The Beatles: Live at the BBC (1963-65)

(Apple 1994)

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Brian Epstein worked the Beatles to death, particularly from 1963 to 1965. In addition to the albums, singles, concerts, stage plays, television appearances, movies, interviews, and press conferences, they were regulars on the BBC's teen favorite Saturday Club and eventually got their own Pop Go the Beatles timeslot, plus frequent appearances on other shows transmitted by the British radio conglomerate. They were featured playing their hearts out on the songs that made them famous and the songs that made them want to be famous, frequently meaning covers that they never played in any other context once they were a national then international act, because the contrived, brief nature of the day's rock concerts forced them to stick to the expected setlist with a paying audience. Not so here. While the BBC's archives were erratic, home tapes and other sources preserved the legacy of these well-recorded gems, which in many cases feature performances and band interplay as strong as on the early albums. And in terms of actually hearing them playing together without studio embellishment, these recordings eclipse any other live Beatles material that's ever slipped out almost by default, with none of the dodgy sound quality of the Star-Club tape and (almost) none of the incessant screaming of The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl.

Live at the BBC appeared twenty years after bootlegs of the BBC tapes, some of them exhaustive, began to surface, but that didn't make it any less remarkable that it offered, in 1994, the first official unveiling of actual new-to-the-world Beatles music in nearly twenty years, and if we exclude alternate versions of existing songs, almost a quarter century. The glut of exclusive material -- covers in all but one case, which only made it more attractive to those with a special attachment to the mythos of the pre-fame Beatles and to the '50s rock & roll they loved -- led the record to become a multimillion seller; and while it couldn't have had much of an effect on their legacy, the emphasis on rawer, less studied performances over Abbey Road trickery fit in with the mood of those times. They sounded like what they were: a working class band that made the big time so suddenly their heads were left spinning, which meant that these delvings into their past for radio must have served as a wonderful respite. You can occasionally hear a pining in them -- listen to George's vocal on Buddy Holly's "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" -- but mostly there's just this irrepressible eagerness, the tangible sound of the world in the hands of these kids.

Paring the whole of the Beatles' BBC sessionography down to a well-packed two-disc set couldn't have been a straightforward task. Apple and compiler George Martin, with help from BBC archivist Kevin Howlett, concentrated on consistent sound quality above all, which still gave them plenty of fine material to choose from. Between this and the 2013 sequel On Air, I think the band's broadcast work is presented more than satisfactorily and, while there are fine performances and intriguing curiosities on the additional seven or so hours of bootlegs, expanding either set would most likely alienate and overwhelm listeners. As it is, this is a perfect sampler, a delightful and cohesive listen, and feels like a genuine deep dive into a once-dark corner of their legacy.

For one thing, there's no better demonstration of how tight the Beatles were as a live band, when they weren't faced with distractions or apathy. You can hear the Hamburg nightclub act that cut their teeth in all-night sets on the balls-to-the-wall Elvis cover "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You)" and the Paul-led scream session through Little Richard's "Ooh! My Soul," both of which must have threatened to blow the windows out of whatever nice clean office building they were recorded in. And you can hear that band in the best recorded versions of two of the Beatles' Cavern-era signature covers, "Some Other Guy" and "The Hippy Hippy Shake," which were comparatively off-the-wall numbers (by Richie Barrett and Chan Romero respectively) that the band staked as their own in Liverpool; it's incredible that they never properly recorded either, unless it was because they had grown sick of them.

Another major attraction is the presence of a single "new" Lennon-McCartney song, the ballad "I'll Be on My Way," which had been given to Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas but is the one Beatles original recorded by the band only at the BBC. In contrast to Kramer's usual goofball treatment of the material, the Beatles version is reverent, folky and catchy, sort of a distant relation to their later fleshed-out recording of "I'll Follow the Sun." Except for a slightly trite lyric from Paul, the song is lovely, and don't underestimate the sheer exhilaration of uncovering a Beatles original that you've never heard before; but that said, you can tell that the Beatles were most excited about recording other people's songs when they showed up at the BBC. Once the Mania took hold, it was their only chance to do so, their only explicit link to their own roots, and they took great advantage of it. The instant John starts singing "I Got a Woman" -- the first proper song on the set -- the magic creeps back in, his voice calling forth right-now as if it wasn't so many yesterdays ago.

From John and Paul's later projects, we know that the Beatles' intense reverence for 1950s American rock & roll never faded, and that they were well aware of their debt to it; I like to think Live at the BBC allowed them to give back a bit, hopefully by introducing neophyte Beatles fans to the rich pleasures of a discography as deep and kind as Chuck Berry's. Berry is to this album as Dylan is to early Byrds records; eight of his songs are covered, only two of which ("Rock and Roll Music" and "Roll Over Beethoven") were ever laid down by the band at EMI. John sings lead on all but one of them, his love of Berry's lyrics unmistakable from his phonetic memorization of them; he is quick, feisty and breathtaking on the extremely verbose and difficult "Too Much Monkey Business" -- you weep for the listlessness he'd start to show as soon as weed started getting passed around a couple of years hence -- and pours all sorts of feeling into the familial melodrama "Memphis," and lights up "Carol" and the unusual "I Got to Find My Baby" with respect and command, as if he's standing on hallowed ground; he would continue to treat Berry's songs as Scripture till the end of his days. Oddly, he's more muted on "Johnny B. Goode" and "Rock and Roll Music," though "Sweet Little Sixteen" triggers faint memories of bleary-eyed nights at the Top Ten Club; it can't possibly be as earth-shaking as the original, as Eddie Cochran's take or as the Beatles' unstoppable version on the Star-Club tape, but on the vocals at least, John still takes flight on it.

