Saturday, March 14, 2009

December 21, 1969 - Location unknown, Mississauga

Taped: Sunday 21 December 1969

The next day at a press conference at the Chateau Champlain Hotel in Montreal, John said: "We think this was a positive decade, not a depressing one. This is just the beginning. What we've got to do is keep hope alive, because without it we'll sink."

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

February 20, 1962 - Floral Hall, Southport

Filmed: Tuesday 20 February 1962
Aired: Wednesday 15 May 1996

The Beatles performed at Floral Hall, Southport, with Gerry & The Pacemakers, Rory Storm & The Hurricanes and The Chris Hamilton Jazzmen. On the same day, Brian Epstein wrote to Bert Kaempfert in Hamburg asking him to release The Beatles from their recording contract of May 1961.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Beatles Q&A: Early Studio Footage

Question:
Is there any footage of the Beatles recording in the studio in the early days?

Answer:
The earliest footage of the Beatles at EMI/Abbey Road Studios is from February 1964, during the recording of the A Hard Day's Night LP.

-LOTB



Submit your Beatles questions here

Sunday, March 08, 2009

August 22, 1962 - Cavern Club, Liverpool

Filmed: Wednesday 22 August 1962
Aired: Wednesday 6 November 1963

At lunchtime Granada Television filmed the group playing 'Some Other Guy' and 'Kansas City'/'Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey' for their Know The North programme. It was scheduled to be shown on November 7 but the film never actually went out. The film clips survived but the sound quality was found to be too poor for them to be used, so further sound-only recordings were made on September 5th.

Some Other Guy - take 1



Some Other Guy - take 2



Kansas City



Silent footage

March 4, 1966 - More Popular Than Jesus

On this date, The London Evening Standard published an interview with John Lennon by his friend Maureen Cleave. John was quoted as saying: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that. I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now. I don't know which will go first - rock'n'roll or Christianity. Jesus was alright but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." His words attracted little attention in Great Britain but when they were reprinted in the US in Datebook, southern Christian fundamentalists reacted with hate and outrage.

The videos below document the response to John's remarks, including the Beatles press conference in Chicago on August 11, 1966, Brian Epstein's press conference for the U.S. media, and the reaction in Birmingham, Alabama: