1963, September

The Beatles were still away on holidays when a 10:00am-1:15pm editing, overdubbing and mixing session took place this day in Studio Two at Abbey Road. "Little Child" and "Hold Me Tight" were edited, George Martin recorded additional keyboard passages for "Money (That's What I Want)" and "I Wanna Be Your Man", and then "All I've Got To Do", "Don't Bother Me", "Little Child", "Hold Me Tight" and "Not A Second Time" were mixed into Mono.

The Beatles are on VACATION!

Royal Albert Hall, London

The Beatles headed this afternoon show, the annual "Great Pop Prom" promoted by Valentine, Marilyn and Roxy magazines in aid of the Printers' Pension Corporation. Eleven other acts appeared, including the Rolling Stones, DJ Alan Freeman was the compere.

On September 16th, the Beatles took off for holidays, John and his wife Cynthia traveled to Paris, where they were joined by Brian Epstein, George, with his brother Peter, visited his sister Louise in the USA, who had emigrated to Benton, Illinois in 1954, and Paul and Ringo went to Greece.

The Beatles - (Victory) Memorial Hall, Northwich

Public Hall, Preston

After this show, Paul drove 25 miles to the Imperial Ballroom in Nelson, arriving just after midnight, to appear on a panel judging the "Imperial Miss 1963" contest, part of the annual "Young Ones" Ball, sponsored by the local newspaper - the "Nelson Leader".

Studio Two, EMI Studios, London

On July 5th, Brian Epstein verbally agreed to the group undertaking a June 1964 concert tour of Australia, and on December 2nd the contract was formally signed. Now though, to satisfy demands from Australian radio, the group recorded four messages for broadcast there, three addressed directly to Bob Rogers (a DJ at the Sydney station 2SM) and one "open-message", to be used by any station. These semi-scripted, semi-spontaneous lines consisted of typically witty Beatles chatter and were the first of a number of speech items the group taped at EMI over the years.

The recordings were made between 2:30 and 6:30 pm along with ten takes of a re-make of "Hold Me Tight", first attempted for "Please Please Me" on February 11th, but completed more successfully this time around.

Between 7:00 and 11:30 pm, which meant running 90 minutes over the blocked time of 10:00, the Beatles set about another re-make, of George's Don't Bother Me", with ten takes needed to complete the recording, and then resumed work on two songs began the previous day, taping 16 more takes of "Little Child" and six more of "I Wanna Be Your Man".

Studio Two, EMI Studios, London

Back to EMI for more work on the second album, to be released as "With The Beatles". From 2:30 to 6:00 pm the group recorded three new Lennon-McCartney numbers: one take of "I Wanna Be Your Man", Ringo's vocal vehicle on the album (the previous day, John and Paul had also given it to the Rolling Stones, they taped their version on October 7th, released it on November 1st and it was their first top 20 hit within a month), two takes of "Little Child" and 15 takes of "All I've Got To Do".

In the evening session, 7:00 to 10:15 pm, nine takes were recorded of another Lennon-McCartney song, "Not A Second Time", and the first seven of "Don't Bother Me", George Harrison's debut as a composer.

The Beatles had a day off.

The Beatles had a day off.

The Beatles - ABC Theatre, Blackpool

Before traveling to Croyden for their evening's work, the Beatles stopped off at the Playhouse Theatre in London to record a BBC radio session for Saturday Club - a special edition, it's fifth birthday show, 262 shows after the first broadcast on October 4, 1958, to be transmitted in the Light Programme on October 5th between 10:00 am and 12:00 noon. Quite apart from the world audience during the program's last 29 minutes, recent editions in the series had acheived a British audience of around nine million, a remarkably high figure.

Including rehearsal time, this session took place from 1:00 to 4:00 pm, the Beatles performing "I saw her standing there", "Memphis, Tennessee", "Happy Birthday Saturday Club", "I'll Get You", "She Loves You", and "Lucille". "Happy Birthday Saturday Club" was the group's short through appropriate ode to the anniversary, the composer details being officially noted on the program report as "Trad arr Lennon". The last three of the six songs were included in the broadcast by the BBC's General Overseas Service, 11:31-11:59 am.

After the Saturday Club recording, Paul gave a short solo interview to BBC Radio producer Rosemary Hart for a program in her Home Service Series "A World Of Sound". It was broadcast on Thursday, November 21st, 4:30-5:00 pm., in an edition sub-titled "Liverpool: A Swinging City".

The Beatles - Odeon Cinema, Dunstable Rd. Luton, Bedfordshire

The Beatles - Gaumont Cinema, Taunton

The firts of a four-night run promoted by John Smith. Brian Epstein granted him this mini-tour because of the earlier cancellation of several "Mersey Beat Showcase" dates. The Beatles' fee was £250 per night.

Studio Two, Aeolian Hall, London

Recordings for the final three editions of the 15-part BBC Light Programme radio series "Pop Go The Beatles", taped in one long session. The first of the three was produced, as usual, by Terry Henebery, but the final two were handled by Ian Grant.

Including rehearsal time, Program 13 was recorded between 2:00 and 4:00 pm, the Beatles performing "Too Much Monkey Business", "Till THere Was You", "Love Me Do", "She Loves You", "I'll Get You", and "The Hippy Hippy Shake". During later editing, "A Taste Of Honey" (taped while making Program 14) was additionally inserted after "I'll Get You", making a total of seven Beatles performances in this show rather than the usual six. It was broadcast between 5:00 and 5:29 pm on Tuesday, September 10th, with separately taped guest act Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.

After a half-hour break, the 14th edition was recorded between 5:00 and 7:30 pm, the Beatles performing "Chains", "You Really Got A Hold On Me", "Misery", "A Taste Of Honey", "Lucille", "From Me To You", and "Boys". This show was broadcast between 5:00 and 5:29 pm on Tuesday, September 17th, with guests the Marauders.

After another 30-minute breather, the Beatles launched into the 3rd part of the session, for Program 15. Songs recorded were "She Loves You", "Ask Me Why", "There's a Devil in her Heart", "I saw her standing there", "Sure to fall (In love with you)" and "Twist and Shout". This final program in the series was broadcast between 5:00 and 5:29 pm on Tuesday, September 24th, with guests Tony Rivers and the Castaways, the nucleus of what would later become the Beatles Apple Publishing group Grapefruit, who contributed such old country numbers as John Loudermilk's "Abilene", a contemporary US hit for George Hamilton IV.

The Beatles took a break today.

A Sunday TV taping for ABC Television, but not this time for "Thank your lucky stars" - this appearance was on the variety show "Big Night Out", hosted by Mike and Bernie Winters. (It was the first of four Beatles TV engagements with the comedian brothers)

Fellow guests in this edition included Billy Dainty, Patsy Ann Noble and Lionel Blair. Following daytime rehearsals, the show was taped during the evening on the main stage at ABC's Manchester Studio, before an audience of 600, the Beatles miming to three songs "From me to you", "She loves you", and "Twist and Shout". It was transmitted across most of the ITV network, 7:40 to 8:30 pm. on Saturday, September 7th.

Note: The Beatles had originally been requested to tape their "Big Night Out" debut on Sunday, August 18th, for Saturday, August 24th transmission, but their diary could not accommodate this.