1958, July 14

Paul joined The Quarrymen, and introduced his friend, George Harrison, into the band. These three, with Colin Hanton and John "Duff" Lowe made their way to the Liverpool home of Percy Phillips, who recorded the lads onto a 78 rpm record for the exorbitant fee of seventeen shillings and sixpence. For this first outing, they chose Buddy Holly's "That'll Be The Day" and Paul's original composition "In Spite of All the Danger." The disc was passed from band member to band member for their pleasure, until it ended up with Lowe. In 1981, Lowe was stopped from selling the disc at auction by a Paul McCartney injunction, and Paul later paid Lowe a handsome sum for the keepsake.

In 1985, Paul played parts of "That'll Be the Day" on the BBC documentary The Buddy Holly Story; this was bootlegged onto the LP That'll Be the Day: The Music That Inspired the Beatles.

In 1995, portions of both sides of the shellac disc were played for the Anthology documentary. Subsequently, both songs were collected onto the CD Anthology 1. "That'll Be the Day" is complete on the CD, but "In Spite of All the Danger" is about 42 seconds shorter (2:43) than the 78 rpm (3:25), omitting a repeated verse and chorus.

(ref: Winn, Way Beyond Compare).

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AUDIO: It has been noted that these tracks on Anthology 1 suffer from heavy noise reduction. Therefore, suggestion is made to procure the Silent Sea bootleg The Beatles Complete, July 6, 1957 to April-May 1960, which provides a composite of sources that minimizes noise reduction in the presentations. Detailed information on this boot: here. Sulpy, for the same reasons, suggests the Silent Sea boot Home Tapes One: 1958-62, Disc One (a.k.a. The Beatles - Complete Home Recordings 1958-1962, Disc One). Detailed information on this boot: here.

Purple Chick's bootleg Strong Before Our Birth, Disc One claims for both tracks the same specific mixture (Anthology DVD+Anthology 1). Detailed information on this boot: here.

Some bootlegs and YouTube videos claim to have the complete version of "In Spite of All the Danger." Until proven otherwise, these are fabricated by various persons for their own amusement. You can hear one fabricated edit: here, and it's also on Strong Before Our Birth.

THE ACETATE: Photos and information: here.

VIDEO: None.

DRAMATIZATION: The 2009 film Nowhere Boy contains a scene involving the recording of "In Spite of All the Danger" at the Phillips studio.

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REVIEW: Read Alan W. Pollack's musicology article on the disc: here.

TOURISM: Visit the site of the Phillips Sound Recording Services, 38 Kensington, Liverpool. Read about the day The Blue Plaque was affixed to 38 Kensington: here.

RELATIVES: Information on Percy Phillips: here, and here (Wiki).

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Tom Wise
gengar843@msn.com

Although I use quotes from sources, or cited fact, much of the material on this and other pages of my blog is original, from my own pen. This is not cut-and-paste, it is a work of art. Copyright © 2010 Tom Wise.