The BEEB’s Lost Beatles Tapes – Unicorn ( UC 149 / 56 )
THE BEEB’S LOST BEATLES TAPE VOL.1
Episode One (Broadcast October 1 1988) 1. From Us To You / 2. Soldier Of Love (Lay Down Your Arms) / 3. She Loves You / 4. I Wanna Be Your Man / 5. I Got A Woman / 6. Long Tall Sally / 7. Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport / 8. I Feel Fine / 9. Peter Pilbeam Interview / 10. Please Mister Postman / 11. Side By Side / 12. Too Much Monkey Business / 13. Thank You Girl / 14. From Me To You / 15. I’ll Be On My Way.
Episode Two (Broadcast October 8 1988) 16. I Saw Her Standing There / 17. Brian Matthew Interview / 18. Long Tall Sally / 19. Bernie Andrews Interview / 20. Some Other Guy / 21. A Taste Of Honey / 22. Boys / 23. Bernie Andrews Interview / 24. Memphis / 25. Happy Birthday. ( 53:12 )
THE BEEB’S LOST BEATLES TAPE VOL.2
Episode Two (Broadcast October 8 1988) 1. I’ll Get You / 2. She Loves You / 3. Lucille
Episode Three (Broadcast October 15 1988) 4. Pop Go The Beatles / 5. I Got To Find My Baby / 6. Terry Henebery Interview / 7. Pop Go The Beatles / 8. A Shot Of Rhythm and Blues / 9. Terry Henebery Interview / 10. Money / 11. Youngblood / 12. Baby It’s You / 13. Happy Birthday / 14. Sure To Fall / 15. Anna / 16. Twist And Shout / 17. Lorne Gibson Interview.
Episode Four (Broadcast October 22 1988) 18. Pop Goes The Beatles / 19. Sweet Little Sixteen / 20. Keith Bateson Interview / 21. That’s Alright Mama / 22. Carol ( 46:33 )
THE BEEB’S LOST BEATLES TAPE VOL.3
Episode Four (Broadcast October 22 1988) 1. Soldier Of Love / 2. Lend Me Your Comb / 3. Clarabella / 4. Terry Henebery Interview / 5. Lonesome Tears / 6. Nothin Shakin’ / 7. So How Come
Episode Five (Broadcast October 29 1988) 8. Pop Goes The Beatles / 9. I’m Gonna Sit Right Down / 10. Hippy Hippy Shake / 11. To Know Her Is To Love Her / 12. John Andrews Interview / 13. Matchbox / 14. Please Mr Postman.
Episode Six (Broadcast November 5 1988) 15. Pop Goes The Beatles / 16. Chains / 17. Glad All Over / 18. I Just Don’t Understand / 19. Don’t Ever Change / 20. Pop Chat Interview ( 46:35 )
THE BEEB’S LOST BEATLES TAPE VOL.4
Episode Six (Broadcast November 5 1988) 1. Honey Don’t / 2. You Really Got A Hold On Me / 3. Lucille / 4. Twist And Shout / 5. Pop Goes The Beatles.
Episode Seven (Broadcast November 12 1988) 6. I Saw Her Standing There / 7. Love Me Do / 8. Radio Banter / 9. She Loves You / 10. Public Ear Interview / 11. Saturday Club Interview / 12. Johnny B Goode / 13. I Want To Hold Your Hand / 14. From Us To You. ( 43:32 )
THE BEEB’S LOST BEATLES TAPE VOL.5
Episode Eight – November 19, 1988 1. From Us To You / 2. All My Loving / 3. Alan Freeman Interview / 4. ‘Till There Was You / 5. Roll Over Beethoven / 6. I Wanna Be Your Man / 7. Can’t Buy Me Love / 8. From Us To You / 9. Alan Freeman Interview / 10. Happy Birthday / 11. Honey Don’t / 12. I Forgot To Remember / 13. Alan Freeman Interview / 14. You Can’t Do That / 15. Alan Freeman Interview / 16. From Us To You.
Episode Nine – November 26, 1988 17. Top Gear Promo / 18. I Got A Woman / 19. Sure To Fall / 20. Top Gear Promo / 21. Long Tall Sally. ( 43:56 )
THE BEEB’S LOST BEATLES TAPE VOL.6
Episode Nine Continued: 1. Things We Said Today / 2. Brian Matthew Interview / 3. A Hard Days Night / 4. And I Love Her / 5. I Feel Fine.
