Let It Be — The Beatles, June 13, 1970

June 13, 1970
4 weeks

Let It Be was the final Beatles album of new material to hit the summit of the Top LP’s chart, but it wasn’t the final album they recorded. Although the bulk of Let It Be was originally recorded for an album, then to be titled Get Back, in January, February, March, and April of 1969, before the band began recording Abbey Road, the project was subsequently shelved. When the album was finally released as Let It Be on May 18, 1970, the Beatles were already history.

The original concept of Get Back was to capture the Beatles performing live with no overdubs for a television special. The group began rehearsing for the show on January 2, 1969, but eight days later George Harrison walked out, temporarily quitting the group. Plans for the TV show gave way to a film capturing the making of the album.

“It wasn’t like being in a recording studio with a band making an album,” says Glyn Johns, who served as engineer on the bulk of the sessions and was also originally slated to produce the shelved Get Back album. “There were so many other aspects of what they were trying to achieve other than the record, and they went through some pretty serious changes while it was going on. There were some internal problems and external problems while it was going on.”

As Harrison explains, “It wasn’t very much fun. Everyone was fed up and everyone wanted to leave the band. Although we salvaged it and we did some good tracks, it generally was done in a depression. It was done in a trough.”

To augment the band, Harrison recruited keyboard player Billy Preston, who was featured so prominently on the track “Get Back” that he received co-billing on the single. Released on May 5, 1969, “Get Back” became the Beatles’ 17th Number One single. However, it would take nearly a year before the album containing the track would be released. The single of “Get Back” contained no production credit. Both Johns and longtime Beatles producer George Martin worked on the sessions, but their efforts would be overshadowed by another great producer, Phil Spector, known for his work with Ike and Tina Turner, the Crystals, and the Ronettes, and for his legendary “wall of sound” approach.

Although promotional copies of the Get Back album were pressed, the Beatles weren’t happy with the project. It was yanked from the release schedule, as the group concentrated on another album of new material, Abbey Road. Eventually, however, much of the material recorded during the Get Back sessions would see the light of day as Let It Be.

“About 18 months later, after the band had split up, John decided he was going to take the tapes and give them to Phil Spector and make an album from the tapes that I had recorded, which was basically all rehearsal tapes,” says Johns. “Phil Spector turned it into this sugary, syrupy piece of shit with strings and choirs all over it.”

While rock historians to this day debate the Spectorization of the Beatles’ “live in the studio album,” the public ate it up, and never mind the fact that the albums’ release came a month after Paul McCartney announced the band had officially split up.

Indeed, the legend of the Beatles would be hard to live down. Spector was remixing portions of Let It Be at Abbey Road unbeknownst to McCartney, while McCartney was being mastered at the same studio. And, somehow fittingly, it was Let It Be that knocked McCartney’s solo debut from the summit.

Let It Be hit Number One as “The Long and Winding Road” / “For You Blue” hit the top of the Hot 100. It would be the last time the Fab Four scored simultaneous Number Ones.

The Top Five
Week of June 13, 1970

1. Let It Be, The Beatles
2. McCartney, Paul McCartney
3. Woodstock , Soundtrack
4 . Deja Vu, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
5. Bridge Over Troubled Water, Simon & Garfunkel