Tag Archives: Ringo Starr

Beatles on CD – “1962-1966” – the Red Album

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Last time I posted on getting a bargain on the HMV box set of “Sgt Pepper”. This comes from back in 1987 when the Beatles catalogue was released on Compact Disc for the very first time. EMI used their UK record store chain HMV to release all the titles in special, limited edition 12″ box sets.

The other set I was able to get at the same time was “The Beatles 1962-1966” (which was issued later – in 1993).

This is a limited edition box with the catalogue number BEACD25/11. It contains the well-known Red Album double CD set, and comes with a large-format 12-page colour booklet featuring song reviews, a 16″ x 24″ colour poster of the band (posed in front of a big US flag), and a special metal badge.

The front of the box looks like this:

Note the original price sticker still attached. When you take off the lid, this is what you see:

This is the 12-page booklet, and it is different to the small booklet which comes with the CD itself. It features some great photos, a short essay, and a song-by-song commentary by Andy Davis from Record Collector magazine:

Next in the box there’s a large poster:

Then comes the CD itself, held in place by a special cardboard holder with a slot just right for the CD and it’s outer cardboard sleeve. There’s a small thumb-slot at the bottom to help you get the CD out. This box, by the way, is thicker so that it can accommodate the jumbo-sized double “Red” CD :

Also in the box is a small metal pin or badge:

As already mentioned, the CD’s which come with this are in the red jumbo-sized double CD holder – which comes with a booklet:

Inside the lid of the HMV box there’s a limited edition stamped number:

See also the “Sgt Pepper” HMV box set.

 

Beatles on CD – The “Sgt Pepper” Box Set

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When the Beatles catalogue came out on Compact Disc for the first time back in 1987 it was a very big deal and the British record store chain HMV (which has close ties back to the Beatles record company EMI) released a series of limited edition 12” x 12″ box sets to mark the occasion. These boxes look just like those which contain 12″ LP’s so I guess there was a certain symbolism in releasing them in this way – the boxes containing CD’s indicating a move forward from the LP to the Compact Disc.

In all there were 12 individual box sets containing either individual or grouped CD’s, plus there was also a large (and expensive) HMV box housing every Beatle CD title then available.

You can see here all the “Beatles on CD” HMV Box Sets (minus “Abbey Road”) above. These (except for the 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 sets) all came out in 1987.

The box numbered BEACD25 contained “Please Please Me”, “With The Beatles”, “Hard Days Night” and “For Sale” on CD, plus a 224-page book ‘The Book Of Beatle Lists’, plus a Beatles fact sheet.

BEACD25/2 contained “Help”, “Rubber Soul” and “Revolver”, plus a reprint of Beatles Monthly No. 12 and a Beatles fact sheet.

“Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band” (BEACD25/3) had the album with a slipcase, an 8-page ‘behind the scenes’ booklet, the 12″ cut-outs sheet and  a badge.

The “White Album” (BEACD25/4) featured an individually numbered double CD album, a 12-page glossy booklet and a badge.

BEACD25/5 was “Yellow Submarine” and came with an insert, a cut-out ‘Yellow Submarine’ model, and a fact-sheet, while “Magical Mystery Tour” (BEACD25/6) had a 12-page booklet, a large fold out colour poster and badge.

“Abbey Road”  (BEACD25/7) comprised the 17-track CD album, two different posters, a badge and an 8-page booklet.

The “Let It Be” HMV box has a 12-page booklet and badge, and has the catalogue number BEACD25/8.

The “Past Masters Vol.1” and “Vol. 2” came in separate boxes – each with a badge and a 12-page booklet with pictures and track-by-track details. These were numbered BEACD25/9 and BEACD25/10.

Finally, when they were released in 1993 the “Beatles 1962-1966” Red Album and the “Beatles 1967-1970″ Blue Album also came in separate boxes containing the double CD sets, a 12-page colour booklet featuring song reviews, a 16″ x 24” colour poster and a badge. These were numbered BEACD25/11 and BEACD25/12 respectively.

I got a bargain the other day – I was able to get the “Sgt Pepper” HMV box and the “Beatles 1962 – 1966” – both practically mint copies. I’ll give you a close up look at the “Sgt Pepper” box set here, and post on the “62-66” red box next time.

