Harry And His Box Set (V1, 2, 7, 10, 12, 15, 14 update.)

[urasam2]

The material on the transcription discs by the other artists doesn't necessarily come from the same show as The Beatles material. As I've found out recently, some of it's not even from the BBC radio, but lifted from the soundtrack of television broadcasts. It wouldn't be putting The Beatles' performances in context for LR to put these out (so to speak), since they're out of context to begin with.

That may apply to some, but all the TOTP shows with the Beatles in are sourced from Saturday Club with Brian Matthew. You can tell that none are from TV as the sound is consistent throughout.

[Lord Reith]

"It's getting very near the end..."



http://tinyurl.com/exp-jan-27

[TELEGRAM SAM]

This is excellant. Superb sound. Very exciting to hear, as was yesterdays`disc. Thank you very much again for this edition.

[Johnny Kidd Fan Club]

The material on the transcription discs by the other artists doesn't necessarily come from the same show as The Beatles material. As I've found out recently, some of it's not even from the BBC radio, but lifted from the soundtrack of television broadcasts. It wouldn't be putting The Beatles' performances in context for LR to put these out (so to speak), since they're out of context to begin with.

That may apply to some, but all the TOTP shows with the Beatles in are sourced from Saturday Club with Brian Matthew. You can tell that none are from TV as the sound is consistent throughout.

Funnily enough, most of the TOTP shows with the Beatles are not sourced from Saturday Club.
Mr Bathtubes was gainfully employed on a variety of shows - Saturday Club, Top Gear, Top Of The Pops (trans. disc series), Easy Beat for the BBC plus Thank Your Lucky Stars (ITV series) and a number of Radio Luxembourg series.

The TOTP discs were drawn from Saturday Club, Top Gear, Saturday Swings, Swing Into Summer and sometimes special shows such as the Fabs Ticket To Ride show. Sometimes, but rarely, a session was recorded specifically for the Top Of The Pops trans. disc series - Lulu's session on disc 1 is an example and the other tracks on that disc come from Saturday Club (Acker Bilk), Saturday Swings (The Searchers), Top Gear (Manfred Mann, Val Doonican)

Looking at some Fab-related discs - the "preview" disc 0 has The Beatles, Dusty Springfield, Mark Wynter from Top Gear tx 16 July 1964. The Migil Five session is from Saturday Swings (tx. 11th July 1964) and Brian Poole and the Tremeloes were excerpted from Saturday Club (tx 11th July 1964).

On TOTP disc 4, The Beatles and Kenny Lynch come from Top Gear (26 Nov and 10 Dec 64 respectively), Swinging Blue Jeans from Saturday Swings (21st Nov 64) and The Rockin' Berries and Spencer Davis Group originate from Saturday Club 17th Oct 1964.

Interestingly, one of The Swinging Blue Jeans numbers was not actually transmitted in Saturday Swings (Johnny B. Goode), not the only time a track edited from broadcast was selected for use by Transcription Services - the same thing happened with a Val Doonican session at some point iirc.

TOTP 32 has Beatle tracks drawn from their Bank Holiday special while the other artists come from a combo of Top Gear and Saturday Club.

I think somewhere around 1968 but certainly 1969 onwards, the BBC would sometimes use a performance from BBC TV Top Of The Pops where they didn't have a current hit song in a BBC Radio version. Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac had a Top Of The Pops TV version of Man Of The World used on a Transcription Disc featuring a live vocal by "The Green God" Peter Green. Dusty Springfield also appeared similarly on a transcription disc via Top Of The Pops BBC TV and I think Donovan did as well.

So anyway, as you can see, the Fab editions of TOTP (Transcription Disc series) are not all sourced from Saturday Club !

[harrythebannister]

Thanks LR for this amazing set. Really enjoying them.

