The Beatles Blue Album

January 1969 – The Beatles planned to return to live performance, setting up in Twickenham Film Studios, London, for 21 days of rehearsals. They then decamped to their new studio in their Apple office building in Saville Row and on January 30th performed their last ever live group performance on the rooftop. All of this was filmed for a proposed documentary (eventually released in 1970). During the rehearsal process, they asked Glyn Johns, who had been hired to help with the live sound, to attempt a mix to create an album. This was never released, becoming known as one of the great ‘lost’ albums in rock history and is now included in this Super Deluxe Set. The album was delayed further and in fact became their 12th and final official album release on 8th May 1970 following additional production by American producer Phil Spector.

Picking up where 1962-1966 left off, the double-album compilation 1967-1970, commonly called The Blue Album, covers the Beatles' later records, from Sgt. Pepper's through Let It Be. Like The Red Album, The Blue Album was released in the wake of a pair of widely advertised quadruple-LP bootlegs, Alpha Omega, Vols. 1-2: The Story of the Beatles, which had appeared early in 1973. And like its companion volume, this set contains a mixture of hits, including singles like "Lady Madonna," "Hey Jude," and "Revolution" – which had originally appeared only as 45s – plus important album tracks like "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds," "A Day in the Life," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," and "Come Together," as well as orphaned tracks such as the single versions of "Let It Be" and "Get Back," which had never been on any LP before.