Mary Hopkin’s backing vocals grace a remake of her first English-language single on Dolly Parton’s upcoming covers album. Norah Jones, Roger McGuinn, and Alison Krauss are also involved.

One more crucial Beatles book before the Lewisohn volumes begin to appear: Ringo Starr’s collection Postcards From The Boys, for Mr Starkey’s commentary on each of the postcards received from George, Paul and John, and because it contains the postcard issued to promote Mary Hopkin’s Post Card.

I can’t remember the last time I attended a big convention (probably Chicago more than a decade ago), and I won’t be able to go to Swindon for The Meeting Place 2005, a convention for XTC fans—but I think it’s a great idea.

I could not disagree more with some of his considered opinions on the content of the records themselves, but Richard M. Davis’ Scraping the Barrel: An Apple Singles Collection Catalogue site is the finest Apple Records resource I have seen since Masanori Yokono’s Beatles Record Collection site (back after a long absence). Richard also provides a blog (Dear Angie, after the Iveys’s second single) for providing Apple Records collectors with up-to-date information on relevant items made recently available at eBay.

This just arrived: the press release for the The Concert For Bangladesh. It’s interesting that Apple partnered with Warner Music Group for the DVD release, but then DVD issues are never strictly tied to label relationships. The Concert For Bangladesh has always been unusual in one respect: because Bob Dylan’s presence was such a substantial part of the LP, CBS was granted tape distribution rights; this split arrangement continues by the CD reissue coming out in Europe from Sony/BMG (from 24 October) and via Capitol in the US a day later (I would assume the press release to be specific, so not even a Canadian EMI release).

I’ve been remiss in mentioning the beatles.com relaunch.