[Mike Beatlefan]

Mr Bathtubes was gainfully employed on a variety of shows - Saturday Club, Top Gear, Top Of The Pops (trans. disc series), Easy Beat for the BBC plus Thank Your Lucky Stars (ITV series) and a number of Radio Luxembourg series.

The good thing with transcription service discs TOTP or POTP for your DJ is that they are all awailable now (if you are lucky enough) and sound is excelent. And at least until 1972-73 there were no needle drops, they were all live performances recorded at BBC studios. Even GetBack was stated as recorded live at roof top for TOTP 234 and repeated on 235. By the way LR ingnored this.
But recently I have found one strange thing, I start to listen to BBC from 1968. And it was BBC World Service. Top of the Pops shows on World Service were always 30 min. Including only 3 artist and 3 songs per each. And interview only for one of them. While all transcription service discs are approx. 42-43 min. Top Twenty was also 30 min. Seems World Service was from London and they never used transcription discs. But all shows were specially edited for them.

[Lord Reith]

There is a blog that has many TOTP radio shows including The Beatles ones, although there doesn't seem to be any search function so you just have to keep scrolling down.

http://tinyurl.com/3tbjpt68

I find these shows to be kind of frustrating. Brian sounds completely like a fish out of water to me. He was an old square trying to sound "hip" and it strains credibility. He was much better on Saturday Club where he just tended to be himself and said what he thought of a song. But they are a goldmine of rarities.

I start to listen to BBC from 1968. And it was BBC World Service. Top of the Pops shows on World Service were always 30 min. Including only 3 artist and 3 songs per each. And interview only for one of them. While all transcription service discs are approx. 42-43 min. Top Twenty was also 30 min.

That's interesting, didn't know that. Once upon a time the tapes also existed for each TOTP show, so maybe they borrowed those and edited them down to half an hour. I think the only TOTP show that still exists on tape is the very first one, Show 0. Alan Freeman Introduces The Beatles also exists on tape as well as disc. They also used to keep two copies of each TOTP show at the TS library in London, one as an "archive" copy which was never played and one as a "library" copy which could be lent out to other BBC departments so perhaps that is how the World Service version came about? All other transcription discs which were returned by overseas stations would be smashed with hammers and the vinyl recycled for new discs. Happily, overseas stations rarely bothered to return the discs!

EDIT: I forgot to say that the discs were pressed in exact numbers. So if there were 40 stations subscribing to that programme, they would press 40 copies and not one more. If later on an overseas broadcaster wanted one of these programmes, TS would simply make a 7&1/2ips reel to reel copy for them, either from the master tape or the library copy of the disc.

[Lord Reith]

Thanks LR for this amazing set. Really enjoying them.

Thanks. 60 years in the making... phew.

[Lord Reith]

The material on the transcription discs by the other artists doesn't necessarily come from the same show as The Beatles material. As I've found out recently, some of it's not even from the BBC radio, but lifted from the soundtrack of television broadcasts. It wouldn't be putting The Beatles' performances in context for LR to put these out (so to speak), since they're out of context to begin with.

Yeah they did do some weird stuff sometimes, like extracting the soundtrack of Help! complete with the alternate vocal. I've often wondered what the 15 minute overseas versions of Pop Go The Beatles sounded like. Peter Dorling hosted them, but seems to have no memory of doing so. I wonder if he just made a quick intro and then they played the six songs or whether he spoke before each one (or over them... maybe this is why some of those copies in the 80s were missing large chunks at the start and finish of each song?) In any case it would be fascinating to hear them. I wonder how many people in other countries actually realised that, at the height of Beatlemania, you could tune in your shortwave and hear The Beatles doing unreleased stuff?!

[Lord Reith]

One of the most amazing and vital sets ever assembled! Thanks you LR! I am missing disk 18 and 24. What were their clever names, maybe I can find them in my downloads. Ar they still up if I need to download?

This link has the silly names:

http://tinyurl.com/ongoing-re-up-by-MUR

Also there is another link by Ziggy C above.