Ariadne In Stitches

On February 6th, 1968, Ringo stepped into the spotlight without his bandmates by making a solo appearance on British TV. Along with Spike Milligan and Peter Brough, he was one of Cilla Black's special guests on her new TV variety series, Cilla, which aired live on BBC1.

Unfortunately, no film or videotape copy seems to exist of the broadcast, but a home-taped audio recording has survived. Ringo appeared in three segments:

- Helping Cilla read viewer mail

- Acting as a ventriloquist, with Cilla as his dummy, and singing "Nellie Dean"

- Duetting and dancing with Cilla on the oldie "Do You Like Me?"

The Beatles Were Born

Napoleon, 1973

A bizarre early Beatleg, one of the first in a deluxe cover. Half is a mangled version of the Hollywood Bowl concert (with "Twist And Shout" repeated). Half is outtakes from Captain Beefheart, Buffalo Springfield, and The Who, with no Beatle content whatsoever. The label mentions Tony Sheridan for no apparent reason.

Side 1:

- Boys

- A Hard Day's Night

- Long Tall Sally

- Twist And Shout

- You Can't Do That

- All My Loving

- Twist And Shout

Side 2:

- Diddy Wah Diddy

- Moonchild

- Bluebird

- Frying Pan

- A Quick One While He's Away

Rappin' With Rosko

Another request, and another Montreal Bed-In telephone interview. This time, John and Yoko (and Timothy Leary) spoke with New York disc jockey Bill Mercer, better known to listeners of WNEW-FM as "Rosko".

The interview was taped on the night of May 30th, 1969, one day before "Give Peace A Chance" was recorded.

Rappin' with Rosko

Yellow Matter Custard

TMOQ, 1971

One of the most famous early Beatlegs, Yellow Matter Custard contained 14 numbers from the summer 1963 BBC Radio series Pop Go The Beatles. Only "Slow Down" had been released by The Beatles, making this LP that much more intriguing, despite the mediocre sound quality.

Side 1:

- I Got A Woman

- Glad All Over

- I Just Don't Understand

- Slow Down

- Don't Ever Change

- A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues

- Sure To Fall (In Love With You)

Side 2:

- Nothin' Shakin' (But The Leaves On The Trees)

- Lonesome Tears In My Eyes

- So How Come (No One Loves Me)

- I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You)

- Crying, Waiting, Hoping

- To Know Her Is To Love Her

- The Honeymoon Song

Hidey Hodey, Everybodey!

The Beatles' only visit to New Zealand took place in late June, 1964, towards the end of their Australasian tour. After performing in Wellington, they flew to Auckland for concerts on the 24th and 25th at the Town Hall.

Following a press conference at Auckland's Royal International Hotel on the 25th, Sydney DJ Bob Rogers chatted with Paul, John, and Ringo. The next day, he recorded a long and often hilarious conversation with all four Beatles in their suite at the New City Hotel in Dunedin.

Edited versions of both interviews appeared on the 1981 LP The Beatles Talk Downunder, but longer tapes were bootlegged on the LP Fuck! in 1988. Here are composite recordings using both sources:

Auckland

Dunedin

The Live Beatles Nippon Budokan Hall Tokio

Bulldog, 1987

A pedestrian reissue of the common June 30, 1966 Budokan performance. What made this unique is that (for a time) it was able to be sold legally due to the copyright protection for concert recordings expiring in certain countries (thus the "It was more than 20 years ago" slogan on the cover).

Side 1:

- Rock And Roll Music

- She's A Woman

- If I Needed Someone

- Day Tripper

- Baby's In Black

- I Feel Fine

Side 2:

- Yesterday

- I Wanna Be Your Man

- Nowhere Man

- Paperback Writer

- I'm Down

The Cute One

Paul was the last Beatle to be interviewed by Brian Matthew for BBC Radio's Pop Profile. Their conversation was taped May 2nd, 1966 and distributed on disc by the BBC Overseas Transcription Service. Here is the complete programme as included on the disc:

Paul - Pop Profile

Top Of The Pops

Highway High Fi, 1974

A TMOQ hodge-podge, with (in reverse order) half of the Hollywood Bowl concert, some common BBC cuts, the Smothers Brothers performances, and two non-Beatle cuts.

Side 1:

- People Say

- I'm Walking

- Hey Jude

- Revolution

- Long Tall Sally

Side 2:

- A Hard Day's Night

- Things We Said Today

- Shout!

- Twist And Shout

- You Can't Do That

- All My Loving

- She Loves You

- Things We Said Today

- Roll Over Beethoven

Howard's Beginning

By request, here are two telephone interviews with John Lennon from his 1969 Montreal Bed-in. Village Voice journalist Howard Smith had covered Yoko Ono's happenings in New York, but this was the first of many times he spoke with her husband.

Their initial interview, conducted May 29th, was lengthy and revealing. After it was aired on WABC radio, it prompted this follow-up discussion, recorded the next day.

Meet The Beeb!

Beeb Transcription, 1988

Sort of a companion to the Beatles At The Beeb LP series (though not from Yellow Dog), this LP was the first to include a number of The Beatles' early BBC Radio performances. The one curiosity was "Abilene" (mistakenly called "My Evelyne" and attibuted to The Beatles), a number by Tony Rivers and the Castaways from Pop Go The Beatles, which still hasn't appeared on CD from a tape source.

