INTRODUCTION ~~~~~~~~~~~~ This article will review the history of the unreleased instrumental "12-Bar Original", followed by the questioning of its originality, a review of previous recordings, where to find "12-Bar Original", a musical comparison, and a brief conclusion. HISTORY ~~~~~~~ "12-Bar Original" was recorded during the Rubber Soul Sessions on 4-Nov-65, and attributed as an original Lennon/McCartney song by Mark Lewisohn in his book THE BEATLES RECORDING SESSIONS (p.67): "Second action, on this day at least, was for the Beatles to revive a couple of previously discarded song ideas. One of them was discarded again and remains unreleased to this day..." "The song which was to remain unreleased was actually more of a tune than a song, the Beatles' first attempt at recording a purely instrumental number. '12-BAR ORIGINAL, we're calling it' announced Norman Smith over the talkback before the first take, a rather unoriginal - though absolutely accurate - title for what was essentially just a rambling 12-bar blues, typical of the day but certainly untypical of anything the Beatles had ever attempted. Moreover, a listen to the original tape reveals that this was no mere improvised piece of work, take two being identical to what the group was trying in take one before that broke down. Take two was in fact complete - running an uncommonly long 6:36 - and furthermore, it was recorded entirely live, without overdubs. Over-riding feature of the number was George's tone pedal lead guitar work and a harmonium persistently played by George Martin. John also played lead guitar, Paul played bass and Ringo the drums." and refering to the earlier recording of "I'm Down", 14 June 1965 (p.69): "In between takes, particularly one and two, Paul frequently repeated the words 'plastic soul, man, plastic soul' and then, for the benefit of the other Beatles, and now history, he went on to explain that it was a phrase coined by black musicians to describe Mick Jagger." Since the Stones were "plastic soul", I wonder if 12-Bar Original was the Beatles attempt at "RUBBER SOUL" and helped lead to the title of the album? In the BEATLES MONTHLY BOOK, Nov 1990, "Complete A-Z of Beatle Songs", Peter Doggett writes: "For many years, a rumour circulated that the RUBBER SOUL album had been meant to have an instrumental title track - one which would live up to the title by taking the mickey out of British R&B bands. We now know that '12-Bar Original' was that piece..." And "12-Bar Original" is now on the official EMI release ANTHOLOGY v.2, and is again credited to (Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starkey). ORIGINALITY? ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Now, was "12-Bar Original" an original song? Back in issue #28 (v4n5) (June 1991) of Belmo's Beatleg News, Ted Greenwald's letter says that he was listening to THE BEST OF BOOKER T. & THE MG's and "Jellybread" is "12-Bar Original" but "Only the Fabs couldn't really cut the groove and George Martin didn't know the licks". BOOKER T. & THE MG's Recordings ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well, the "Best of" album was released in 1968. Let's instead go back to the original albums and singles (up to 1965) to which the Beatles could have listened: rel. date ALBUMS STAX LP Atlantic CD ---------- ----------------------------- ------ ----------- 1962 GREEN ONIONS 701 82255 1965 SOUL DRESSING 705 82337 chart date SINGLES STAX # ---------- ------------------------------ ------ 8/11/62 Green Onions / Behave Yourself 127 12/22/62 Jellybread / Aw Mercy 131 7/27/63 Chinese Checkers / Plum Nellie 137 2/22/64 Mo-Onions / Fannie Mae * 142 8/15/64 Soul Dressing / MG Party * 153 6/05/65 Boot-Leg */Outrage * 169 rel. date SINGLES (not charted) STAX # ---------- ------------------------------ ------ 63 Big Train 134 64 Can't Be Still 161 64 Tic-Tac-Toe ? We do not have these singles. But except for those marked with a *, they appear on the albums GREEN ONIONS and SOUL DRESSING - which we do have, and have checked-out. Now let's select "Green Onions" (2:45), and from SOUL DRESSING, the two similar sounding cuts: "Jellybread" (2:27) (side 1 cut 4) and "Plum Nellie" (2:03) (side 2 cut 5). All are by Jones, Cropper, Jackson & Steinberg; East, BMI. With Booker T. Jones - organ Steve Cropper - Guitar Donald "Duck" Dunn - Bass