Beatles

The Beatles' final European tour encompassed 15 concerts, starting off in Paris on the 20th June 1965. They played two shows in the capital that day, at 3pm and 9pm, each watched by 6,000 people. They stuck to the set they had played throughout the tour, comprising 12 songs, several of which were new: Twist And Shout, She's A Woman, I'm A Loser, Can't Buy Me Love, Baby's In Black, I Wanna Be Your Man, A Hard Day's Night, Everybody's Trying To Be My Baby, Rock And Roll Music, I Feel Fine, Ticket To Ride and Long Tall Sally.

So much has been said and written about the Beatles – and their story is so mythic in its sweep – that it's difficult to summarize their career without restating clichés that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans. To start with the obvious, they were the greatest and most influential act of the rock era, and they introduced more innovations into popular music than any other group of their time. Moreover, they were among the few artists of any discipline who were simultaneously the best at what they did and the most popular at what they did. Relentlessly imaginative and experimental, the Beatles grabbed hold of the international mass consciousness in 1964 and didn't let go for the next six years, always staying ahead of the pack in terms of creativity and never losing the ability to communicate their increasingly sophisticated ideas to a mass audience. Their supremacy as rock icons remains unchallenged to this day, decades after their breakup in 1970. It's hard to convey the scope of the Beatles' achievements in a mere paragraph or two.

By the end of 1963, the Beatles had probably gone as far as they had dared to dream in establishing the widest possible audience for their music in Britain. When America beckoned, at the dawn of 1964, they were ready and primed to embrace stardom on an unseen scale. Capitol scheduled I Want To Hold Your Hand for US release on 26 December 1963, backed by a $30,000 national marketing campaign - $250,000 in today’s money. Five million fliers and windscreen stickers proclaiming “The Beatles Are Coming!” above a Capitol logo adorned with a Beatle wig, were pasted anywhere they might be seen. Point-of-sale displays were placed in record stores. A four-page Capitol promo pamphlet sent to the trade focused on the Beatles as a cultural phenomenon, placing inordinate emphasis on their haircuts. If anything sold the Beatles to America, even before their music had been widely heard, it was their hair, an identifying motif that became the talk of the nation. Capitol spent $30,000 publicising a haircut!, but their investment paid off, when on 4 April, Billboard’s Hot 100 showed the Beatles at #1 (with She Loves You), 2, 3, 4, 5, 31, 41, 46, 58, 65, 68 and 79, setting the seal on a full-blown cultural phenomenon.

All Together Now is a two volume Beatles bootleg series. It compiles items from different promotional records, including flexi-discs, radio spots, and other ephemera. These CD's were made by Remasters Workshop in 2011.

So much has been said and written about the Beatles – and their story is so mythic in its sweep – that it's difficult to summarize their career without restating clichés that have already been digested by tens of millions of rock fans. To start with the obvious, they were the greatest and most influential act of the rock era, and they introduced more innovations into popular music than any other group of their time. Moreover, they were among the few artists of any discipline who were simultaneously the best at what they did and the most popular at what they did. Relentlessly imaginative and experimental, the Beatles grabbed hold of the international mass consciousness in 1964 and didn't let go for the next six years, always staying ahead of the pack in terms of creativity and never losing the ability to communicate their increasingly sophisticated ideas to a mass audience. Their supremacy as rock icons remains unchallenged to this day, decades after their breakup in 1970. It's hard to convey the scope of the Beatles' achievements in a mere paragraph or two.