With The Beatles

The second studio album of the Beatles was entitled With The Beatles. Parlophone Records released it in the UK eight months to the day after the first album, Please Please Me, and on the day John Kennedy was assassinated. Some historians mark the beginning of the turbulent era of the 1960's from that date, and the evolution of a social awareness that can also be traced in the Beatles' own history. On the album cover, the phrase "fabulous foursome" appears for the first time. It was later abbreviated by the British press to "Fab Four," the well-recognized moniker of the group.

With The Beatles includes six covers and seven original works of Lennon and McCartney, plus George Harrison's first contribution. To continue with their policy of recording original songs as much as possible, the songwriting pair had to work hard to grind out adequate material. As the Beatles matured, the time lapse between composing and recording became shorter and shorter – sometimes almost simultaneous. The covers continued to be mainly Motown or R&B numbers, with the exception of the ballad, Till There Was You (from Meredith Willson's Music Man.) This album was not released in the United States, and almost all of the tracks appeared later on The Beatles Second Album. In the UK it became the second album ever to sell over 1,000,000 copies (by September of 1965) and the first by British performers. (The first album to do so was the sound track of South Pacific in 1958.)

This collection of songs included no single releases, though I Want to Hold Your Hand made its historical entry into the pop world just a week later. In this respect the Beatles proved once more how innovative a group they were.

Production was directed by George Martin with Norman Smith as mixer and engineer. Studio sessions took place at various times over the period July 18 to October 23, 1963. No musicians or singers other than Beatles themselves appear on the album, with the exception of George Martin, who contributed piano and Hammond organ. Lennon played the harmonica in some tracks, and Ringo played a variety of different percussion effects. McCartney played bass, mainly, but added piano for some of the songs. Harrison played electric lead guitar, acoustic guitar, and a classical guitar (for Till There Was You).

A mono version was later released on CD in 1987, and the in the US the LP was issued in the same year, together with a cassette tape version. On September 9, 2009, stereo and mono remasters were finally released on CD. Rolling Stone magazine ranked this album 420 in its 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.