New "Beatles At The BBC" book looks promising

Kevin Howlett, author of the old "Beatles At The Beeb" book, is set to publish a new and greatly expanded version of that book. It's to be called "The Beatles At The BBC."
Here's what the publisher has to say about it....



Harper Design International, Nov 5, 2013 - Biography & Autobiography - 336 pages
The year 2013 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the release of The Beatles' first album, Please, Please Me. To celebrate this event with material that has never been in print or has not repeatedly resurfaced is a challenge. But a great deal of both--namely, never-before-seen BBC transcripts and photos--will be the main thrust of our book, The Beatles at the BBC. Not since The Beatles' Anthology of 2000 has a work of this magnitude been offered.The main body of the book contains the surviving transcripts of the Beatles' appearances on BBC Radio and Television from 1962 to 1970. Each interview transcript will be insightfully and entertainingly set in its historical context, with accompanying commentary by Kevin Howlett, who is widely considered an authority on the Beatles, most recently contributing to the latest box set of LP Beatles's reissues. Howlett's commentary will be supplemented by rare photos of the Fab Four at the BBC's studios, both onstage and off. The book will also feature memorabilia-album art; concert posters, flyers, and tickets--from the BBC.This is the story of two of Britain's most important cultural forces in tandem . . . word for word, event by event, as it happened with verbatim, unabridged transcripts. This has never been offered to reader before; it is a significant publishing event.

 

Cool! I like the cover.

Years ago I bought Kevin Howlett's The Beatles at the BBC: The Radio Years 1963 - 1970.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Beatles-BBC-Radio-1962-70/dp/056338770X

 

Howlett is 'The Man' when it comes to the BBC sessions, although he's not as gifted a writer as Mark Lewisohn. I thoroughly enjoyed Howlett's notes for the "Live At The BBC" album, but his notes for the 2009 reissues struck me as rather pedestrian. (To be fair, I suspect he had four "editors" reworking all of his copy for the 2009 reissues.)

At any rate, this new book looks to be the definitive story of the BBC sessions, and while his previous books had little to offer in the way of photos and BBC paperwork, this one seems to be very strong in that department. I've already placed my order for it.

Let's hope the book's publication is timed to coincide with a new boxed set of Beatles BBC recordings! (Hey, I can dream, can't I?)

 

According to Amazon U.K. the title is : The Beatles : The BBC Archives : 62-70, released mid October in hardback, price £33

 

Definite pre-order.
Up on Amazon CA for $39.22

 

I'm a sucker for a nice hard bround book like this about the Beatles. Especially when it's about the music and performances (i.e. not a biography).

I like the cover too. It reminds me of the Recording The Beatles cover.

Available for pre-order from Amazon US for $23.48!

 

Nicer cover than Lewisohn has. By far.

Got my pre-order in.

 

By FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR.

 

New photos will be nice, but transcripts of the interview segments? They are only marginally interesting to hear more than once, but to read them . . . Not worth putting onto paper IMO. I'm on the fence for this, definitely not a preorder.

 

Pre-ordering is harmless. And for me, it's better to read interviews that I don't have the audio to, than totally miss out on it.
That's also not the only point of the book.

 

Are you saying they re-wrote the booklets for a re-issued Live At The BBC? That's news to me...

 

Preordered!

 

No, he wrote the material in the 2009 canon CDs. The Live at the BBC CD was not re-issued.

 

The liner notes to the 2009 remasters were incredibly disappointing. They could have provided so much session info.

 

Thanks. Haven't had enough coffee today and that comment wasn't making sense to me!

 

Terrific price, considering it lists at $60.00.

 

Thanks - pre-ordered!

 

pre-ordered as well

 

This. If the text is simply the transcripts, I'd rather listen to the actual tapes. I'll take a look at this in-store before making a decision. Besides, when it comes out I'll be up to my neck in Lewisohn...

 

One thing we can grateful for, it doesn't use the dreaded "word" BEEB in the title. This stupid abbreviation, coined by Kenny Everett in the late sixties, was always totally inappropriate in relation to the Beatles (or anything else for that matter).

 

I want this! to go along with my collection.

 

I think this book will be a must-buy for most Beatles fans. It looks to be a large-format book, and it's a whopping 336 pages long -- which is just a few dozen pages shy of the massive, 368-page "Anthology" book. It appears to be lavishly illustrated and exhaustively researched. Given all of that, the $23 pre-order price is a steal.

The BBC sessions deserve this sort of detailed examination because they represent the only comprehensive, decent-quality audio document of the group's pre-fame stage repertoire. (I realize I'm ignoring the Star Club tapes, but that's because those recordings are of such terrible quality they're almost unlistenable.) The BBC tapes provide a unique, fascinating, and musically enjoyable, insight into the group and its musical influences. Even now, decades after I first acquired the songs on bootleg LPs, I get a thrill at the mere thought of The Beatles doing Ray Charles' "I Got A Woman," and Arthur Alexander's "Soldier Of Love." That's not just because they didn't do those songs at EMI for official release. It's because those and many other BBC performances shed new light on what The Beatles were all about before they were global superstars.

It's amazing to me that the vast majority of the BBC recordings still exist in such high quality. Only one small reel of session tape -- with two songs on it -- was saved in the BBC archives and even that was purely by accident. In the early 1980s, a few dozen songs were found on official BBC transcription discs that had somehow escaped the periodic house-cleanings at all the various BBC outposts. But the lion's share of the circulating, high-quality BBC recordings exist today only because of people who broke the rules: producers who risked prosecution by taking home transcription discs -- company property! -- to save them from the trash bin, and a few enterprising souls who somehow had the equipment and the foresight to tape the shows off the radio, at home, with reel-to-reel recorders.

I still wonder: Who on earth sat at home and taped that first BBC program with The Beatles in March 1962, months before Ringo joined and months before they had a record contract? And why did they tape it? And how on earth did they know to save that tape of an unknown band from Liverpool?

 

Could these radio broadcasts be heard in Liverpool? If so, I'd guess a fan from Liverpool recorded it. Just a guess, though.

 

Cool I want this... not a bad price either

 

I own the original 1982 Paperback UK edition...this will be quite an upgrade!