The Beatles bootleg recordings

The Beatles' bootleg recordings (also known as "Beatlegs") are recordings of performances by The Beatles that have attained some level of public circulation without being available as a legal release. The term most often refers to audio recordings, but also includes video performances. From the earliest Beatles bootlegs in the late 1960s, the group has been one of the most bootlegged rock artists.

Bootleg recordings arise from a multitude of sources, including broadcast performances, recordings of live shows, test discs, privately distributed copies of demos, and covertly copied studio session tapes. The largest single source of Beatles bootleg material is the set of Nagra audio tapes from the 1969 filming of the Get Back / Let It Be rehearsal and recording sessions. Performances for the BBC, stage and concert recordings, and studio outtakes have also been extensive sources for Beatles bootlegs.

The first popular Beatles bootleg was Kum Back, available around September 1969 in a plain white sleeve with no mention of a record company; the vinyl bootleg was based on an acetate of one of the early rough mixes by Glyn Johns of the Get Back album (which would later become Let It Be).John Lennon may have been the unintentional source for one of the Get Back bootlegs; Lennon said: "They say it came from an acetate that I gave to someone who then went and broadcast it as being an advance pressing or something."

Other notable bootlegs to appear in the early 1970s were Yellow Matter Custard, containing 14 BBC Radio performances from 1963, (originally these tracks were thought to be from the Decca audition of January 1962, and Lennon himself told McCartney about the album) and Sweet Apple Trax, a two volume four disc collection of songs and jams from the Get Back rehearsal sessions first issued in 1974. In 1978, a copy of The Beatles' Decca audition tape was bought by bootleggers, who released the songs over a series of 45 rpm singles. Bootleggers of this era often copied and repackaged each other's releases, so popular titles often appeared from more than one bootleg label. The biggest labels for Beatles material in the 1970s were Kornyfone (TAKRL), ContraBand, Trademark of Quality and Wizardo.

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