You can see the front of the box above – and it features a different photograph from the one used on the CD. When you take the lid off this is what you first see:

This is an 8-page booklet with lots of photographs taken at the photo shoot for the famous cover of “Sgt Pepper”. There’s also some text about each song. Here are couple of pages from the booklet:

Underneath that there’s the same “Sgt Pepper” cardboard cut-out sheet which came with the original copies of the LP version:

Then comes the CD itself, held in place by a special cardboard holder with a slot just right for the CD and it’s outer cardboard sleeve. There’s a small thumb-slot at the bottom to help you get the CD out:

Also in the box is a small metal pin or badge:

The CD that comes with this is the original release with the cardboard sleeve, booklet with additional info, and an insert that has details of all the faces used in the famous Peter Blake photograph of the band standing with all their heroes:

Inside the lid of the HMV box there’s a limited edition stamped number:

Next post we’ll take a look at the “Beatles 1962-1966” HMV Limited Edition box set.

Abbey Road – Crossing to be Heritage Listed

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The zebra crossing made famous by the Beatles has just been designated a site of national significance by the British government. Fans from around the globe flock to the crossing every day to have their photo taken walking over Abbey Road, just down from the EMI studios of the same name. The Abbey Road studios became almost a home-away-from-home for the Beatles and was where they recorded just about all their greatest songs.

The story of the heritage listing (which means it will be preserved forever from change) has been picked up by media around the world.

Here’s how the BBC World Service covered it this morning:

Paul McCartney says he’s pleased with the news, and that for him it caps off what has been a run of recent success: “It’s been a great year for me and a great year for the Beatles and hearing that the Abbey Road crossing is to be preserved is the icing on the cake.”

The photo-shoot for the album which put the pedestrian crossing on the map took just ten minutes to complete. On a sunny day on August 8th, 1969 photographer Iain Macmillan took what would become one of the best-known, copied, and parodied album covers of all time.

Getting ready to cross

People today can’t get the exact same look as the Beatles got for their cover for two reasons. First is that the crossing is not in exactly the same place it was back in 1969, and second is that Iain Macmillan was about ten feet up on a ladder. He took just six photos and it was the fifth one that was used for “Abbey Road”.

Starting the famous walk. Paul is in bare feet and getting nicely out of step....

There is a webcam (run by Abbey Road Studios) that looks over the crossing now 24 hours a day –  so even if you can’t get to London you can experience it virtually any time you like. The latest release to bear the photo that put a zebra crossing on the map is the remastered CD of “Abbey Road” – which came out last year in the new look with the white strip down the left-hand side. The legend lives on:

Rolling Stone – 100 Greatest Beatle Songs – Australian Edition

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Back in September I posted on the Rolling Stone magazine special edition release called “The Beatles – 100 Greatest Songs“.

Finally, its been released in its Australian and New Zealand version. This 122 page “book” has a different cover!

Clearly its a photo by Bruce McBroom from the same photo-session in London on April 9th, 1969 – but it is different to the one used for the front cover of the US version of this special edition Rolling Stone magazine:

Three Copies of “Q” Magazine

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I needed to visit Australia’s national capital Canberra for work the other day and ended up staying overnight. That meant driving back to Sydney on a Saturday morning and so I had time to call into the large-ish New South Wales country town of Goulburn, which is just off the freeway on the way home.

Goulburn, I had discovered on a previous trip, has a very large second-hand book and record shop just off the main street called The Argyle Book Emporium. When I say big I’m talking an extensive old rambling period building with room after room literally filled floor-to-ceiling with books. One room at the rear is devoted to music. There’s a small selection of music-related books and magazines, and boxes and boxes of records and CDs. Its a bit frustrating as these boxes are just randomly grouped together. They’re not split out into Male Vocal, Female Vocal or Groups for example. Not even 50s, 60s ,70s and 80’s. Just everything mixed in together – making finding anything of interest a needle-in-a-haystack affair….

I didn’t have a lot of time and so I gave the LPs just a cursory flip through. I looked at a couple of boxes at the front which were easy to get to and didn’t find anything. What was more interesting was a very large pile of “Q” and “Rolling Stone” magazines. A collector had obviously off-loaded a lot of past editions that were no longer wanted. The “Rolling Stone” magazines had been pretty well picked over. Nothing really of interest to the avid Beatles collector. However, in the “Q” magazine pile I found these three editions: 

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The first dates way back to June 1987 – a time when we were all celebrating the 20th Anniversary of “Sgt Peppers”. Inside there are ten pages of photos and text:

Sadly, there was a “Sgt Pepper Part II” article that was due to be published in the following month’s magazine. It wasn’t on the pile of mags I found in Goulburn….oh well.

