Apple Records enters digital realm, sans Beatles

Remastered, digitally downloadablealbums are forthcoming from famed label Apple Records for the first time just not those of the Beatles.

The label created by the Fab Four announced Tuesday that it and music distribution partner EMI are releasing 15Apple albums that have been remastered at London's Abbey Road Studios.

The offerings which originally emerged in the late 1960s and early 1970s will be released on CD as well as digitally on Oct. 26.

The remastered releases will include albums by Welsh singer Mary Hopkin, the Modern Jazz Quartet, American R&B musician Billy Preston, Welsh pop-rockers Badfinger, American James Taylor's self-titled debut, classical composer John Tavener's The Whale, and Is This What You Want? by British rock singer and guitarist Jackie Lomax.

The Beatles set up Apple Records in the late 1960s to release both their own music and thatof artists they admired, produced or with whom they wrote music.

For instance, Paul McCartney produced Hopkin's 1968 debut hit Those Were The Days. McCartney, George Harrison andRingo Starr performed on Lomax's album (along with Keith Richards and Eric Clapton). John Lennon was a vocal advocate for the Modern Jazz Quartet.

The forthcoming remasters mark the first time Apple Records has consented to making any material from its catalogue available for download.

In recent years, the solo catalogue of each member of the Beatles(released by labels EMI, Capitol and Parlophone, for instance) has been introduced to online music retailers. Also, all parties agreed to licence the band's music for the popular video game The Beatles: Rock Band, which includes the option of buying additional tracks or albums for the game from a special website.

However, despite settling a longtime trademark despute with tech giant Apple Inc. in 2007 and a much ballyhooed digital remastering of the entire Beatles catalogue in 2009, Apple Records and EMI have yet to release the iconic band's music for sale as digital downloads.