The Beatles’ BBC radio recordings

26 thoughts on “The Beatles’ BBC radio recordings”

1. 

   André

   Saturday 23 August 2014 at 7.12pm

   Hello, Master of this great site !! Do you know why I Call Your Name, I Should Have Known Better, the Night Before and I’m Happy Just to Dance with You where not included in either BBC album ???

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   1. 

      Joe

      Tuesday 26 August 2014 at 11.55am

      I’ve no idea, sorry.

      Reply
   2. 

      The Beatles Sound

      Wednesday 7 November 2018 at 4.04pm

      At the moment, the sound quality of these three songs are very low

      Reply
2. 

   User

   Sunday 31 August 2014 at 2.10am

   They are found on The Complete BBC Sessions (9 disc set).

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   1. 

      André

      Saturday 4 October 2014 at 5.46pm

      I know the recordings exist, I was just wondering why they were not included in either Live at the BBC albums…

      Reply
3. 

   André

   Saturday 4 October 2014 at 5.45pm

   Hello again. According to Mark Lewishon, in his book Tune In, Hello Little Girl was recorded on march 7th 1962 but never broadcast….Is he right ?? Can you confirm this or do you have other references denying this ??

   Thanks !!

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4. 

   André

   Sunday 5 October 2014 at 6.16pm

   Hi, me again…I believe the long version of Ticket to Ride is on BBC-Vol 1 and not, as you indicate, the short version (which seems to be just an early fadeout of the same recording). Regards…

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5. 

   JohnBeGoode

   Monday 24 November 2014 at 7.59pm

   Andre — likely the reason that those songs weren’t included on either of the official BBC sets is because of sound quality. I’d bet that neither the Beatles or the BBC has better sources for those songs than what’s available on bootleg, and while good, none of those four songs are available from a first generation source. While they did overlook sound quality on those official releases to some extent, if you notice, they *only* do it for the very earliest Beatles BBC recordings–anything included on those sets after about January 1963 is in pristine or near-pristine quality.

   As for Hello Little Girl, if Lewisohn’s most recent book says they played Hello Little Girl, I wouldn’t doubt it. He probably has access to internal BBC documentation of the time that indicates they did. Regardless, if it wasn’t broadcast, it was probably taped over or otherwise lost to the sands of time. The BBC didn’t archive their shows back then, and the only copy of that show available is from a fan’s bad home recording, and since that song wasn’t broadcast, it wasn’t recorded by anyone. So whether or not it was performed for the BBC, it’s almost definite that it no longer exists.

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   1. 

      André

      Tuesday 20 January 2015 at 2.35am

      Thanks for the reply, Mr. BeGood !

      Reply
6. 

   Mark Clarke

   Tuesday 6 January 2015 at 7.36am

   I have a recording of them appearing on a radio show on Christmas day (I don’t remember where I got it). The announcer (Brian Matthews?) says he can’t ask them to work on Christmas but he’ll play their record. The record he plays is We Can Work It Out, which would be in late 1965. But you have nothing that late listed here, and The Complete BBC Sessions has nothing from that time either. What show would that have been, and why is nothing after May/June 1965 included? Doesn’t that mean that The Complete BBC Sessions are not complete?

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   1. 

      Joe

      Tuesday 6 January 2015 at 3.33pm

      This page lists the musical performances. As the introduction states, there were many more interviews and other informal appearances which aren’t classed as sessions.

      The appearance you mention was recorded for Saturday Club on 29 November 1965.

      Reply
7. 

   Aldo

   Thursday 20 August 2015 at 9.27am

   Hi friend, I’m comparing the oficial BBC sesions with the bootlegs one, but there’s something doesn’t match.
   The oficial BBC from Apple start with Greetings, the four beatles introducing themself, from The Public Ear, recorded 9 Oct 63 and broadcast 3 Nov 63, as the oficial information say.
   But none of the bootleg catalog incuded this, the BBC show that match with those dates is The Ken Dodd Show

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8. 

   Dale

   Thursday 17 December 2015 at 1.23am

   I have every episode of The Lost Lennon Tapes and there’s a number of live BBC recordings on that show. Some ended up on the second BBC album. There should be notations here saying what appears on those shows. There’s also some live stuff on the first Anthology album that should have notations here as to it being on that album.

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   1. 

      Joe

      Friday 18 December 2015 at 7.08am

      Anthology 1 songs are already noted. I won’t include The Lost Lennon Tapes broadcasts though.

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9. 

   Gerbrand

   Sunday 21 February 2016 at 12.07pm

   I note that the recording sequence here sometimes slightly differ from Ken Howlett’s book “The BBC Archives”. For example the Saturday Club session recorded on 26 January 1963 and the Side by Side session recorded on 1 April 1963 (broadcast 13 May 1963). Which is correct ? 😉

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10. 

