and 'In Spite of All The Danger',
saying that 'it was a bit of a giggle, really'. The boys practised
'Danger' heavily beforehand 'so George could get his riff right'. Lowe
described it as 'a very simple song' but said that it used to go down
well at their stage performances. 'It was a song that Paul had written,
John sang it, and George did the solo'." [Songwriting credit has been
given traditionally to McCartney/Harrison, but Macca has since remarked
that he thought, erroneously, that George deserved half credit even
though he contributed to "only" the guitar solo.]

Apparently, toward the end of the convention when most of the participants
had gone home, there was a farewell gig at what passes for the Cavern
Club these days, and John Lowe actually performed "In Spite Of All The
Etc." for the first time in over thirty years. I suppose he knew what
it sounded like because a) he played on the original, and b) I'll lay
odds ke kept a taped copy of the disc.

>I did hear that Paul had this original 78 digitally remastered and
>distributed 50 copies to friends as Christmas presents a couple of
>years back.  I don't know if this was both sides, or just the A.
>Anyone know?

It was supposed to be both sides, and yes, this was reportedly done
several Christmases ago. One wonders whether there's some secret
encoding in these 50 copies that would lead Paul to know which
one of his friends betrayed him if this song ever made it onto
bootlegs!

>Why are we being denied these recordings?  Well, many others, too,
>for that matter.  Let me post elsewhere on that...

It's one of those instances where Paul probably fought so hard for
the rights to this disc because he didn't *want* the general public 
to hear it. Maybe, if we're lucky, he'll release it one day. Or
perhaps he'd respond to a well-organized letter-writing campaign?

--
"Some of these tunes are purely instrumental, such as 'Looking Glass',
'Catswalk' and 'Winston's Walk', and others were composed with the modern
audience in mind, tunes like 'Thinking of Linking', 'The One After 909'...."
---------------------------------------------------saki (dmac@math.ucla.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.music.beatles