The Story of The Beatles Live At The BBC Albums 1994 & 2013

At the time of its release, this album contained the first previously unreleased recordings of The Beatles since 'Let It Be' 24 years earlier. It was also the first release of Apple's new-era which would continue the following year with 'Anthology'. It was also an album designed to 'beat the bootleggers', but instead of putting them out of business, the demand for more BBC material actually increased the number of bootlegs on the market.
In this video, we look at all these things and more and how a chance conversation with a fan led to the recovery of the best sounding BBC material in history.

0:00 - Opener & intro.
0:50 - 'The Beatles At The Beeb' radio broadcast 1982.
1:46 - 'Yellow Matter Custard'.
2:23 - The 'Beatles At The Beeb' effect.
2:55 - EMI's eyes lit up.
3:26 - The BBC attitude to pop in their archive.
4:04 - Tracking down archive sources.
4:35 - Margaret Ashworth.
7:42 - Promotion of the new LP.
8:49 - Release day frenzy.
9:27 - The domination of the CD and it's error.
9:47 - Chart stats.
10:06 - 'Baby It's You' EP.
10:21 - The bootleggers became busier.
10:38 - The 'Enhanced' edition.
11:10 - 'On Air - Volume 2'.
11:37 - Apple's 'Bootleg Recordings 1963'.
11:58 - 2017 Deagostini repressings.
12:17 - Scope for volume 3?
12:35 - My thoughts on this album.
12:47 - Outro

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[stephenoleary]

‘Soldier of Love’ ‘Some Other Guy’ ‘Don’t Ever Change’ and ‘I’ll Be On My Way’ are just a few of the superb cuts found on the BBC album. One of the best post break-up canon releases.

[this_is_angel]

I was working at Borders Books & Music in Deerfield, IL when the BBC compilation came out. We had a midnight sale and while it was a mild gathering, it was pretty exciting. I picked it up in CD that night, came home around 2am in time for my father to show up from work. He’s a huge Beatles fans and was the person responsible for turning me into a rabid Beatles fan. I was so honored to be the one to play my Dad the Live At The BBC for him, fresh off the stands. Another great episode

[CaptainBuzzBee]

The Beatles at The Beeb was played as a radio special in the US in 1982. Recorded it on am Ampex real to real recorder and then transfered to cassette. Really enjoyed that.

[mahatmacote]

Being a clandestine lofi set, I accept it for what it is - a document of their presentation with the looseness and fun they were to us, and that they were as characters.
Same as the Star Club material and the Xmas flexis. No polishing needed, it's a time capsule that can immerse me back in the era it, and I, came from.

[franktaconelli]

I bought the Yellow Matter Custard bootleg LP in a funky head shop on the boardwalk in Ocean City, NJ in 1974; I, too, recorded the Beatles At The BEEB radio show(s) broadcast locally on Philly radio back in the ‘80s & I used to sell copies at the record store I worked at (don’t tell Apple!) the BBC recordings are essential inclusions to The Beatles catalogue; the fact that 99% of it is performed live WITHOUT SCREAMING FANS allows us to hear what a great band they truly were…then there’s all the incredible songs never released by EMI; I have a great playlist titled ‘The Beatles Lost Album’ comprised of all the non-EMI titles (it’s a GREAT album)

[robertbefumo]

My memory is a bit foggy, but I do remember at the time I was working 2nd shift, 2pm until 10:30 in North-east Pennsylvania, and after work I went somewhere that was going to be selling the Live at the BBC album at midnight. I listened to the album a few months ago, and it occurred to me that this was close to what the Beatles must have sounded like at their Cavern shows. Much of the material came from the sets they played live in clubs, and I imagined how it must have been to walk into a club and here this band kicking ass. The energy, the musical competence, the perfect harmonies of their live shows is captured here. It's no wonder they were the best band in Britian.

[smbcollector]

My brother and I got Live at the BBC on cassette at a garage sale when we were teenagers and I have really fond memories of him and I listening to it all the time while drawing comics together. Good times. Those are truly the moments you think nothing of at the time but become the most cherished as an adult.

[westfield]

Wow thank you Margret for having the foresight to capture this period of history.

