The Beatles

Background

As early as February, 1964, Captiol records wanted to record the Beatles live in concert for a possible record release for the U.S. record market. At first, Capitol wanted to record the Beatles at Carnegie Hall on their first U.S. visit, but the Musicians Union in the U.S. denied them permission. Now, some six months later and permission recieved by the Musicians Union, Capitol records set out to record the Beatles live in concert complete with screaming teenagers.

Three concerts of the Beatles recorded at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California were taped. One of the concerts was taped August 23, 1964, with the other two concerts taped August 29 & 30, 1965. Of the three, only the August 29th show wasn't used because of microphone problems. George Martin flew to the U.S. to record the first Hollywood Bowl concert, but he wasn't in favor of recording The Beatles in concert. He felt they didn't sing very well at the concerts, and the screaming of thousands of Beatlemaniacs made it all the more reason to be against it. As for the Beatles themselves, they didn't care one way or the other.

With the concerts having been taped, Capitol records decided not to release them on the grounds of poor sound quality. Seven years later, in 1971, Apple records had been considering releasing this album, but never went through with it.

In 1977, Capitol records asked George Martin to go through the tapes of the two shows to make an album. After having the master tapes remixed, Capitol decided to combine songs from the August 23, 1964 and August 30, 1965 shows and make them into one album. This album serves as a document into this frenzied period of Beatlemania from 1964-65. Even on the record charts, The Beatles at The Hollywood Bowl did pretty well, nearing the top on Billboard and Cashbox.