One of my former-Full Sail University students shared this video with me and I’m really looking forward to this version of the documentary. Looking at the trailer it looks like the black and white footage is probably from a documentary I already have called The Beatles: The First US Tour, which came out in 1994, thirty years ago, at the 30th anniversary of Beatlemania.  Interestingly twenty-two years later Ron Howard and friends took much of the same footage from that first tour and repackaged it with interviews conducted in 2016. I noticed in the repackage that some of the on-stage antics that were acceptable in 1964 but wouldn’t fly in 2016 were “not included,” particularly comments made by John Lennon during their concert in Washington, D.C. I’m curious if this version of the material will have the same edits. 

I noticed in the YouTube description that this version acknowledges the work of the original documentarians, Albert and David Maysles who captured all of the black and white footage from 1964. It looks like this documentary will get the 4K upgrade and concert remixed by Giles Martin, son of original Beatle producer, George Martin. 

One comment from Paul McCartney about how America was so welcoming to the Beatles in 1964 might have been because the nation needed something to cheer for following the tragic assassination of President Kennedy. It looks like the US can use another dose of Beatlemania joy 60 years later.

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Tags: beatlemania, beatles ’64, Beatles documentary, something to cheer,  video Fridays

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