The Beatles - Turn Left at Greenland!

Label: DarthDisc, DD33-36

CD ONE - ARRIVAL + DAY TWO
(TOTAL TIME 76:24):

7 February
01) MBS "The World Today": 1:18
02) Fans at Kennedy Airport: 2:41
03) WINS Paul Parker at Kennedy Airport: 1:35
04) Kennedy Airport press conference: 6:27
05) WINS Jim Gordon at Plaza Hotel: 1:58
06) Fans at Plaza Hotel: 3:23
07) "Meet The Beatles": 4:09
08) "Saturday Club" with Brian Matthew: 6:04
09) In The Beatles' Suite at Plaza Hotel: 6:36
10) Malcolm Davies "Saturday Club" report: 8:42

8 February
11) WOLF interview w/Bud Ballou: 0:45
12) Driving to "Ed Sullivan Show" rehearsal: 4:07
13) "The Ed Sullivan Show" promo: 0:04
14) Ed Rudy phone interview w/George: 13:35
15) "Swingin' Soiree": 7:23
16) WMCA promos: 4:37

CD TWO - ED SULLIVAN + MEETING THE PRESS
(TOTAL TIME: 74:41):

9 February
"Ed Sullivan Show" first taping: 9:04
01) Ed Sullivan intro
02) Intro
03) Twist and Shout
04) Intro
05) Please Please Me
06) Outro
07) Intro
08) I Want To Hold Your Hand
09) Outro
10) Plaza Hotel w/Murray The "K": 8:02
11) CBS "White Christmas" interview: 0:40

"Ed Sullivan Show" first live broadcast: 16:23
12) Ed Sullivan Intro
13) Intro
14) All My Loving
15) Intro
16) Till There Was You
17) She Loves You
18) Outro
19) Intro
20) I Saw Her Standing There
21) I Want to Hold Your Hand
22) Outro
23) Ed Sullivan Outro
24) Carroll James backstage at "The Ed Sullivan Show": 0:54

10 February
25) AP Plaza Hotel interview: 1:33
26) CBS Plaza Hotel interview: 2:35
27) Ed Rudy Plaza Hotel interviews: 6:37
28) "Assignment: Hollywood," Fred Robbins for Radio Luxembourg: 20:12
29) CBS fan interviews: 5:32
30) Year In Review 1964: 1:00
31) Ed Rudy w/Mal Evans: 0:27
32) Ed Rudy promos: 1:02

CD THREE - WASHINGTON D.C.
(TOTAL TIME 79:50):

11 FEBRUARY 1964
01) Train to Washington DC: 11:31
02) Ed Rudy at Union Station: 0:40
03) Washington DC press conference: 5:59
04) Washington DC TV interviews: 4:52
05) WCAO interviews: 3:46
06) WMUC promos: 0:25
07) WWDC interview: 9:05
08) WWDC fan interview: 0:44
09) Murray The "K" w/Ringo: 3:09

Washington Coliseum concert: 34:33
10) Intro
11) Roll Over Beethoven
12) Intro
13) From Me To You
14) Intro
15) I Saw Her Standing There
16) Intro
17) This Boy
18) Intro
19) All My Loving
20) Intro
21) I Wanna Be Your Man
22) Intro
23) Please Please Me
24) Intro
25) Till There Was You
26) Intro
27) She Loves You
28) Intro
29) I Want To Hold Your Hand
30) Intro
31) Twist & Shout
32) Intro
33) Long Tall Sally
34) Outro

35) British Embassy TV Interview: 1:04
36) Ed Rudy at British Embassy: 3:33

CD FOUR - CARNEGIE HALL & MIAMI
(TOTAL TIME 79:22 or so):

12 February
01) Train ride to New York: 6:36
02) Ed Rudy at Carnegie Hall: 2:25

16 February
03) WQAM Miami reports: 4:55
04) Ed Rudy with Ed Sullivan: 0:42

"Ed Sullivan Show" rehearsal: 16:02
05) She Loves You
06) Intro
07) This Boy
08) Intro
09) All My Loving
10) Outro
11) Intro
12) I Saw Her Standing There
13) From Me To You
14) Intro
15) I Want To Hold Your Hand
16) Outro

17) Ed Rudy in Miami: 1:04

"Ed Sullivan" live broadcast: 18:04
18) Ed Sullivan Intro
19) Intro
20) She Loves You
21) Intro
22) This Boy
23) Intro
24) All My Loving
25) Outro
26) Intro
27) I Saw Her Standing There
28) Intro
29) From Me To You
30) Intro
31) I Want To Hold Your Hand
32) Outro
33) Ed Sullivan Outro

13-17 February
34) "Swingin' Soiree": 8:12

19 February
35) Lee Alan interview: 6:09

21 February
36) A Farewell To Miami: 3:09
37) Deauville Hotel, Miami: 8:04
38) Ed Rudy w/Neil Aspinall: 3:15
39) Ringo at Kennedy Airport: 0:07

Liner Notes

"HOW WOULD YOU LIKE A BEATLES SWEATSHIRT WORTH FIVE DOLLARS!!!!!?"