    Gerbrand

    Sunday 21 February 2016 at 1.55pm

    Further differences with Kevin Howlett’s book:
    Different sequence 17 June 1963 (recording) 25 June 1963 (broadcast)
    A Shot Of Rhythm & Blues missing on 1 August 1963 (rec) 27 August 1963 (bro) which is on Live at the BBC
    She Loves You missing on 1 August 1963 (rec) 3 September 1963 (bro), although not broadcasted
    Till There Was You missing on 3 September 1963 (rec) 10 September 1963 (bro)
    I Should Have Known on 14 July 1964 (rec) 16 July 1964) was played from a disc (probably the record version as it was not recorded for the BBC before)

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11. 

    Julie Bee

    Friday 2 December 2016 at 1.19pm

    I liked the 94 version better. Balancing and fattening up mixes, to sound consistent and have a good flow, is a good thing. That’s generally the correct way to master a record. It was a good idea, to remaster it, with more modern digi tech, then 94, but they didn’t do a very good job.

    The Beatles themselves (or rather their engineers) put loads of compression on everything. It was a key part of their sound.

    The newer, re”master”ed 2013 version is a constant routine, of changing all my EQ and volume settings, on pretty much every song. lol

    That sepia tone cover was iconic of the only official Beatles BBC album, for just shy of 20 years. To me, an album I grew up with and practically the first one I saw or owned. It seems strange and pointless that they changed it. Cause Sepia tone is pase’? Who cares? Leave it alone. It was fine. 😛

    One improvement tho, is that the vinyl version was expanded to 3 LP’s, instead of unreasonably crammed onto 2, as the 94 version was. I’d like to just see the original version, on 3 discs.

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    1. 

       Julie Bee

       Friday 2 December 2016 at 1.23pm

       It’s not as if it was some terrible gaudy 80’s thing. Sepia tone, tho cliche to some today and thoroughly made so by others, doesn’t look intrinsically dated in a bad way. It still looks classy and evokes the spirit of the 60’s.

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    2. 

       McLerristarr

       Monday 30 January 2017 at 5.49pm

       My guess for the sound quality is that they wanted it to sound more like how it was supposed to sound. The songs were already mastered for broadcast, so Apple presumably wanted to more closely match that rather than using outdated 90s mastering techniques. As for the album cover, I’d image that the original photograph was in black-and-white not sepia, so in keeping with the way they mastered the music, they wanted the picture to be more like the original (it’s also less cropped).

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12. 

    Stargazer85

    Monday 20 February 2017 at 12.16pm

    So, correct me if I’m wrong, but these appear to be all the songs from BBC sessions not available in ANY version so far:

    – A Picture of You
    – Dream Baby
    – Bésame mucho
    – Hello Little Girl
    – Sheila
    – Three Cool Cats
    – I’m Happy Just to Dance with You
    – I Should Have Known Better
    – I Call Your Name

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13. 

    JimmyT

    Saturday 2 February 2019 at 8.17am

    If you search hard enough you can find some of the other recordings out there. I do have in my collection both sessions that Pete Best played on, but of course it’s only the 6 songs that were broadcast.

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14. 

    Mrsax

    Friday 5 June 2020 at 5.15am

    Hi, do you have any news about it:
    Here we go (Broadcast 12 April 1963)
    Misery (yellow dog)
    Do You Want To Know A Secret (yellow dog)
    Please Please Me (yellow dog)

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    1. 

       Joe

       Saturday 6 June 2020 at 7.24am

       Sounds like it might be the 6 March 1963 session, which was broadcast on 12 March (not April).

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15. 

    Tito

    Thursday 25 February 2021 at 10.20pm

    Can someone explain to me why The Beatles got turned down by Decca in January, but managed to get a gig at The BBC by March? I find it kind of strange, because George Martin wasn’t even in the picture yet.

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16. 

    Bill

    Sunday 28 March 2021 at 11.54pm

    I first heard the majority of the BBC recordings on a Westwood One radio special entitled “The Beatles’ BBC Tapes – The Original Masters”. It ran for two weekends in a row in my area, and I recorded the whole thing off the air onto reel-to-reel tape. Played it quite often until EMI’s official release.

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17. 

    Bill

    Thursday 20 April 2023 at 8.12am

    I guess that this post technically doesn’t belong here, but I don’t know where else to post it, so here goes…

    Years ago, I was a regular listener to the “CBS Radio Mystery Theatre”, an hour long drama series that covered all sorts of subjects, kind of like a “Twilight Zone” for radio. It ran on weeknights from the mid-‘70s until about 1982, hosted by E.G. Marshall. I used to listen to it on WBBM – Chicago.

    One episode in particular concerns the Beatles. In it, there’s a mother and her adult son who still lives at home (a much more common occurrence today than back then). I’ve forgotten the plot of the story, but the one thing I DO remember is that the son has a fascination with the Beatles, and that Beatles songs (‘63-‘64 period) were playing all through the episode in the background.

    Does anyone else remember this and can provide more details to clear my fuzzy memory?

    Reply