Blue Jay Way

The rating of this album is a bit of a problem - on one level, it isn't any better than one would expect from a studio pick-up band doing raga-style covers of "I Am The Walrus," "&Black Is Black," "Eleanor Rigby," "&Blue Jay Way," etc. It isn't what one would can call a terribly adventurous recording, and it's exactly the opposite of the recordings - George Harrison's "Love You To" and "Within You, Without You" - whose textures it seems to want to emulate. On the other, it does have its odd moments of beauty, such as the heavy sitar noodling on "Eleanor Rigby" and "I Am The Walrus," and the sitar subbing for the lead vocal line on Pete Townshend's "I Can See For Miles" is worth hearing once, at least. "Blue Jay Way" is so strange - the Beatles' original being a raga-style number with no sitar - that it is also worth a listen…

Strictly speaking, this isn't just a guitar tribute to the Beatles, although stringed instruments that are plucked, strummed, and otherwise manipulated are in abundance, representing styles and sounds that will recall Django Reinhardt at one moment and the Mahavishnu Orchestra at the next. Toots Thielemans adds some astonishingly tasteful harmonica (and whistling) to "Yesterday" and Thomas Dawson's organ is almost a lead instrument on "Come Together."

Now available in a 2 LP 180 gram vinyl piece in artwork true to the original packaging. LOVE, is not merely the soundtrack to the stunning Cirque du Soleil show of the same name. It is a fascinating reworking of numerous classic Beatles recordings by the band's original producer, Sir George Martin and his son Giles.
In creating the music for the show and for the album, George and Giles have created a continuous 'soundscape' - a series of well-known Beatles songs augmented by additional instrumentation and vocals taken from their vast bank of original multi-track tapes.