Greg Hawkes Beatles

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.

This 2CD set contains the never before released 1,2,3,4! Tape, this includes unique edits of 'Besame Mucho' and 'How Do You Do It?' and is a brand new tape source for this famous compilation. Also included are the definitive versions of the 'Boardroom Tape' from tape source, and also the 'Sessions' album. All have been remastered including pitch and phase correction for the very first time.

Some can argue that "Strawberry Fields Forever" is the most important rock song ever written. It is certainly one of the most influential, breaking the boundaries of what a pop song can achieve going past even what The Beatles achieved on Revolver. We have been blessed, going back to the days of vinyl, to have working takes from EMI studios to track the progression of the development of the song. They surfaced on vinyl on Ultra Rare Trax Vol. 1 on Swinging Pig (TSP 001) and have been featured on countless compact disc reissues including Ultra Rare Trax Vol. 1 on The Swingin' Pig (TSP-CD-001), Ultra Rare Trax Vol. 4 on The Swingin' Pig (TSP-CD-026), Unsurpassed Masters Vol. 3 on Yellow Dog (YD003.). In 1999 Vigotone released the John Barrett tapes on Turn Me On Dead Man (VIGO-178/179). In 1997 It's Not Too Bad was released by Pegboy (1008) which revealed twenty additional mintues of "Strawberry Fields Forever" outtakes dating from its initial conception in Spain in 1966 and Lennon's Kenwood home before going into the studio.

Yesterday…and Today was the last Beatles album to be created exclusively for the American market without the group's direct consent, and its tumultuous history seemed to bring the issue of those albums to a head, both for the group and Capitol Records.

The Seven Years Of Christmas is a 2002 bootleg CD by The Beatles, consist of all seven of the group's Christmas records plus a series of previously unreleased outtakes. This was released by Yellow Dog.

On February 7, 1964, The Beatles arrived at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport, greeted by scores of screaming, swooning fans who rushed the gate to catch a glimpse of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr as they took their first steps on American soil. Two nights later, on Sunday, February 9, 73 million viewers in the U.S. and millions more in Canada tuned in to CBS to watch The Beatles make their American television debut on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show.’ In what remains one of the world’s top-viewed television events of all time, The Beatles performed five songs on the live broadcast and ‘Beatlemania,’ already in full, feverish bloom in The Beatles’ native U.K., was unleashed with blissful fervor across America and around the world. The British Invasion had begun. The new 13 CD box set THE U.S. ALBUMS commemorates the 50th anniversary of these history-making events, spanning 1964’s MEET THE BEATLES! to 1970’s HEY JUDE.

Alternates mixes, Rockband Mixes, Fake Mixes. This set brings together 2CDs of excellent quality Revolver Studio Outtakes and Mixes, some previously unreleased before this date - including some isolated track elements. The set is also the first to include Rockband Mixes as part of a Revolver Sessions compilation.