Side 1:

- Dream Baby

- Memphis, Tennessee

- Please Mr. Postman

- Ask Me Why

- Besame Mucho

- A Picture Of You

- Some Other Guy

- Keep Your Hands Off My Baby

- Beautiful Dreamer

- From Me To You

Side 2:

- I Saw Her Standing There

- Misery

- Too Much Monkey Business

- I'm Talking About You

- Please Please Me

- The Hippy Hippy Shake

- I Saw Her Standing There

- A Shot Of Rhythm And Blues

- There's A Place

- "Pop Chat"

- Abilene

Pleasure To Be Here

Although they passed on "Love Me Do", "Please Please Me", "From Me To You", and "She Loves You", USA's Capitol Records didn't skimp when it came to promoting The Beatles once they did concede to issue "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and Meet The Beatles.

As part of their media blitz, a Capitol rep traveled to London and interviewed the group at EMI Studios in the first week of 1964. The recording was pressed on a 7" disc distributed to American disc jockeys, with "I Want To Hold Your Hand" following the chat, and "This Boy" and "It Won't Be Long" (both from the LP) on the B-side.

The interview was "open-ended", which means only The Beatles' answers are heard, allowing any DJ to read the questions from the script provided on the sleeve. This way, local stations could claim "exclusive" interviews with their on-air talent, or even better, claim that The Beatles had dropped by their very own station!

The Beatles Open-End Interview

The promotion was successful enough for Capitol to repeat in April upon the release of The Beatles' Second Album. The second "open-end" interview was a different edit of the same January recording, with a bit of overlap in content, and was followed by "Roll Over Beethoven". Side B contained "Please Mr. Postman" and "Thank You Girl".

The Beatles' Second Open-End Interview

Classified Document

Instant Analysis, 1987

Actually Starlight Records using old CBM/Instant Analysis labels. No new Beatle tracks here, but plenty of solo material that was rare at the time (available on cassette only).

Side 1:

- Long Tall Sally

- For No One

- Peggy Sue

- I'm Gonna Love You Too

- Lady Madonna

- Who Can See It

- I'll Follow The Sun

- A Day In The Life

Side 2:

- Borrowed Time

- Woman

- I Don't Wanna Face It

- Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)

- Honey Pie

- Junior's Farm

- One Hand Clapping

Bruce Morrow Never Knows

Since their first visit to New York in February 1964, WABC disc jockey "Cousin" Bruce Morrow had been interviewing The Beatles. By 1966, the novelty of American radio had worn off for the Fabs, and they refused to play along with Cousin Brucie's schtick. This was made clear as Bruce attempted to interview them live on the air following a press conference on August 22nd:

WABC interview

Tokyo-Sixty Six

CBM, 1973

The precursor to the famed Five Nights In A Judo Arena. Pressed from the same tape of the June 30, 1966 Budokan concert, but the later LP had a deluxe full color cover and sold far better.

Side 1:

- Rock And Roll Music

- She's A Woman

- If I Needed Someone

- Day Tripper

- Baby's In Black

- I Feel Fine

Side 2:

- Yesterday

- I Wanna Be Your Man

- Nowhere Man

- Paperback Writer

- I'm Down

Starrdust Memories

By request, here are Ringo's two final recorded interviews as a Beatle, promoting his Sentimental Journey album in March 1970.

First is an open-end discussion of the new LP, as aired on Radio Luxembourg (broadcast date unknown).

On March 31st, Ringo appeared live on BBC 2's Open House, chatting with host Pete Murray and introducing a number of record requests, including a Beatles oldie. One day later, Ringo would participate in Phil Spector's overdub session for Let It Be - the final recording date in the Beatles era.

Words Of Love

Wizardo, 1975

Not studio outtakes, as the insert claims, but BBC Radio recordings copied from earlier Beatlegs and sorted chronologically.

Side 1:

- Love Me Do

- Please Please Me

- From Me To You

- I Saw Her Standing There

- Misery

- Do You Want To Know A Secret

- There's A Place

- Anna (Go To Him)

- Chains

- Boys

Side 2:

- She Loves You

- Till There Was You

- Roll Over Beethoven

- You Really Got A Hold On Me

- Devil In Her Heart

- Money (That's What I Want)

- Long Tall Sally

- Honey Don't

- Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey!

- Words Of Love

These Youngsters From Liverpool

February 9th, 1964 was perhaps the most important day in The Beatles' career. But apart from their triumphant performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, how else did they spend the day?

After an afternoon dress rehearsal (including three songs taped for later broadcast), they unwound in their suite at the Plaza Hotel. Or tried to unwind, as disc jockey Murray the "K" Kaufman was in their faces relaying events to the metropolitan New York area via WINS-AM:

Wacker the "K"

On the way into CBS Studio 50 for the pivotal live broadcast, they were stopped by a CBS News reporter for a few words:

White Christmas

After the show, Washington DC disc jockey Carroll James lurked backstage and briefly interviewed Dizzy Gillespie and George for WWDC-AM before CBS security put the kibosh on things:

Good ol' Dizzy!

The post-show celebrating continued late into the night at the Peppermint Lounge, where Murray and Ringo danced to the house band, as the Maysles brothers' camera captured the action. At 4 A.M., the camera was rolling as Paul and Murray said goodnight in front of the Plaza:

By gum, Murray!

Sam Houston Colosseum

Beat Records, 1987

A clear vinyl LP of the August 19th, 1965 evening show in Houston. Common material at the time.

Side 1:

- Twist And Shout

- She's A Woman

- I Feel Fine

- Dizzy Miss Lizzy

- Ticket To Ride

- Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby

Side 2:

- Can't Buy Me Love

- Baby's In Black

- I Wanna Be Your Man

- A Hard Day's Night

- Help!

- I'm Down