Live At The BBC

Live at the BBC was the first official release of previously unissued material by The Beatles since Let It Be from 1970, except for The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl and, arguably, the reedits included on Rarities, appearing in November 1994 on Apple Records, catalogue number CDP 7243 8 31796 2 6. It includes tracks from the multitude of recordings they made for radio shows at the BBC during 1963 through 1965. In the sequence of Beatles issues, this set approximates a picture of the group prior to their rise to fame, during the period of 1960 to 1962 when they were first and foremost live performers concentrating on a repertoire centered on fifties rock, featuring 38 such numbers.

History

Keep Your Hands Off My Baby" and "That's All Right (Mama)", which sound unusually tinny and distant. This problem plagues to an even greater degree the band's pre-1962 recordings made outside of professional studios, justifying release of these tapes from a historical standpoint: see Live at the Star Club issued on vinyl in the 1970s. Many of these recordings had been heard on the BBC Radio 1 documentary series The Beeb's Lost Beatles Tapes, which commenced in 1988. Since the album's release, the (almost) complete BBC sessions have surfaced in equal or, in many cases, superior quality on bootlegs, missing just a few speech links and parts of songs. The most recent edition is the ten discs published by the Purple Chick organization, and upgraded in 2004. There are six recordings of Beatles' performances of unreleased numbers that George Martin deemed too poor for the album: Roy Orbison's "Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)", from The Beatles' very first radio broadcast (8 March 1962), featuring Pete Best on drums; The Coasters' arrangement of "Bésame Mucho" and Joe Brown's "A Picture of You" (15 June 1962), also with Best on drums; Slim Whitman's "Beautiful Dreamer" (26 January 1963); and Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking About You" (16 March 1963). "Lend Me Your Comb" by Carl Perkins from the 16 July 1963 broadcast, was also omitted. It did, however, appear on Anthology 1 (1995). The version of "Baby It's You" from this collection was released as a CD-single, and also on vinyl, on 20 March 1995, with three other BBC performances that are not included in the collection. Original 1994 pressings of the CD incorrectly list "So How Come (No One Loves Me)" as "Top So How Come (No One Loves Me)" on the back insert of the jewel case. That error was corrected in the 2001 reissue.

Personnel

George Harrison – vocals, guitar John Lennon – vocals, guitar Paul McCartney – vocals, bass guitar Ringo Starr – vocals, drums Category:1994 albums Category:Albums produced by George Martin Category:Apple Records albums Category:BBC Radio recordings Category:Compilation albums Category:Double albums Category:English-language albums Category:Live albums Category:The Beatles albums de:Live at the BBC (The Beatles) es:Live at the BBC (álbum de The Beatles) fi:Live at the BBC (The Beatles) fr:Live at the BBC (album des Beatles) ja:ザ・ビートルズ・ライヴ!! アット・ザ・BBC it:Live at the BBC (Beatles) ka:Live at the BBC (ბითლზის ალბომი) nl:Live at the BBC pt:Live at the BBC (The Beatles)