Offered is a cut album page signed by the group widely regarded as the best music group of all time, The Beatles. Each of the four legendary members have graced the page with their autographs. Paul McCartney has signed in fountain pen adding the inscription “lots of love from The Beatles” above his name and “xxx” inscriptions after each of his bandmates’ names. John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr have all signed in ballpoint pen. A rare and desirable vintage c. 1963 example. Originally obtained at The Elizabethan Rooms in Nottingham, England on 7th March 1963. The cut has been affixed to a larger page with some bleed-through of printing on the reverse and some creasing and toning, but is in overall fine condition. This item comes with a LOA from Beckett Authentication.
For Beatles fans and collectors the world over, finding or assembling something creative and unique about the Fab Four can become a lifelong quest. Sure there are lots of signed albums and pictures – which are over the top cool in their own right – but what about good old fashioned innocent, full on fun? Here we have a whimsical time capsule of a very special early period of the band that emphasizes the youthfulness, excitement and simplicity of a playful time when The Beatles were in their prime. Starting with a very early all four member signing of an album page at The Elizabethan Ball Room in Nottingham England – on March 7th, the day of their performance there in 1963. This was during their spring 1963 Tommy Roe / Chris Montez Tour! – This item comes with a LOA from Beckett Authentication.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_Beatles%27_live_performances#1963
Paul was only 20 at the time and clearly the playful one of the bunch – placing the inscription “Lots of Love from the Beatles” above his name and putting kisses in the form of “xxx” after his name and all of his band mates – which leads me to believe they were signing a young girls album page – sure would be fun to track her down and get the full story there! We are sure that whoever it was probably had no idea how rare it would become to have all the lads, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr signatures at one time from one place at a concert in 1963!
What is clear is that “Love” would be a very popular theme for the Beatles throughout their career together as a band – stated best in their song All You Need is Love – where Paul and John combined to write the word “love” into this song 39 times, not counting all the “She Loves You yeah, yeah, yeah” Ringo snuck into the ending of the recording allegedly because he didn’t get to sing those lines in the song “She Loves You” – which came out in 1964 – another great example of the band’s playfulness in the early years! They first released “All You Need is Love” on the Magical Mystery Tour album in 1967 – That’s certainly “Lots of Love from The Beatles” – Thank you Paul – very prophetic in this case for sure.
Surrounding the signature album page across the top of the piece we have cartoon caricatures of John, Paul, George and Ringo by famed artist Ron Campbell which came to us with a completely original piece of artwork on the back of the Fab Four framing of the Chief Blue Meanie signed by Ron Campbell himself. We separated this piece in order to put it front and center for the world to see. Ron Campbell was the principle animator for “The Beatles” cartoon show which first aired in 1965 through 1967 as original – then later on as reruns. In 1968 Campbell was tapped again to work on the feature film Yellow Submarine – which is where we get the Chief Blue Meanie character featured and signed by Ron Campbell here, with a full peace sign finished off with a “Thank You Very Much” inscribed signature – Making this whole piece shadow box about both Peace and Love. Ron actually accepted a job with Hanna Barbara shortly after working on Yellow Submarine, moved from London to Hollywood, where he would work on classics like the Flintstones, Jetsons, Captain Caveman, and Scooby Doo. Then he moved over to Disney TV where he worked on and won awards for shows Bonkers, Goof Troop, Darkwing Duck, Winnie the Pooh, Rugrats, Rocket Power, and an adult cartoon, Duckman.
https://www.beatlescartoonartshow.com/rons-bio/
Now to all of the different 45 RPM sleeves of the song “All You Need Is Love” which highlight a largely forgotten fact about how huge this song is and how it came to be. You see in early 1967 the BBC was developing and working on a Television industry first – a multi Nation live TV event broadcast via satellite all around the world to an estimated audience of over 500 million people – absolutely gigantic numbers for the day and a technical miracle of an accomplishment for 1967. Brian Epstein manager of the Beatles had committed the boys to not only writing a song to celebrate the world, but to perform it live from the recording studio, without ever asking them. Now the Beatles had already made the statement that they were done performing live and were not impressed when Epstein announced what he had committed them too just 3 weeks prior to the scheduled event while they were all wrapping up Sargent Pepper. Needless to say, but the procrastinating millennials put off even starting to write the song until about a week and a half before, with John writing the lion share and Paul contributing some ideas and all of them adlibbing live during the recording – like the “She Loves You, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” at the end. Approximately 50 rehearsals and track recordings later it was decided that the Beatles would perform and record the song live – so on June 25th, 1967 did just that in their EMI Abby Road studio filled with A list rock legends including Mick Jagger, Marianne Faithfull, Keith Richard, Keith Moon, Eric Clapton, Pattie Harrison, Jane Asher, Mike McCartney, Graham Nash, Gary Leeds, Hunter Davies, Terry Condon, Allistair Taylor and Brian Epstein and more (taken directly from http://www.beatlesebooks.com/all-you-need-is-love )
Back here in America we had to wait 3 more weeks after the broadcast of the “Our World” BBC program to get our hands on this single released on July 17th, 1967 – and would later appear on the albums Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine thus completing the connections to Ron Campbell’s work. Here is my favorite quote about this song as taken from this terrific weblink – http://www.beatlesebooks.com/all-you-need-is-love as stated by Ringo Star in the book “Beatles Anthology”: “The writers of the song were masters at hitting the nail on the head!..It was for love. It was for love and bloody peace. It was a fabulous time. I even get excited now when I realize that’s what it was for: Peace and love, people putting flowers in guns.”
America had to wait a little over three weeks from the “Our World” broadcast to be able to purchase the “All You Need Is Love” single, which was released on July 17th, 1967.