There’ve been plenty of tribute albums honoring The Beatles, but an upcoming release takes an interesting new angle. From a Window: Lost Songs of Lennon & McCartney, due April 8 on GallerySix/Kid Lightning, contains new renditions of the best songs that John Lennon and Paul McCartney composed, either together or apart, but gave away to other artists to record. Most of the songs are sung here by either Graham Parker, the B-52’s Kate Pierson or Buffalo Tom’s Bill Janovitz, with Cheap Trick’s Robin Zander stopping by for one as well.

From a Window was spearheaded by producer Jim Sampas, who previously created the all-star Badlands: A Tribute to Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. While tribute albums typically feature individual artists performing favorite tracks with their own bands, Sampas’s approach on From a Window was to utilize a single backing band of accomplished studio musicians, headlined by a small handful of lead vocal performers, thereby — hopefully — creating a unified flow to the music. The backup group consists of guitarist Duke Levin (Mary Chapin Carpenter), keyboardist/bassist Paul Bryan (Aimee Mann) and former Fairport Convention drummer Dave Mattacks, who has actually played drums before for both McCartney and George Harrison.

The disc’s track list is as follows; in parentheses are the names of the British artists who were the original benefactors of the Beatles’ benevolence. British chart positions are also given when appropriate.

Kate Pierson starts by singing "I’m in Love" (The Fourmost), "Step Inside Love" (Cilla Black; reached the British Top 10 in 1968), "Love of the Loved" (Black) and "Nobody I Know" (Peter & Gordon; Top 10 in 1964).

Graham Parker follows with "From a Window" (Billy J. Kramer; Top 10 in 1964), "Bad to Me" (Kramer; #1 in 1963), "Tip of My Tongue" (Tommy Quickly), "Come and Get It" (Badfinger; Top 5 in 1970) and "One and One Is Two" (The Strangers).

Bill Janovitz then performs "I’ll Keep You Satisfied" (Kramer; Top 5 in 1963), "It’s for You" (Black; Top 10 in 1964), "Hello Little Girl" (Fourmost), "Goodbye" (Mary Hopkin; Top 5 in 1969), "A World Without Love" (Peter & Gordon; #1 in 1964) and "Woman" (Peter & Gordon). Robin Zander then sings "That Means a Lot" (P.J. Proby; Top 30 in 1965), and the album closes with newcomer Kenny Siegal of Johnny Society performing "I’ll Be on My Way" (Kramer).

The Beatles’ own performances of some of these songs were released on their Anthology collections. Some of the other mid-’60s productions sound a bit dated now, observes Parker in the disc’s liner notes. "There’s definitely an Austin Powers element to some of this stuff," he writes. Obviously, their goal was to bring the arrangements into the 21st Century.

"It was incredible to see the power of the Beatles’ compositions," Parker also points out. "With just a little flip of the switch, you can find this depth to them that might not have been there in the original recordings."

–Matt Hurwitz

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