Al Jackson, Jr. - Drums and the MEMPHIS HORNS: Andrew Lowe - Sax Floyd Newman - Sax Wayne Jackson - Trumpet BEWARE, our lp of SOUL DRESSING was mis-labelled - Side A labelled B and vice versa - but a check of the times per cut, and matrix number scratched in the runout-groove-area cleared that up (after all these years!). Did the Beatles actually listen to any of these? Well, in Tony Hall's column in RECORD MIRROR for January 1, 1966 there was an article on George Harrison's juke box in the den of his home in Esher (and was also featured briefly in the film HELP!) on which George would keep his current top forty favorites. Three of these were by Booker T and the MG's. And one of them was "Plum Nellie". Note that this article was published two months after the Beatles recorded "12-Bar Original". I believe that although "12-Bar Original sounds similar to some parts of "Jellybread", other parts sound more like "Plum Nellie", and other small parts sound more like the earlier hit "Green Onions". WHERE TO FIND "12-BAR ORIGINAL" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A rehearsal session and Take 1 can be found on the Vigotone CD - ARRIVE WITHOUT AGING or the Black Dog CD - HODGE PODGE. Now, for detailed comparison, I used the complete "12-Bar Original" (Take 2) (6:41) version which can be found on the Yellow Dog CD - ACETATES. You could also use the slightly shorter (6:37) version on the Yellow Dog CD - UNSURPASSED MASTERS v2 or the ULTIMATE UNRELEASED COLLECTION v2. And there is also the truncated version of take 2 (3:50) on the Swinging Pig CD ULTRA RARE TRACKS v6, or the CD's BACKTRAX v3, DIG IT, HOLD ME TIGHT, or RECORDING SESSIONS v1. And, most recently, an edit of take 2 appeared on ANTHOLOGY 2. MUSICAL COMPARISON ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Disclaimer: I am not musically trained, although I would be interested in a detailed musical breakdown. Now, first of all, both George and John are playing guitar as compared to just Steve Cropper. And there are no horns on "12-Bar Original" as compared to "Plum Nellie". The following chart is a time breakdown, comparing the same, or extremely similar riffs, played by the The Beatles on "12-Bar Original" to Booker T and the MG's JellyBread (JB), Plum Nellie (PN), and Green Onions (GO). (Times for JB/PN/GO are approximate since they were taken from the LP's.) BEATLES: BOOKER T & MG's: George Harrison, on Guitar with tone pedal: JB / PN / GO ----------- ------------------------------ (2:21-2:41) JB guitar break (1:10-1:33) (3:53-4:16) " " " " " (4:40-5:02) " " " " " JOHN, on Guitar: ----------- ------------------------------ (1:45-1:56) PN Bass line (0:49-1:14) (2:18-2:21) PN Jangling Guitar (1:21-1:39) (2:44-3:02) JB Guitar lick (0:07-0:28) (3:09-3:26) PN Bass line (0:49-1:14) (5:25- END) JB Guitar Riff (0:00-0:07 & 0:28-1:10 & 1:53-2:27) JB Organ (0:07-0:28 & 1:10-1:53) George Martin, on Harmonium: ----------- ------------------------------ (2:13-2:17) GO Organ line (0:00-0:30 & 1:11-1:55 & 2:38-2:54) (4:31-4:35) " " " " " " " " " (4:40-5:50) " " " " " " " " " The rest of the time, GM is either playing nothing, or "winging it" by droning, fluttering, waa-waa, or playing arpeggios. I wonder if the Beatles had rehearsed previously, and then asked GM to join in on the day of the recording? I agree with Ted Greenwald that George Martin is NOT playing what Booker T played on "Jellybread". But I think he is playing "Green Onions". CONCLUSION ~~~~~~~~~~ After listening, whether you believe "12-Bar Original" sounds more like JELLYBREAD, PLUM NELLIE, or GREEN ONIONS, or some combination of the three, with some improvisation thrown in for good measure, I think you will agree that we need to cross it off our list of Lennon/McCartney compositions. Perhaps another reason for NOT releasing "12-Bar Original" on RUBBER SOUL was so that the album would then contain only Lennon/McCartney/Harrison/Starkey compositions. ****** THIS ARTICLE MAY BE REPRODUCED, COPIED, RE-TRANSMITTED, etc. ****** ****** ONLY IF MY NAME, ADDRESS AND DATE REMAIN ATTACHED. ****** ****** I PUT SOME EFFORT INTO THIS, AND IF IT GETS PASSED AROUND, ****** ****** I WANT PEOPLE TO BE ABLE TO SEND ME THEIR COMMENTS. ****** Mario Giannella beatlesong@yahoo.com Knoxville, TN April 1992, Revised June 1993, and again May 1996. copyright 1992, 2002, 2012