In 1995, 15 years after John Lennon‘s death, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison reunited with their iconic producer, George Martin, to create the ultimate Beatles documentary and release what, at the time, were meant to be the last songs featuring the Fab Four. When Yoko Ono handed them cassette tapes with previously unheard tracks that Lennon had been working on at home, they decided to record them together and release them. That turned into three volumes of The Beatles: Anthology, featuring early takes of classics, early Beatles songs from the late ’50s, and the finished Lennon songs, “Free as a Bird” and “Real Love.” However, after the astounding success of Peter Jackson‘s 2021 documentary, The Beatles: Get Back, it became clear they weren’t done telling the story.
The Beatles Announce New Anthology Albums and Peter Jackson Collaboration
The three original Anthology volumes are beautiful pieces of art, but they were limited by the technology of the time. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr became aware of this when they saw what Peter Jackson had done with the raw recording from the 1970 Let It Be movie, aka, the Get Back documentary. So now, the director is bringing his talents to Anthology. The 1995 documentary series will now be remastered and released on Disney+, but that’s not all. Peter Jackson is working on new installments for a 9-episode docuseries, sharing previously unseen footage that didn’t make it to the original.
In addition to Peter Jackson’s new installments, music lovers will also get a fourth Anthology album, which will include session outtakes from the 1960s, unheard demos, and maybe even the song “Now and Then.” This track came out in 2023 and was part of the songs that the three surviving Beatles received in 1995. However, since it was a home recording from the mid-’70s, they couldn’t clean it up at the time, so the song was shelved. It was the way Jackson treated the footage from 1970 that gave McCartney and Starr the idea to finally release the track.
It’s highly possible that, on the fourth album, fans will get the chance to hear songs that McCartney, Starr, and Harrison wanted to include back in the ’90s, but couldn’t due to technological limitations.
The fourth Anthology album will be released on November 21, and the docuseries will premiere on Disney+ on November 26.
Source: Instagram
