Room four, EMI Studios, Abbey Road
Producer: Phil Spector
Engineer: Peter Bown
Phil Spector’s second day of creating stereo mixes from the Let It Be tapes involved work on three songs.
Although best known for his echo-laden Wall of Sound production techniques, Spector was positively restrained during this session. The first song to be mixed was George Harrison’s ‘For You Blue’. This was done in a single take, although Spector then made seven further attempts at remixing the intro; the two parts were later edited together.
Two mixes apiece were then made of Paul McCartney’s songs ‘Teddy Boy’ and ‘Two Of Us’. ‘Teddy Boy’ was later rejected when it became known that McCartney was including a new recording of the song on his debut solo album.
Also on this day, Ringo Starr gave an interview to David Wigg for the BBC Radio One show Scene And Heard. The interview took place at the Apple offices at 3 Savile Row, London, and was broadcast in two parts, on Sundays 29 March and 5 April 1970.
If only Spector had practiced similar restraint with the other songs as with these. His virtue was to pick the best takes of the songs to be used for the album, but what he did with the added orchestrations is just irksomely in contrast to the original intention, like sugarcoating rye bread.
If only Spector had been kept a continent away from the project. “…Naked” is so superior an album.