More Beatles at the BBC? Yeah, yeah, yeah!

There’s a line in the Coen Brothers’ recent Inside Llewelyn Davis in which the fledgling folk performer refuses to accept a box of his early recordings from his sister, who says “People should hear this!” “You’re not supposed to show them the practice stuff,” says Davis. “It ruins the mystique.”

More often nowadays, we live in a world where every demo, four-track recording and 2 a.m. goof committed to tape find its way into the vast Archive that is the Internet. People like Rivers Cuomo release albums and albums of their early demos; the folks tending to Jimi Hendrix’s estate continue doling out live recordings bit by bit; while Neil Young and Dylan regularly unearth vast archival box sets, revealing the basic foundations of their art for all the world to see. Mystique intact.

The Beatles are a rare case, because existing recordings of the band are a bona fide scarcity. That’s why the generous BBC recordings released in two sets through Apple — “On Air: Live at The BBC, Volume 1” and “Volume 2” — are a special find.

What you hear is not a band finding its feet — they already were famous by the time these live BBC radio broadcasts were done between 1963 and ’64, though they had yet to conquer America — rather, it’s a band learning to have fun in front of the microphones.

Presented pretty much as radio listeners might have heard them (sans commercials, because the Beeb was commercial-free), though actually meticulously edited and compiled, “On Air” captures a band that, at this point, can play their sturdiest songs in their sleep. So, as with John Peel radio sessions, it’s all about the little variations. Like the wild background yells by Paul and John during Ringo’s solo number, Boys, or the clean, spare take of ‘Til There Was You, with subtler playing than the album version. At times, there’s an unplugged, intimate quality to live tracks like And I Love Her, sans maracas and sticks. And all those rarities: things like Lend Me Your Comb, a skiffled-up version of Beautiful Dreamer, little-heard country number I’m Sure to Fall (in Love with You), the tribal drums on Memphis, Tennessee or the Chuck Berry ripper I’m Talking About You, which hasn’t appeared elsewhere. You also hear evidence of the brash garage band that could play Hamburg clubs for 12 hours a night, precisely because they’d absorbed so many songs, like a wired-up sonic sponge. (Hamburg is the place where Malcolm Gladwell claims the Beatles clocked in their “10,000 hours” of practice.)

With some 55 tracks (a number of them interview snippets) across two CDs, “On Air” covers the period from early to high Beatlemania. There are hints at John’s first book, In His Own Write, coming out. There are also separate interview sessions with each Beatle that are quite revealing. BBC announcer Brian Matthew, who led the group through the on-air banter, has them read fan letters aloud, and the familiar Beatle wit comes to the fore. He asks the boys if they’d done any acting before A Hard Day’s Night (which had yet to come out). “John’s acted the goat,” quips Ringo.

The BBC announcers can sound a bit patronizing, bringing the lads through the on-air mechanics, but what emerges is a comfortable relationship: the Beatles made hundreds of appearances at BBC over the years between ‘63 and ’64. They must have liked the relative peace and quiet of a live studio. Throughout, the Beatles play as though they’re in a comfortable living room, unencumbered by screaming fans (save for a few live performance numbers included). That’s the charm of the BBC recordings: you throw it on the player and feel you’re transported to a British sitting room, having tea and listening to this raucous infection take over the British airwaves They’re loose, yet Ringo’s drumming is rock steady. McCartney’s Little Richard holler is in full-throttle mode on chestnuts like Hippy-Hippy Shake. And John shreds his larynx convincingly on Twist and Shout.

Sound quality is not uniform, for various reasons: some recordings are from live remote dates; some are actually culled from listeners who tape-recorded the broadcasts at home (the BBC apparently had to erase a bunch of original Beatle tapes after they were broadcast; company policy). But it all adds to the on-air vibe: an emanation from the past, still crackling with life.

The earlier “Volume 1” was a big hit, precisely because there’s so little material left, so very few ways to re-experience the Beatles. “On Air: Live at The BBC” is as close to doing that as you’ll get, as close as your living room.