Archive of the former Yahoo!Groups mailing list: Mellotronists
Subject: Re: [Mellotronists] Travel Channel
From: MAinPsych@...
Date: 2003-12-02
In a message dated 12/1/03 1:12:58 PM Pacific Standard Time, JMoore6397@... writes:
Last night I was watching the Travel Channel and a special segment on Beatlemania and Liverpool. Lo and Behold at the Beatles Museum in Liverpool they had "the mellotron that the Beatles used on Strawberry Fields" 0n display behind glass. Needless to say @ 11;30 PM sleep disappeared. Martin and John can you further comment on this mellotron? All people who were touring this museum enjoyed the presentation. Was anyone else traveling last night via the television?
Hi, Jimmy, et al,
I'll do you one better -- I was at the Beatles Story museum at Albert Dock in Liverpool back in July. Yes, the "Abbey Road" section does have a nice mahogany MkII. I believe it was Martin who told me a day or so earlier at Streetly that it belongs to and was lent for use by one of the Tremoloes. As to it being the "SFF" MkII, the actual one used was a 'for hire' m/c, so unless someone has something like an invoice from the session with a serial number that matches this m/c, who in hell knows the lineage of The Beatles Story unit. The museum itself had many other inaccuracies. A few that come to mind:
1. The "Hard Day's Night" exhibit displayed the grey collarless jackets, which we know weren't even used in the film;
2. The Cavern stage replica was TOTALLY inaccurate, i.e., showing Ringo's drums as Ludwig Black Oyster Pearl when he was still using his mahogany Premier kit at the Cavern; the bass guitar was right-handed and not even a Hofner; George's guitar was shown as a sunburst Epiphone Casino, which was not actually used until the '66 tour (he used a black Gretsch Duo-Jet at the Cavern); and John's Rickenbacker was shown as a '63 model 325, not the '58 325 used in the Cavern days...and no Vox amps! Pretty lame.
I would take the SFF lineage reference with a huge grain of salt (unless any of you know differently).
Frank Samagaio
MkII #134 / M400 #908
author, The Mellotron Book