The Beatles’ Story (Dr. Ebbett DBM-029)
On Stage With The Beatles, How Beatlemania Began, Beatlemania In Action, Man Behind The Beatles – Brian Epstein, John Lennon, Who’s a Millionaire?, Beatles Will Be Beatles, Man Behind the Music – George Martin, George Harrison, A Hard Day’s Night – Their First Movie, Paul McCartney, Sneaky Haircuts and More About Paul, The Beatles Look At Life, ‘Victims’ of Beatlemania, Beatle Medley, Ringo Starr, Liverpool and All the World!
The Beatles’ Story is a documentary double album featuring interviews, press conferences, and songs by the The Beatles, released by Capitol on November 23rd, 1964. As such it is an unusual album, celebrating the strange phenomena of Beatlemania as much as the band themselves. The album entered the Billboard chart three weeks after release at number 97 and reached its peak on January 2nd, 1965 at number 7.
When EMI prepared the Beatles catalogue for compact disc release in the late eighties this was skipped over. It was prepared for release on DAT in 1996 but since that format never took off it was scrapped and it has yet to see official release on CD.
The transfer sound really nice with but has one flaw when the “George Harrison” track cuts out at 4:19 eliminating the final twenty seconds. The contents are interesting and were interesting back when it was released. There documentary focuses upon each of the four musicians (John being the “leader” and George being the true musician) and manager Brian Epstein and producer George Martin.
The narration is accompanied by Beatle tunes in muzak style. Overall this is an interesting time capsule and commentary on Beatlemania and, except for the mastering flaw in that one track, is an excellent addition.
