The Making of Pop Go the Beatles- Part 2

So where was I? ...

So, now I was ready to create the all-time best Beatles radio show. I started by outlining all the different ideas I had for shows. I hadn't written anything but shows for my business for over 20 years. My business shows were easy, pick a topic, write an outline, including all the issues I needed to cover, gather the research material and then just let it flow. This was very different.

There was music to interject (the focus of the whole show) and research to do on each song, interviews to edit and splice, and 20 coherent scripts to write. I would need to script almost every word for these shows and make it interesting and fun.

I had been working on the first show (in my head) for quite a while. It would be based on one of the Beatles biggest achievements, during the first week in April, 1964 the boys held the Top 5 positions on Billboard's chart simultaneously. They were

5. Please, Please Me: Veejay Records
4. I Want to Hold Your Hand: Capitol Records
3. She Loves You: Swan
2. Twist & Shout: Tollie Records
1. Can't Buy Me Love: Capitol
I had great live or alternate studio takes for all of these songs, Please, Please Me from the Beatles first US Concert 2/22/64 in Washington D.C., I Want To Hold Your Hand from the Ed Sullivan Show, She Loves You from the Beatles 1/30/64 show in Paris Twist & Shout from the same show and 2 alternate studio takes of Can't Buy Me Love (one with Paul flubbing a few lines and both with background vocals that when removed for the final cut made Can't Buy Me Love the first Beatles song with just one singer, Paul).

But this was just 5 songs and I wanted to create a 60's type of atmosphere for my debut hour. So I pulled a few interviews from the Beatles first US visit and inserted Joyce and myself as the interviewers and added another alternate studio take for This Boy, on the US charts that week as well.

The boys had a total of 14 songs on the chart that week, another achievement that will never be topped. We added a few 60's type commercials and Joyce and I studied the way the DJs talked back then and created an atmosphere in the studio using posters, records and music to get us in the right frame of mind. And we did it.

The show was fun, nostalgic and like nothing that has ever been heard on the radio before. Plus not one LP cut anywhere. Of course, in all the excitement I almost forgot that this was a 2-hour show.

I then created a fantasy 1964 Beatles concert. We would play all 18 songs that the Beatles played live in 1964. Now to find cuts that were of high enough quality to play on the air, that was a challenge. Remember, in 1964, Beatles concerts consisted of mostly ear shattering screaming and occasional music.

Luckily I had found a super high quality copy of the Beatles concert at the Hollywood Bowl in August of 1964 (Capitol was thinking that they would release a live concert LP of the Beatles for Christmas and recorded the show. They deemed it not good enough to release but it was by far the highest quality live concert recording of the boys I had ever heard). I also had a copy of the Beatles 1/30/64 show in Paris which was very high quality due to the fact that the audience was about 75% boys instead of the normal 75% screaming at the top of their lungs girls.

I mixed some cuts from Australia , Washington DC and Philadelphia and it turned out to be one great fantasy concert. And a phenomenal way to kick off my first Pop Go The Beatles Show

For more info on Pop Go The Beatles go to

www.popgothebeatles.com