Orel Family

At the start of 1969, things were rapidly deteriorating for The Beatles: Their 1968 recording sessions for "The White Album" had turned so sour that recording engineer Geoff Emerick quit in July, followed by Ringo Starr in August. Their manager Brian Epstein had died in 1967 from an accidental overdose of sleeping pills. They'd given up touring in 1966 to protect their own safety and sanity.  It may seem shocking that the most famous quartet in the world chose, as their next project, to take empty time and space in Twyckenham Film Studios , this time without even producer George Martin , who didn't go.   This is where Peter Jackson's epic 8-hour film, currently available on Disney+ , comes in. For Beatlephiles like me, the film is both a huge blessing and a bit of a let down. More on the let down later. The original Michael Lindsay-Hogg movie "Let it Be" was never released on DVD, and has been out of official circulation in all formats since the ...

September, 1979. I'd just returned home from being in Israel for 6 weeks. Less than a week later, my grandmother suddenly died from a heart attack. Sometime in the immediate aftermath of the returning home to New Jersey from my grandparents' shiva house in Connecticut, the school year started, and I understood that Bruce Springsteen was going to be playing at two of the upcoming "Musicians for Safe Energy" No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden. On Rosh Ha-freaking Shannah. Tickets probably went on sale while I was out of the country, and I had no chance of getting any. There was a girl in my homeroom class, and she  had tickets. Or, at least, she was going. She wasn't even especially excited about it.  I was 17, a hardcore fan, and  shut out. The burn, no doubt distorted by selective recall, lingered for a long time. It would be nearly another 2 years before I'd get to see Springsteen live.  More than 42 years later, the concert film "The Legendary 1...