****1/2....

Ooh, Phil Spector, that mean, terrible man...

Eh? Well, not really. He went overboard on "The Long And Winding Road", sure, but Spector actually left most of these performances pretty much as they were originally recorded. Only "The Long and Winding Road" and (to a lesser degree) "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine" get the wall of sound treatment.



Although released in May 1970, "Let It Be" was not The Beatles' final album. It was largely recorded in early 1969, way before "Abbey Road", but only released on May 8th of 1970, after the de facto breakup of the band.

"Let It Be" opens with the pleasant, folkish "Two Of Us", followed by the utterly forgettable "Dig A Pony", and that pretty much sets the stage for the rest of the album. "Let It Be" is just not a uniformly strong record (and the fact that "Don't Let Me Down" wasn't included doesn't help), and songs like "Pony", "I Me Mine", and "Dig It" could've been left off with little or no damage done.



But "Let It Be" also includes a handful of the band's very best songs...McCartney in particular is inspired, authoring the stately, gospel-like "Let It Be", the driving rocker "Get Back", and the grand ballad "The Long And Winding Road". And fortunately, the original, unvarnished, and much superior undubbed version of "The Long and Winding Road" can now be heard on official releases like "Anthology 3" and that other one...



Lennon gets off a couple of gems as well, the beautiful ballad "Across The Universe" in particular. And the tough rocker "I Got A Feeling" is actually "pasted together" (not literally) from two songs, one by Lennon and one by McCartney



The two also revisit an early co-composition which had never been recorded before, the driving Chuck Berry-like "Old time rock n' roll" of "The One After 9 0 9".

And finally, George Harrison contributes the bluesy "For You Blue", which features some nice slide guitar playing, and John Lennon sings the lead on excactly 38 seconds of "Maggie Mae" (why only 38 seconds?!).



Anyway. Occational weirdness, but a lot of tremendous music as well. And besides, it's "Let It Be".

If it looks like the end, and sounds like the end, then...

Historically there is a real sense in which the "Let It Be" album made it easier to accept the idea that the Beatles had broken up. Not just because the album is essentially the soundtrack from the film that showed the Beatles disintegrating right before our eyes, but also because it is just not a great Beatles album, certainly not in comparison to "Abbey Road" (or even the collection of singles like "Lady Madonna" and "Hey Jude" that Apple put out after the end, most of which ended up on the CD "Past Masters - Volume Two").



The culprit who is fingered for this disaster (a Beatles album that is not "great" qualifies as a disaster), is Phil Spector, who was brought in to do some post-production mixing and overdubs. But the only song that really got the legendary "Wall of Sound" treatment was "The Long and Winding Road," with "Across the Universe" and "I Me Mine" only getting a touch of the same. That is not much to hang Spector as the primary culprit. The biggest sin here is that he did not work with the Beatles the same way that George Martin always did and the responsibility for so many of the songs being sub-standard has to fall on the Beatles who wrote them. Personally, I never liked "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road" half as much as "Hey Jude" (it was like comparing all of Led Zeppelin's ambitious songs to "Stairway to Heaven" in the next decade).



It helps a little bit to recall that the idea here was that the Beatles were performing these songs live (who can forget the famous rooftop concert), in another attempt to get excited about their music. Sometimes I just think of "Let It Be" as the anti-Sgt. Pepper album, because whereas that classic Beatles album has a superb sense of construction from start to finish, the songs on this one seem to be arranged in a haphazard fashion (e.g., "Dig a Pony" followed by "Across the Universe"). I know this seems a strange thing to say after "The White Album" and side 2 of "Abbey Road," but both of those albums still have cohesiveness even when they are splicing unfinished songs together that this one is totally missing. Maybe on a subliminal level the group was telling the world "You WANT us to break up, because this is what you get from here on out."



The bottom line is I still listen to this one from time to time, but still a lot less than any other Beatles album (yes, I listen to "side 1" of the "Yellow Submarine" soundtrack more than "Let It Be"). Besides, everybody knows it is not a real Beatles album if George Martin is not the producer. When "Let It Be...Naked" came out in 2003, having mixed out Spector's contributions, deleted the bits of conversation, cut a couple of songs ("Dig It" and "Maggie Mae"), added "Don't Let Me Down," and resequenced the tracks, it just struck me as too little too late. At best it was a marginally better album. No wonder "Abbey Road" is considered the "last" Beatles album. It is not just because it was recorded after "Let It Be," but because it lets the Beatles go out on a much higher note (plus "The End" gets to serve as a benediction of sorts).

Let It Be-Naked-What a travesty!

What a lost opportunity. The real "Get Back" is available from Apple in Russia(!) backed with, of all things, "Yellow Submarine". Which makes sense if you think about it. Technically, "Get Back with Don't Let Me Down and 9 other songs" (the album's original title) would have followed "Yellow Submarine" if the Beatles had released it as nature really intended it!



The Russian "Get Back" sparkles with remastered sound, sounding better than the lousy UK CD releases from the 1980's. Here's the track listing:



One After 909

Don't Let Me Down

Dig a Pony

I've Got a Feeling

Get Back

For You Blue

Teddy Boy

Maggie Mae (a hidden 'bonus track')

Two of Us On Our Way Home (the original title)

Dig It (tracking time 4 minutes 12 seconds--awesome cut!)

Let It Be (the original, non-Phil Spector version)

The Long and Winding Road (no strings, no choir)



This album was actually released to radio stations in 1969. I got my hands on a bootleg copy so I know how great it was. This is the FIRST time I've ever seen it on CD--at least in this EXACT form. And it's remastered! Pristine sound from the original masters.



Why couldn't Capitol release this to American/UK markets instead of the vastly inferior "Let It Be-Naked"? Russian Beatle fans are treated WAY better than their American/UK counterparts. Go figure.



I'm so glad I live in LA where I can actually find this stuff. The Russians have also released the British Stones catalogue with bonus tracks; pristine sound, UK running lineup, singles and outtakes included. Just awesome.

The Beatles going out with a Bang.

Let It Be is the Beatles' very last album, and one of their greatest. There are no songs on this album I dislike, though Dig It and Maggie Mae aren't even a minute long,. Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road are instant classics, and I've Got a Feeling is great too. In my opinion, Let It Be is up there with Sgt. Pepper's and Abbey Road, and any Beatles fan should get it.