BBC’s Bob Harris and author/music journalist Colin Hall set out upon an intimate speaking tour based around their mutual love and appreciation of The Beatles, including rare archive from Bob Harris’ collection of interviews with Lennon & McCartney.
By 1963 the pair had written so many songs they simply couldn’t all be accommodated on just their own Beatles releases, so it made artistic and economic good sense to be offered to other artists for recording and the Merseybeat boom of 1963 & 1964 gave them a tailor-made outlet in artists such as Cilla Black, Billy J. Kramer and Tommy Quickly. This is the story behind those songs, the hits, the misses and the demos that the group never released: ‘The Songs The Beatles Gave Away’.
Full 2024 tour dates:
NOTE: Due to extraordinary popular demand more dates are being added to the tour - please check back regularly.
For the past 20 years Colin Hall has been the custodian at John Lennon’s childhood home ‘Mendips’ (guiding the likes of Bob Dylan, Yoko Ono and James Taylor around the property), he's written two books on The Fab Four and presented a BBC Radio 4 documentary with Alexei Sayle titled ‘The Lennon Visitors’. Colin was incredibly in the audience at the Village Fete where John was first introduced to Paul..!
The two friends have worked on several projects together before including the upcoming film Pre:Fab (which focuses on the band’s early days as The Quarrymen), a WBBC production of ‘The Songs The Beatles Gave Away’ and 2007’s Sony Award winning ‘The Day John Met Paul.’
This is a signed copy of a “show playlist” from one of Bob’s shows.
Bob Harris delves into the music written, though not necessarily recorded by the Beatles, uncovering forgotten gems along the way. Contributors include Sir Paul McCartney.