The Beatles are once again back in the upper reaches of the Billboard 200 albums chart with the new 50th anniversary edition of Let It Be entering at Number Five. The reissue also hit Number One on the magazine's Top Album Sales chart. Back in 1970, the album's original release topped the charts for four weeks.
Billboard posted, "For its special edition, the album was reintroduced in a variety of expanded formats and editions, including many with previously unreleased tracks. All versions of the album, old and new, are combined for tracking and charting purposes."
The original Let It Be album featured three songs recorded by the Beatles live on the rooftop of their Apple Headquarters in London. The new edition adds one more song from the "Fab Four's" final set. Let It Be film director Michaell Lindsey-Hogg told us he had very specific intentions in shooting the band live in the open air: ["I didn't want the roof to look like in any way that they didn't know what they were doing — like it was sloppy, or, like, you we're going to be hearing this song re-rehearsed on the roof, which you'd rehearsed there or four times down in the studio. So I always wanted it to be, like, a concert. It was like a complete, little concert."] SOUNDCUE (:16 OC: . . . complete little concert)
Giles Martin, who produced the new box set, had to deal with tapes that had been recorded and/or overdubbed by his late-father, George Martin; engineer Glyn Johns; and remix producer Phil Spector, respectively. We asked him what he thinks Let It Be would've been had his father had the same type of control he'd had on all the other Beatles albums: ["I think it would've been a very different album — certain songs would've been the same. I think the arrangements would've been different, and he was very different in his arrangement to Phil Spector. I think he probably would've had things like 'Don't Let Me Down' on the album. He'd have probably had more songs of George — 'All Things Must Pass' may have been on there, I don't know. I'd love to have heard my dad produce 'All Things Must Pass' with George, I think it would've been great. Let It Be would probably have been a bit more, if you can imagine, I would probably think it would be. . . sound a bit more like Abbey Road, but with Let It Be songs on it."] SOUNDCUE (:26 OC: . . . songs on it)
Giles Martin On If His Father Had Controlled ‘Let It Be’ Sessions :
Michael Lindsey-Hogg On The Beatles’ Rooftop Performance :