Beatles in 1961 (and 1963)

June 25 in 1961, Beatles recorded "If You Love Me Baby"



HERE IS AN INTERVIEW ON NPR RADIO ABOUT THEIR SIGNIFICANT TURNING POINT IN 1963. 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: that recording was taken from a series of sessions that the group recorded live on the BBC in 1963, a year that author and journalist Colin Fleming argues was the group's most emblematic and Beatlesque. Now, that's even before they'd made it big here in the States. 

MARTIN: OK. So, why 1963?

FLEMING: Well, If you wanted to know what The Beatles liked, what they listened to, what they were trying to become and, in large part, who they already were and who they would be, the '63 BBC recordings would be your one-stop shopping destination.

FLEMING: When they tackled something like a crucial rock 'n' roll text like Elvis' "That's All Right, Mama," you can hear that they keep elements of the past - that burnished country tone that Elvis's band excelled at - but they've added a sort of stomping, northern soul element to it. So, they're really overhauling the past.

TO LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW, CLICK HERE.

The Beatles pose in Liverpool's Derby Square in February 1963 — the year, according to author Colin Fleming, that yielded the band's most definitive work.