About the collection
From ScrapingTheBarrel
Contents |
Introduction
One problem that all lists of Apple singles (and albums) face is deciding what to include. While there is a core of records, commercially released in at least one major market, that should appear in any Apple discography, there is another group of anomalous entries that are inconsistently covered and need special attention.
The UK Apple album catalogue has its issues surrounding SAPCOR 7 and ZAPPLE 3, but the UK singles catalogue is even richer in anomalies.
For example, it's not acceptable to any historian, collector, or fan, to baldly state (as here) that Apple 35 is Badfinger's Name Of The Game, since this single was never commercially released, and never made it beyond acetate stage (there's a picture of an acetate of Name Of The Game on Tom Brennan's site). In fact, the entire recording was scrapped, and the rather dour song completely re-recorded by the time it appeared on Straight Up. Put simply, neither "Apple 35" nor anything equivalent was released anywhere in the world (by definition, an instantaneous disc, or "acetate", is unique and unpublished).
Other problematic or spurious releases (namely, Apples 1, 7, 8, 9, 14, 16, 27, 29, 42, and 1002) have their own story behind them, but the temptation to list a clean sweep of UK catalogue numbers, from 1 to 49, and 1001 to 1003, is clearly too much for many Beatles/Apple discographers to resist.
Some releases have achieved the kind of mythical status associated with UFOs, yetis or the Loch Ness monster. One correspondent swears to having seen a UK copy of Apple 29 (Billy Preston, My Sweet Lord) at a record fair in Merseyside. Another Wikipedia contributor is convinced that Mortimer's recording of Two Of Us, sometimes associated with the missing Apple 16, was released by Apple in Sweden alone (with a Swedish 5C catalogue number). This conflicts with the statement by Mortimer themselves in Stefan Granados' book that none of their Apple recordings made it beyond acetate stage.
This list is intentionally different since it is an evidence-based catalogue of an existing collection that is complete on its own terms, namely, that it includes all of the "independent" Apple singles released in the UK (i.e. those without the Parlophone "R" prefix), with the sole exception of the prohibitively rare and expensive King of Fuh (Apple 8). In addition, several non-UK singles are also included, that are of special interest, particularly with regard to the missing UK catalogue entries: these are listed separately.
Highlights
Apart from the core of UK Apple singles, some highlights of the collection include:
- A Philips pressing of Those Were The Days (Apple 2), identifiable from its distinctive three-pronged push-out centre. (EMI's pressing plant, probably overwhelmed by simultaneous demand for Hey Jude and Those Were The Days, contracted some pressings to Philips and Pye.)
- Lontano Dagli Occhi (Apple 7, Italy), only issued in Italy with this catalogue number.
- Prince En Avignon (Apple 9, France), only issued in France with this catalogue number.
- Que Sera Sera (Apple 28, Germany) and Jacob's Ladder (Apple 27, Italy), which, considered together, suggest a plausible solution to the many confused accounts of Apple 27.
- Baby Blue (Apple 42, New Zealand), only issued in New Zealand (and possibly Brazil) with this catalogue number.
- A demonstration copy of Apple Of My Eye (Apple 49).
- Billy Preston's My Sweet Lord (1826, USA), usually mapped to Apple 29, though there is no known release with that catalogue number.
- Chris Hodge's Goodbye Sweet Lorraine (1858, USA) - two tracks unreleased in any form outside USA/Canada.
- The four UK releases that fall outside the main sequence: Cold Turkey (Apples 1001), Instant Karma (Apples 1003), The Walls' E.P. (CT 1) and the 1991 Apple E.P. in both vinyl and CD format (APP 1 and CDAPPS1) .
- An original Apple Records UK Catalogue from 1973.
- An original Apple shipping box containing 25 mint US copies of Try Some Buy Some (1832, USA)
Omissions
Apart from King Of Fuh (last seen on eBay in 2004 for approximately £700), the UK collection is complete. Apples 11, 31 and 46 have only plain Apple sleeves, not the picture covers that some copies were issued with (though I have never heard of any UK copies of Apple 11 with a picture sleeve, except in the 1988 Record Collector discography). Apples 12, 13, 15, 20-26, 30, 33-34, 36, 37, 39-41, 43-44, 1001, 1003, CT1, APP1 all have their original picture sleeves. As far as I can discover, Apples 2-6, 10, 17-19, 28, 32, 38, 45 and 47-49 were never issued in the UK with picture sleeves.
Of the remaining non-UK releases that would complete the "sequence", Dear Angie (Apple 14, Netherlands) is extremely hard to find. About one copy a year appears on eBay. As for Apples 16 and 29, I have yet to find any evidence that these catalogue numbers were used anywhere in the world.
Availability
For full details of the availability of Apple singles on CD, see Apple Singles on CD. The single missing from this collection - King Of Fuh / Nobody Knows appears on the CD re-issue of Brute Force's Extemporaneous (Rev-Ola CRREV36). The tracks on the Dutch Apple 14 appear on the Apple re-issue of Maybe Tomorrow (CDSAPCOR8).
Of the remaining tracks on the UK singles, the following 20 remain unissued on any digital media (except bootlegs such as the Complete Apple UK Singles Collection box set, where the tracks have clearly been re-recorded from vinyl):
- Black Dyke Mills Band: Thingumybob / Yellow Submarine (Apple 4)
- (White) Trash: Road To Nowhere / Illusions (Apple 6); Golden Slumbers / Trash Can (Apple 17)
- Billy Preston: Everything's All Right (horns mix) (Apple 19A)
- Mary Hopkin: I'm Going To Fall In Love Again (Apple 26B)
- Ronnie Spector: Try Some Buy Some / Tandoori Chicken (Apple 33)
- Bill Elliott & the Elastic Oz Band: God Save Us (Apple 36A)
- Ravi Shankar: Joi Bhangla / Raga Mishra Jhinjhoti (two of the three tracks on Apple 37)
- Chris Hodge: We're On Our Way / Supersoul (Apple 43)
- Sundown Playboys: Valse De Soleil Coucher (Apple 44B)
- Elephants Memory: Power Boogie / Liberation Special (Apple 45)
- Lon & Derrek Van Eaton: Warm Woman / More Than Words (Apple 46)
Apple 36B (Do The Oz) appears to have been included on CD re-issues of the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album (for reasons that are hard to fathom: it rather spoils the original programme of Lennon's classic album). John Lennon's original track for God Save Us (which, by his own account, Bill Elliott simply sang over) is included on the overblown Lennon Anthology box set, and its "liter" version, Wonsaponatime .
