Live at the BBC

When Live at the BBC came out in November of 1994 it was considered a triumph for Beatles aficionados everywhere. This two-disc set compiles songs from several performances the Beatles made, mostly during 1963-64, and which the BBC produced for re-broadcast on several different radio programs. In its usual format, a two-CD set, the collection includes 56 songs, 30 of which had never been previously released in a recording. Additionally, 13 dialogue tracks were made public for the first time. Many of the recordings were "live" studio tracks, and a few were taken from performances in front of a public audience. The track listing contains the many covers of songs by popular blues, R&B and pop artists from the late 1950's and early 1960's. This compilation richly documents the Beatles stage performance sets that they sang in the early days, before the EMI contract and "Beatlemania."

The earliest BBC program represented on the album is a March 7, 1962 session for Teenager's Turn – Here We Go. The last one was a special program called The Beatles Invite You To Take a Ticket to Ride, which dates from May 26, 1965. The BBC studios did not have the latest in recording equipment, so all the tapes were made in monaural format without multi-tracking and very limited overdubs. Many of the session tapes for the broadcasts were lost or destroyed, so that some of the tracks were reconstructed from vinyl transcriptions the network had made for distribution to other parts of the world and other sources.

In the early 1990's, George Martin was recruited to make the final selection for the two-disc set, sifting among the many possible resources that EMI and the BBC had collected. Of the 36 songs from the raw material that had never been made public, at least not officially, Martin selected 30 for the compilation. The others, mainly from 1962, were not up to standard technically. One of the songs used was an unreleased Lennon/McCartney song (i.e., not a cover version). It was I'll Be On My Way, a song much in the style of Buddy Holly.

Live at the BBC was a number one album hit in the UK and went to third place in the US. More than 8 million copies were sold world wide in the first year.