One of the main selling points to the new "super deluxe" edition of the Beatles' Let It Be box set, is the album's original, unreleased version produced by engineer Glyn Johns.
Johns, who's renowned for his work with the Rolling Stones, the Who, Led Zeppelin, and Eric Clapton, created — at the Beatles' request — a bare-bones, as-it-happened, collection of songs recorded in January 1969. The album, in that original state, was shelved and eventually revamped by producer Phil Spector for 1970's Let It Be.
Although sounding like a stripped down version of what Let It Be eventually became after overdubs and remixing, Giles Martin, who compiled and produced the new box, explained that Get Back was the album the Beatles actually asked Glyn Johns to compile: ["The Get Back album is a really good representation of what they wanted. Glyn was trying to capture the essence of them live — and that's what Glyn's brilliant at. Y'know, the albums he's done with the Who and Led Zeppelin; he's a great instinctive engineer. Great sounding engineer. That's why the rooftop stuff is so good. That's purely just Glyn Johns' brilliance. Y'know, you listen to Glyn Johns' album and it's a representive (sic) of where they got to at that stage. That's exactly what it is. However, where they got to, really, in essence wasn't where they wanted to be."] SOUNDCUE (:27 OC: . . . wanted to be)
Martin went on to tell us that the sheer amount of work the Beatles undertook in launching the Get Back / Let It Be project — they actually set them selves up to fail: ["Glyn's album was the perfect snapshot of that three-week period, or that two-and-a-half week period, which is so ambitious. You can't imagine a band today saying, 'We haven't played live in three years, our next album should be a live concert. We haven't actually written any songs yet, but we're gonna do it in two-weeks time, or three-weeks-time.' It was completely crazy. So, that Glyn Johns album is a snapshot of where they are — and he did a really good job of it."] SOUNDCUE (:20 OC: . . . job of it)
Giles Martin On ‘Get Back’ LP Being Too Ambitious :
Giles Martin On The Beatles’ ‘Get Back’ Album :