The next “Q” magazine I found featured an extensive article about Paul McCartney from July 1989. The headline on the front cover screams: He sings! He plays! He writes his own songs! For  PAUL McCARTNEY OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS! * Now available for live work! *.  Inside there’s a nine-page article about Paul. It begins: “He never expected to be doing this when he was 46 – “We thought 25 was the end of the line” – but Paul McCartney has stoutly refused to give up his day job. Engaged in rustic rehearsals for his first British tour in 10 years, and with a fresh solo album on offer [“Flowers In The Dirt”], he’s preparing once again to be public property. With mixed feelings…”. In the article there’s reference to the number of times McCartney makes reference to his father, Jim McCartney….”a Liverpool cotton broker and part-time musician who brought Paul up after his mother’s death (when McCartney was 14), and who died himself in 1976. One song on McCartney’s new album “Flowers In The Dirt”, is called “Put It There”, after a favourite phrase of his Dad’s”.

Finally, the “Q” magazine with that awesome David Bailey portrait of Paul and John on the cover. It comes from August 1999. Its a pretty simple premise on the part of “Q”. As the century draws to a close why not run a reader poll asking who are the 100 greatest stars of the 20th Century. According to “Q” readers back then the top ten are (were):

10. Michael Stipe; 9. Liam Gallagher; 8. Noel Gallagher; 7.Madonna; 6. David Bowie; 5. Elvis Presley; 4. Bob Dylan; 3. Kurt Cobain; 2. Paul McCartney; and and number one the runaway winner (according to “Q” by a long way)…..John Lennon.

It is kind of fitting to look back and read a magazine like this (from 1999) in this year (2010) when Lennon would have turned 70, don’t you think? Kind of cements the fact that his presence could in fact be enduring. That now, a further eleven years down the track, his music is still around and he’s still held in very high regard by many. There’s an additional article right at the end of the poll headed: “John Would Have Been Proud”. It says: “Yoko Ono, the keeper of the Lennon flame and the Lennon vat of money, telephoned Q as soon as she heard about the readers’ tsunami-sixed endorsement of her late husband’s transcendental magic and generation-straddling stature….”. That article is illustrated with this beautiful photograph:

Enough said.

(see also “Nine Copies of Rolling Stone”)

1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die

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I was sent a new book the other day. Its called “1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die”. Great title.

Its edited by Robert Dimery and is a compendium of entries about the greatest popular songs ever recorded. The book is a companion to his previous work “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die”.  (Click here if you are wondering about what’s on that album list).

The front cover of "1001 Songs You Must Hear Before You Die"

Of course the first place I went was to the index to find where the Beatles appeared.

They have no less than six full entries:  “A Day in the Life”; “Eleanor Rigby”; “Hey Jude”; “Strawberry Fields Forever”; “Ticket to Ride”; and “Tomorrow Never Knows”.

The entry for "A Day in the Life" uses an image of John Lennon's hand-written lyrics for the song

Interesting that “A Day In The Life” features so prominently as it was also recently nominated as the number one Beatles song in Rolling Stone’s Beatles special edition “Top 100” list.

The Beatles are matched in the book only by Elvis – who also featured with six entries. Bob Dylan, by way of comparison, has four entries…..

John Lennon as a solo artist gets one (a little predictably its “Imagine”); Paul McCartney gets one (perhaps surprisingly its “Maybe I’m Amazed”); George Harrison gets one (“Awaiting On You All”); and Ringo…well, Ringo doesn’t get any solo mentions.

Rolling Stone Magazine Names Its Top 100 Beatles Songs

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I’m a bit late catching up on this one as news first came out about it at the end of August, but it’s probably only just hitting news stands near you now – depending on where you live…

In a special Collectors Edition, Rolling Stone magazine has named its Top 100 Beatles songs of all time. (Apparently its the first time they’ve done this). News of the the special edition came out in the US on August 26.

The press release reads:

ROLLING STONE RELEASES “THE BEATLES 100 GREATEST SONGS”

“New York, NY – August 26, 2010 – Rolling Stone released its first-ever list of the 100 greatest Beatles songs as part of a special interest publication that coincides with the 40th anniversary of the Beatle’s final album, Let It Be, and the 30th anniversary of John Lennon’s death. Topping the list, as ranked by the editors of Rolling Stone, is “A Day in the Life,” followed by “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Strawberry Fields Forever.”

