BEATLES

Rockaway Records is proud to present and offer for sale The Beatles Ed Rudy Archive.

In 1964, Ed Rudy was the only American news reporter to travel with The Beatles on their entire first U.S. visit, from the day they landed in America on February 9th, 1964, through their first American concert tour in August and September. Ed was there in New York, Washington, D.C., Miami and all other cities on the tour. Rudy had exclusive access to The Beatles, their road managers Mal Evans & Neil Aspinall, press officer Brian Sommerville, The Beatles entourage, as well as fans and even other reporters. He interviewed them at press conferences and one-on-one at hotels, airports and on airplanes for 440 radio stations that carried Ed’s reports on Radio Pulsebeat News. Documentary albums of these interviews were released in 1964 and 1965.

Rudy retained his original unedited reel to reel tapes, as well as his portable recording devices and microphones until 2003. At that time, his archive was sold by his daughter to an estate sale company. The archive was then sold in its entirety to Gary Hein of Hein's Rare Collectibles Inc., along with all rights, ownership, title, and copyrights. Rockaway Records Inc. purchased the archive from the Gary Hein estate in 2022. Sale of this archive includes all rights that were transferred to Rockaway by way of chain of title.

This archive consists of 64 reel-to-reel tapes (of various sizes) which were used by Ed Rudy as his Beatles interview source material for his two documentary LPs, "American Tour With Ed Rudy" (1964) and "It's Here Luv, Ed Rudy With New U.S. Tour" (1965), as well as "Beatlemania Tour Coverage" (1964 promo open-end interview LP). Also issued in 1965 was "Great American Tour - 1965 Live Beatlemania Concert", which contained music by an Ed Rudy-managed group called "The Liverpool Lads", with crowd noise from fans at an actual Beatles concert (no Beatles music or interviews were on this album).

Also included are the original four portable reel-to reel tape recorders along with seven microphones that Ed Rudy traveled with and recorded his interviews. Yes, these are the actual mics that Ed and The Beatles spoke into and the tape machines that documented those historic interviews!

The tapes have been transferred to the best of our ability onto a flash drive, which is included along with a synopsis of the contents of the reels. Some of the tapes are not in perfect condition and recording quality varies, which is understandable, considering they are about 60 years old. Some were too fragile to transfer, but could still be salvaged by a professional tape engineer. We don't claim that these tapes are complete - they are just what Ed Rudy retained. However, there is some fascinating material here which gives a direct insight into Beatlemania as it was happening. There are even a few (poor quality) snippets of The Beatles in concert. 

The tape machines and microphones have not been tested and because of their age, we cannot guarantee them to be in working condition.

Included in the archive is one copy each (some still sealed) of the Ed Rudy Beatles interview LPs - Beatlemania Tour Coverage, American Tour With Ed Rudy (both different back covers), American Tour With Ed Rudy (1981 reissue), It's Here Luv, Ed Rudy With New U.S. Tour (both different front covers) plus The Liverpool Lads LP as well as interview LPs with The Dave Clark Five and The Rolling Stones. Also included are six different advertising flyers and a business card that Ed printed plus three one-sided 10" metal acetates which contain excerpts from the Beatles albums.

Although not in the league of stage-used microphones or instruments, the fact that the Beatles spoke into these mics (and their voices recorded) on February 7th, 1964 during their first US visit and all through the 1964 and 1965 concert tours, this archive is indeed an historic lot of Beatles memorabilia.

OVERSIZED ITEM. PLEASE REQUEST A SHIPPING QUOTE.