[comicsrcool]

I remember when Live at The BBC came out. EVERYONE was screaming about how it was the opening salvo for The Beatles to kill the bootleg market. It was going to open the floodgates(Which turned out to be the trickle called Anthology). I was just thrilled to hear songs I never heard like Some Other Guy and Solider Of Love. It was just a joy to hear what was then NEW Beatles material for the masses.

Whats amazing is we're coming up on The Beatles 60 year anniversary and nobody get how much unreleased material really IS still out there(The hours of BBC material, the hours upon hours of Get Back/Let it be material). Unreleased outtakes and songs just considered not up to snuff. Will we ever see a remastered and re-released Decca sessions outside of the Anthology tracks? Will we ever see the Anthology remastered in some other way than downloads? Will McCartney ever follow through on his mission to finished the third Lennon song done by him George and Ringo?

You'd think with all the hype Get Back got, The Beatles would do some kind of Expanded version of Anthology that literally follows the WHOLE story and not just snippets. Release Star Club and any other early live tapes. Do an expansive retrospect on BBC and Ed Sullivan and a expand on the Ron Howard film.

The Beatles are probably the only band in existence where a literal LIBRARY of everything would sell like wildfire. Why did On Air not sell as well as the original? It was treated as second class next to the original. It never got the hype the original did. It was like "Oh...yeah...and theres is this also" I mean the original BBC CDs, Yellow Submarie Songtrack and then ANTHOLOGY were not just releases....THEY WERE EVENTS. They were so hyped that by the time release day came, you were desperate to hear them.

Plus on other thing changed. Streaming. You HAD to go to the shops to hear them. Now? Just download it when its available. Gee, I also remember a time when if you did that, Metaliica would come to your house and beat you up!😁

[jeffsa]

Live at the BBC has two things going for it. 1. That cover shot is one of the nicest ever done of the Fab Four —capturing them on the cusp of worldwide fame; and 2. I cannot get enough of “Some Other Guy”. I wish there had been a studio recording of that song. Great video again today!

[clivefernthecamper]

My mum is on that album! Well, she’s in the audience of the Easy Beat radio show anyway, so wasn’t ever going to receive royalties for her appearance. On another note, I bought the CD on release day and it doesn’t have the misprint on the track listing. I also picked up the vinyl at the time too, just because it looked nice and it was affordable back then (I think it was £9.99 from Andy’s Records).

[doodledangernoodle]

I sincerely hope we get a Super Deluxe Edition of the Live at the BBC series. With volumes 1+2 included in a joint package along with brand new recordings. Heck, a live Beatles SDE would be incredible. There’s a lot of excellent Beatles performances that haven’t been officially released. They could even include some outfakes compiling various live performances to make it sound complete, as a lot of times, the mics were only picking up one or two of the Beatles.

I’d love to have the 1966 Budokan Hall performance officially released.

[bugradio]

I was 16 when this came out and still remember the night I bought this at a "Media Play" store in Binghamton NY. I got the double vinyl. I had a couple of Beatles cassettes, sure, but all the Beatles records I grew up with were my parents. It was cool that I bought a Beatles record of my own! It was exciting bringing it home, looking at it, playing it.

I loved how it felt both so new and so old at once and in multiple ways. The beautiful packaging, the crisp heavy paper of the brand new sleeves, an excellent modern execution of a classic design with vintage pictures and a literal sepia tone to the whole thing. And it was early in the Beatles' career, so seemed "old" to my teenage self, yet it was when they were very young and new. And so many of the songs were new to me, even if they were old covers. It was a strange mix of borrowed nostalgia and this-is-now 90s record buying!

The sound had a similar warm quality, and thanks to your vid I realize now how much I have Margaret Ashworth to thank for that. "Good ol' Margaret"! Once again, it was a mix of then-and-now - obviously period sounds and production, but it all made you almost feel like you were listening in live on the radio too. And the sides were so long! Just put it on, let it play like a radio show. It was very cool.

