Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Peter and Paul

For many years I have been curious about these photos of a man and Paul McCartney making music together at "The Mill."  Who is this guy?  What were they playing?   Was this a recording session?  Well, I should have know because it guy's name is one that I have heard of on many occasions.   I guess I just never put two and two together.   Anyhow, the guy is Peter Hodgson who is a Beatles fan.  And he has an amazing story.   I found an article in the Tokyo Beatles Fan club magazine (which I think really was the most profession fanzine ever published) from issue 16 from 1997 written by Kenji Maeda that tells it better than I can.  Although Peter if you are a reader of this blog, please feel free to chime in and add to your amazing story!


Peter and Paul just playing "Let it Be" together.   Photo taken by Geoff Baker



Peter met Paul again in 1996

The Liverpool convention was as exciting as ever, the most enthusiastic moment was when I met Peter Hodgson.  Peter was the owner of the early Beatles tapes from 1960.  As we wrote in the 13th issue of this magazine, Anthology 1 album had a mystery, the three songs from the tape - "Hallelujah, I love her so,"  "You'll be Mine" and"Cayenne" have been first released on the album but actually these have been available on bootleg for years.  Peter told me the following story, which may unravel the  mystery.  When Paul McCartney borrowed the Grundig tape recorder from Peter's grandfather, he made 2 or 3 copies of the tape for himself.  After he returned the tape and the tape recorder back to Hodgson, he brought the copies to Germany with him.  Many years have passed since then and eventually one of them was passed to a bootlegger.

The original tape included unusual tracks which Paul McCartney failed to copy.  They included the early versions of "Ask me Why" and "When I'm 64"!  Of course, they were not featured in any of the bootlegs.  It is well-known that they often played "When I'm 64" in the early 1960's but nobody ever heard it, it must be a valuable recording.

However, we may not have an opportunity to hear the songs for awhile, as the original tape is now owned by Paul McCartney.  Peter had a great experience whilst handing over the tape to the ex-Beatle.  He was invited to Paul's private studio in East Sussex on 27 March 1995 and he enjoyed talking about good old times and playing instruments with Paul.  Photos were taken by Paul's publicist, Geoff Baker while Peter was playing "Let it Be" on the piano with Paul.  Peter was also lucky enough to hear the rough mix of "Free as a bird" in the studio.

12 comments:

  1. I went to school with Peter's nephew, and he showed me these pics one day. I never knew how they met though, so it's great to find out. Also, Peter is now a taxi driver, and another friend of mine just happened to be picked up by him one day, and Peter would end up telling all about his meeting with Paul in the very brief taxi journey. Small world ay.

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  2. Peter is fixing my guitar at this very moment and is an exceptionally gifted musician

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  3. It was a good con. He recorded a bootleg tape onto an old reel to reel he bought second hand. Got to meet him though so it worked!!!

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  4. "He recorded a bootleg tape onto an old reel to reel he bought second hand." What`s your source?

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    1. Always been dodgy as fuck has Peter 😂

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  5. The man himself, when we worked together.

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  6. Yes he told me that story too about the booleg tape and reel to reel when I worked with him in telly sales in the 90's.

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  7. Oh, by the way. They were playing Maybe I'm Amazed. Not Let it be!!

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  8. Yes it is true. Bootleg tape recorded onto an old second hand reel to reel tape. Very clever I thought at the time... and Paul was so into gathering everything for the upcoming anthology everything was listened to. This coudn't have happenened at any other time so the timing was perfect.

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