The Beatles 1962-1966/1967-1970 review: How the greatest hits EVER got more fantastic, writes ADRIAN THRILLS

When first released 50 years ago, The Beatles’ Red and Blue albums became the ultimate greatest hits compilations.

The two double LPs span the highs of the Beatlemania era (the Red album, 1962 to 1966) and the magical twists of the late 1960s (Blue, which took the story all the way to the group’s demise in 1970).

The band showed little interest in them at the time, with John, Paul, George and Ringo all pursuing solo careers and feuding over their business affairs, but Red and Blue remains the perfect introduction to the songs that changed pop. Noel Gallagher says they heralded his lifelong love of the Fab Four.

With the ‘final’ Beatles song, Now And Then, set to give the band their first No. 1 single since The Ballad Of John And Yoko in 1969, the two retrospectives are now getting the deluxe reissue treatment, with 21 newly added tracks and a fresh production polish that uses the same de-mixing technology that polished the decades-old demo of the new single.

However, this re-release is oddly timed. Over the past six years, archivists have painstakingly worked through The Beatles’ catalogue, collecting expanded editions of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (2017), The White Album (2018), Abbey Road (2019), Let It Be (2021) and Revolver (2022).

The newly remastered albums that filmmaker Peter Jackson used to make the 2021 Get Back documentary

The Beatles’ Red Album was one of their definitive greatest hits compilations, along with the Blue Album

The obvious next step would have been to move on to 1965’s Rubber Soul. They went this route, one suspects, because Now And Then can now be added to Blue (to make it even more appealing).

But of these new packages, Red is the most compelling, offering a satisfyingly heady rush through early singles, from Love Me Do to Eleanor Rigby and Yellow Submarine.

The downside to Blue is that many of the new mixes were on previous reissues.

Remarkably, the original Red album only featured compositions by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, an oversight now remedied by the addition of two George Harrison tracks in Taxman and the jangly, Byrds-esque If I Needed Nobody. However, it is the new versions of the early singles that catch the eye.

Using the technology used by filmmaker Peter Jackson to make the 2021 Get Back documentary, producer Giles Martin (son of Beatles producer George) ‘isolated’ and remixed individual instruments from old tapes, staying true to the existing arrangements, but underlined the impression of a young rock band playing live in the studio.

The results are impressive. McCartney’s bass and Lennon’s harmonica are livelier on Love Me Do, and there’s a renewed punch to Ringo Starr’s drums on Can’t Buy Me Love and A Hard Day’s Night.

The string quartet sounds richer on Yesterday. If you can tolerate a little tampering with precious memories, there is plenty to admire.

The updated Blue album, which opens with Strawberry Fields Forever, describes the years in which, according to McCartney, The Beatles ‘took new directions without a map’.

Despite new mixes of Revolution and three songs from the 1967 Magical Mystery Tour EP, this version doesn’t have the same ‘wow’ factor as Red, although the reflective, emotional Now And Then doesn’t feel out of place.

If the latter tops the singles chart today, it will give pop’s biggest saga the happy ending it deserves.

Chris Stapleton (pictured) has collaborated with Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake

Chris Stapleton, America’s favorite country star for mainstream singer-songwriters, has collaborated with Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift and Justin Timberlake.

He sang with Pink on this year’s Trustfall album and dueted with Adele on a version of the latter’s Easy On Me. She describes his voice as ‘like caramel’.

Despite that – and the fact that tickets for next year’s UK arena tour are selling quickly – the Kentucky musician has yet to make a major chart breakthrough here.

His fifth album, Higher, will certainly help his cause: It challenges conventional Nashville wisdom by giving the bearded 45-year-old a chance to branch out into soft rock, tender R&B and acoustic Americana.

Overseen by A Star Is Born co-producer Dave Cobb and Stapleton’s wife, musician Morgane, Higher taps into the country’s storytelling traditions.

There are whiskey-soaked, guitar-driven rockers from the heart of the country hitting the road and leaving broken hearts, including his own, behind them. According to the song of the same name, South Dakota is a place where “trouble isn’t hard to find.”

He can also tender. The Day I Die and Weight Of Your World are tearjerkers, and in the bar ballad It Takes A Woman Stapleton embraces his inner soul, the man.

It takes a woman, he ventures, to make him “feel like a man.” His live show should have them dancing and crying in the aisles.

By From samba to light-hearted bossa nova, Liverpool band Baiana put their own spin on Brazilian styles on their self-titled debut.

The record, produced by Latin percussionist Snowboy, is based on singer Laura Doyle’s experience working in Rio, where she learned Portuguese and immersed herself in the local Carioca culture.

The grooves are relaxed and sun-drenched, decorated with strings on the easy-listening You Brought Me You, brass on Bossa Nova Dream and rhythmic vibraphone on The Birds And The Bees. Doyle evokes the torch singers of the swing era with an affectionate, sincere spirit.