There were so many good songs but just to mention one, Thank You Girl - it really shows the magic they were making as a live band even as Beatlemania was closing in. The studio version of Thank You Girl is a cute but disposable track. This live take is killer, easily in the top 10 hardest-rocking songs they ever did. There are so many glimpses like this on the BBC album, moments that hint that hint at what a lot of those other great unrecorded live Beatle performances were like.

Thanks for the video!

[pierredubois]

In the sea of crappy music writing, you are an island of reliable, well written and delivered information. Thanks for your scholarship and talent, sir!

[MCAN]

Yes, I would buy Volume 3 in a heartbeat! What would I like to hear on it? Anything!

Story time: When I was a boy, I would often visit a local mall not too far from my home. Beside the escalator was the electronics store, which naturally sold CDs and cassettes as well. And on the exterior wall of this electronic store were cover photos from popular albums. Which album’s cover art was right beside me as I went down the escalator? Live at the BBC. So I would go down that escalator and beside me would be The Beatles, larger than life, probably 3 or 4m tall. That photo stayed there until the mall was torn down in the early 2000s.

[alexjensen]

Here’s a fun dovetail between The Beatles on BBC (albiet TV and not Radio) and another beloved BBC property with a penchent for missing epsiodes whose audio survivies due to fans recording onto reel-to-reel in the 60s, Doctor Who.

One specific Doctor Who serial, Season 2’s The Chase, features The Doctor, Ian, Barbara, and new companion Vicki watching a “Space-Time Visualizer.” Ian watches President Lincoln deliver the Gettysburg Address, Barbara tunes it to watch Shakespeare being premiered at The Globe, and Vicki watches “classical music, ” aka The Beatles playing Ticket to Ride on Top of the Pops, much to Ian and Barbara’s amazement that pop music from their time will remain popular into future centuries. This is one of few surviving TotP Beatles clips, and is only on DVD in the UK due to copyright restrictions. This clip replaced an idea to film them in old age make-up at a 1980 reunion concert that Brian Epstien shot down, and instead allowed the DW team to use up to a minute of one of their “live” TV performances.

Amusingly, there are two other Dalek serials, Season 4’s The Evil of the Daleks and Season 25’s Remembrance of the Daleks, which used Beatles music on broadcast because they take place in the 60s. Evil used Paperback Writer and Remembrance used both Do You Want to Know a Secret? and A Taste of Honey. For Evil’s CD and Animation, the audio was replaced by Hold Tight by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich in order to use the same audio for all releases worldwide. Remembrance’s Special Edition DVD in the UK keeps the original audio while replacing it with contemporary cover versions on the US DVD.

[TheJuanivitale]

I have immense love for the BBC album. It was actually the first Beatles album I ever heard, when I was about 12. Of course I knew very little about music at that time and I actually thought the album was sort of a "greatest hits" compilation, and that The Beatles' studio recordings (and therefore all 60s pop) actually had that poorer very raw sound quality. these were the first version I ever heard of songs like A Hard Day's Night, I Feel Fine or even some of the covers originally featured in the studio album like Roll Over Beethoven and such.

I remember my reaction when I got to hear the actual studio version of some songs. I was blown away by the quality (duh) but at the same time I thought the studio versions lacked a lot of the energy and freshness of the BBC versions. You Really Got a Hold On Me and Slow Down to this day sound WAY more entertaining in their BBC incarnations than on the official studio ones...

[Elias_Veine_Wiig]

I love this release. I have the collection box with volumes 1 & 2, bought in 2013.
2013 was a hard year for me, with depression. But this album helped me a lot though that time. During my depression, I did had some happy moments at times, visiting family etc. and then I remember listening to that BBC release on my iPod. And when the hard and when the depressing everydaylife during the weekdays came, it was pretty hard listening to some of the songs, making me cry, especially two particular song, «Soldier Of Love» and «Beautiful Dreamer». But the album did help me through it. I love it.

[bobcash]

For me, the most impressive performance of the BBC Beatles archives was the Lennon McCartney "I'll Be On My Way". An early showcase of everything John and Paul did so well. Hooks galore. Apparently forgotten and never recorded for EMI. Never understood why. Thanks, Andrew.

[johnwhelan]

Canada leads the world in the most units sold of the "Beatles Live at the BBC." I bought both the CD and LP version when it first came out.