The Beatles reunions

In the years since the break-up of The Beatles, the members of the band have played together several times.

On solo albums

Many of The Beatles have had other former Beatles play on their solo albums. For example, John Lennon's 1971 album Imagine has both George Harrison and Ringo Starr contributing parts to it. The only post-Beatles solo album for all members to be feature (although on separate tracks) was Ringo's 1973 self-titled album.

John and Paul 1974 reunion

John and Paul McCartney got back together for a impromptu jam session on March 28, 1974. The session was taped, however, it has yet to see official release. Roughly thirty minutes of it later went onto the 1992 bootleg album A Toot and a Snore in '74. The recording did not work well, as John kept complaining about the sound quality. In addition to Lennon and McCartney, Stevie Wonder (keyboards), Lennon's friend Harry Nilsson (vocals), Linda McCartney (Organ), Jesse Ed Davis (guitar), Ed Freeman (production and bass), and Bobby Keys (saxophone) also played on the recording. Longtime Beatles assistant Mal Evans was also present at the session.

Rumored 1976 reunion

In 1997, a tape was found rumored to have once contained a Beatles reunion in 1976. The story goes that five songs were taped, as listed on the tape box, at Davlen Sound Studios in L.A, were recorded before the session ended in argument. They all agreed to have the tape wiped of the recording beforehand.

The songs listed were:

# HAPPY FEELING
# BACK HOME
# ROCKIN ONCE AGAIN
# PEOPLE OF THE THIRD WORLD
# LITTLE GIRL.

However in December 2003, Len Kovner, owner of Davlen Sound Studios, stated that the tape box and sessions were a hoax. Kovner stated: "...This tape box, and others like it, all the using simlilar vague references to likes of The Rolling Stones, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and Cream.....were used as a training tool for young engineers and tape operators, as an exemplar of how to properly label tape boxes, per studio and record company specifications, for our clients, library archiving, and domestic and international shipping." [http://www.thebeatles.com.hk/news/news.asp?category=Archive&newsYear=2003&newsMonth=12]

All Those Years Ago

George had originally given Ringo a song he had written to sing, however, he considered it too high-pitched and out of his vocal range. After Lennon died, Harrison rewrote some of the lyrics and recorded it in 1981 with Ringo and Paul, as well as Linda McCartney, as a tribute to Lennon.

Free As A Bird and Real Love

For an upcoming TV miniseries, The Beatles Anthology, the three surviving member asked Yoko Ono for some demo tapes of songs John never finished. So Yoko gave them several songs for possible choices for the first true Beatles reunion song. In the end, two Lennon demos, Free As A Bird and Real Love, were used to record overdubs on. A couple more, Now and Then and Grow Old With Me,and All for Love were also recorded, but not released.

Notes

Sources

[http://www.momentsintime.com/Beatles%20Reunion.htm 1976 reunion]