Episode Ten – December 3, 1988 6. Barbara Garnet Interview / 7. I’m A Loser / 8. Public Ear Interview / 9. Tony Hall Interview / 10. Public Ear Interview / 11. Public Ear Interview / 12. Honey Don’t / 13. The World Of Books Interview / 14. I’ll Follow The Sun / 15. Pop Profile Interview / 16. She’s A Woman. ( 42:58 )
THE BEEB’S LOST BEATLES TAPE VOL.7
Episode Eleven – December 10, 1988 1. Rock And Roll Music / 2. Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby / 3. Kansas City / 4. Ticket to Ride / 5. Keith Bateson Interview / 6. MBE Interview / 7. Dizzy Miss Lizzie / 8. Pop Profile Interview.
Episode Twelve – December 17, 1988 – 1. The Beatles Abroad Interview / 2. Help / 3. The Beatles Abroad Interview / 4. Pop Profile Interview. ( 46:38 )
THE BEEB’S LOST BEATLES TAPE VOL.8
Episode Twelve Continued: 1. A Hard Days Night / 2. All My Loving / 3. And I Love Her / 4. Wait.
Episode Thirteen – December 24, 1988 / 5. This Boy / 6. All I Want For Christmas / 7. Roll Over Beethoven / 8. From Us To You / 9. She Loves You / 10. Tie Me Kangaroo Down / 11. I Want To Hold Your Hand / 12. From Us To You / 13. We Can Work It Out / 14. Drive My Car / 15. Saturday Club Interview.
Episode Fourteen – December 31, 1988 – 16. The Kenny Everett Show Interview / 17. Top Of The Pops Interview / 18. Scene And Heard Interview / 19. Flying / 20. Where It’s At Interview / 21. Pop Profile Interview / 22. If I Needed Someone / 23. The Kenny Everett Show Interview / 24. George Harrison Interview / 25. Crying Waiting Hoping / 26. George Harrison Interview / 27. Pop Goes The Beatles. ( 70:11 )
After years and years of badly recorded, dubbed and notated bootleg recordings from the Beatles appearances on the BBC, a Boxed set was released from Italy containing some fantastically upgraded tapes from the vaults of many long time collectors. This was the biggest boon to the Beatleg market since the discovery and release of the studio tapes that littered the “Ultra Rare Trax” CDs on the Swingin’ Pig label and the “Unsurpassed Masters” series on Yellow Dog.
From the shadows of the majestic boxed set , the official 2 CD set was released with some of these performances featured lifted from the GD set itself. Obviously the BBC couldn’t take on the mammoth task of releasing a multi CD set to the commercial market and went with a double disk release instead but how to showcase the rest of the material that had been found? This was obviously holy grail stuff but without that stage for everything the best thing that the BEEB could do was to broadcast their ‘finds’ in another of their patented documentaries.
Broadcast over three months in 1988 including that lucrative festive period the series “The BEEB’s Lost Beatles Tapes” brought us far more than the programs that the BBC had established before had and chronologically placed revealed to the mass market just what long time collectors had known before the Italian label put out their master piece.
The set was quickly leapt upon by collectors who had not had the chance to find the Great Dane set but also collectors who had but were looking for the extra pieces that were in need of dire work or were missing altogether from that set.
Righteous Rodent’s 8 CDR set was released in 2008 was released to acclaim for using high quality tapes of these broadcasts. Four years later it’s Unicorn’s turn to bring us these recordings but on silverdisk CDs. Great, huh? Almost .. On the first disk it’s evident that while RR’s source was described as ‘flawless’ in Gsparaco’s review of THAT set, the tapes used here are less so. There is a certain amount of hiss from the FM broadcast as if the taper was just on the edge of reception for the radio. This is, admittedly, only really obvious during the quieter interview parts but obvious it is. It evens out a little on disk two and is much less noticeable apart from a strange fluttering on the first track. Disk 5 features an unfortunate flaw a couple of seconds in to the first track where the tape seems to have been used again by mistake but this lasts mere seconds.
The presentation itself is a glossy clamshell box which features a mock up of the montage from the front of the American LP “The Beatles Second Album” on the front with a short review on the back of the case.
The CDs inside are presented in thin paper sleeves while extra protection is provided by a fine plastic CD sleeve to stop the CDs rolling around too much. There is no info attached apart from the blurb on the back and the track listings on the sleeves. Maybe a slyer Beatlegger might have searched it’s archives and presented even a 4 page book with pertinent info or listings from the time but Unicorn have left this sparse.
The Righteous Rodent set being well out of print this is a suitable alternative. It may lose out on narration and some of the care that the previous CDR set had in spades but it is still a very attractive set to have especially, these days, on silver disk.