Some time ago, probably around the time "City of Light" was compiled, one of the Dartharchivists came up with the idea of compiling every circulating bit of audio (later the notion of including video was added) from the Beatles' first visit to America in February 1964. The idea was clearly a Winner; but facing the task of compiling it another thing. So okay, it took us about as long as Apple takes to do anything that doesn't involve a lawsuit -- but here it is, "Turn Left at Greenland," the story of...how the Beatles found America, basically.

There's some spectacular material here. Great bits of on-the-scene reporting by newsmen working without the wisdom of hindsight, and generally either immune, puzzled or simply amused by all the madness. The man-(or more often than not, girl)-on-the-street interviews prove to less tiresome than you might imagine: they capture a fascinating, and sometimes surprising variety of reactions to the Beatles, both from fans and their elders.

The interviews with the Beatles are fantastic as well: Murray the K pretty much caught on to what they were doing in his first interview: witness his comments about getting their ad-libbing into their soon-to-be-filmed "A Hard Day's Night." And Murray's February 6 interview with Malcolm Davies, for Saturday Club, gives a measure of the Beatles' impact in the United States even before anyone had a chance to see them. The Beatles' own reactions to the madness they've caused are striking as well: it's still new to them; the weariness evident in later tours is a long way down the road. There's a bit of commercial naivete as well: included here are lots of personalized radio station promos, something Brian Epstein clamped down on before the second tour.

But surely if you've got your hands on this set, you don't need to be told why this material is important. It was the Beatles' first visit to America, undertaken when, however confident the Fab Four were, they could have no way of knowing the degree to which the country would fall at their feet. It was one small step for four men ... never mind.

Perhaps what we should explain is how the set is laid out and why we made some of the decisions we did. You may be wondering, for example: if the idea here was to present every available audio and video recording of the visit, why are the three Ed Sullivan Show performances not included on the DVDs? And why are they included on the CDs? The same goes for material from the Maysles Brothers documentaries.

Easy. In a roundabout way. We didn't want to include anything that's commercially available - that is, that you should have in your collection in its official version - in the form in which it has been released. The Ed Sullivan Show performances and the Maysles Brothers film (or at least, a new version of it) are available on commercial DVD, but not on CD, and we felt that including the material on the CDs served a purpose - it helps tell the story, and it offers the material in a handy audio form for those who, for example, want to hear it on their iPods. In the case of the Maysles material, we haven't simply presented the soundtrack: we've broken it up and put its important components into the chronological sequence. We also included, on the third DVD, "What's Happening! The Beatles in the U.S.A." -- the Maysles film as it was seen in 1964, and quite different from the newly recompiled and expanded version in "The Beatles: The First US Visit" -- which, of course, you should own.

Beyond that, a few notes about the compilation. This material, audio and video, has been around for years, spread over compilations and documentaries and specials of all kinds, or just lying in the archives of AP, CBS, the BBC and other organizations, just waiting for the Darthelves to come along and do their thing. In some cases, considerable reconstructive surgery had to be done. The famous Kennedy Airport press conference, for example, has been stitched together from many sources - as of course, you'll hear, because the sound quality varies. But it's the most complete version you'll hear in a single sitting. (The video version, by contrast, leaves the sources as they were - in newsreels, for example, which we've left intact, repetitive though they sometimes are). The Brian Matthew Saturday Club interview, similarly, was stitched together from several sources (mostly, the BBC broadcast and Maysles material - much as was done in "The Beatles Anthology," which, of course, you should also own.)

The four CDs are filled to capacity, so what we left off - rather than go to a fifth disc - is material from the Beatles' arrival back in London. That material, however, is all sourced from video anyway, and is included on the third DVD. In compiling the DVDs, we tried to keep as close as we could to a one hour limit, to avoid quality loss. And it works out this way: DVD 1 includes newsreels and raw footage - some of it silent - from the first part of the group's visit, from their arrival on February 7 through their Carnegie Hall concert on Feb. 12. Okay, we don't have the Carnegie Hall concert, in either audio or video. Believe me, the Darthelves have tried everything, including sending attractive young elvettes to try to sweet talk the tape out of retired stagehands rumored to have a copy. No dice.

The second DVD brings together the best quality video we've seen of the Washington Coliseum show (augmented with the recently discovered video version of "Long Tall Sally" and a video excerpt from "From Me To You") and the Miami rehearsal for the Ed Sullivan Show. And the third DVD gives you "What's Happening!" and the return to London.

As for the source details - too much to include here. Get yourself a copy of John Winn's marvelous "Way Beyond Compare: The Beatles' Recorded Legacy, Volume 1: 1957-1965." Everything you need to know is on pp.130-160. (And you might as well get the successor volumes, "That Magical Feeling" and "Lifting Latches," while you're at it. And for another perspective on the time, it's worth getting hold of Michael Braun's "Love Me Do.")

- Neo, 2006