The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
Songs The Beatles gave away revealed on tour
“The Beatles’ music is universal,” according to broadcaster Bob Harris, whose many irons in the fire of classic rock include the live show The Songs The Beatles Gave Away, with author Colin Hall.
“They are the single most important musical force we’ve ever known, so the fact that new and successive generations of listeners have discovered them is not a surprise.”
It’s hard to imagine a time – unless you’re someone whose memory stretches back to the 1950s – when The Beatles haven’t been a prominent part of the world’s cultural backdrop.
Yet it also feels their legend has only been enhanced recently, particularly since the release of Peter Jackson’s 2021 documentary Get Back.
“There was also the release of Now And Then,” says Harris, referring to last year’s “last” Beatles song. “It’s fantastic, I’ve been pleased to see a wide range of age groups in our audiences.
“It’s not just people who enjoyed The Beatles in the ’60s, they also bring along their children or their grandchildren.
“The audience is very cross-sectional, which I love to see.”
A familiar face – and voice – since his days presenting The Old Grey Whistle Test during the 1970s, “Whispering” Bob’s own Beatles documentaries inspired this show.
In 2009 he made a programme about its subject, those songs written by The Beatles but recorded by other artists, as a follow-up to his The Day John Met Paul, which charted the moment Lennon and McCartney first met in 1957.
“Having done the basic research for the programme, Colin then picked up that research and went on to write a book,” recalls Harris.
“He’s such an expert, he was previously the custodian at Mendips, John Lennon’s childhood home.
“There’s nothing he doesn’t know about The Beatles, he’s an incredible font of knowledge.
“I said to him: ‘We should tour this because it’s such a good idea.’
“We’ve got all the clips, demos and archive that we used on the programme, and between the two of us we tell stories and reminisce.
“It’s a really lovely evening and no two shows are the same because Colin and I tell stories and anecdotes, and there’s a lot of audience participation. There’s even a singalong!
“It’s really good fun, and it’s going down very well.”
Harris throws into the conversation that he’s met all the Beatles – which is an achievement, even for a seasoned broadcaster.
“I interviewed John in New York, I interviewed George at Friar Park (Harrison’s former estate), and then Paul and Ringo and I have bumped into each other through the years,” he says.
“Meeting John in New York in 1975, though, was one of the real highlights of my life, let alone my professional life.
“He and Yoko had just discovered she was pregnant with Sean, he was happy and content, and we got on really well. I spent three days with him, and I loved his company.
“He was a great hero of mine anyway, so that was something very special.”
More recently, McCartney has helped with research for this show.
“Paul was particularly pleased that we’d come up with this idea, because it was different,” says Haris.
“Everybody talks about Yesterday and Sergeant Pepper and all of that, but it’s not often Paul has a conversation with people who are delving into his rarities. When we met him he’d also done a lot of research and the list of nearly 30 songs he had exactly tallied with ours.
“There are songs by people like Billy J Kramer and Cilla Black, and George Martin also commissioned Paul to write film music.
“Paul was very forthcoming, we did a long interview with him which provides the spine of the evening. We keep returning to his explanations of the songs, but we also have interviews with George and Cilla, all the people we spoke to when we made the programme. It’s very comprehensive.”
While discussing The Beatles on the road with Hall is clearly a passion project for Harris, it’s just one of many he continues to keep busy with at the age of 78.
The most prominent, of course, is his BBC Radio 2 show Bob Harris Country, which runs every Thursday evening and celebrated its 25th anniversary earlier this month.
“There was a huge celebration on Radio 2 for the anniversary, I was very happy about that,” he says.
“I also do a podcast with my son Miles called A Game Of No Halves, we’ve got a fantasy football team, and it’s becoming very popular.”
Harris’s son Miles Myerscough-Harris is a sports and music photographer and videographer, who started the online Expired Film Club during lockdown.
There, he discusses his exploits shooting with expired photographic film and vintage cameras for two million followers on TikTok, many of whom have picked up on A Game Of No Halves.
Like father, like son, Miles’s website says: “I like to look at the world through a vintage lens,” while the pair are also avid Manchester United fans.
“Doing the podcast was Miles’s idea and I’m going along with it because I really enjoy it,” says Harris.
“We’re beginning to appear on other people’s podcasts as well and we’re starting to get some guests in. It’s very different to what I normally do, but I’m absolutely loving it.
“I’m kept really busy, one way or another. My life is very busy and very happy.”
The Songs The Beatles Gave Away with Colin Hall and Bob Harris is at St Margarets, Braemar, tomorrow, and the Lemon Tree, Aberdeen, on Saturday. Visit bobharris.org and aberdeen performingarts.com