Episode 067: “The Beatles’ Story” ft. Dr. Richard Driver

This episode steps outside the usual track-by-track format to explore The Beatles’ Story, Capitol Records’ 1964 double-LP “documentary” about the band. With historian Dr. Richard Driver, we look at how this release tried to define the Beatles for the American audience—mixing interviews, narration, and orchestral renditions with facts that were sometimes inaccurate. We trace the record’s place alongside other interview albums of the era, and how it fit into Capitol’s rush to issue product when a planned Hollywood Bowl live album fell through. The discussion reaches beyond the LP itself into questions of myth-making: how early biographies, liner notes, and media portrayals created an official story of the Beatles, and what was left out. Along the way, we connect these myths to later scholarship and even to Peter Jackson’s Get Back, asking what it means for fans and historians to keep retelling the Beatles’ story.

Listen to full episode :