Word: beebe
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Performed between March 1962 and June 1965, the tunes were searched out by Producer Kevin Hewlett as he prepared a program to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Beatles' first broadcast for the BBC. "The Beeb" had given the lads air time on teen variety shows like Saturday Club; then, in June 1963, they got their own program, Pop Go the Beatles. When they were first heard on the air they did not even have a record contract. Within 18 months they had four hit singles, the show and the beginnings of a myth...
...musical trajectory is astonishing. The three-hour show, The Beatles at the Beeb, begins with Hippie Hippie Shake, a good bar-band rave-up, and ends three years later with the jet-stream harmonics of Ticket to Ride. That's a little like getting into outer space before everyone is certain you have even left the ground...
...group were built on solid rock. Memory, sentiment, tragedy and official cultural status make it easy to forget that the Beatles were a scruffy bunch of working-class rock brats. It was a great part of their strength and some of their glory. Although The Beatles at the Beeb includes a version of the lamentable 'Til There Was You, there is also an esoteric tune titled I Just Don't Understand, which turns out to have been introduced in an Ann-Margret movie (take that, cultural anthropologists) and does not seem completely worthy of the obscurity into which...
...reminder, however: because of thorny copyright problems, the material on The Beatles at the Beeb will probably never make it to record. This may not be an insurmountable problem in an age of technological marvels. As Bruce Springsteen used to tell listeners at home when he did his own radio shows: "Roll them tapes...