Recording

The Beatles performed for 52 BBC Radio programmes, beginning with an appearance on the series Teenager's Turn—Here We Go, recorded on 7 March 1962, and ending with the special The Beatles Invite You to Take a Ticket to Ride, recorded on 26 May 1965. 47 of their BBC appearances occurred in 1963 and 1964, including 10 on Saturday Club and 15 on their own weekly series Pop Go the Beatles, which began in June 1963.^[2] As the Beatles had not accumulated many original songs by this time, the majority of their BBC performances consisted of cover versions, drawing on the repertoire that they had developed for their early stage act. In total, 275 performances of 88 different songs were broadcast, of which 36 songs never appeared on their studio albums.^[3]

Several of the programmes aired live, but most were recorded days (or occasionally weeks) ahead of the broadcast date.^[2] The BBC's studio facilities were not as advanced as those at Abbey Road, offering only monaural recording (no multitracking) and basic overdubbing; few retakes of songs could be attempted owing to time limitations.^[3] It was not the BBC's practice to archive either the session tapes or the shows' master tapes, owing to storage space and contractual restrictions.^[4]

Earlier collections and presentations

The first collection of Beatles BBC performances was the bootleg album Yellow Matter Custard, issued in 1971, consisting of 14 songs that were probably off-air home recordings made during the original radio broadcasts.^[5] Some additional performances with similar "tinny" sound appeared on other bootlegs in the following years; then in 1980, the bootleg The Beatles Broadcasts was released featuring 18 BBC songs with superior sound quality.^[5]

To commemorate the 20th anniversary of their first BBC appearance, the BBC (nicknamed "the Beeb") aired the two-hour radio special "The Beatles at the Beeb" in 1982, featuring a mix of BBC performances and interviews (the show was expanded to three hours when syndicated to other countries).^[6] The more comprehensive series The Beeb's Lost Beatles Tapes was broadcast by BBC Radio 1 in 1988 as 14 half-hour episodes. When gathering material for that series, only a small number of original tapes were found; many more performances were obtained from vinyl recordings of the programmes that the BBC Transcription Department had made to distribute to BBC stations around the world.^[4]

By that time, a 13-album bootleg series had appeared under the title The Beatles at the Beeb, featuring many previously unavailable performances.^[5] This was surpassed in 1993 by The Complete BBC Sessions, a nine-CD box set released by Great Dane in Italy, where copyright protection for the broadcasts had expired;^[7] the set contained performances from 44 of the Beatles' 52 BBC appearances, including many complete shows.^[8]

Compilation and release

An official Beatles BBC album was being planned as early as 1982,^[9] and it was reported that "EMI was preparing an album" of the BBC material by late 1991.^[10] To supplement the archive he had partially rebuilt for The Beeb's Lost Beatles Tapes, BBC Radio producer Kevin Howlett sought out additional sources, such as tapes kept by people involved in the original sessions; others had contacted him after the series aired to inform him of their own home recordings of additional broadcasts.^[4] Remaining gaps were filled by recordings taken from available bootlegs.^[7]

From the available recordings, the tracks for Live at the BBC were selected by longtime Beatles producer George Martin. Martin's selection criteria included both the quality of the sound and of the Beatles' performance.^[4] Of particular interest were the 36 songs that the Beatles never performed on their official releases, of which 30 were selected for the album. Three of the six omitted were from 1962 (none of the 1962 recordings were judged to be of commercial sound quality): Roy Orbison's "Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream)", the Coasters' arrangement of "Bésame Mucho" and Joe Brown's "A Picture of You", all with Pete Best on drums. Two others, from early 1963, also were omitted for substandard sound: the Gerry Goffin–Jack Keller adaptation of Stephen Foster's "Beautiful Dreamer" and Chuck Berry's "I'm Talking About You". The reason for the omission of the final song of the six, Carl Perkins' "Lend Me Your Comb" from July 1963, was not clear as it had very good sound quality, and it was speculated that it was held back for inclusion on a later release;^[4] the song was indeed issued the following year on Anthology 1. It was also later included on 2013's On Air – Live at the BBC Volume 2, as are "Beautiful Dreamer" and "I'm Talking About You".

The selected songs included "I'll Be on My Way", the only Lennon–McCartney composition that the Beatles recorded for the BBC with no available studio version. The Buddy Holly-style ballad was their first composition to be "given away" without the Beatles attempting to record it for their own release. The song was given to Billy J. Kramer, another artist managed by Brian Epstein recording for Parlophone, who released it in the United Kingdom as the B-side of a cover version of "Do You Want to Know a Secret".^[11]

In all, 56 songs were chosen for the album, along with some banter among the group and the hosts. Abbey Road engineer Peter Mew used audio manipulation software to reduce noise, repair minor drop-outs and equalise to a more consistent sound from one track to the next.^[4] The resulting sound quality was considered generally better than the best equivalent bootlegged versions available at the time, although a small number of tracks were noted as exceptions.^[7]

Live at the BBC was released on 30 November 1994 in the UK (Apple/Parlophone PCSP 726), and on 6 December 1994 in the United States (Apple/Capitol CDP 7243-8-31796-2-6). The track listing on the back of the CD case inadvertently included the word "Top" at the start of the song title "So How Come (No One Loves Me)"; the listing was corrected for the 2001 reissue. When "Baby It's You" was released as a single in March 1995, it contained three other BBC songs that were not included in the album, two of which would eventually be found on volume two.

1994 version

2013 version