The Beatles on Record

The History Channel is showing “The Beatles on Record,” an official Apple Corp. documentary. It’s sort of a mini-Anthology, focused solely on their studio work. Parts of it appear as the mini-documentaries on the remastered Beatles CD catalog. For a knowledgeable Beatles fan there’s nothing new in “The Beatles on Record,” but the movie clips are in the best possible quality, and there are some fun studio audio outtakes.

If I’d been paying better attention, I would have noticed that back in September somebody posted the program as it had appeared on the BBC. The American version is exactly 45 minutes without commercials, whereas the British version is a smidgen under one hour. Once again we Americans get an abridged version of a Beatles product! When will it end? I’ve collected the parts into a single YouTube player. It’s window-boxed within a letterbox, but the quality is otherwise excellent.

For comparison, here’s how it looked on the History Channel. This segment covers the middle period, from “Beatles for Sale” through “Sgt. Pepper.” Along the way, the title of Engineer was passed from Norman Smith, whose stint ended with “Rubber Soul,” to Geoff Emerick, who took over the console starting with “Revolver.”

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2009/NOV/BeatlesOnRecord_03.flv 512 384]

5 thoughts on “The Beatles on Record”

  1. My daughter has suspected this for a long time, that the Brits do everything better, with more intelligence, and with much more class. She’s been hinting about going “across the pond” to college for quite some time now.

  2. Paul — You’re welcome! Peter Tork and Mickey Dolenz filled a hotel ballroom last weekend, with a show that was included with the price of general admission, but in August Paul McCartney sold out two shows at Fenway Park. Quite a contrast.

  3. Doug,
    Thank you VERY much for posting this! It was great! Even though we all know the story of The Beatles, it’s fun to see it told in a new way…Paul Howley

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