A carefully curated collection of the
surviving transcripts of the Beatles’ appearances on BBC Radio and
Television from 1962 to 1970, featuring commentary from author and
Beatles expert Kevin Howlett and rare photographs and memorabilia from
the BBC.
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both—namely, never-before-seen BBC transcripts, historical documents,
and rare photos—will be the main thrust of the book The Beatles: The BBC
Archives. Not since
The Beatles’ Anthology of 2000 has a work of this magnitude been offered.
Author
Kevin Howlett delves into the BBC television and radio archives and
draws on previously unpublished transcripts of interviews, as well as
personal reminiscences from presenters, producers, and studio staff to
reveal the creative and personal evolution of the band—from the witty,
irreverent foursome of the early sixties, to the more reflective and
confessional individuals before the split at the end of the decade. Each
chapter details a full year in the life of the band and is introduced
with an engaging text by Howlett that puts the following material into
historical context. The book features rare photos of the Fab Four at the
BBCs studios, both onstage and off, and eight removables documents of
historical merit, direct from the BBC archive itself.
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.
