Beatles - Live on Morecambe & Wise TV Show 1963 (2023 STEREO MIX)
Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2023 6:11 pm
Here’s another BEATLES television performance that I’ve remixed into stereo, featuring all live playing and live singing from the boys (but no screaming fans drowning out their songs). No overdubs, no added karaoke or reverb, just the original mono recording - but now in stereo for the very first time.
Background on the show
It’s December 1963. The Beatles were in the middle of their fourth UK concert tour that year - their first tour as a headlining act. Their second LP “With The Beatles” was top of Britain’s album charts. With advance orders of over one million, their new single “I Want To Hold Your Hand” would have gone straight to No.1 in the UK had it not been for their previous single “She Loves You” returning to the pole position for a second time thanks to daily Beatle press coverage. “With The Beatles” stayed at the top of the UK album charts 21 weeks after displacing their debut LP “Please Please Me”, and the boys remained at No.1 for 51 consecutive weeks. No other group or singer has ever achieved 51 consecutive weeks at No.1 in the album charts.
Eric Morecambe & Ernie Wise are England’s most popular comedy double act of all time, and the duo starred in their own regular TV series from 1961 until 1983 as well as appearing on Ed Sullivan’s CBS show no less than a dozen times in the 1960s. On the morning of Monday 2nd December 1963 - two months before the Beatles themselves would make their debut on Sullivan’s show - the group visited Studio D at the ATV Elstree Studio Centre to rehearse and record a guest spot on an episode of “The Morecambe & Wise Show”. The Beatles performed three of their new songs, all singing and playing live, with guitar amplifiers cleverly hidden behind the set (you can occasionally see the corner of Paul’s amp in front of Ringo). Following their performance they took part in a comedy chat with hosts Eric & Ernie, and then, dressed as a ‘barbership quartet’ in boaters & striped blazers, they sang an old musical number with Ernie - rudely interrupted by Eric in a Beatle wig!
Immediately following this taping, the Beatles performed a midnight charity concert that night in Mayfair’s Grosvenor House Hotel Ballroom.
This episode of “The Morecambe & Wise Show” was broadcast across the ITV network four months later on Saturday 18th April 1964 from 8.25pm till 9.00pm (so much had happened in the group’s career since the show was recorded - they had taken the USA by storm, there were just six days of filming left for their movie debut “A Hard Day’s Night”, they had made their one and only appearance on BBC’s “Top Of The Pops”, and “Can’t Buy Me Love” had become their fourth UK single to reach No.1).
I’ve cleaned up the recording and remixed the original sound into stereo to make the fab four’s powerful, live performance really come alive, and to showcase their unrivalled vocal and instrumental talents at a time when the British public were becoming totally gripped by Beatlemania (and, soon, the whole world would feel the same way too).
Here’s my 2023 Stereo Mix (synched to the 1963 broadcast video): hxxps://we.tl/t-oMB3obuDUJ
Link valid until 13th April 2023.
Introduction by Morecambe & Wise
This Boy
All My Loving
I Want To Hold Your Hand
Comedy skit with Morecambe & Wise
Moonlight Bay
Closing theme tune "Two Of A Kind" by Jack Parnell & His Orchestra
Enjoy!
Kev
Background on the show
It’s December 1963. The Beatles were in the middle of their fourth UK concert tour that year - their first tour as a headlining act. Their second LP “With The Beatles” was top of Britain’s album charts. With advance orders of over one million, their new single “I Want To Hold Your Hand” would have gone straight to No.1 in the UK had it not been for their previous single “She Loves You” returning to the pole position for a second time thanks to daily Beatle press coverage. “With The Beatles” stayed at the top of the UK album charts 21 weeks after displacing their debut LP “Please Please Me”, and the boys remained at No.1 for 51 consecutive weeks. No other group or singer has ever achieved 51 consecutive weeks at No.1 in the album charts.
Eric Morecambe & Ernie Wise are England’s most popular comedy double act of all time, and the duo starred in their own regular TV series from 1961 until 1983 as well as appearing on Ed Sullivan’s CBS show no less than a dozen times in the 1960s. On the morning of Monday 2nd December 1963 - two months before the Beatles themselves would make their debut on Sullivan’s show - the group visited Studio D at the ATV Elstree Studio Centre to rehearse and record a guest spot on an episode of “The Morecambe & Wise Show”. The Beatles performed three of their new songs, all singing and playing live, with guitar amplifiers cleverly hidden behind the set (you can occasionally see the corner of Paul’s amp in front of Ringo). Following their performance they took part in a comedy chat with hosts Eric & Ernie, and then, dressed as a ‘barbership quartet’ in boaters & striped blazers, they sang an old musical number with Ernie - rudely interrupted by Eric in a Beatle wig!
Immediately following this taping, the Beatles performed a midnight charity concert that night in Mayfair’s Grosvenor House Hotel Ballroom.
This episode of “The Morecambe & Wise Show” was broadcast across the ITV network four months later on Saturday 18th April 1964 from 8.25pm till 9.00pm (so much had happened in the group’s career since the show was recorded - they had taken the USA by storm, there were just six days of filming left for their movie debut “A Hard Day’s Night”, they had made their one and only appearance on BBC’s “Top Of The Pops”, and “Can’t Buy Me Love” had become their fourth UK single to reach No.1).
I’ve cleaned up the recording and remixed the original sound into stereo to make the fab four’s powerful, live performance really come alive, and to showcase their unrivalled vocal and instrumental talents at a time when the British public were becoming totally gripped by Beatlemania (and, soon, the whole world would feel the same way too).
Here’s my 2023 Stereo Mix (synched to the 1963 broadcast video): hxxps://we.tl/t-oMB3obuDUJ
Link valid until 13th April 2023.
Introduction by Morecambe & Wise
This Boy
All My Loving
I Want To Hold Your Hand
Comedy skit with Morecambe & Wise
Moonlight Bay
Closing theme tune "Two Of A Kind" by Jack Parnell & His Orchestra
Enjoy!
Kev