Following an introduction by Elvis Costello, the book features the stories behind each song, dozens of photos, an index of the complete list, and a breakdown of the numbers, including the years with the most songs (1965 and 1966 each had 17), the shortest song (“Her Majesty,” 23 seconds) and the song that spent the longest time at number one on the charts (“Hey Jude,” 9 weeks).

The book also includes special sections with lists of Lennon and Paul McCartney’s five favorite songs, the top guitar and drumming moments of George Harrison and Ringo Starr, respectively, and the best Beatles cover songs.” (ends)

The magazine has created a really nice page detailing their Top Ten songs – including some great photographs too.

See also the different Australian cover.

Beatles Books Abound

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I came into the possession of two more Beatles books this week.

I wasn’t actually looking for them – they came looking for me. As I’ve posted earlier, we’ve recently visited Vietnam. It was my wife’s birthday this week and so I thought a Vietnamese cookbook might be popular. I went along to my local discount bookshop – but no Vietnamese cooking books were to be seen. However, in the Music section (a frequent haunt) I found these two Beatles “picture” books, both by the same publisher, both in the same format, and both only AUS$7.95 (US$7.28) each. Who could resist?

The first is “The Beatles – The Illustrated Biography”. It’s a small-format book – about 17.5 cm (7 inches) by 17.5 cm square. Here’s the front cover:

The Beatles - The Illustrated Biography - front cover

The sub-title reads: “A Unique Collection of 200 Classic, Rare and Unseen Photographs”, and that’s pretty much what this book is. It’s a photographic step through the career in photographs. Part One is called “Four Lads From Liverpool”. Part Two is called “The Long and Winding Road”. Text is provided by Tim Hill, Alison Gauntlett, Gareth Thomas and Jane Benn. It’s published by Transatlantic Press in Britain in 2009.

The Beatles - The Illustrated Biography - rear cover

These sorts of books abound – with many of them published in a variety of formats and all using the Daily Mail library of Beatles photographs. This book is no exception. The photographs are all credited to Getty Images, but I suspect they are all pretty much from the Daily Mail archive – just re-packaged. I must say though that this one is nicely presented in black-and-white and in colour, and worth having in the collection.

Here is a random open page from the book:

The Beatles - The Illustrated Biography - open page

What you can see is a series of two colour shots taken on location in May, 1965 during the filming of the movie “Help”. Clearly the group are in downtime, waiting no doubt for a scene to be lit or some technical problem to be sorted out at Cliveden House in Buckinghamshire. The text talks about the Beatles the previous evening having attended Royal Albert Hall in London to watch a performance by Bob Dylan, whose song-writing was proving to be a big influence on John Lennon at this time.

This little Beatles book is accompanied by what is clearly a companion publication by the same publisher (Transatlantic Press) –  a book called “John Lennon – The Illustrated Biography”:

John Lennon - The Illustrated Biography - front cover

This is in the same format (about 17.5 cm (7 inches) square) as the Beatles book above, and was also published in 2009.

It’s sub-title is “200 Classic, Rare and Unseen Photographs by the Daily Mail” – so clearly it is a re-packaging of many previous books along the same lines. Here’s the rear cover image:

John Lennon - The Illustrated Biography - rear cover

A happy moment (albeit public) between John and his then wife Cynthia Lennon.

The text for this book is by Gareth Thomas, and all photographs are copyrighted to the Associated Newspapers Archive (read: “Daily Mail”), and to Getty Images. Unlike the Beatles book, all the images in this one are black-and-white. Here’s a random open page from the book:

John Lennon - The Illustrated Biography - open page

The photographs here were taken in August 1966, and the text says: “Before leaving for Chicago, John and the boys were taken on a relaxed tour around London airport, including a visit to the new police facilities….However, by the time they had reached their destination [they’d learned about] the seriousness of the “more popular than Jesus” debacle they were facing. John’s anxiety levels were at an all-time high…as he prepared to apologize for his supposedly anti-Christian remarks at a televised press conference….”

Two nice little books to have in the collection

UPDATE:  Another Beatles related book (released in August 2010) is Howard Sounes’ “FAB: An Intimate Biography of Paul McCartney”.

Some Unusual Asian Beatles Items….Part One

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OK. I’m going to preface this first post on some unusual CD and DVD items I acquired in a South East Asian country with a statement that I don’t collect Beatles bootlegs and I don’t support or promote piracy in the music business. All my collection to date has been made up of legitimate, officially released discs – that’s CDs, LPs, singles, books, DVDs, magazines and other printed items.

