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Many years ago...I'll just share this little tiny story with you. I know I'll
be shot down in flames, but I want to tell you this so I don't care. Many years
ago we came and played Dallas... Fleetwood Mac. Mick's dad was dying of cancer
and he had to fly there ~ get there right after the Dallas show within 45 minutes
before Mike died.. and so I went to Gordon's studio and I recorded Beauty and
the Beast here. And this song kind of went down in the history of the scheme
of my life.. and when I die there will be a few moments that I will remember and
that was one of them in this little church recording studio where we recorded
Beauty and the Beast. Everybody has to remember how special everybody is...
and this is the story of Beauty and the Beast... how special we are to each other...
You let me into your life here. Thank you very much. Read the story of Beauty
and the Beast if you can. |
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Besides the fact that Beauty and The Beast to me is a story of desperation (see the Jean Cocteau film) and besides the fact that Beauty and The Beast surrounds me everywhere ~ everybody I know is either being the Beauty or the Beast ~ the experience of recording this song was so special.
We brought the orchestra in for a three-hour live session ~ and I'm someone who's oblivious to being able to do anything in the studio in a mere three hours! I knew they were gonna pack their little violin cases and walk away from me in no time; meanwhile Roy Bittan's playing piano just like I do, real simple, and that's hard for a good pianist to do, and everybody's watching me ~ nobody has done a live session in years, no Stevie Nicks has walked in in a long black dress to sing Beauty and the Beast with champagne for all these men in probably as long as they can remember, even 30 years ago. I wanted them to feel like they were the most special orchestra that ever
existed, for that night. They walked in, played, and left, and it's like they
don't even have any idea what they gave me, how precious it is. |
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My favorite old movie is Beauty and the Beast, the 1946 one, and I love
Mary, Queen of Scots. I love those kinds of movies. I can watch these movies
over and over again. I love anything that is wonderful, and it can have some sadness.
I don't mind that, but like evil, bad things, I don't like them in my life. |
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This is the story of a man who is a prince who gets turned into a beast, and
in order to be turned back into the prince…into the man…he has to find somebody
that likes him because he's just wonderful not because he's really kind of unattractive
and a beast. So this is the story of the beast and his search for his beauty. |
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We video'd Beauty and the Beast. It's a live take. The voice and the orchestra
...is live. The girls went in right after we finished, three hours later and put
their beautiful harmonies on it and we were done. |
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Beauty and the Beast We recorded this live in New York, with Roy Bittan playing grand piano, and Paul Buckmaster doing the strings and conducting the orchestra, and me and the background singers, all at the same time. It was like we had gone back in time; we all wore long black dresses, and served champagne, and recorded it all in one room...When it was over, I walked out with this elderly gentleman who played violin...and the generation gap ceased to exist. I also remember Mick and I years later at the Red Rocks Rock A Little video. He had come by himself to play, and he stayed there with me all night (in the rain) to do close-ups...everyone else had left. Who is the beauty, and who is the beast...? Which one of you? Have you
ever really been able to answer that? I have, it took a long time, but I finally
did... find the answer. |
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It
began as a piano demo done in Lori's husband, Gordon Perry's studio in Dallas;
the room is just magical, a church. Lori later sent me a tape with beautiful voices
on it, and Sharon and I tried to duplicate it but we couldn't. So we got all the
original vocalists together in New York and recorded it live.
