THE BEATLES – Revolver (Super Deluxe Edition w/ 100-page book) – 4LP + 7″ Vinyl EP – Vinyl Box Set

Super Deluxe Edition: 4LP – 180g Half-Speed Mastered Vinyl+ 7″ Vinyl EP
* features a new mix by Giles Martin and Sam Okell.
* the original mono mix
* a 4-track EP
* 31 session takes and home demos
* a 100-page book with a foreword by Paul McCartney
* an essay by Questlove
* detailed track notes, photos and ephemera including handwritten lyrics, tape boxes and extracts from Klaus Voormanns graphic novel on the making of the cover art.
* Half-speed-mastered 180g LPs + 7-inch vinyl EPina 12.56 x 12.36 slipcase.

Across all the configurations,Revolvers Special Edition showcases the GRAMMY-winning original album artwork created by The Beatles longtime friend, German bassist and artistKlaus Voormann. The Super Deluxe CD and vinyl collections beautiful book featuresPaul McCartneys foreword; an introduction by Giles Martin; a thoughtful, enlightening essay byQuestlove; and insightful chapters and detailed track notes by Beatles historian, author, and radio producerKevin Howlett. The book is illustrated with rare and previously unpublished photos, never before published images of handwritten lyrics, tape boxes, and recording sheets, as well as 1966 print ads and extracts from Voormanns graphic novel, birth of an icon:REVOLVER.

Following the December 1965 release of their groundbreaking album,Rubber Soul, and after wrapping up that years tour dates, a late decision to cancel shooting plans for a third Beatles film,A Talent For Loving, would have a significant effect on the creation ofRevolver. The time allocated for filming and recording songs for a soundtrack was removed from the bands schedule, allowing the group to take a four-month break before theRevolverrecording sessions began. One things for sure, John said a few weeks before the bands return to the studio, the next LP is going to be very different.

On April 6, 1966, The Beatles gathered in Studio Three at EMI Studios (now called Abbey Road Studios) for their firstRevolverrecording session. With their producer George Martin flanked by recording engineer Geoff Emerick and technical engineer Ken Townsend, they went in blazing, starting with Tomorrow Never Knows. Johns ethereal vocals (fed from his mic through a rotating Leslie speaker), innovative tape loops including Paul saying ah, ah, ah, ah, which when sped up produced a sound similar to a seagulls screech converge with Ringos thunderous drum pattern, Georges tamboura drone, and a backwards guitar solo. Tomorrow Never Knows propelled The Beatles and popular music into exciting new terrain. In an interview before Revolvers August 5, 1966 release, Paul explained to NME, We did it because I, for one, am sick of doing sounds that people can claim to have heard before.Revolvers Special Edition also features The Beatles first take of Tomorrow Never Knows from the April 6 session and a mono mix that was issued on a small number of records before the LP was recut with the correct version.

The next day, The Beatles returned to Studio Three, completed most of their Tomorrow Never Knows recording, and started work on the first version of Got To Get You Into My Life. As heard on the Special Editions Sessions One, this recording sounds very different from the released track.Revolvers Special Edition also spotlights two more stages of the finished tracks evolution: an unreleased mono mix and a special mix highlighting the overdubs of three trumpets and two tenor saxophones.

One of Georges most important songwriting influences is heard in Love You To. The previous year, his deepening interest in Indian music and learning how to play sitar had brought him together withRavi Shankar, who became his close friend and occasional musical collaborator. The Beatles began recording Love You To in Studio Two on April 11, the third anniversary of the UK release of From Me To You. Taken with the whole ofRevolver, the short three-year span between these songs illuminates the bands astonishing creative progression. It was one of the first tunes I wrote for sitar, George later recalled. This was the first song where I consciously tried to use the sitar and tabla on the basic track. With George on sitar and vocals, Paul on tamboura and vocal harmony, and university student Anil Bhagwat on tabla, the songs intricate arrangement began to take shape over several takes. Overdubs included an additional harmony vocal by Paul, omitted from the released version but now faded up in a mix of Take 7.

Revolvers Special Edition also features Take 1 and a previously undocumented and only recently discovered rehearsal for the song with George playing sitar and Paul on tamboura. Between April 13 and 16 in Studios Two and Three, The Beatles recorded their chart-topping Paperback Writer single (with layered harmonies, riffing guitars, and Pauls booming bass lines) and its B-side Rain (achieved with tape machines slowed down for the recording and mixing processes). Prior to the singles release on June 10 (May 30 in the U.S.), The Beatles spent a couple of days away from recording to shoot several promotional films for both songs with directorMichael Lindsay-Hogg, who would later direct the Let It Be film. In addition to the songs new stereo mixes and original mono mixes,Revolvers Special Edition features Paperback Writer Takes 1 and 2 Backing track and two versions of Rain Take 5: one at the actual speed The Beatles played it and the other, a slowed down evolutionary mix used to create the master tape.

The albums opening track, Taxman, was recorded across three Studio Two sessions in April and May. One of three songs on the album by George, in Taxman he expresses his frustration with the UKs super-rich tax rate at the time (90%), with a vocal wink to the Batman TV theme song. In a 12-hour session on April 20, The Beatles recorded and mixed the first version of And Your Bird Can Sing (for this song, the Special Edition features two Version One/Take 2 recordings and Version Twos Take 5), then began recording Taxman. They returned to the song the next day, laying down Georges foundational guitar, Pauls bass and his dynamic, raga-style guitar solo, and Ringos drums and cowbell. Revolvers Special Edition also features Take 11, with falsetto backing vocals by John and Paul with different words from the released version. Yellow Submarine was recorded on May 26 and June 1 in Studios Three and Two, respectively.

