All you need is here

A quarter of a century after splitting up, The Beatles’ Anthology finally told the full story – from their own point of view – of the greatest pop group of all time. First broadcast as a six-part TV series in 1995 and subsequently released on video, it contained a wealth of rarely-seen archive material, including clips from concerts, TV appearances and the Beatles’ movies, along with extensive interviews with John, Paul, George and Ringo. The Anthology project also included a book and three chart-topping double CDs of out-takes and alternative versions of Beatles classics, including ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’ – two reworkings of demos of the Lennon songs. The success of the Anthology brought the music of the Fab Four to a whole new generation and led to The Beatles’ Number Ones album topping the charts a couple of years later.

Now all 10 hours of the original Anthology series have been re-mastered and released on four DVDs, with an additional disc featuring 81 minutes of extra material, most of which has never been seen before. Showing a rare glimpse of the (then) remaining three Beatles working together in the mid-1990s, the extra footage also features the recording sessions and the filming of the videos for ‘Free As A Bird’ and ‘Real Love’. These sessions and other get-togethers were shot over a 12-month period when the three Beatles met in private at the late George Harrison’s house and at Abbey Road studios. Here they can be seen fondly recollecting personal moments from their early days and the footage includes one hilarious scene with Paul and George jamming on an old blues number – with a pair of ukuleles!

Apart from the additional material included on this much-anticipated DVD boxed set, it also features for the first time surround-sound re-mixes of Beatles tracks (in both Dolby 5.1 and DTS formats) offering a totally new listening experience on familiar songs.

Now living in Dingle, Co. Kerry, Chips Chipperfield was the producer of the original Anthology series (for which he won a Grammy in 1996) and was also involved in putting together the extra material included on the DVD re-release. A renowned producer in the music field, his work includes the 1999 Jimi Hendrix film Band Of Gypsies, for which he won another Grammy, and he also produced the Classic Albums documentary series for TV in the ’90s which included profiles of U2, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder and Steely Dan.

According to Chipperfield, the genesis of the Anthology goes back to the early 1970s, shortly after the Beatles broke up. “Neil Aspinall, who started out as The Beatles’ roadie and has been with them ever since, had started compiling material around 1971,” he says. “He put together an hour and a half of footage, which was to be called The Long And Winding Road. Because of everything else that was going on – the business troubles and all that – it was shelved. Then about 1990 with the business stuff sorted out, Paul, George and Ringo agreed to have a go at it again.”

Chipperfield worked closely with Neil Aspinal and the series director Bob Smeaton, along with a small, dedicated team who had the gargantuan task of trawling through the extensive Beatles archives. “There was a lot of putting together of material involved in it,” he says. “I think we had between 9,000 and 10,000 individual pieces of film footage – all of them had to be cleared. There was also a tension throughout the whole project, which took about five years in all. From our point of view there was the question of whether it would ever see the light of day. You just never knew.”

As anyone who has seen the originally released version of the Anthology series would agree, it was worth the wait. There are endless highlights among the dozens of clips included. The extensive excerpts from the Beatles movies including Hard Day’s Night, Help, Magical Mystery Tour and Let It Be are essential viewing for Beatles fans, as are the groundbreaking promotional clips for songs like ‘Strawberry Fields Forever’, ‘Penny Lane’, ‘Paperback Writer’ and ‘Rain’.

“I think the Shea Stadium stuff is beautifully done,” Chipperfield says. “The quality was great and the sound wasn’t bad for the time either. Decisions were made that we would show complete songs rather than snippets as much as possible. Another decision we took was that a lot of it was archive material so we didn’t clean it up – we presented it the way it was originally shown. The only thing we did was that we colorised the ‘All You Need Is Love’ footage. It was the first ever satellite transmission when it was aired in 1967 but all that was left was black and white film from the TV companies. We had 35 millimetre colour transparencies as a reference and I think it worked well.”

The former Beatles had gained a reputation, especially in their later years, for exercising complete control over the way they are represented. Presumably they had a lot of input into the making of the Anthology?

“They had quite a lot of involvement – they saw clips of the material offline and approved it as we went along,” says Chips. “The great thing was that they liked what we did right from the start. They were actually incredibly easy to work with as well. In fact I’ve had more problems working with young bands on five-grand pop videos than I did with The Beatles working on the entire Anthology. But even more importantly, they enjoyed it.

“From my point of view it was hair-on-the-back-of-the-neck stuff most of the time. I’d never sat through things like Let It Be or Magical Mystery Tour. It really brought home to me just how big and phenomenal they were and how much they achieved in just five or six years. Nobody was or will ever be as big as The Beatles and I’m not talking about record sales here – I’m talking about the effect they had on the world. It’s just not possible for any band to have that effect again.”

Apart from the clearer pictures on the DVD release, the sound has improved in leaps and bounds, thanks to the higher resolution digital sound now available on the new format. “The sound makes such a huge difference,” Chipperfield agrees. “The pictures are better pictures than they were on the video but the sound is a totally different experience. For the last few years they’ve been re-mastering and re-mixing Beatles songs at Abbey Road.

“What’s on DVD now is what we made originally. I personally feel it’s much better than what was televised at the time. It was a hugely difficult job to edit ten hours down to four and a half hours for TV. A great job was done but it was a fairly brutal process. I think what we have now is the definitive version.”

“Working on the Anthology changed my life,” Chips concludes. “If you work for the Beatles you have, rightly or wrongly, a certain credibility especially with Americans – they call me ‘Sir’ over there. Winning a Grammy for it was great but it was a satisfaction and a huge relief just to get it finished. Apart from that it’s a nice feeling to have been a part of it all. It’s what musicians must get all the time when they put out great songs.

“Put it this way – there’s not much from these days that will last even 50 years from now. This will be around in 300 years time. I’m certain of it.”