Despite their reputation to the contrary, the Beatles' choice of cover material remains top drawer for much of the record. The Coasters' "Young Blood," Arthur Alexander's "A Shot of Rhythm and Blues," Carl Perkins' "Glad All Over" and "Sure to Fall," Big Boy Crudup via Elvis' "That's All Right," Eddie Fontaine's wonderful "Nothin' Shakin'," Little Richard's "Lucille" and the Everly Brothers' deep cut "So How Come (No One Loves Me)" all get loving, relaxed and smart interpretations from the Beatles, even if none of them really come close to upstaging the original versions -- which I'd concede is why they picked slightly less iconic songs, mostly, for the LPs. There are a few of their signature obscurities here; I'm pretty sure "Clarabella" by the Jodimaires only even has a Wikipedia page because of Paul's championship of it here; likewise, "Lonesome Tears in My Eyes" by the rockabilly diehard Johnny Burnette is mostly known now for this cover and for its main riff's interpolation as the closing guitar lick in "The Ballad of John and Yoko" six years later, while "The Honeymoon Song" hails from a Michael Powell movie and recalls McCartney's weird fixation on bringing showtunes like "A Taste of Honey" and "Till There Was You" (both of which have versions included here) in the band's library. The Beatles show off their -- or at least, John and Paul's -- undying Goffin-King obsession by bringing one of their least remembered (and worst) songs back to life, the Crickets' (sans Buddy Holly) "Don't Ever Change." Inspirational sentiments: "You're always wearing jeans except on Sunday"... "Your kisses let me know you're not a tomboy." (Be gentle, though; the only other dud here, as a song or as a cover, is the Elvis ballad "I Forgot to Remember to Forget," a dumb song Elvis was confident enough to liven up. George isn't.)

My favorite moments on Live at the BBC are not necessarily those that avoid trying to eclipse signature originals, but those that add something obvious or indelible to the older songs, similar to what they might have done with them as proper studio recordings. With one exception, they're all versions of songs I already admire or love in their original incarnations, that exception being Ann-Margret's "I Just Don't Understand," a just OK single from the teen idol that shows the Beatles' open-mindedness and willingness to attach themselves completely to material that might seem less than obvious for them. In their hands, especially Lennon's, a relatively ordinary teen romance becomes high drama, full of adult pain and even fury; the Beatles' cover is so hypnotic it seems to have directly inspired Spoon to revisit the song on their 2014 album They Want My Soul. Talking of teen idol melodrama, I've always had an irrational love of the three-or-four-hit wonder Little Eva, once Gerry Goffin and Carole King's babysitter, and thus think highly of the deliberately paced shuffle "Keep Your Hands Off My Baby," but I love what the Beatles do to it and how eagerly John sings it. And this will get some sort of badge taken from me, I'm sure, but I even like the strange, distant sound it has on this CD, with an artificial drum intro added and tape quality limitations dictating that the Beatles sound like they play in a faroff room, or over an old telephone. Bootleg versions exist in slightly better quality -- but somehow I irrationally prefer the mystery of this mix. It's certainly one of the most unique-sounding Beatles records ever to be officially released.

I've already noted George's lovely vocal on "Crying, Waiting, Hoping"; his vocals are generally stronger on the BBC tapes than anywhere else on record, and I don't know why. On the Holly cover you can hear his reflective sadness and adoration of Holly's song rendering him totally selfless for the moment, while the band expands the song -- one of Holly's apartment tapes -- less clumsily than the Crickets themselves did after their leader's death. Moving back toward drama and darkness, though, the Beatles' cover of Phil Spector's first hit, the Teddy Bears' "To Know Him Is to Love Him" (with genders reversed here), is so haunting it's almost too much; the original has a kindly lilt about it and it can come across as obsessive and ghostly, but it never gives the sensation of doom and bottom-hitting fear we get when Lennon takes the lead vocal, with Paul and George in lockstep behind him, taunting John with their stark harmonies and perversely childish da-da-das. By the bridge, to which Ringo leads us with incessant pounding that makes it sound as if he's getting away from himself, John goes off the rails right along with the song; he runs with the desperation and manipulation in Spector's lyric as if he already knows the destiny of the song's author, and conveys all of the disturbing, angry, violent possibilities of "someday she'll see / that she was meant just for me." (Lennon added the all-important "just.") This is the Beatles, attacking a groove and an idea and a feeling, with little clue that anyone is listening in, proving themselves at a moment when there's no need to do so. It's harrowing.

However, my favorite track on Live at the BBC is a case in which I don't think the Beatles artistically eclipse the original, because to do so would rob their cover of its point, which is to vamp adoringly on a song that's captured their hearts in its original form. If the best moments on this compilation are like finding an extra Beatles album that nobody knows about, the cover of Arthur Alexander's "Soldier of Love" is the moment so sublime you simply can't believe it isn't more famous. Alexander's record is one of his loveliest, with builds modestly on a well-turned exercise in exhilarating popcraft built on an endlessly silly lyrical metaphor. All I can hear in the Beatles' version is how taken they are with Alexander's record; they strip it down and speed it up, and John lets loose a bit, but he and the others totally subsume themselves in each movement from chorus to bridge back to chorus, each time the song builds and lifts itself above what's come before. It's rock & roll's potential for emotional weight defined; the words make no sense and have nothing to say out of context, but the way Lennon works them and pours himself into them, every word seems vital, the whole thing jubilant.

In terms of this music's place in the Beatles' history, there's obviously considerable overlap in material with the Hamburg tape, with about a third of the Star-Club songs also played here. But much more interesting in terms of monitoring the band's progression and comfort in seemingly non-conducive environments like the BBC is to compare the Decca audition tape from a year prior, New Year's Day 1962. Five songs on this set were performed that day, and in all five cases, the band's greater ease, competence and enthusiasm are readily apparent. This comparison is a particularly good showcase for Ringo, whose beat never surrenders to the chronic errors and incongruity of Pete Best's performance on the cold morning in question.

The Beatles' relaxation is also evident in the other part of the BBC set, the dialogue tracks included from their many sessions of between-song banter with the likes of Brian Matthew. These never get any better than an opening sequence in which Paul can't remember what instrument he plays, then the band plays a quick "From Me to You" with pronouns replaced, and then the boys talk for a bit about the things they miss about day-to-day life after becoming famous. The chatter never seems less scripted than in this moment, with the rest of the dialogue tracks mostly constituting scripted skits and John finding ways to pull faces in audio form. The funniest moments are in and around "A Hard Day's Night" (in which, oddly, the piano solo from the single is awkwardly spliced in, as it was on the radio) with Matthew ribbing the Beatles about their new career as actors, then conceding that Ringo has been billed as "a new Charlie Chaplin," to which John replies "oh, he's an old one." It's all charming and occasionally amusing but it has much less repeat value than the music, and including it seems like a strange halfway concession between an all-music set and a complete unloading of the BBC material where all of it would've had its proper context.

Almost by necessity, the versions on this set of the Beatles' canon songs (their own compositions, and covers they recorded and released in their EMI catalog) warrant a bit less attention. Most of them are very good insofar as they represent solid, well-played and often less polished (in the best way) live versions of many favorites from their early career. But few of them really stand out; the arrangements are basically the same, and it's only when the band seems to have a huge burst of energy that we hear an appreciable difference on these songs. There's a raw, punk-like take on "Thank You Girl" recorded in front of an audience, a piano-less "You Really Got a Hold on Me," an "I Feel Fine" with failed opening feedback but soaring vocal harmonies, and a fantastic version of "All My Loving" that makes it sound like a lost Carl Perkins song. "I'm a Loser" was always excellent live; they always seemed so loose on it, comfortable with its malaise. Only a couple of originals actually suffer in this setting; "She's a Woman" was never exactly durable, and it sounds flat and stilted here, as does "Love Me Do," probably due to how hard a time the Beatles were likely having getting back into the world of that song by mid-1963, though Ringo certainly drums on this take! "Ticket to Ride" dates from later than most of the other performances and consequently sounds more awkward, dating from a period when the band was already having problems delivering the goods onstage due to swelling audiences and attendant chaos.

As for the covers, well, the Shirelles' "Baby It's You" certainly does seem to have haunted the group, with all the hushed romance and elegance of their studio interpretation still in play here. Otherwise, the chief points of interest are when they recorded a cover at the BBC long before laying it down officially at EMI, in some cases by a full year. So you get to hear "Long Tall Sally," "Kansas City" and "Slow Down" before their arrangements were set in stone. Plus a "Matchbox" on which Ringo proves he never really knew the lyrics in the first place, and a "Honey Don't" sung by John before it became a Ringo bit.

If the compilers had separated the covers and the originals out entirely, this wouldn't be nearly so successful a compilation. As it stands, it's a privilege, like getting to watch the band play whatever they wanted for over two hours, a scenario in which a rock & roll classic was as likely to be heard as a Beatles single, but with both ideas in play. In terms of the later archival Beatles releases, this is one of the best, and its elevation of them as a brilliant, infectiously energetic rock band rather than just studio experimenters is more than welcome; their legacy needs this acknowledgement of, deep down, what they really were and how rock & roll itself made them.

***

[Incorporates a tiny amount of material from a review I posted in 2003.]