Get Back (1978)

Performer: Billy Preston                                       Writers: Paul McCartney & John Lennon
Highest US Chart Position: #86                           Label: A&M Records
Musicians: Billy Preston, Larry Carlton, David Hungate and Jeff Porcaro

The summer of 1978 was the summer of two big musical films, Grease and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. That summer I went with my family on our second trip to Hawaii and both me and my brother were allowed to bring our best friends along. My friend and I wound up seeing Grease on a tiny little screen in Lahaina on Maui, but we also stopped for three days in Honolulu before heading home and saw Sgt. Pepper’s on a big screen. But while the first film has gone on to critical acclaim and classic status, the second has been relegated to an embarrassing footnote on the career of the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton. And while it is unarguably a horrible film, it holds a soft spot in my heart because of how and when I first saw it. For one thing, I was a huge fan of the Bee Gees at the time, and for another, it had the effect of putting those Beatle songs I had heard before into a single, unified context. What makes “Get Back” unique among the songs on the project is that Billy Preston had played the electric piano on the original recording by the Beatles for the album that would eventually become Let It Be. And of course he can be seen in the film of the same name. Their version of the single went all the way to number one in 1969 and Preston was given a rare performance credit on the record, something the group had done for no other artist.

Preston’s arrangement is exactly the same as the one on the Beatles record, though the opening is slightly different. Where the Beatles bring in the instruments together at a low volume and Ringo plays a shuffle, this version begins with repetitive eighth notes on all the instruments faded in until everyone accents the third and fourth beats heading into the opening chorus. Preston sings the title and pounds on the electric piano while the drums go into a shuffle. After a nice solo by Preston, he goes into the first verse, about Jojo leaving home. Preston harmonizes with himself on the next chorus, though it’s fairly low in the mix, and of course the distinctive accents on three and four are the only thing to break up the relentless nature of the shuffle rhythm. The guitar plays a sort of countermelody on the next verse about sweet Loretta Martin, and this leads into an extended third chorus and the false ending. A short drum fill then brings the band back in and Preston copies Paul McCartney’s ad-lib vocals from the original recording which then goes into a final extended chorus that ends with everyone hitting on the final note and fading. As on the original, George Martin produced the record, though in this instance he was in charge of a tremendous number of studio musicians who participated on the project.

In terms of the single itself, this is a strange record in a couple of ways. First, the Sgt. Pepper's soundtrack LP was released by RSO Records, Robert Stigwood’s record company, and yet the single came out on A&M. The second is that the B-side isn’t a song from the album at all, but an instrumental A-side by Preston that came out in 1973. Information on the single is difficult to come by, but there is a likely scenario for the odd nature of the release, which seems plausible. During this brief period in the existence of RSO, it was operating as an independent label and therefore had the ability to license its songs to whoever it wanted. At the same time, Billy Preston had been under contract to A&M for the entire decade. The fact was that Preston had only recorded the one song for the soundtrack and so it seems clear that A&M licensed the song in order to release it as a single by Preston and backed it with “Space Race,” which had been a number four hit in the winter of 1973. RSO would get the publicity for their film and the soundtrack LP, while A&M would take on the financial risk of distributing the single. Unfortunately for A&M, however, they waited until the summer was over to release the record and it stiffed. It entered the Hot 100 in October of 1978 at number 86, and was still stuck there the next week before dropping off altogether, making it the lowest charting single from the soundtrack. Nevertheless, Billy Preston’s “Get Back” is an exciting version of the song and, because of his relationship with the Beatles, it’s fitting that his performance closes both the film and the soundtrack album.