There are a total of 30 tracks on the Beatles' white album. We're going to talk about that today because, because, oh, tell you what I'm at. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Daily Grateful.
I am Michael Gross. And you know what I did today? You know what I did? You know what I did?
You know what I did? You know what I did? There's this place called the Capitol Theatre in downtown Clearwater, Florida. Downtown Clearwater, Florida, where many, many years ago the Rolling Stones played at Jack Russell Stadium and got kicked off to stage after two songs.
And we're taken back to the Jack Tar Harrison Hotel, where Keith Richards went out and sat by the pool. None of this has anything to do with the Beatles' white album, but trust me, I'm using them sometime. Anyway, he started writing a song and Mick Jagger came down and helped him write the song because they were pissed off that they couldn't play the show, that they were going to play. They didn't have any big hits.
Then they were just, you know, long-haired group from England is essentially what they were. They had a record or two up and nothing big, nothing big. And they wrote this song and the next day they flew to Chicago where they recorded this song. And at that point, it was released and it became the biggest hit of the summer.
And the name of that song was Satisfaction. But anyway, I'm not here to talk to you about the Rolling Stones, although I spent a minute and 49 seconds doing just that. I'm here to talk about the Beatles. All right.
The Beatles' white album. Why am I talking about that? You say, I'm going to tell you in just a minute because it's so cool. I'm so excited.
I'm so happy. The Beatles nicknamed the white album. It was released November 22, 1968 in England and November 25, 1968 in the U.S., on Apple Records. It was a double LP.
It had 30 tracks and it was recorded, by the way, from May 30, 1968 to October 14, 1968 at a couple of studios, Triton Studios in England and Abbey Road Studios. The producer was George Martin. Of course, he produced all the good Beatles stuff and, you know, all four of the mop tops were there. The release of this material was written during their stay in India with the Maharishi back in 1968.
And by this point, the band's dynamic, it was starting to fracture just a little bit. Ringo briefly quit during the sessions and they had to get him to come back. John Lennon started bringing Yoko Ono to the sessions. You know, a little bit of tension started happening, but the album, I'm going to tell you the album was so darn good.
It went all over the map in a good way, okay? It sounds like rock songs, like back in the U.S.R., and, you know, man, woman from Miami Beach, B.O.A.C., didn't get to sleep last night. Oh, God. On the way the paper bag was on my knee.
And Gee, I had a dreadful flight. I saw Paul McCartney perform that in Miami, which was cool. I mean, that was freaking cool. It has folk music like Blackbird and blues, like your blues, and then some avant-garde stuff, like Revolution.
Not that you say you want a revolution. No, no, no. That's the other one. They had Revolution number nine and then Honey Pie and Elder Skelter and all kinds of stuff like that came out on that album.
All my guitar gently weeps. Eric Clapton played on that with George Harrison. There were things going on there, each anyway, just stuff going on with women. It was a little ugly.
Blackbird, Elder Skelter. One of my favorites, happiness is a warm gun. Julia. Oh, the album cover was designed by a guy by the name.
Why am I telling you all this? I'm going to tell you why. I'm going to come back to this. But let me tell you why.
On June 27th of this year, I'm going to the Capitol Theatre in downtown Clearwater, Florida, where there is a band. I don't even know who the band is, but they are going to perform the white album. Track by track, by the way, the one thing I made sure is that this wasn't a band. It's going to dress up like the mop tops.
No way. If that was the case, I would know. Okay. These are just musicians who are going to concentrate on duplicating the white album song by song, step by step from start, you know, from side A to side B to side C to side D.
I remember when albums had all these sides, okay, they're going to do that whole thing. And I can't wait. I got my tickets today. My buddy Doc and I are going.
He's a big Beatles fan. I'm a big Beatles fan. It's going to be fun. And I wish I could play some of them for you, but I'm not allowed because if I did, horrible things would happen.
I mean, you have no idea. When you play copyrighted music on a podcast, evil things happen to you. Not evil, but I mean, you know, right? They own it.
So it's okay. Anyway, the album cover, it was stark white and it was embossed, you know, just a little race letter, the Beatles, each copy had a unique serial number. It was kind of like a, you know, a big departure from the last album became, you know, Sergeant Peppers, you know, that type of thing. I got to tell you something.
Songs often recorded with only one or two of the Beatles present. That happened a lot. Obadie Obadah took dozens of takes and drove everyone in the studio, bat poop crazy. Paul McCartney played drums on several of the tracks.
People don't know that. John Lennon was the only one in the studio when they recorded Julia. He did that solo. It was, it was one of the most creative albums ever by the Beatles, in my opinion.
One of the best. I look forward to this concert. It was a, it debuted as number one in the US and in the UK. It was one of the best selling albums of all time, certified 24 times platinum in the US alone.
There's a lot of albums. That's a lot of albums. And I got to tell you, I think in my own small mind that this album is one of the most creative yet, it was very creative by them at a most divided time. But, you know, things were getting weird with all of them and also they were tired of recording together.
They were into doing a lot of stuff alone. So, you know, I could sit here and go track by track with you about that album, but I'm not going to. In 1968 at the time, they were barely functioning as a band as a unit. They were recording separately.
They were arguing constantly, yet when it, when they were done with this album, they recorded yet another one after that, one of the very best albums, but we're not going to talk about that now. But the power of this album is the individual voices. All of them got to really express their personalities in this. It was just, there were no rules on creativity.
Blackbird was just so wonderful and gentle. Helter Skelter was so, boom, and it was, it was just really, really good. So I am so looking forward to going to the show. There is another band that was all over the world.
And they only played Beatles music from, you know, a certain era. There's just certain albums that the Beatles never performed live. They perform a lot of that stuff live. And they're really good, they're just, that's not who's coming though.
I don't even know the name of the band that's coming. I just read that they were good and I wanted to get my tickets before they sold out. So I got my tickets and I am very, very excited about that. Anyway, I hope you're having a great week, what day is it?
Ah, I'm recording this on the 15th, which is a Wednesday. I shall return tomorrow with more. I hope you're having a cool, cool week. I went to dinner tonight with a bunch of, this is how I found out about this, but I went to dinner at a place called Opeice in Clearwater, which has been around there forever.
They have a painting, a new, of a reclining nude that has a bandaid over her tummy, a real bandaid. And there's all kinds of legends about that. That's what we talked about at dinner tonight. Then this concert came up and I said, oh, I gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go.
Now I'm going. Have a great day. We'll see you tomorrow.