Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl, The by The Beatles – ****

First released: 1977

After years of speculation, a compilation of the two Hollywood Bowl concerts performed by The Beatles in 1964 and 1965 were edited together to make this album length concert. The story goes that the sound was supposedly so crappy due to the overwhelming screams that the recordings were shelved. This may be an exaggeration or George Martin is just hypercritical. In any case, the next idea was to release this around 1971 as an Apple album, but that never happened either. By 1977, either tastes had changed or technology did, or money was running short. In any case, Martin took another stab at it and produced this almost chart-topping album. Amazing, since it was released in the midst of punk and disco fever. Now, we’ve waited an eternity again for an official release on CD of this album, but as CDs are on the wane, I guess digital download is the best to be expected. It’s a good album and better than it is sometimes given credit, but at this point, the two concerts should be represented in their entirety.