How Phil Spector Turned the Beatles' 'Get Back' Into 'Let It Be'
As Paul McCartney was preparing to reveal to the world that the Beatles had broken up, the band turned to one of its idols, producer Phil Spector, to bring the material recorded during the Get Back sessions to fruition.
"[Spector had] always wanted to work with the Beatles," John Lennon told Jann Wenner in a 1970 Rolling Stone interview, "and he was given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit with a lousy feeling to it ever, and he made something out of it. He did a great job."
The famed producer was brought into the project by Allen Klein, whose appointment as Beatles manager over McCartney's objections would prove to be a factor in their split. By the time Spector arrived on the scene, the bulk of the tapes were more than a year old, having been recorded in January 1969. The original intent of Get Back, which was McCartney's idea, was to eschew the studio trickery of the previous few years and record a new album with no overdubs. A documentary film crew observed everything, including the group's first live performance in more than two years on the rooftop of Apple's London headquarters.
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com