This Day in Beatle History

January 9

2014 (Jan 9) - Rolling Stone Readers Poll: White Album Greatest Double Album

Rolling Stone magazine published their Readers Poll: The 10 Greatest Double Albums of All Time. The top 5 were: 5. Led Zeppelin, 4. Bruce Springsteen – The River, 3. The Rolling Stones – Exile On Main Street, 2. Pink Floyd – The Wall, and winning the poll was The Beatles – The White Album.

January 10

1962 (Jun 6) - First Beatles Recordings at What Will Become 'Abbey Road'

The first Beatles recording session took place at EMI studios. The group recorded four tracks, one of which was ‘Love Me Do’ the four musicians received payments for the session of £7.10 ($12.07) each.

1964 (Jan 10) - Vee Jay Releases 'Introducing The Beatles' in the US

The first US Beatles album, ‘Introducing The Beatles’, was released on Vee-Jay records. Vee-Jay would be forced to stop selling the disc by the end of the year because of legal complications, but by then over 1.3 million copies had been sold.

1966 (Feb 18) - Brian Wilson Finishes 'Good Vibrations'

Beach Boy Brian Wilson finished recording the future classic song ‘Good Vibrations’, which went on to become the band’s third US number-one hit. As a child, his mother told him that dogs could pick up “vibrations” from people, so that the dog would bark at “bad vibrations” Wilson turned this into the general idea for the song.

1981 (Jan 10) - 'Just Like Starting Over' #1 in the US; 'Imagine' #1 in the UK

Just weeks after his death, John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ started a four-week run at No.1 on the UK singles chart, 10 years after it was recorded. Lennon had two other songs in the Top 5 this week, ‘Happy Christmas, (War Is Over’) and ‘(Just Like) Starting Over.’ ‘Imagine’ was voted by the viewers of BBC TV as the best lyrics of all time in a poll broadcast in Oct 1999. Also on this day John and Yoko’s ‘Double Fantasy’ album started an eight-week run at No.1 on the US chart. ‘Just Like Starting Over’ was at No.1 on the US singles chart.

2002 (Jan 10) - Lost Beatles Tapes Recovered

500 Beatles tapes known as the ‘Get Back sessions’, stolen in the 1970s were found after UK police cracked a major bootleg operation in London and Amsterdam. Five men were arrested.

2008 (Feb 20) - Beatles' Autographed Rolling Stones Album Auctioned

A 1976 Rolling Stones album bought for £2 at a car boot sale sold for £4,000 at an auction. The ‘Black and Blue’ LP was signed by John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Paul and Linda McCartney and George Harrison as well as members of the Rolling Stones. The seller obtained the album after haggling the cost down from £3.