Mixing the "Get Back" album (3rd compilation)

On this day, Glyn Johns created a new stereo mix for “Let It Be”.

[To George Martin’s ears, the mix was] warts and all, with the mistakes and count-ins and breakdowns and so on. That was the album. I thought it was a write-off. I didn’t hear any more, and I thought that was the end of our days. I thought, ‘Well, that’s the finish of the Beatles. What a shame.’

George Harrison – Quoted in “Solid State” by Kenneth Womack

We all had an acetate. Listening to it one night in June, I thought, Jeez, this is brave, but it’s a great album. It really is just The Beatles stripped back, nothing but four guys in a room. Or five with Billy Preston. It’s almost scary, cos we’d always double-tracked, harmonised and so on, but this was a live album kind of thing.

I remember getting a thrill cos I was in this empty, very white room listening to this album – very minimalist – and thinking, great, very impressed. This is gonna be a great album. And then it was reorganised, re-produced for disc, reorganised for the shops, kind of thing.

Paul McCartney – From “Conversations with McCartney” by Paul du Noyer

About Glyn Johns’ “Get Back” compilations

A few months after the end of the “Get Back” sessions, engineer/producer Glyn Johns was given the task of compiling an actual album. Glyn made four different variants of the album, two of them having been considered for release at some point.

Session activities

1. Let It Be

   Written by Lennon - McCartney

   Mixing • Stereo mixing of take 27

2. Master tape banding and compilation for GetBack LP

   Editing

Staff

Production staff

Going further