THE BEATLES: I’ll Follow The Sun

ROLLING STONE: Beatles bootleg buffs tend to be pretty particular in what they go for and return to, generally orbiting around a brace of accepted classics. These include the material that first came out on the Ultra Rare Trax and Unsurpassed Masters collections, as well as what may be the finest bootleg trove ever put out, the various editions of the endlessly edifying BBC material. Choice concerts, too, have their day – who doesn’t like the full Hollywood Bowl, package? But then there’s the stuff that most aficionados hear once and never consider again, despite the revelations that might be gleaned upon future hearings. Fidelity often has something to do with this, ditto a kind of rudimentary quality of musicianship, the twin-killing, of sorts, for the music a post-Quarrymen, pre-Beatles unit cut in the bathroom of Paul McCartney’s Liverpool house, in spring 1960. We’re not sure exactly when the recordings were made: likely in either April or June. There is, of course, no Ringo Starr at this point, and these Silver Beetles were comprised of the big three of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, with a musically taxed Stu Sutcliffe wheedling away on bass, and McCartney’s brother, Mike, weighing in, too. You will not, doubtless, download this stuff and crank it as you drive around, but it bears closer inspection. MORE