With the Beatles



With the Beatles is the second studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. It was released on 22 November 1963, on Parlophone, and was recorded four months after the band's debut Please Please Me. The album features eight original compositions (seven by Lennon–McCartney and "Don't Bother Me", George Harrison's first recorded solo composition and his first released on a Beatles album) and six covers (mostly of Motown, rock and roll, and R&B hits). The cover photograph was taken by the fashion photographer Robert Freeman, and it has been mimicked by several music groups over the years.

The album became the first Beatles album released in North America when it was released in Canada on 25 November under the augmented title 'Beatlemania! With the Beatles', with additional text on the album cover, and issued only in mono at the time, catalogue number T 6051 (a stereo Canadian release would come in 1968, catalogue number ST 6051). With The Beatles was unevenly "split" over the group's first two Capitol albums in the United States; nine tracks were issued on Meet the Beatles! (the eight original compositions plus "Till There Was You"), and the remaining five, all "covers", were placed on The Beatles' Second Album.

The LP had advance orders of a half million and sold another half million by September 1965, making it the second album to sell a million copies in the United Kingdom, after the soundtrack to the 1958 film South Pacific. With the Beatles remained at the top of the charts for 21 weeks, displacing Please Please Me, so that the Beatles occupied the top spot for 51 consecutive weeks. It even reached number 11 in the "singles charts" (because at the time UK charts counted all records sold, regardless of format). EMI Australia did not receive the cover art, and used different shots of the band in a similar style to the black-and-white photograph on other releases. The Beatles were unaware of this until fans showed them the cover during their only Australian tour, and informed the EMI publicity staff that they were not pleased with the substitution.

On 26 February 1987, With the Beatles was officially released on compact disc (in mono only, catalogue number CDP 7 46436 2). Having been available only as an import in the US in the past, the album was also issued domestically in the US on LP and cassette on 21 July 1987. Along with the rest of the Beatles' canon, it was re-released on CD in newly re-mastered stereo and mono versions on 9 September 2009.

The album was ranked number 420 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2003, and was included in Robert Dimery's 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.

Recording
Unlike Please Please Me, whose tracks not previously issued on singles (10 of the 14) were recorded in one day (11 February 1963), With The Beatles was recorded over seven sessions across three months, from 18 July to 23 October. None of its 14 tracks were issued as singles in the UK. In between sessions, as Beatlemania took off across the UK, the group were busy with radio, TV, and live performances. The sessions featured:
 * 18 July: "You Really Got a Hold on Me", "Money (That's What I Want)", "(There's A) Devil in Her Heart" and "Till There Was You".
 * 30 July: "Please Mister Postman", "It Won't Be Long", "Money", "Till There Was You", "Roll Over Beethoven", and "All My Loving".
 * 11 September: "I Wanna Be Your Man", "Little Child", "All I've Got to Do", "Not a Second Time" and "Don't Bother Me".
 * 12 September: "Hold Me Tight" "Don't Bother Me", "Little Child" and "I Wanna Be Your Man".
 * 3 October: "I Wanna Be Your Man" and "Little Child".
 * 17 October: "I Want to Hold Your Hand", "This Boy", and "You Really Got a Hold on Me". This was the Beatles' first session to use four-track recording. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "This Boy" were the A-side and B-side of the Beatles' next single, released on 29 November.
 * 23 October: "I Wanna Be Your Man".

Packaging
Impressed with Robert Freeman's black and white pictures of John Coltrane, Brian Epstein invited the photographer to do the cover image. The Beatles requested him to take inspiration from the pictures Astrid Kirchherr took of the Beatles back in Hamburg, featuring the band in half-shadow and not smiling. To achieve this result, on 22 August 1963 Freeman photographed the band in a dark corridor of the Palace Court Hotel, Bournemouth, England. To fit the square format of the cover, he put Ringo Starr in the bottom right corner, "since he was the last to join the group. He was also the shortest". The original idea was to paint the picture from edge to edge, with no bleeding or title, but the studio vetoed it, on the grounds that the Beatles were not yet famous enough to carry a nameless cover. (The first album to carry an edge-to-edge cover was the Rolling Stones' self-titled debut, released a few months later.) The studio also tried to pull the cover because the Beatles were not smiling, and it was only after George Martin intervened that they won the day. Freeman was paid £75 for his work (three times the normal fee).

Personnel
According to Mark Lewisohn:
 * The Beatles
 * George Harrison – lead, harmony and backing vocals; lead and acoustic guitars; handclaps; nylon-string acoustic guitar on "Till There Was You"
 * John Lennon – lead, harmony and backing vocals; rhythm and acoustic guitars; harmonica and handclaps; nylon-string acoustic guitar on "Till There Was You"; tambourine on "Don't Bother Me"
 * Paul McCartney – lead, harmony and backing vocals; bass guitar and handclaps; piano on "Little Child" and claves on "Don't Bother Me"
 * Ringo Starr – drums, tambourine, maracas, handclaps; lead vocals on "I Wanna Be Your Man" and Arabian loose-skin bongo on "Till There Was You" and "Don't Bother Me"


 * Production
 * Robert Freeman – cover photograph
 * George Martin – arrangement, production and mixing; organ on I Wanna Be Your Man, piano on "You Really Got a Hold on Me", "Not a Second Time" and "Money"
 * Norman Smith – engineering and mixing

Charts

 * Album


 * Album cuts

Certifications
$†$ BPI certification awarded only for sales since 1994.