The Beatles' Story

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The Beatles' Story is the sixth album by the Beatles in the United States, issued on 23 November 1964 by Capitol Records in both mono and stereo formats (although the mono was merely a fold-down of the stereo mix). It is a documentary double album featuring interviews, press conferences, snippets of original or orchestral versions of Beatles songs with voice-overs. The easy listening excerpts were created, produced and arranged by Stu Phillips with the Hollyridge Strings originally recorded for the first Capitol Records' Beatles Song Book.

This documentary album was issued in response to interviews of the Beatles collected on the Vee-Jay Records release, Hear the Beatles Tell All.

Video The Beatles' Story

Development

Originally, Capitol Records intended to release the group's 1964 performance at the Hollywood Bowl, but due to a lack of advanced live recording and sound enhancement technology and the excessive amount of loud screaming fans on tape the album was shelved. Another plan was to release a 2 LP 'Greatest Hits' album for the Christmas market. Four songs were to make their Capitol debut on this album: "A Hard Day's Night," "Misery," "There's a Place," and "From Me to You." The album was compiled, but never issued.

Maps The Beatles' Story

Release and reception

The Beatles' Story entered the Billboard Pop Albums on 12 December at number 97, and on 2 January 1965 it reached its peak position at number seven, where it remained for four weeks before beginning its slide down the charts. It has been certified a gold record by the RIAA; it was also released in Canada and is currently out of print. It was released by Toshiba EMI in Japan on the Apple label (in stereo) in a box set with a deluxe 24 page 12"x12" booklet that contains the entire text of the script in English and Japanese.

The album contains a brief stereo excerpt of "Twist and Shout" performed at their 1964 Hollywood Bowl concert. The album was only released on cassette tape in Canada (4XBB 2222) and Japan (ZR44-1019), and was never issued at all on a stereo 8-track cartridge tape. The Beatles' Story was being prepared for release on digital audio tape in 1996, but when the format failed commercially the plan was scrapped. In 2014, The Beatles Story was made available on CD for the first time in the Beatles boxed set, The U.S. Albums.