‘With a Little Help from My Friends’ Album Collects 74 Beatles Covers: Review
by Jeff Burger
Particularly during the years when the Fab Four dominated the charts, countless artists from a wide variety of genres couldn’t resist jumping on the band’s wagon. The new With a Little Help from My Friends: Covers of the Beatles 1967-1970 is at least the third three-CD collection of such material from subsidiaries of England’s Cherry Red label, following Looking Through a Glass Onion: The Beatles’ Psychedelic Songbook 1966-72 and We Can Work It Out: Covers of the Beatles 1962-1966. (Note that the years in the titles of all three compendiums refer to periods when the Fab Four’s versions of the songs appeared; some of these covers came out a bit later.)
The Nov. 28, 2025, release is available in the U.S. here, in Canada here and in the U.K. here.
Like its two predecessors and many other multi-artist collections, the new 74-track box offers a bit of a roller-coaster ride. In addition to rock and pop, you’ll find reggae, R&B, Motown, folk, easy listening and jazz. And the quality varies almost as much as the musical styles, though much of this material is likable. It helps that the songs being covered consist almost entirely of classics. You’ll recognize some of the performances and artists, though little-known acts and recordings predominate.
The least interesting numbers in this anthology, which comes with an informative 40-page booklet, include ones that, while competently performed, mostly just ape the originals. Among these are “Martha My Dear,” by Ambrose Slade, a group that garnered U.K. success after dropping the first part of its moniker; “For You Blue,” which an Australian band called Bulldog released using the pseudonym Drummond; and “Hello, Goodbye,” from the lone album by a group called Supersession Workshop, about which little is known.
Other songs take Beatles classics in unfortunate directions, such as a cartoonish “Get Back,” the final single from a British outfit called Amen Corner, and actress Claudine Longet’s lightweight “When I’m 64.” There are also several Muzak-styled numbers that travel a long and winding road from the spirit of the originals, including “Baby, You’re a Rich Man,” by Hollyridge Strings, a Capitol Records studio orchestra; “Sun King” and “The Ballad of John and Yoko” by Canadian bandleader Percy Faith and His Orchestra; and “Across the Universe,” by trumpeter and pianist Tony Osborne and His Orchestra. (However, easy-listening versions of “Piggies” and “Savoy Truffle” by English singer, songwriter, musician and producer Mike Batt are better than you might expect.) The box’s nadir arrives with a horrendous take on “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” by Star Trek’s William Shatner, who should have stuck to acting.
The many winners include soulful renditions of “Let It Be” by Aretha Franklin and “Hey, Jude” by Wilson Pickett, the latter with guitar by Duane Allman; George Benson’s jazzified “You Never Give Me Your Money”; Harry Nilsson’s brass-accented “She’s Leaving Home”; Herbie’s Mann’s dreamy “Flying”; and Richie Havens’s reimagined “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Also notable are a vaudevillian “Something,” by the short-lived Templeton Twins, an act that has been described as sounding “like the Beatles if the Beatles had done nothing but ‘Honey Pie’”; a big band reading of “Birthday” by jazz trumpeter Lee Castle and the Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra; and a quirky “I Am the Walrus” by Lord Sitar, a pseudonym for British session guitarist Big Jim Sullivan, who contributed to George Harrison’s Wonderwall and learned to play sitar alongside him.
[2023’s We Can Work It Out: Covers of The Beatles 1962-1966, also on 3-CDs, featuring such artists as Peter and Gordon, the Supremes, the Mamas & the Papas, Count Basie, Joe Cocker, the Ventures, the Fifth Dimension, and Petula Clark, is available in the U.S. here, in Canada here and the U.K. here.]
Burger wrote one of the first interview-based profiles of Bruce Springsteen to be published in a national magazine. He has interviewed many other music-world luminaries as well, including Steve Van Zandt, Roger McGuinn, John Sebastian, Wolfman Jack, Tom Waits, Foreigner’s Mick Jones, Billy Joel, Steve Forbert, Tommy James, the Righteous Brothers, Gordon Lightfoot, Deep Purple’s Tommy Bolin, and members of Steely Dan and the Marshall Tucker Band. He has also interviewed many other public figures, such as Suze Orman, Daymond John, James Carville, Donald Trump, Sir Richard Branson, F. Lee Bailey, and Cliff Robertson.
His books include Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, and Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters, all of which are published in the U.S. and Canada by Chicago Review Press. The books have been republished in numerous other countries.
Burger has been the editor of several periodicals, including Business Jet Traveler, from which he retired in 2024. During his 20 years at that
publication, it received more than 120 major editorial awards, including multiple wins for the world’s Best Consumer Travel Magazine in the annual Folio:Eddie competition.
Burger lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey. His wife, Madeleine Beresford, is a puppeteer and former preschool director and teacher. The couple have two grown children.
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