The Beatles on Record could be renamed The Beatles for Beginners. But that is not a criticism.
Full personal disclosure: We believe any TV show that focuses on the Beatles is good.
So on the one hand, this new documentary -- which was produced in conjunction with the group's record company and will make its Canadian debut Friday on CTV -- has enough tidbits to keep hardcore Beatlemaniacs intrigued. There's some casual studio chat, for example, that yours truly has not heard before.
But perhaps The Beatles on Record works best as a chronological primer for fresh Fab Four fans.
After all, in this era of digital sound, something that was recorded in 1969 but has been remastered is just as crisp and clear as something recorded in 1979, or 1989, or 1999, or last week.
The Beatles -- Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, the late John Lennon and the late George Harrison -- have shown a remarkable ability to connect with generation after generation. The devotion is based largely on the music, but as well known as the songs are, The Beatles on Record can help provide a general context for the band's progression.
A 15-year-old today who loves listening to Ticket to Ride and Hey Jude on his or her iPod might not necessarily know that the former was recorded relatively early in the Beatles' career, and the latter was recorded relatively late.
Some 15-year-olds won't care. But some will. And that's where The Beatles on Record -- which is a companion piece to the mono and stereo CD box sets which were released earlier this year and are selling like hotcakes -- can help in a tight little one-hour package.
The documentary merely features the voices of the four band members, plus producer George Martin, in various interviews through the years, talking about the Beatles' music in approximate (albeit not exact) chronological order.
Having just seen the 67-year-old McCartney's recent TV special, Good Evening New York City, we had a chuckle at an old McCartney interview from about 1963 that is shown in The Beatles on Record. The young McCartney says, "Obviously we can't keep playing the same sort of music until we're about 40, because old men playing From Me to You ... nobody's going to want to know about that sort of thing."
Seems McCartney had the last laugh on himself with that one!
Starr has an amusing quote when he's talking about the classic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, for which the Beatles spent month after month building songs in studio, as opposed to their earlier routine of learning the songs, recording them as quickly as possible, leaving Martin to fiddle with the details and getting the hell back on tour.
"It's a fine album," Ringo says of Sgt. Pepper. "But I did learn to play chess on it."
The Beatles, of course, fragmented in the late '60s as the band members developed individual interests and started to get on each other's nerves. But that said, Ringo offers a strong defence of the Beatles' output, even in reference to the infamously tense sessions for what became the Let it Be album and film.
"I think it shows on the record that when we were excited, the track's exciting," Starr says. "It doesn't matter what we were going through as individuals on the b.s. level. When it gets to the music, we all put in 100%."
The Beatles on Record obviously isn't as comprehensive as The Compleat Beatles or The Beatles Anthology. But sometimes a simple approach is refreshing, for old and new fans alike.
