Sunday, September 9, 2012

"Side By Side" for the last time

On April 04 1963, The Beatles had a lunch time session for BBC radio. The reason for the taping was to appear on the BBC program "Side By Side". The recording of the show took place at the BBC Paris studios in London.
It was decided to perform six songs (including the show's theme song) but only five of the songs have appeared on bootleg and one song in particular has appeared on a commercial release by Apple.
The show starts with the "Side By Side" theme song and is followed by a cover tune entitled "Too Much Monkey Business" sung by John Lennon. The next song is rumoured to be the first single "Love Me Do" which alas has not been released in any form yet. The next song recorded for the show is sung by Ringo and is his to feature from the first LP: "Boys".
This is followed by a very interesting choice of material. The Beatles decided to play an original composition for broadcast on the BBC yet never properly recorded this composition for any EMI product at the time. This was very unusual. The song in question is "I'll Be On My Way" sung by Paul McCartney (who probably wrote most of it). It has a very breezy feel to it. The song was eventually given to Billy J. Kramer.
The last song to be performed for this BBC session is a version of their third single; "From Me To You". The host of this radio show was John Dunn. The performance was broadcast at the end of June 1963.
"I'll Be On My Way" has been released on various bootlegs over the years including: "Rough Notes", "The Beatles Vs. Don Ho", "Happy Birthday", "Directly From Santa Claus" and was commercially released on Apple's "Live At the BBC".
The entire show - minus "Love Me Do" can be found on the complete BBC Collection box set from Great Dane as well as the LP "The Beatles At The Beeb, Volume One" on Beeb Transcription Records :)

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