Recently I was able to spend some time on holiday in Vietnam. Like most Asian and developing countries there are many opportunities to buy fakes – everything from Louis Vuitton luggage and Gucci handbags to Ray Ban sunglasses and Tag Heuer watches. Of course there are lots of stores, markets and street vendors selling illegally copied DVD films as well. There are not so many places to buy music – but they’re there if you seek them out. In the central Vietnamese city of Hue I walked into a store selling mostly fake DVDs and a bit of music on the side and saw a copy of Paul McCartney’s latest 2 CD release “Good Evening New York City”. It was easy to tell it was a fake. It came (like all the cheaply copied DVDs do) in a flimsy clear plastic bag (i.e. no hard jewel case or Digipac cardboard). The artwork was all there ready to put it into a CD jewel case, but it looked like a cheap photocopy. The discs had rudimentary labels printed on them but clearly looked fake. No catalogue numbers, copyright info, not even the title of the disc. One disc had the words “Paul 1” printed roughly on it, the other “Paul 2” and that was it. It was selling (in the local currency) for 20,000 Vietnamese Dong – that’s US$1.03, or $1.17 Australian. And that’s even before any bargaining over the price. I decided I really didn’t want to buy a copy – even for the novelty value.

At the other end of the scale are those CDs and DVDs where its obvious that a lot of time and effort has gone into producing what looks to be an absolutely legitimate release. Standing in a shop in Hanoi (which I did last week) it becomes really hard to tell. Is what I’m looking at the version sanctioned by the artist and record company as the official release for China and South East Asia?

Take this example of the Beatles “Anthology” 5 DVD box set. I got it from a shop in Hanoi that was filled with what looked like official releases. All movie stock was in standard DVD packaging with proper labels. It was not one of the shops dealing in fakes.

It looked like this. Here’s the front of the box:

Chinese Beatles Anthology - front

This copy still has the shrink-wrap around the sturdy cardboard box, though the opening has been cut by me so that the DVDs can be removed. The sticker is attached to the shrink-wrap.

Compare this to this official release purchased in Australia:

Official Beatles Antholgy DVD - front

Again, the shrink-wrap is still around the box. The sticker is also on the shrink-wrap.

Here are the Chinese DVD spines:

The five Chinese DVDs

Compared to the official release:

The official release

The number “12” in the pink circle on each refers to the censorship rating in Australia. Apart from that, not a lot of difference….Here is the sticker on the base of the Chinese version:

Sticker on base of Anthology DVD box - Chinese

As you can see, the Apple word is written but the Apple logo itself is missing. Also, apparently common with cheap copies, there are small spelling mistakes. Notice in the centre box of the sticker the words “Doldy Digital 5.1 surround sound”. It should be Dolby Digital 5.1 sound. This sticker appears to be stuck over the printed label actually on the box. You can faintly see the bar code, etc. underneath. Otherwise the Capital, Abbey Road, DVD Video, Dolby Digital and DTS logos on the right-hand side all look legit. Compare it to the Australian official release, where the label is printed onto the box:

Official Anthology DVD box - sticker on box base

Notice the official release has a Parlophone logo instead of Capitol which is just a territory thing (Parlophone seems to get half the world, and Capitol the other half!). There’s also a Region 1 DVD symbol, and a bar code.

Inside the individual DVD containers the story is similar. The actual discs in the Chinese version are very well-printed and look very official:

Chinese DVD disc

They even say “Printed in the USA”. Compare this to the official release:

Anthology DVD - official release

However, the Chinese stuff up the sequencing of labels on the DVD discs.

Disc One, as you can see above, has Episodes 1 & 2 on it and correctly contains those episodes. Sadly, Disc Two is also labeled Episodes 1 & 2, but actually has Episodes 3 & 4.

Disc Three is incorrectly labeled Episodes 3 & 4, but contains Episodes 5 & 6. And Disc Four is incorrectly labeled Episodes 3 & 4, but correctly contains Episodes 7 & 8.  The “Special Features” 5th disc is incorrectly labeled Episodes 5 & 6 but contains the correct Special Features material…….so, all the contents is there across the five discs. Just a severe lack of attention to detail on the part of the counterfeiters. However, they all play well and the quality of the video looks perfect.

