Long Tall Sally

Variation LP.6063.5.1 was still released only in MONO even though mono had been officially phased out in 1968. This pressing is recognized by its unique red target label and by its mistake stereo banner when the album hadn't yet been released in stereo. Stereo banners were found on later MG covers as well (see LP.6063.6.2), and were later simply trimmed off, sometimes not short enough, revealing the bottom line of the banner (LP.6063.5.2).

Availability

This variation was available between 1971 and 1972 (for approximately 1 year) when the label design was changed to the orange design with gold text (see LP.6063.6.1).

General Information

As was the case with Twist and Shout, this pressing marks the "return" of the 6000 series albums in the Canadian Beatles catalogue (see previous entry for details). The red target series is also very interesting from a collector's point of view because in Canada, all Capitol albums were re-released with this label design, while Capitol USA reissued their albums on the Apple label instead, making all these red target pressings unique to Canada. Only two albums were mistakenly released on the red target label in the USA: Yesterday and Today and Revolver; those are quite rare and fetch a few hundred dollars each, but shouldn't be confused with the Canadian Red Target pressings of the same album that are relatively common compared to their US counterparts.

Pressing Information

After a short hiatus (a pause in the pressing of the three unique Canadian albums), Capitol of Canada subcontracted once again the RCA pressing plant in Smith Falls (Ontario) to manufacture new batches of albums, this time with the new "Red Target" label. No green target label pressings have been confirmed to date, so this marks Capitol's decision to keep offering these albums to Canadian fans. Known copies still have the same "-2" matrix numbers as previous variations. Some have -2 on both sides, other copies only on side B:

Side A: XEX 455 471
Side B: XEX 456 472-2

This pressing has also seen a few copies with a different type of pressing ring that looks more like a deep "dish" depression (image on the right) rather than the usual RCA "groove" (image on the left). There have been much discussion over the years as to the nature of these different pressing rings (a faulty RCA pressing, a different machine, a Columbia pressing, etc.), but it is the opinion of the authors that these are in fact simply a "faulty" RCA pressing.

Evidence pointing in this direction has shown discs (from other albums with only a one-off pressing run) where one side showed a traditional RCA ring, while the other bears the odd dish-like impression, indicating they are not from another source, but simply a manufacturing variation within a single batch. It is not certain what cause this variation, but current theories revolve around pressure applied during the pressing process, or an air bubble trapped between the vinyl biscuit and the press. For more details on this type of ring, see the RCA entry in the "Canadian Pressing Plants" section of the FORMATS page.

Cover

This pressing is also unique mostly because of its mistake STEREO Banner front slick printed by Parr's Litho, assembled at Modern Album. It is not known why a stereo banner was added at this point, considering the first stereo pressing of this album appeared only 5 years later in 1976. A few copies made it out to the public, and the mistake was even carried out onto a later different printing company (Modern Graphics in 1972-1974: LP.6063.6.1and LP.6063.6.2, before it was finally corrected in later years.)

The cover of this variation is otherwise constructed like the previous variations: printed by Parr's Litho, with a straight inner seam construction measuring approximately 8 mm.

This cover is also built with a traditional front slick cover.

Packaging

This edition was shipped in tight shrink wrap, with or without a plain paper LP inner sleeve. These Capitol sleeves are square and have a slight curve at the top.