Recorded: 1963 – May 1966
Producers: Kevin Howlett, Mike Heatley (2013); Terry Henebery, Ian Grant, Peter Pilbeam, Jimmy Grant, Bernie Andrews, Ron Belchier, Bryant Marriott, Jimmy Grant, Brian Willey, Pete Dauncey (1960s)
Engineers: Guy Massey, Alex Wharton
Released: 11 November 2013
Tracklisting:
Words Of Love
How About It, Gorgeous? (Speech)
Do You Want To Know A Secret
Lucille
Hey, Paul... (Speech)
Anna (Go To Him)
Hello! (Speech)
Please Please Me
Misery
I'm Talking About You
A Real Treat (Speech)
Boys
Absolutely Fab (Speech)
Chains
Ask Me Why
Till There Was You
Lend Me Your Comb
Lower 5E (Speech)
The Hippy Hippy Shake
Roll Over Beethoven
There's A Place
Bumper Bundle (Speech)
PS I Love You
Please Mister Postman
Beautiful Dreamer
Devil In Her Heart
The 49 Weeks (Speech)
Sure To Fall (In Love With You)
Never Mind, Eh? (Speech)
Twist And Shout
Bye, Bye (speech)
John – Pop Profile (Speech)
George – Pop Profile (Speech)
I Saw Her Standing ThereGlad All Over
Lift Lid Again (Speech)
I'll Get You
She Loves You
Memphis, Tennessee
Happy Birthday Dear Saturday Club
Now Hush, Hush (Speech)
From Me To You
Money (That's What I Want)
I Want To Hold Your Hand
Brian Bathtubes (Speech)
This Boy
If I Wasn't In America (Speech)
I Got A Woman
Long Tall Sally
If I Fell
A Hard Job Writing Them (Speech)
And I Love Her
Oh, Can't We? Yes We Can (Speech)
You Can't Do That
Honey Don't
I'll Follow The Sun
Green With Black Shutters (Speech)
Kansas City/Hey-Hey-Hey-Hey!
That's What We're Here For (Speech)
I Feel Fine (studio outtake)
Paul – Pop Profile (Speech)
Ringo – Pop Profile (Speech)
The second official release of The Beatles' BBC radio recordings was released 19 years after 1994's Live At The BBC collection.
On Air – Live At The BBC Volume 2 was released in two-CD set and 180-gram vinyl versions. Both include a 48-page booklet with an introduction by Paul McCartney and liner notes by BBC producer Kevin Howlett.
There's a lot of energy and spirit. We are going for it, not holding back at all, trying to put in the best performance of our lifetimes.
The album contains 63 tracks, including 37 previously unreleased performances, and 23 excerpts of in-studio speech featuring the group and radio presenters Brian Matthew, Alan Freeman, Lee Peters and Rodney Burke.
Three songs not officially available elsewhere were I'm Talking About You, Beautiful Dreamer and Happy Birthday Dear Saturday Club, although the collection did contain Lend Me Your Comb, which had previously been issued on Anthology 1.
However, two other songs, A Picture Of You and Dream Baby (How Long Must I Dream?), recorded with Pete Best on drums on 7 March 1962 and 11 June 1962 respectively, are still yet to be officially released in any form.
Versions of several of the included songs had previously been released on Live At The BBC, in an acknowledgement that The Beatles recorded certain songs multiple times. The group performed a total of 88 different songs in their BBC radio sessions.
In all The Beatles made 52 known musical performances on a variety of BBC radio shows between March 1962 and June 1965, in addition to many more interviews and unscheduled news appearances.
In addition to the musical performances, On Air – Live At The BBC Volume 2 includes audio of The Beatles talking to DJs Brian Matthew and Alan Freeman, and Pop Go The Beatles hosts Lee Peters and Rodney Burke, as well as interviews recorded for the Pop Profile series in November 1965 and May 1966.
The album was compiled and researched by producers Kevin Howlett and Mike Heatley, and were mastered at Abbey Road Studios by engineers Guy Massey and Alex Wharton.
I think Besame Mucho is also another un official released BBC song.
It’s too bad that the BBC studio version (rather than the live version on Vol. 1) of “Some Other Guy” isn’t included on this set. I’m looking forward to seeing how the new re-mastered version of Vol. 1 compares to the original. It’s amazing to me that it’s been almost 20 years since Vol. 1 came out. I had a record store back then and was so excited when it was released. Wonder if there’s gonna be a 4-track EP companion released with this volume also?
Nice to have a version of “I’m Talking About You ” in better sound quality than the Star-Club tapes. Re my earlier post: It would be kind if cool to save the ’62 Pete Best BBC cuts for a 4-track companion EP (just wishful thinking, obviously)…
True to form, John blows the lyrics on “I’m Talking About You” (he did it in the Star-Club version too, albeit differently). You’ll have to play Chuck Berry’s original for comparison. John gets a bad rap for fluffing lyrics, but to be fair about it, all 4 of them did it in live performance occasionally, fluffing them or singing verses out of order. They were usually aware of it at the time too, but you can’t very well stop a song & start over in the middle of a live performance, can you? Even some of their cover versions cut for EMI have wrong lyrics. “Matchbox” springs to mind, but most fans back in ’64 wouldn’t have known that because they hadn’t heard Carl Perkins’ original. Actually, it was quite a common thing in the old days when we learned lyrics off of records. I mis-heard certain lyrics for many years, until the days of CD digital re-mastering came along. Some recordings are beyond technology though. I still don’t know exactly what The Kingsmen are saying in their version of “Louie Louie”, and I still hear “there’s a bathroom on the right” in “Bad Moon Rising”.
Anyone else think it’s weird how “Bye, Bye” is at the end of disc 1? I would have put it at the end of 2, for a nice bookending effect (not counting the pop profiles)
Still missing I Call Your Name and I Should Have known Better. The She’s a woman version from the radiospecial ‘The Beatles invite you to take a ticket to ride’ (1965) is awsome. Paul singing ‘My love don’t mind me presents’!
What is the tune Paul plays at the beginning of I Feel Fine, when the song breaks down?