The Article

THE BEATLES FINALLY LET IT BE

6th May 2022

Author: Bruce Spizer

Publisher: 498 Productions

Price: from $20

If you’re reading this in the UK or elsewhere in Europe and you’ve never heard of Bruce Spizer then think of him as the UK’s version of Mark Lewisohn…or vice versa, depending on your loyalties. That is, Spizer is one of the world’s premier Beatles experts.

Recently, Spizer committed to a series of books he terms, The Album Series. Earlier productions have included Get Back to Abbey Road, The Beatles and Sgt. Pepper: A Fan’s Perspective and The Beatles White Album and the Launch of Apple.

This new release covers the Get Back/Let It Be sessions, the unreleased Get Back albums, the Let It Be album and film, the noteworthy Get Back bootlegs, the Anthology tracks from the sessions and the more recently released, Let It Be…Naked.

What you will also find here are the album and related releases from the American, British and Canadian perspectives, there’s newsworthy events of 1970 and the music and films from the first half of 1970. There are also chapters on the Hey Jude and In The Beginning albums released in 1970 plus fan recollections.

I pre-ordered mine and (shock, horror) actually gave Spizer money for this review copy. Oh, how the moths didst fly from mine wallet. More than that, I ordered the collectors hardback edition which costs a princely $100. That features a poster, an art print of the roof-top concert from an aerial perspective, a Beatles book mark and the book resides in a sleeve. The book is numbered, dated and signed by Spizer too.

Which is all rather nice but if you do order just be aware that the Customs man will kidnap and ransom you’re desired book until you give him something like £50. The rascal. So I ended up buying this book for round £150 in the end. I still feel a little dizzy.

Presented in a square format and spanning 200 pages, you might be forgiven in thinking that you don’t get a lot for your money but scanning the contents, your mind is change pretty pronto because there’s closely packed text and a gamut of images and photographs in there plus a heap of choice information that you’ll be pushed to find anywhere else.

There’s an excellent track-by-track examination with plenty of rare information and insight, recording information such as who was in and around the studio and even what each Beatles member was playing at the time, the evolution of the album from its original Get Back incarnation is thorough and again, detail packed and in the section, Let it Bootleg there is an explanation of how the bootleg recordings emerged.

For the book, the standard hardback edition costs $30 while a digital version retails at $20.

One note, this book was due to feature information on a new Peter Jackson film of the Get Back/Let It Be sessions, The Beatles: Get Back. As we now know, Disney pushed the release back .

Spizer declared that a supplement would be added to feature information from this film, “…the Beatles album series books are intended to be as complete as possible and cover all releases through the date the book goes on sale. So while the print edition of The Beatles Finally Let It Be cannot cover something released a year after its publication, 498 Productions can supplement the book in late August 2021. The digital edition of the supplement will be available for free download. The print edition can be ordered separately. And, for those who order the Collector’s Edition, the print edition of the supplement will be mailed to you free of charge. It will be called ‘The Beatles Finally Finally Let It Be.’”