The other noticeable difference to the official release is that the Chinese versions don’t have the small booklets inside each DVD box outlining the contents of each episode. These are in official release and look like this:

DVD Booklet - front - from episodes 1 & 2 in official release

Anthology booklet (rear) - inside each DVD box of the official release

So, you can see that standing in a shop in Hanoi, deciding if this is official or not (especially while it’s still sealed up in its shrink-wrap) is very tricky. The price might have been a give-away: this 5 DVD box set cost 250,000 Vietnamese Dong. That’s around US$12.80 or AUS$14.80. Very cheap. It also doesn’t help if you don’t read Chinese. Here’s a close-up of the sticker on the front:

Sticker on the front of the Anthology DVD box set

Vietnam is actively cracking down on pirate or illegal copies of DVDs, CDs, clothing and watches. While there I read an article in one of the national papers that police are actively trying to break up the flow of counterfeit goods from across the border in China. When departing the country via Ho Chi Minh City airport all travelers bags are X-Rayed separately to the usual security check specifically to identify and confiscate goods, or to fine travelers for having fake DVDs. A New Zealand family in front of us were caught. They had in their bags over 60 copied DVDs they’d bought on the street. They were given the option of handing them over, or keeping them and paying a fine of US$50.00 (at first they were asked to pay a US$100.00 fine, but talked the official down…interesting). They decided the pay the fine and keep their DVDs. All the CDs I had purchased, plus the Beatles “Anthology” 5 DVD box above were in our suitcases and were also X-Rayed. We were not stopped by the airport officials. I’ll detail some of the Beatles compact discs I purchased in the next posts. Again it was confusing and difficult to pick the real from the fake.

See also Some Unusual Asian Beatles Items – Part Two and Some Unusual Asian Beatles Items – Part Three

Dezo Hoffmann – The Beatles Conquer America

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I was in Lismore in New South Wales last week (it’s a small-ish Australian country town in the north of the state). Once I’d completed my work business there I had about 40 minutes to spare before my plane home, so I went for a walk around the town’s CBD. You can probably guess that I can’t resist a second hand/old wares shop when I find one. Especially the one I did find, which was advertising “All Books Half Price”.

Inside this store was a treasure trove. Not only are most walls lined chock-full with old books of all sorts, but there’s antique furniture, old toys, art works, advertising signs, glassware, ornaments and all sorts of collectables.

They had a crate of old records and, while there were some interesting things there from other artists, no Beatles or Beatles-related sadly. “Do you have a music section in the books?”, I asked. “Well, we haven’t got much, but its over there.”, said the sales assistant, pointing to my right.

They actually had four Beatles books.  1. A hardback copy (in pretty good condition) of Peter Brown’s book “The Love You Make – An Insider’s Story of the Beatles” (1983);  2. An original paperback of a book based on the film “Help!” (1965) written by Al Hine (in just reasonable condition);  3. An original paperback called “Love Me Do – The Beatles Progress” (1964) by Michael Braun, similar in vintage and condition to the “Help!” book; and 4. “The Beatles Conquer America”, a book of photographs taken by Dezo Hoffmann.

I already have Peter Brown’s book and, while tempting as they are collectable items, the two old paperbacks were not in the greatest condition. Also, even at half price were reasonably expensive. So, I went for the Dezo Hoffmann book:

Front Cover - The Beatles Conquer America

For a book that came out in 1984 it was in almost mint condition. It contains some absolutely fantastic and rare photographs, and at the half-price cost of just A$7.50, it was a bargain addition to the collection. The black and white photographs were all taken between January 14 and February 22, 1964 when Dezo Hoffmann accompanied the Beatles from London to New York, Washington, Miami, and then back to London. It was their first American tour, and the Beatles as a pop phenomenon was really kicking into gear…

Rear cover - The Beatles Conquer America

The book also contains photos from a short tour to Paris prior to the US visit. Dezo Hoffmann was a Beatles insider – having taken an interest in photographing the band from well before their meteoric rise to fame. As such he got unique access – as seen throughout this book. Dezo also writes a short description of the background to each photograph. Here’s a quick flip through just a couple of the pages:

There is very much a “fly on the wall” feel to these photographs. They capture the Beatles at ease and enjoying themselves away from the fans, enjoying performing, and just soaking up the success that was coming their way.

If you don’t think you’ve ever seen a Dezo Hoffman image of the Beatles before, you might know this one:

Click here for a larger image and some official info on this release. In looking around for additional information on Dezo Hoffmann I found an interesting page about how his original shot outside the BBC was manipulated for this now famous cover.

As well as historic photographs, Dezo Hoffmann also took many informal home movies on location with the Beatles: