The Beatles: Bootleg Recordings 1963 (1963)

(Apple 2013)

RECOMMENDED

2013 was the biggest year for "new" Beatles music in nearly two decades; assuming we don't count remixes and remasterings or the deconstructions on Rock Band, after the mid-'90s heyday of Live at the BBC and Anthology, the only complete track put out by the band that was previously unissued (if not unheard) was an alternate take of "The Long and Winding Road" on Let It Be... Naked. But suddenly in '13, the floodgates opened with the two-disc On Air compilation, followed at the end of the year by this mysterious curio, a disorganized gathering of items from the Beatles' first full calendar year as EMI recording artists, initially released for only 24 hours exclusively on iTunes, that accidentally makes one of the strongest cases ever for their consistency as a live band.

The original logic behind the release was as a copyright extension package, similar to curios put out by the Beach Boys and Bob Dylan and meant to allow rights-holders to retain their stake in music recorded fifty years ago and to prevent public domain releases of the unissued material in Europe. As it turns out, the copyright law was more complicated in Europe than was then supposed, so further no-frills copyright extension packages have not been forthcoming. For those who've pored over unauthorized Beatles ephemera for years, Bootleg Recordings 1963 isn't exactly a revelation, but the fidelity is (for the most part) greatly improved from the boots, sometimes with previously mono-only takes now heard in stereo and such. And we must think also of early-period Beatles fans who never had time to investigate the darker corners of the fandom, for whom this set might well have been a marvel if it had been more widely or longer available (and eventually it was, now back up for purchase on iTunes).

Bootlegs have long been the elephant in the room in Beatles fandom, so it's rather strange to see their existence so openly addressed by the cover of this release, until we remember that the actual reason most of the Beatles' circulating studio outtakes are out in the world is rumored to be down to one John Lennon, who is known to have been an avid tape and record trader in the 1970s. The title is appropriate insofar as unlike the Anthology CDs, this set -- which runs over two hours -- makes no attempt to "cohere" for a general audience or to encourage fluid listenability. It's an archive dump, more or less strewn together in three divisions -- studio sessions then BBC performances then a couple of demos -- and then in semi-chronological order. The only odd element of this is that what's been chosen for inclusion, and what's been left off, seems almost random; why three performances of "There's a Place" from the Please Please Me sessions but only one of most other cuts? (The collection doesn't duplicate anything already included on a previous official release, so the relevant outtakes of "I Saw Her Standing There" and "One After 909" and the errant BBC performance of "Devil in Her Heart" from the "Baby It's You" single aren't here.) That goes double for the huge number of BBC performances included, another boon for fans but failing to gather all of the 1963 performances missing from either prior BBC compilation, which seems strange -- why include such a large selection, with many repetitions, and not go whole hog? If the compilation was never exactly meant for general release or interest, that only furthers the mystery.

Still, this is a surprisingly fun collection of material. The highlight reel of Please Please Me is essential for those who love that album as much as I do. "There's a Place" reaches for its finalized magic sans harmonica but doesn't quite make it. "Do You Want to Know a Secret" sounds a little more raucous with extra backing vocals on this earlier take. "I Saw Her Standing There" is engagingly sloppy; the bass even drops out altogether at one point. The differences in "Misery" and "A Taste of Honey" are harder to scope out (a lot of echo on the former). Moving past the LP, we can hear -- if in less detail than on boots -- how much trouble the band had getting "From Me to You" down, as it never stops sounding stilted. The included work on "Thank You Girl" gives us its alternate title ("Thank You Little Girl") and precedes John's switch to all he's gotta do from all he wants to do (shoutout to Gia Gunn). I like how frayed John's vocal is here, especially toward the end of the second included take when he really strains for a soulful moment, a nice bit of business on such an innocuous song. The session for "One After 909" and attendant breakdowns are presented with less editing and more detail than on Anthology 1; and we get an older "Hold Me Tight" with a drier mix... but I still wonder where the other off-the-wall outtakes from this period are that we know to exist, like George's listless "Don't Bother Me."

The bulk of the collection is composed of more BBC tunes, a sort of extension of the On Air two-discer from a few months earlier with much more variance in reproduction quality, but with the advantage of no interruptions from dialogue or interviews. This is actually more like listening to one of the old-school BBC bootlegs than to a curated official release; I lost count of how many versions of "A Taste of Honey" are on this. But these are great raw live takes of these songs mostly sans audience; if not for the rough-hewn quality of the tape itself, I'd probably prefer this version of "Too Much Monkey Business" to the one on Live at the BBC, and I favor this "A Shot of Rhythm and Blues" regardless. Other highlights here are a very bouncy version of "Do You Want to Know a Secret," a particularly raucous "Roll Over Beethoven" that should've been on one of the standard compilations, two takes on "You Really Got a Hold on Me" that are both lovely, a solid "Money" and a nicely snooty, almost punkish "I'll Get You" (of all songs), with its bristling "oh ya!" chorus. "All My Loving" demonstrates the band's aptitude at sounding professional and alluring without the aid of studio slickness and production (and on certain versions of "Love Me Do," "Please Please Me" and "She Loves You," they do the same even with a roomful of screamy teens), and "Long Tall Sally" -- heard a year before the band officially recorded it -- was never played better by the band or sung more uproariously by Paul.

Yes, there are repeated songs, as noted, but this ends up really selling how good the band was capable of being night after night, performance to performance; and remember that these BBC broadcasts were in addition to their studio work and regular concert gigs. Despite the modesty of this material, it very handily gives the lie to any notion that the Beatles were anything less than the best of the best at delivering concise, felt rock & roll in their heyday. I listen to this mess of sonically lacking miscellany and what I hear is a fucking great band, in fact the greatest; and if their many circulating live shows (Star Club, Stockholm '63 and Atlanta '65 aside) never gave me the feeling that I desperately wished I could have seen them, this stuff certainly does. To watch this band bulldoze through some of their best songs and these excellent covers? Sign me up.

This collection is mostly about the Beatles as performers rather than composers, but we're reminded that they were the full package -- which is what gave them an enduring career -- by the closing inclusion of the two of the most long-legendary and genuinely beautiful Beatles bootleg items, John Lennon's solo demos of two songs he gave to Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas: "Bad to Me," on acoustic guitar with what sounds like an overdubbed secondary vocal, and "I'm in Love," on piano. These are both beyond stunning; even more than the other Beatles, Lennon was capable of wringing absolute magic from something so boring and simple as the echoing lavatory in which he's said to have recorded "Bad to Me." His voice on these two demos is haunting in its loneliness; Kramer's renditions find nothing of emotional value in either song, but when Lennon sings them they are transcendent and impossibly powerful. Hearing him play them, especially "Bad to Me" with its lilting, sad "birds in the sky" chorus that sounds so trite on the hit version, all these years after he was taken from us is an emotional rush like few others. The sound quality here is no better than on the bootlegs, but it doesn't matter; now they are out there, legally, for people to hear. For this reason alone, this odd collection is a major blessing to the world.