The iconic, sunny rite of singalong passage for children everywhere and a favorite for the young-at-heart began quite differently than it finished. Parts 1 and 2 of the Special Editions songwriting work tape for Yellow Submarine reveal the songs evolution from a rather sad verse sung by John over acoustic guitar In the town where I was born / No one cared, no one cared to its adaptation by John and Paul to suit the jollier subject matter of the chorus. Revolvers Special Edition also includes Yellow Submarine Take 4 and highlighted sound effects (a complex and merry sonic seascape, including Mal Evans sand-shoveling and Brian Jones glass-clinking) for listeners to journey with The Beatles through the songs progression. We were really starting to find ourselves in the studio, Ringo explained later. The songs got more interesting, so with that the effects got more interesting.

The Beatles final Revolver recording session took place in Studio Two on the evening of June 21, 1966 into the wee hours of June 22, just one day before the band traveled to Munich to start their international summer tour. The lyrics for She Said She Said drew upon the memory of a disorienting day of misadventure The Beatles had experienced in Los Angeles. Having received Georges help to create a whole new song from some unfinished fragments, John led the group through the rehearsals and recording while the clock ticked away the last remaining session time.

Revolvers Special Edition also features Johns home demo for the song and Take 15 Backing track rehearsal, with its introductory speech revealing convivial banter between The Beatles as they worked out the arrangement (later praised by composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein as remarkable with real inventions). By 4am on June 22, The Beatles finished She Said She Said, wrapping up theirRevolverrecording sessions. The albums final mono and stereo mixes were completed that evening, and the next day The Beatles were once again off and running on tour. They would next return to Abbey Road in November 1966 to begin recordingSgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Released on August 5, 1966,Revolverspent seven weeks at number one on the UK albums chart, and a double A-side single with Eleanor Rigby and Yellow Submarine topped the UK singles chart for four weeks in August and September. In the U.S., Capitol released an 11-track version ofRevolver, which spent six weeks at number one on Billboards albums chart. Im Only Sleeping, And Your Bird Can Sing, and Doctor Robert had been previously plucked from the sessions for Capitols North American release of the Yesterday And Today compilation album in June. That albums sleeve was originally printed with the infamous butcher cover before pre-release controversy resulted inCapitolrecalling and re-covering well over one million mono and stereo LPs with an innocuous photo of The Beatles gathered around a trunk.

Tracklist:

LP One: Revolver (New stereo mix)
Side 1
1: Taxman
2: Eleanor Rigby
3: Im Only Sleeping
4: Love You To
5: Here, There And Everywhere
6: Yellow Submarine
7: She Said She Said

Side 2
1: Good Day Sunshine
2: And Your Bird Can Sing
3: For No One
4: Doctor Robert
5: I Want To Tell You
6: Got To Get You Into My Life
7: Tomorrow Never Knows
LP Two: Sessions One

LP Two: Sessions One
Side 1
1: Tomorrow Never Knows (Take 1)
2: Tomorrow Never Knows (Mono mix RM 11)
3: Got To Get You Into My Life (First version) Take 5
4: Got To Get You Into My Life (Second version) Unnumbered mix – mono
5: Got To Get You Into My Life (Second version) Take 8
6: Love You To (Take 1) – mono
7: Love You To (Unnumbered rehearsal) – mono

Side 2
1: Love You To (Take 7)
2: Paperback Writer (Takes 1 and 2) Backing track mono
3: Rain (Take 5 Actual speed)
4: Rain (Take 5 Slowed down for master tape)
5: Doctor Robert (Take 7)
6: And Your Bird Can Sing (First version) Take 2
7: And Your Bird Can Sing (First version) Take 2 (giggling)

LP Three: Sessions Two
Side 1
1: And Your Bird Can Sing (Second version) Take 5
2: Taxman (Take 11)
3: Im Only Sleeping (Rehearsal fragment) – mono
4: Im Only Sleeping (Take 2) – mono
5: Im Only Sleeping (Take 5) – mono
6: Im Only Sleeping (Mono mix RM1)
7: Eleanor Rigby (Speech before Take 2)
8: Eleanor Rigby (Take 2)

Side 2
1: For No One (Take 10) Backing track
2: Yellow Submarine (Songwriting work tape Part 1) – mono
3: Yellow Submarine (Songwriting work tape Part 2) mono
4: Yellow Submarine (Take 4 before sound effects)
5: Yellow Submarine (Highlighted sound effects)
6: I Want To Tell You (Speech and Take 4)
7: Here, There And Everywhere (Take 6)
8: She Said She Said (Johns demo) – mono
9: She Said She Said (Take 15) Backing track rehearsal

LP Four: Revolver (Original mono master)
Album tracklist (same as above)

Revolver EP (7-inch vinyl)
Side 1
1: Paperback Writer (New stereo mix)
2: Rain (New stereo mix)
Side 2
1: Paperback Writer (Original mono mix remastered)
2: Rain (Original mono mix remastered)