Mystery Apple Reel

[Tootai]

I have asked this way back in the Bootlegzone days, but does anyone have any idea why a tape like this would have been made? I'm still puzzled.

It contains about 21 minutes of Christmas messages edited with commercial versions of songs like Yesterday and Hey Jude. Dinsdale noted the emphasis is on McCartney's songs and thanking the audience, and it seems a tape like this was made for an Apple Christmas party. But this would be a copy of the original.

Piers on the tape box refers to Piers Plaskitt who ran Apple in the early 70's. He didn't reply on Facebook.

[jpgrcat007]

I hope it gets leaked to us

[Darth Kybiel]

They'd make those each year like the fan club christmas records, except they'd add songs - they were for EMI to distribute to military bases, the material was just re edited christmas messages, nothing new as far as audio. You'd call it 'fake'

[robbmacc]

please don't start this again. please.

[Darth Kybiel]

Not sure but ebay had a 1070 or 71 Apple EMI reel just like that but had half the military stamp on it. That had commercial versions of songs between portions of 1968 and 1969 christmas messages with Rudolph the red nosed ringo at the end fade out. It had a white card with contents inside the case. I think that was 2015 it was on Ebay. Someone on the internet had copies of the ebay pictures a few years ago along with other tape boxes.

[Darth Kybiel]

please don't start this again. please.

Not starting really. Just added a bit of sarcasm. Overall was just being helpful. Someone was on Charles Reinhart's Breakfast With The Beatles or Beatles Brunch, which ever of the two he was doing around the time and mentioned the military reels and discs made around when they'd make Christmas messages and that those edits were made up til 1974 or 75, last year of Apple. With no military address, it is probably a rare extra copy that wasn't mailed out.

[therowdyman]

If it's got a lower generation dub of the 1963, 1966, 1968 and 1969 recordings, then that makes the tape even more valuable.

An article about the 2017 Christmas Records release.

https://variety.com/2017/music/news/bea ... 202635584/

The album (the 1970 Christmas album released in the US) was assembled from dubs of Kelly’s own flexi-disc collection, the original master tapes having long been discarded.

“That album was a godsend,” compared to the flexis, notes Wally Podrazik. “For many of us, we could actually hear them for the first time” – including the 1964 recording, which had arrived too late in America to be issued, the 1963 recording having taken its place.

The new reissue is drawn from several types of sources, Apple offering some tape masters (perhaps safety copies), the master from the 1970 LP compilation containing transfers of Kelly’s flexis, and some flexis themselves. Selecting the best source of each, Gibson and Magee utilized the tape masters for 1964, 1965 and 1967, the archival dubs of flexis for 1963, 1966 and 1969, and a new dub made from a flexi for 1968. Pops and cracks were removed (mostly from the flexi dubs), and the recordings mastered, sounding remarkably good – certainly the best any fan will have ever heard them.