This page is a home for a personal obsession of mine… The Beatles. If you aren’t a nerd for this stuff, this page may seem like a bit much… Perhaps even… too much… The first bit is an introduction to an occasional side project; I am happy to provide a full set of Beatles material for any occasion– with a little notice you can even have a full rock band experience! Keep reading, however, if you’d like to join me in a total Fab Four nerd session with links to lots of playlists especially suited for the weirdly obsessive Beatles fans out there…

The Burntles?

All You Need is Burn!  You may be interested to learn that Bruce and friends have a fun, danceable fab side project that perform all of your favourite Beatles tunes!  The Burning Sensations were essentially formed as the house band for the Branch Restaurant’s numerous Beatles Birthday Tribute events over the years, all that practice has recently gelled into a Beatles party for hire for your next event…

Don’t listen to me though, listen to one of our happy dancers:

“When my husband turned 60 I decided to organize a surprise birthday party. He is a diehard Beatles fan so I wanted the party to have a Beatles theme. I booked Bruce Enloe and his band and they surpassed all of my expectations. They came to check out the space and equipment a month prior to the party. They brought some of their own equipment to ensure the quality of their sound. These guys were amazing! My husband was thrilled. Our guests were singing along and just having a blast! The band was very accommodating as well. They welcomed my husband on stage with them and even accompanied our 11 year old who wanted to sing a song for her dad. I can’t imagine the party without them, they made it a success. Thank you so much Bruce and the gang for a fantastic birthday party. You rock!” –Anne Walsh

Call us for details, booking now! 613-816-3675, email bruceenloemusic@gmail.com

Sample Set Lists:

Set 1: Early years
1. Hard Day’s Night
2. I’ll be Back Again
3. She Loves You
4. Eight Days a week
5. Help!
6. In My Life
7. I’ve Just Seen a Face
8. Ticket To Ride
9. Act Naturally
10. We Can Work it Out
11. You Can’t Do that
12. Twist and Shout

Acoustic Set:
1. Blackbird
2. Yesterday
3. Michelle
4. Rocky Raccoon
5. You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away
6. I Will
7. Across the Universe
8. Long, Long, Long

Electric Set 2: Psychedelic Years
1. Birthday
2. Rain
3. Day Tripper
4. Revolution
5. Come Together
6. Get Back
7. I’m Only Sleeping
8. Let It Be
9. Old Brown Shoe
10. Back in the USSR
11. You Won’t See Me
12. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
13. Oh! Darling
14. Hey Jude

More Beatles Stuff…

Clearly I’m a Beatles FAN — so, for you fellow nerds out there: here are my deep dive fun playlist projects that I call “What If” Beatles… Imagining albums that maybe should have, but definitely never actually COULD have happened… I try to stay a little left field of the ‘usual’ greatest-hits-of-the-solo-years versions of these projects (lots of folks have already done that VERY well (see the ‘Albums That Never Were’ or ‘What If Beatles Edition‘ blogs for some amazing efforts there…) My play-listing is more of a fun imaginary play on some not very likely projects that I haven’t really seen other folks tackle. Enjoy!

“What If” Beatles – ‘The Dirty Mac Live!’ 1969

The Dirty Mac; Live 1969: this supergroup, fronted by John Lennon (and Yoko Ono) with Eric Clapton on lead guitar, Keith Richards on bass (!), and Mitch Mitchell on drums actually formed and performed as a one-off entity for the Rolling Stones ‘Rock and Roll Circus’ event late in 1968. This Playlist imagines a full live concert album follow up early the next year, featuring songs from each of the principals and is culled from live concerts from the time period (where possible) or at least using live performances of songs written (or covered) by the principals during or before 1968/69. To complete the lineup, I have included two appropriate Jimi Hendrix Experience live songs just to sprinkle in a bit more Mitch Mitchell flair – a Beatles cover and a Cream cover (nods to Lennon and Clapton) but otherwise the lead singers and songwriters all ‘could have’ performed these songs at a full length concert including all four players. What happens here is almost believable; sloppy, bluesy, fun, perhaps a bit loose (except for Clapton, obviously…) with just a little Yoko weirdness to spice things up… Click here and play and tell me what you think!

“What If” Beatles – Here Come the Sons… ‘Too Hard’

