The BBC’s Bob Harris, and author and music journalist Colin Hall, set out upon an intimate speaking tour based around their mutual love and appreciation of The Beatles, including rare archive from Bob Harris’ collection of interviews with John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

By 1963 Lennon and McCartney had written so many songs they simply couldn’t all be accommodated on just their own Beatles releases, so it made artistic and economic good sense to offer them to other artists for recording, and the Merseybeat boom of 1963 and 1964 gave them a tailor-made outlet in artists such as Cilla Black, Billy J. Kramer and Tommy Quickly.

This is the story behind those songs, the hits, the misses and the demos that the group never released: The Songs The Beatles Gave Away.

Bob Harris

‘Whispering’ Bob Harris, OBE has been at the very heart of UK music scene for the best part of fifty years. He has established a worldwide reputation as one of the most trusted and influential broadcasters of his generation – described by Radio Times as “…one of the greats of British contemporary music broadcasting” and by The Mail On Sunday as “a national treasure”.

Colin Hall

For the past twenty years Colin Hall has been the custodian at John Lennon’s childhood home Mendips, guiding the likes of Bob Dylan, Yoko Ono and James Taylor around the property; he’s written two books on The Fab Four and presented a BBC Radio 4 documentary with Alexei Sayle titled The Lennon Visitors. Colin was incredibly in the audience at the Village Fete where John was first introduced to Paul!

Bob and Colin have worked on several projects together, including the upcoming film Pre:Fab (which focuses on The Beatles‘ early days as The Quarrymen), a WBBC production of The Songs The Beatles Gave Away and 2007’s Sony Award winning The Day John Met Paul.