Saturday, March 10, 2018

"Ain't She Sweet", "Sun King/Mean Mr. Mustard"

Two sessions were held for the second part of the "Huge Melody" at EMI Studios on July 24, 25 and July 29 1969. This consisted of two songs mainly written by John - "Sun King" and "Mean Mr. Mustard". Two different feels and two different tempos but recorded as one entity. Both John and George on guitars, Paul on Bass and Ringo on drums was the instrumental line up for the basic track. Paul turns on his distortion pedal for the second part.
As the basic track was progressing for the July 24 session, John lead the band into a couple of Gene Vincent covers, namely "Ain't She Sweet", "Be Bop A Lula", etc. The tune "Ain't She Sweet" was released as a track on the Apple/EMI 3LP/2CD "Anthology 3" project.
Overdubs for this medley were conducted over two days; namely July 25/29 in Studio 2 and 3. This included the three-part harmonies for "Sun King", maracas and bongos and an organ of which started the original medley with one note but progressed throughout the song. For "Mean Mr. Mustard" piano and tambourine were added, vocals by John with harmonies by Paul starting in the second verse. It's also interesting to note that the original name of Mr. Mustard's sister was "Shirley" but obviously this was changed due to the running order of the huge melody.

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