Here Come the Sons – Too Hard: this project was WAY more fun than I expected! My premise for this one was ‘what if the Beatle Sons got together and recorded an album as Beatles 2.0?’ I’ll admit that I’ve never dived deeply into the catalogue of these gents before this project (mostly I gave cursory listens like an obligated uncle) but this project has certainly changed that- in fact, I hope it does for you as well… a few notes: 1. Jason and Zak Starkey do not appear: basically I could not find a piece that fit. I almost included a tune by Zak’s side project Sshh, but it ultimately didn’t work (and Zak has also publicly poo-pooed this concept anyway, so, whatever.) 2. No Julian. Early versions included him, lots of him actually, but the sonic directions taken by Sean Ono Lennon, James McCartney and Dhani Harrison all started to dovetail together so well as I was collecting and selecting that eventually it became clear that Julian was the odd man out… if this was a ‘best of’ collection, he would clearly feature prominently, but that just ain’t what this is. Here’s my read, Julian doesn’t need these kids, you can listen to his albums on their own 😉. 3. There is only one true ‘Beatle Son’ collaboration here: Dhani and James worked together on the ‘title track’ Too Hard from James’ Blackberry Train album- that means that even though it sounds surprisingly coherent as an album, it is in fact a collection of solo works- I LOVE this- the fact that I have to check who is singing sometimes reminds me of some of my favourite Beatle qualities- that ‘where does one end and the other begin’ sort of thing. I hope this comes through for you as well. And 4. THIS IS NOT A BEATLES ALBUM, but it definitely plays as an album- a good one. If I had focused on Beatlesque performances, it would have been ‘Too Hard’ and a bunch of Julian tunes– this feels more like an Elliott Smith/Wilco/Mercury Rev joint- hip-hop, psych, electronic, indie, Fridmannesque soundscapes all flow freely, it is not Beatley, but it is lush, thoughtful, melodic, catchy and well produced like a Beatles album might of been, had they been, well, of a certain age, at a certain time… I really hope you’ll put on some decent headphones and listen to this one straight through, you won’t regret it… Click here.

“What If” Beatles – ‘Lost Beatles Album’ aka… ‘Best of Beatlesque; the later years’

“What If” Beatles – ‘Lost Beatles Album’ aka… ‘Best of Beatlesque; the early years’

The Beatles Never Broke Up – Introducing ‘The Ladders’

“I’ll be in a group with John and George and Klaus (Voormann) and call it the Ladders or whatever you want to call it, but I don’t think it would be called The Beatles…” (Ringo Starr in Melody Maker, 1970)

“After Paul McCartney announced his departure from the Beatles, rumors spread that the group would continue with the addition of Harry Nilsson…” (NilssonSchmilsson.com)

For this edition of my Spotify ‘what if’ playlist series, I’ve created four ‘albums’ by an imaginary(?) band called ‘The Ladders’ that would have formed in early 1970 shortly after the Beatles officially called it a day, featuring John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson and Klaus Voormann.

In some ways this was not a huge effort— John, George and Ringo frequently popped up on each other’s records in this time period– Klaus Voormann, a long time Beatle associate (from the Hamburg era, pre-fame) played bass on most of their solo outings in this period.  Harry Nilsson also frequently collaborated with each of the ‘Three-tles’ and also relied on many the same studio musicians, as well as producers and engineers, folks like Richard Perry, Jim Keltner, and, of course Klaus Voormann.   With all of this sonic synergy, there is a flow to the solo efforts of these four singers that almost makes it feel as if the band actually did form… In fact, with just a little imagination, it is pretty easy to believe that maybe, just maybe, the Beatles never really did break up…

Unlike my other playlists, I have put these songs in order, so be sure and hit ‘Play’ instead of ‘Shuffle’ for the full effect–

And, as always, I also gave myself some rules– For instance, I made every effort to find ‘time-line accurate’ solo material (for the most part) from each of the four primary players with a couple of notable creative exceptions.  For instance, I start the first album with Ringo’s ‘Early 1970’ primarily because the album would have been released in 1970 and the song fits the story-line so well– besides, we don’t when he actually wrote it, just that it was not released until 1973… Besides, this is all imagination anyway.  I also tried to focus first on performances with a clear record of collaboration between the ‘members’ of the ‘band’ with Klaus in the mix, this is fairly easy, he plays on the majority of songs across all four records–but what is surprising is how many times there are other collaborations as well– George appears on lead guitar frequently with all of the others, Ringo jumps behind the kit with each of the others as well, and occasionally more than three players appear (Harry Nilsson’s ‘Daybreak’ includes Harry, George, Ringo and Klaus; Ringo’s ‘I’m The Greatest’ includes everyone but Harry; John, George, Klaus and Ringo all make appearances on John’s Imagine album; John, Ringo, Klaus and Harry all appear on Harry’s Pussycats album…etc. etc.)  I’ve also put a few interesting ‘what if’ songs throughout the set where two Ladders each recorded separate versions of the same song (John’s ‘Isolation’ by John and Harry; Harry’s ‘Easy for Me’ by Ringo and Harry; George’s ‘That Is All’  by George and Harry…) for those, I just put the two songs next to each other and let you imagine them as a blended piece (a better producer than me could probably do more justice here…)

I also left out some stuff — notably cover tunes (for the most part) — this was sad as all of these folks are excellent interpreters; but my theory here was that there were too many good original tunes to choose from already.  I did make exceptions for a couple of items that fit the mix particularly well– such as John’s performance of ‘Bring it On Home To Me’ which includes a rare Klaus Voormann call & response vocal that I could not pass up… I also left out songs that I subjectively deemed to be TOO John, TOO George or TOO Harry– the theory here was that The Ladders was a side project for these folks; I’m guessing Lennon’s Yoko love songs, Nilsson’s novelties and Harrison’s Krishna prayers would  have been on the proper solo albums and that the more universal tunes would have been on the Ladders’ albums… there are exceptions here as well, but I gave it a shot.

