Recorded: 1958-1994
Producers: George Martin, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Jeff Lynne
Released: 21 November 1995
Tracklisting:
Speech: John Lennon
That'll Be The Day
In Spite Of All The Danger
Speech: Paul McCartney
Hallelujah, I Love Her So
You'll Be Mine
Cayenne
Speech: Paul
My Bonnie
Ain't She Sweet
Cry For A Shadow
Speech: John
Speech: Brian Epstein
Searchin'
Three Cool Cats
The Sheik Of Araby
Like Dreamers Do
Hello Little Girl
Speech: Brian Epstein
Besame Mucho
Love Me Do
How Do You Do It
Please Please Me
One After 909 (Sequence)
One After 909
Lend Me Your Comb
I'll Get You
Speech: John
I Saw Her Standing There
From Me To You
Money (That's What I Want)
You Really Got A Hold On Me
Roll Over Beethoven
She Loves YouTill There Was You
Twist And Shout
This Boy
I Want To Hold Your Hand
Speech: Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise
Moonlight Bay
Can't Buy Me Love
All My Loving
You Can't Do That
And I Love Her
A Hard Day's Night
I Wanna Be Your Man
Long Tall Sally
Boys
Shout
I'll Be Back (Take 2)
I'll Be Back (Take 3)
You Know What To Do
No Reply (Demo)
Mr Moonlight
Leave My Kitten Alone
No Reply
Eight Days A Week (Sequence)
Eight Days A Week (Complete)
Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!
Released in November 1995, Anthology 1 was the first part of The Beatles' three-volume collection of outtakes, rarities and live performances that accompanied the television series The Beatles Anthology.
The music on Anthology 1 covers the period 1958-1964, plus the three remaining Beatles' 1994 reworking of John Lennon's 1977 piano demo Free As A Bird.
The earliest recordings on the album are by The Quarrymen, the skiffle and rock 'n' roll band which later became The Beatles. Among them are the only officially released performances by Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best, The Beatles' early bassist and drummer respectively.
In addition to the music, Anthology 1 contains interview snippets from Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Starr and manager Brian Epstein, comedy skits from the Morecambe and Wise television show Two Of A Kind, and studio speech.
The Anthology producer and project leader was George Martin. From 22 May 1995 he began re-listening and mixing tracks from The Beatles' archives.
I am trying to tell the story of the Beatles lives in music, from the moment they met to the moment they split up in 1970. I have listened to everything we ever recorded together. Every take of every song. every track of every song, virtually everything that was ever committed to tape and labelled "Beatles". I have heard about 600 items in all.
Additional research and sleevenotes were by renowned Beatles scholar and author Mark Lewisohn, who had collaborated with EMI and Apple on a number of other projects.
Cover artwork
Klaus Voormann, who had previously designed the cover art for Revolver, was contacted in the early 1990s by Apple Records' Neil Aspinall to create the artwork for the entire Anthology project.
Voormann came up with an idea to paint The Beatles' posters, photographs and album artwork with the effect of peeling layers, in a broad chronological order from left to right, charting the progression and development of The Beatles.
Anthology 1 featured the first third of the artwork. Its centrepiece was an early image The Beatles which was torn to omit Pete Best, showing Ringo Starr instead. Best used the missing portion on the cover of his 2008 album Haymans Green.
The release
Anthology 1 was issued as a double CD and triple vinyl collection. The worldwide release date was 21 November 1995.
The album was a global commercial success. It became the first Beatles album to enter the US Billboard 200 chart at number one, with 855,473 copies sold. It remained at the top of the chart for three weeks, and was certified platinum in America after six weeks.
Anthology 1 also topped the charts in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands and New Zealand. In the United Kingdom the album stalled at number two, behind Robson and Jerome's eponymous debut album.
The three Anthology albums were made available as digital downloads on the iTunes Store on 14 June 2011.
This album and so the other Anthology albums are now available in iTunes 🙂
Anyone know why the original (Lennon) McCartney composition Love of the Loved was not included on this or any other official release? It is the only Decca audition number that is not a cover never to have been so released.
Does anyone know where you can watch the Anthology documentary episodes? Willing to pay to rent/stream but can’t seem to find anywhere.
The DVD set is commercially available. I doubt the original TV episodes are in any form. The DVD set includes more than the original episodes did anyway.