Sixty Years Since The Beatles Toured Australia and New Zealand

Here in Australia over the last week or so there’s been a lot of fond reminiscences of the time, sixty years ago now, that The Beatles came to this country.

Australia’s national broadcaster the ABC (kind of like the BBC in the UK) has just played a terrific hour-long documentary on The Music Show that is really worth a listen:

Click on the image above to stream. Or you can listen here:

One of the key guests on the show is Greg Armstrong, co-author with Andy Neill of a comprehensive new book all about the tour called When We Was Fab – Inside The Beatles Australasian Tour 1964.

Greg is a Melbourne-born and based radio presenter, researcher and Beatle historian. He is a co-presenter on Australia’s Let It Be Beatles, the world’s longest-running radio show dedicated to the Beatles, on Melbourne’s WynFM. The show is now in its 31st continuous year, having broadcast over 1,400 episodes. Andy Neill is a UK-based music writer, researcher and historian, born in New Zealand. Alongside several other music biography books, he compiled and annotated Across The Universe: The Beatles on Tour and on Stage (2009) and Looking Through You: Rare and Unseen Photographs from the Beatles Book Monthly Archive (2015).

Their book is amazingly researched with a wealth of photos, memorabilia, stories and information. You can get a taste of what’s inside here.

When We Was Fab – Inside The Beatles Australasian Tour 1964 is published by Woodslane Press.

50 Years Since Let It Be – Podcast

Time for the final podcast instalment in what has been a long and winding Beatle road.

Back in 2014 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) began a series celebrating the 50th anniversary release of each British Beatle LP.

As each album anniversary came around ABC Radio presenter Rod Quinn spoke to US John Lennon biographer and Beatle expert, Jude Southerland Kessler.

Jude is the author of the ambitious nine-volume John Lennon narrative biography. The latest book in the series is Volume 4: Should Have Known Better (to see the details for this volume scroll down after clicking through).

In May the pair finally made it to Let It Be, the final LP released by the band.

You can find it online here, or just click on the red US Let It Be Apple label below:

Previous broadcasts/podcasts in the series are Please Please MeWith the BeatlesA Hard Day’s NightBeatles For Sale and of course, Help! – which is in two parts: Side One here, and Side Two here.

You can hear Rod and Jude talk about Rubber SoulRevolver; and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by clicking here.

And they tackle Yellow SubmarineThe Beatles (a.k.a. The White Album), and The Esher Demos disc here.

The Abbey Road podcast is here.

50 Years Since Abbey Road – Podcast

Back in 2014 the ABC (the Australian Broadcasting Corporation) began hosting an ongoing series celebrating the 50th anniversary release of each British Beatle LP.

As each album reaches its anniversary ABC Radio presenter Rod Quinn speaks to US John Lennon biographer and Beatle expert Jude Southerland Kessler. Jude is the author of the extraordinary (and ambitious!) nine-volume John Lennon narrative biography. The latest instalment in the series is Volume 4: Should Have Known Better (to see the details for this volume scroll down after clicking).

The pair spoke about the 50th anniversary of Abbey Road late last year, but it has taken them a while to upload that episode onto the web. They’ve finally done it though, and you can now find it here, or just click on the Abbey Road Apple label below:

Like all the other podcasts in the series, this one is also very insightful – and really well worth a listen.

Previous broadcasts/podcasts have covered Please Please MeWith the BeatlesA Hard Day’s NightBeatles For Sale and of course, Help! – which is in two parts: Side One here, and Side Two here.

You can hear Rod and Jude talk about Rubber SoulRevolver; and Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by clicking here.

And they tackle Yellow Submarine, The Beatles (a.k.a. The White Album), and The Esher Demos disc here.