The story of 'Let it be' is as follows.
The idea of filming the Beatles rehearsing and recording was
mainly Paul's, the others were a little unsure.
Because the music was not great, and was a little 'raw', the
music was actually originally shelved and not released.
They then decided to record another album, so George Martin
said if we do it we do it like the old Beatles, no arguments, no
egos etc and what he says goes.
This went on to become Abbey Road (recorded AFTER the 'Let it
be' music) but released before.
After this the Beatles were hardly on speaking terms, with all sorts
of lawyers involved, and John had gone off with Yoko and Paul off
with Linda.
John then gave Phil Spector the 'Let it be' tapes and said 'see what
you can do with this'. He salvaged what he could, and added the
smaltzy strings to some songs.
Paul ever got a say, nor did George Martin, on what Phil Spector
did, and the first Paul knew about it was when the songs were
released.
Paul once said that George Martin would never have added the
strings like Phil Spector did. Listen to Elenor Rigby or Yesterday to
hear what George Martin would have done.
I think ever since then Paul has had a seething resentment of
what John and Phil Spector did to his songs.
What is sad is that the original plan for 'Let it be' was to mirror
the first Beatles album, which had the famous picture down the
stairwell, and the text on the cover of 'Please Please Me, Love me
do, and 12 other songs'.
The plan for 'Let it be' was to have the updated picture down the
stairwell (later used on the 67-70 album) and have on the front
cover 'Get Back, Dont Let me Down, and 12 other songs'
They also planned to make the back of the album similar to the
back of the first Beatles LP.
I always think it is sad that they did not do this as their last album,
it would have ended the group on a high note, rather than the
disjointed mess that was the actual 'Let it be' they released.
One final thing, I think the success of the Beatles was as much
to do with George Martin as it was any of the members of the
group. Without George Martin they never would have been as
big or as good as they were. Truly the fifth Beatle.
Guilbert