Anyway; here are the records as I imagine them… I’d love your feedback.  I had a lot of fun with this and it would be a thrill to know that anyone out there enjoys listening to them half as much as I enjoyed assembling them:

1970:  ‘I Don’t Believe in Beatles’: this was the debut record from the new lineup– material here is drawn from Ringo’s Beaucoups of Blues, George’s All Things Must Pass (actually released in ’71, but we can assume songwriting was well underway as many of the songs that ended up on that record were floated and passed on for later era Beatles records) and John’s ‘Plastic Ono Band’ – Harry’s work during this period was scant but there are some sweet tracks from singles and his box set that probably would have made it to these sessions… Click here for a listen: The Ladders – I Don’t Believe in Beatles

1971: ‘Ladders Schmladders’: This was a peak creative moment for Nilsson– The Point and Nilsson Schmilsson both came out this year and represent some of his best (and most Bea… uh, Ladders-y material) John and George both hit high notes this year with solo career winners ‘All Things Must Pass’ and ‘Imagine’ both seeing release… Ringo was not producing much original material at this time but his George penned and produced ‘It Don’t Come Easy’ did come out as a single this year and Klaus Voorman arranged his Geroge Martin produced number ‘I’m A Fool To Care’ on his 1971 Sentimental Journey album, which becomes a nice closing number a la ‘Goodnight, Goodnight’ from the White Album.  Listen to it here: The Ladders – ‘Ladders Schmladders’

1972-3: ‘New York City’:  This is where my job got a little more difficult and I took a little more license- Nilsson’s output in ’72 included ‘A Little Touch of Schmilsson in the Night’, a schmaltzy album of orchestrated classics akin (but honestly superior) to Ringo’s ‘Sentimental Journey’ – John’s ‘Sometime in New York City’ was a mixed bag that heavily features Yoko– it has moments, but it just didn’t feel like The Ladders to me (with the exception of the title track…).  George was also still cruising on ‘All Things Must Pass’. In my mind, the fellas set aside a couple of toppers but waited to record in earnest until early 73 – this lets me draw from John’s ‘Mind Games’, George’s ‘Living in The Material World’, and Harry’s ‘Son of Schmilsson’, an uneven record, but certainly one with it’s moments… This was also return to Rock–John had some great rocking moments on ‘Some Time…’, Ringo released his thundering ‘Back off Boogaloo’ single and George’s ‘Living in the Material World’ (the song) has a solid backbeat as well… The album gets a little experimental on side two with Ringo’s Blindman (the b-side from his 1972 single) and some stony & philosophical numbers from the other three… I closed the album with Harry’s New York song ‘I Guess The Lord Must Be in New York City’, originally written for Midnight Cowboy (and released in 1969, well before this group would have formed) because, well, I liked it, it fit the theme, and Harry was also well known for re-visiting his own earlier material (see: Aerial Pandemonium Ballet).  Give this one a listen here: The Ladders – ‘New York City’

1974: ‘I’m The Greatest’:  (probably would have been a double album…) This album is the most convincing of the four (in my opinion) with more collaborations than the others and even production turns and co-writing throughout– there are almost no songs on this one without at least 3 of the five ‘Ladders’ participating, and it even comes with a ‘bonus track’ of Harry’s later years version of his Lennon co-write ‘Old Dirt Road’.  As source material goes, it is Ringo and Nilsson heavy, as those two both released collaboration heavy records in this year — Ringo’s ‘Ringo’ album kicks off with ‘I’m the Greatest’, a Lennon-penned post Beatles moment featuring the entire Ladders line-up (sans Harry) that sparked a wildfire of rumours at the time of a full-scale Beatles reunion. Lennon, Klaus and Ringo also all worked on Nilsson’s ‘Pussycats’ record this year as well.  Lennon’s output was notably stunted as this was at the peak of his year long ‘Lost Weekend’ drinking binge, but did include some nice moments from his surprisingly coherent ‘Walls and Bridges’ record.  Ringo’s ‘Goodnight Vienna’ was also a great source, with the Lennon inspired cover of ‘Only You (And You Alone)’ featuring both Nilsson and Lennon (check out the Youtube for a version with all three Ladders singing together).   George’s ‘Dark Horse’ also offers up some fine moments to this cohesive record.  I really like this one and I hope you do too!  Listen here: The Ladders – ‘I’m the Greatest’

“What If” Beatles – ‘Free as a Bird’ 1998

What if the ‘Threetles’ reunited around the time of the Anthology project, started jamming with Jeff Lynne, loved it, added him to the band and put out a full length along the lines of the Free as a Bird and Real Love singles he helped produce? Put on your headphones, close your eyes and imagine!

“What If” Beatles – ‘Carnival of Light’

What if the Beatles had one more album on contract in 1970 and decided to make a ‘fuck off’ record with the weirdest stuff they could muster? Here’s a ‘what if’ album featuring the strangest solo and group output from that period– the title comes from Paul’s famously unreleased Beatles-era avant garde experiment…