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The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl (1977)

Where the lyrics of The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl take you, and where it was really made.

The tapes behind this album sat untouched in a Capitol vault for years before the band's first official live record came out in 1977.

Key places

Where the 1964 and 1965 tapes were recorded (1977)

Recording site Hollywood Bowl — Capitol recorded the August 1964 show here, aiming at an American live album. Capitol also recorded two shows here during the 1965 tour. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl: live album by the Beatles, released May 1977
• Compiled from three performances at the Hollywood Bowl in August 1964 and August 1965
• Released by Capitol Records in the United States and Canada, and on Parlophone in the United Kingdom
• The band's first official live recording

Background

• Capitol considered recording the February 1964 Carnegie Hall concert but could not get approval from the American Federation of Musicians
• KRLA DJ Bob Eubanks booked the 23 August 1964 Hollywood Bowl show, which Capitol recorded
• Capitol aimed to release a live album in America, but the tape quality proved inadequate for commercial release
• Capitol used a 48-second excerpt of 'Twist and Shout' from the concert on the 1964 documentary album The Beatles' Story
• Capitol recorded two more shows at the same venue during the band's 1965 American tour
• The Beatles were among the few major recording artists of the 1960s without a live album
• Phil Spector was given the tapes in 1971 to try to build an album, but the tapes stayed unreleased for another six years
• Capitol president Bhaskar Menon revisited the tapes when a rival label was about to release a Star-Club live album

Recording

• George Martin was handed the tapes and asked to compile a listenable official live album
• The three-track machine overheated while running and melted the magnetic tape
• Martin and recording engineer Geoff Emerick blew vacuum cleaner air to keep the tape deck cool during transfer to 16-track tape
• The original sleeve dates the recordings to 23 August 1964 and 30 August 1965
• 'Ticket to Ride' and 'Help!' were recorded on 29 August 1965
• 'Dizzy Miss Lizzy' is a composite of parts from both 1965 nights

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• English rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960
• Grew out of Lennon's earlier band the Quarrymen
• Built its reputation playing clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg
• Starr officially joined in 1962

Members

• John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr

Career

• Manager Brian Epstein shaped them into a professional act
• Producer George Martin developed their recordings after they signed with EMI
• First hit Love Me Do came in late 1962
• By early 1964 they were international stars
• Part of the British Invasion of the US pop market
• Retired from live performance in 1966
• Turned to more sophisticated studio albums: Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the White Album and Abbey Road
• Founded Apple Corps in 1968
• Broke up in 1970

Around this album

• Abbey Road was the last album the group recorded together
• On 20 September 1969, six days before release, Lennon told McCartney, Starr and manager Allen Klein that he wanted a divorce from the group
• No public announcement of the split came until McCartney announced he was leaving in April 1970

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Al Rudis in The Miami Herald: the songs appear on other Beatles albums in better quality, but fans would still want the album
• Rudis: the sloppiness may come from primitive amplification and monitoring, yet the concert atmosphere comes through
• Cliff Radel in The Cincinnati Enquirer: the screaming lasts throughout the album and fades into white noise
• Radel praised George Martin's fine job in transferring the three-track tapes to multi-track techniques
• Robert Christgau: the sound rings clearly through the shrieking, and the arrangements are tighter than on record

Reappraisal

• Rob Sheffield in The Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004): a tribute to the screaming girl fans who drown out the band
• AllMusic critic Richard S. Ginell: impressed by the performances under chaotic conditions, but lamented the sound quality and the separation from crowd noise
• Ginell cited the sound quality as a possible reason the record stayed out of print
• Uncut's 2015 list of the greatest lost albums: scarcely a hi-fi listening experience, yet revelatory for its raw, R'n'B-weighted tracks
• The Guardian's Gwilym Mumford: the original 1977 album is regarded as one of the weaker Beatles albums

Records

• The album reached number one on the UK New Musical Express chart and number two on the US Billboard chart, although the recordings were 12 and 13 years old
• As of 12 June 1977, one of three live albums in the Billboard Top Ten, with the Beatles at number two
• Voted the 26th best record of 1977 in the Pazz & Jop poll
• Christgau ranked it 12th on his own year-end list
• Released simultaneously on 8-track tape and cassette

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• John Lennon, in a 1971 Rolling Stone interview, wrongly identified the obscure Italian compilation The Beatles in Italy as a live recording
• A bootleg LP, Back in 64 at the Hollywood Bowl, was based on a complete tape of the August 1964 performance that left the Capitol vault in the early 1970s
• Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine sampled the audience screams from this album on the band's 'Clair' (1987) and buried the song beneath them
• Capitol's release followed the impending release of a rival label's Star-Club album, a 1962 mono concert recording
• George Martin and Geoff Emerick kept the tape deck cool with vacuum cleaner air during transfer

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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