George Harrison Said He and the BBC Had a Lot of Beatles Bootlegs
In 1989, George Harrison said he and the BBC had a lot of Beatles bootlegs. However, that was before Live at the BBC, and The Beatles Anthology‘s three-disc compilation came out. Who knows how many more bootlegs are still out there?
George Harrison said The Beatles could release some of their bootlegs after a lawsuit with Capitol and EMI
During an interview with Mark Rowland (per George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters) in 1989, George explained that The Beatles had a few things that were going to come out in terms of bootlegs.
He said he and the band had the real versions of some of their songs that people had been bootlegging for years. The Beatles had plans to put it all out, especially since they’d just come out of a lawsuit with their record label, Capitol and EMI. George wanted to release them because then nothing lingered from the past.
“There is a lot of stuff that can come, and it just means that it’s easier now to deal with that,” George explained. “How can you deal with the future if you haven’t tied the past up? So this really clears the way, and it’s great because all kinds of things can come out.”
George said he and the BBC had a couple of Beatles bootlegs
While speaking with Rowland, George remembered he had a “really great” bootleg tape of The Beatles that had never been out before. They’re demos that he and the group made at George’s house when they were working on The White Album.
“It’s ‘Back in the USSR’ and ‘Julia’ and all them,” George explained. “I’ve got them on an Ampex four track.” Rowland asked if there was a lot of stuff in the vault. George replied that there was, but he wasn’t the only one with Beatles bootlegs hanging around. He revealed that the BBC has a lot of stuff too.
“There’s mainly different versions of stuff, and there’s probably a lot of stuff which is stuff that people know as bootlegs from our club days,” George added.
Rowland said he’d heard that there were hundreds of hours of Abbey Road stuff. George replied that he didn’t know how many takes were recorded in the studio.
“I think that’s a bit of a cheat when they take something which is just the take before,” he explained. “It’s really exactly the same virtually, except maybe the performance wasn’t quite as good. ‘Cause that was the reason why you chose whatever take it was.”
The group has released two albums that may have lightened the number of bootlegs
Since George spoke with Rowland in 1989, The Beatles have released tons of unreleased music that may have lightened their number of bootlegs.
In 1994, they released Live at the BBC. The compilation album features The Beatles’ various radio performances on the BBC Light Programme from 1963 to 1965. There is also The Beatles Anthology‘s three-disc compilation.
In the mid-1990s, the remaining Beatles, including John Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono, reunited one final time to make the massive project that culminated in a book, an 11-hour eight-part documentary, and three double-disc albums featuring more than six hours of unreleased live recordings, demos, alternate versions, and new material in the form of “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love,” which the group adapted from two of John’s old demos.
In a video about the making of the project, George explained, “The main gist of it is with the music to find the most ancient Beatle music possible and come in chronological order through the various other records we made and bring it up to date.”
Anthology 1 debuted on the Billboard 200 at No. 1, becoming the first Beatles album to do so. Then, Anthology 2 and Anthology 3 did the same.
Whether The Beatles have more bootlegs stored in some vault remains to be seen. Hopefully, there are.
