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MY RECORDING OF THE CONCERT OF “THE BEATLES” IN MADRID, JULY 2, 1965

It has sparked a fierce criticism against me and my work, casting doubt on the authenticity of the recorded concert by me that day. I assure you that the recording that I did was REAL, although I can not guarantee is that “someone” might have the handle, and I´m going to try to tell you why.

When I recorded that live show, the tape was saved (not too well) in my recording studio PUBLI / VOX, where passed many people, groups, artists, advertising agencies, broadcasters, and good friends of mine and also “the other friends”, and I was just not much there, because my dedication to my magazine Fonorama was absolute, ie, I did not have much time to make productions, although I did a lot of them.

Though you do not believe it, I did not give too much importance to what happened in 1965, because for me it was just another job and for many years I did not worry about that tape. In fact, in the mid-70’s, when we close the recording studio, all my personal things were stored in the garage of my parents’ house, where those things were keept for a long time until I could bring these things back to my house in the late of 80´s (and thank goodness, because many of my things went away to the litter when my brother Paco went to live in that house; toys, books, tapes and even hundreds of numbers of my magazines Fonorama and Acordes para Guitarra (“Guitar chords”), with a lot of numbers dedicated to The Beatles by the way, went away).

A bit earlier, in the early 70’s, when I started working at Spanish National Radio, I used that old tape for programming some fragments in my various programs in Peninsular Radio and Radio Juventud (“Youth Radio”) and, frankly, that thing did not have much significance, passing unnoticed, the opposite of what might today seem …after all these previous events, it´s just now when I have reasonable doubts about if anyone could change the tape time before in my studio. What I had clear is that I never had manipulated it and, for me, it was the same as it was recorded. Moreover, as it was still something that I did not really matter and that also could not be used seriously due to my contract or paper signed with Brian Epstein (that recording could not be used in 25 years, as stated in that document), then I didn´t think about checking if the concert that I recorded myself years before was the containing of the tape that I kept and still have in my possession. Anyway, this possibility surprises me a lot and I think the real explanation is a different one as I’m now investigating…

Taking up the theme, was a result of the releasing of several Lp´s containing similar concerts of the European tour of The Beatles of 1965 during the mid-80’s when people became interested again for what happened in Madrid that July 2, 1965 and apparently, people contacted Tony Luz, guitarist of PEKENIKES group, who was asked if he knew something. I was told, he said that maybe I had recorded something. I do not know if he would see me when I recorded it, but the fact is that from that moment a lot of people started asking for that record and I said who is interested that I had it, but did not know where the tape was.

As the 25 years after the show was approaching, then I thought of doing something with the recording and searched and founded my tape, especially to please all the fans and friends, and I tried to contact those who may be interested in rescuing this document: Paul, Ringo, George, Yoko, or EMI, Apple or even Michael Jackson himself, who had bought the publishing rights of The Beatles …but nobody answered me. A little later, on a business trip to Miami, I met at the airport of Barajas (Madrid) with my friend Manolo Diaz (Los Bravos), who at that time was the director of EMI in Madrid, and I discussed the idea. He was very interested in that and we agreed to meet when the two come back to Madrid, but when I went back and try to talk to him again, I knew that he had change to live in Miami and had left the company, so I gave up and again forgot about the story.

Not much later, in the early 90’s, TVE (Spanish National Television) found several movies made during the Spanish live shows of The Beatles in 1965, although without audio, and then I lent some fragments of my recording to be used to enrich this documentary. Nobody then doubted that my master was not good in that film…

Then, the tape returned to a shelf in my office, extracting several parts of the concert in few CD’s and with them I was invited to several radio programs over that years for talk about this, but no one heard the entire content of my master. I must confess that I have never been a specialist in The Beatles and therefore I would not know differentiate recordings of the group from different shows and also unknown whether there were recordings in places such as Tokyo or if there was any record of the shows of Paul in Spain … that is, in the 90’s I had no need to show false recordings on radio programs where you could hear fragments of it all.

In short, all this I find it very strange… it may be that for decades I was fooled with a changed tape of what I had recorded and I didn’t realize for years, but I find very hard to believe that, as I said, no one had realized before with the fragments that I leaked for years or with the TVE movie about that Spanish shows, so I’m actually investigating right now is what has been happening with the master that I gave recently in connection with what has finally appeared on sale and the master that was returned to me. In addition, you have to take into account that I have been working for decades in this musical business and I have always offered very interesting things and I don´t need to edit something that would be questionable or false.

I also know that there are people who have always defamed me and also my work and serve as an example that there are people who reached to doubt that I had been with the Beatles in those days, or that the pictures that were made by my friend Paco Barahona where I was with them were false when at that time it was impossible to falsify, and so on…

My conclusion is very clear to me: the album has to be authentic. If it weren´t, it shall be for reasons beyond me and I insist on that, right now I am investigating about this matter. If anyone has the slightest doubt that the project would not be what it is, I recommend you just do not buy it, please !. I’ve never pretended to fool anyone absolutely. At least a bit of interest and joy has taken place for a few hundred of friends who will possess a document made with love, good faith and enormous graphic documentation. To those who slander me whatever I do, I can not tell them anything other than pursue their things and just leave me alone. And for those that besides criticizing have been using my stuff for years without permission to their books and their fan clubs of the group and without even giving me no thank you, I wish you continue to use it well.

JOSÉ LUIS ÁLVAREZ