Bare It All - Vols. 1 & 2

Bare It All - Vols. 1 & 2 - Front Cover	Bare It All - Vols. 1 & 2 - Back Cover

Label	MasterJedi
Catalogue No.	MJ1311-1/2
Release Date	Early 2014
Total Time	Disc 1 - 65:13 Disc 2 - 61:10
Comments:	From the Sleeve Represented here is a composite of 3 different transfers of "The John Barrett Tapes". The majority of these come from "More Masters" and "True Masters" from Roaring Mouse. These are supplemented with the master given to Vigotone, which was bit-identical to the Roaring Mouse releases, but was edited differently, allowing restoration of numerous edits done to the Roaring Mouse versions. Disc 1 has additionally been augmented with the "Abbey Road Tape" and "Down In Havana" from Unicorn, which come from a more complete but higher generation source. Collector Music Review Summary In 1999 the floodgates once again opened with a great explosion of Beatles outtakes - a burst of activity not seen since the likes of Yellow Dog's Unsurpassed Masters or The Swinging Pig's Ultra Rare Trax around 10 years earlier. We are talking of the bootlegs known jointly as "The John Barrett Tapes" (Turn Me On Dead Man being a classic example). For anyone still unaware of what happened there, a quick rundown: The Barrett tapes were divided out between a few bootleggers. Of the established names to be offered them were;      Vigotone, Roaring Mouse, Unicorn and Strawberry Records (Yellow Dog or Rattlesnake under a pseudonym). Each had their own theory as to how these tapes were to be presented. Vigotone releasing around 5 CDs covering the main outtakes, Let It Be tapes and solo oddities while Roaring Mouse diced their stash over 7 CDs then Unicorn got a few odds and ends and Strawberry created 3 boxed sets and 4 singular CDs covering the rest with some additional substitution. Each manufacturer got a lot of the same things BUT each set was also butchered - seconds missing here and there, quality differing all over the place, and none of the bootleggers came out with the correct timings. A nightmare for collectors as to which set to choose. Let’s forget label loyalty, ideally we wanted the best quality and longest takes. And all of them together. The John Barrett tapes were a grab bag for Beatles collectors, a monster that continues to feed our hobby, specifically 2013’s Take It Off on the HMC label - which featured around 8 minutes of new material that was dug up after the span of years. Prior to that release, fully paid up member of the Beatles Fan Club and internet forum user, Masterjedi, put together a comprehensive set of the Barrett tapes. Masterjedi took Roaring Mouse’s sets (“More Masters” and “True Masters”) as a base, adding bit-parts from Vigotone’s various versions and also using the oddities from Unicorn’s “Down In Havana” CD, eschewing the material supplemented from the Roger Scott tapes that some labels added to make a slightly more cohesive whole. Helpfully there was a full rundown posted on to the internet of where these tracks came from which we copy here: John Barrett Tapes - Cross Reference List A cross reference list of the John Barrett tapes identifying the bootlegs on which they can be found ! Sitting through various different takes of one song and surgically repairing missing bits and pieces where they allow, this set must be tendered as one of the final words on the Barrett tapes (were it not for that aforementioned HMC release !) and thankfully it sticks true to his compilation ethos: Disk one specifically, running haphazardly throughout the years from "She Loves You" through to "That Means A Lot" via psychedelic era Beatles on "Strawberry Fields Forever" to the middle-pop years of "Yes It Is" concluding at the jagged ends of their "White Album". Disk two rounds up the less boring parts of the "Let It Be" sessions on one of the final non-Spector compilations of "Get Back" (finished by Glyn Johns the way it should have been) and tops them off with George’s demos recorded in 1969 on his birthday. Although in awesome quality, it is almost identical to the earlier release: Get Back - Glyn Johns Final Compilation For anyone new to these outtakes or considering completing their collections with them, this MasterJedi collection is essential as a solid set. Apparently, the bootlegger who took this set from the internet (cheekily) kept the rather handsome covers that MasterJedi created. And to paraphrase a well known song, All you need are these. A rather basic double c.d. release with a few nice pictures and just the information seen on the scans above.

C.D. One (Tapes X1 to X8)

C.D. Two (Tapes X11-Get Back, X10)

Bare It All - Vols. 3 & 4        Bare It All - Vol. 5