Here, There, Everywhere A Quarter-Century After Their Breakup, The Beatles Are Still Active In The Music Business

It was 25 years ago this week that Paul McCartney cited “personal differences, business differences, musical differences” in announcing he was doing the unthinkable and leaving the best group in pop-music history.

Yet a quarter-century after that news, which accompanied the release of the “cute” Beatle’s first solo album, “McCartney,” on April 10, 1970, the Beatles are once again omnipresent and active. They’re here, there and everywhere.

Last December came the 56-song, two-CD set, “Live at the BBC” mostly covers of American R&B and rock ‘n’ roll tunes - recorded on British radio programs between March 1962 and June 1965, back when the Liverpudlians were fresh-faced lads in coats and ties. And that innocent exuberance still sells: so far, 10 million copies worldwide.

Last week, the Fab Four’s version of the Shirelles’ “Baby, It’s You,” which is on the “Live at the BBC” album, became the first new Beatles single to be released since “Let It Be” in March 1970. The John Lennon-sung cover is packaged as an EP with three additional radio performances not included on the “Live” album, each with a lead vocal by a different Beatle: McCartney’s “I’ll Follow the Sun,” George Harrison’s “Devil in Her Heart” and Ringo Starr’s “Boys.”

And last month, the tantalizing news Beatlemaniacs have been waiting for so long was confirmed: McCartney issued a statement that corroborated accounts that he, Harrison and Starr had been recording new material.

McCartney also acknowledged that one of the tracks recorded in sessions held in February 1994 was “Free as a Bird,” an often-bootlegged, never-released light, willowy ballad written and recorded by Lennon in 1975 after he won his case against the U.S. government, which had threatened to deport him over his Vietnam War protest activities. In the tradition of Natalie and Nat King Cole’s “Unforgettable” and Hank Williams Jr. and Sr.’s “There’s a Tear in My Beer,” the late Beatles’ vocal and guitar track has been used by his former musical mates to create a new recording that McCartney described as “spooky.”

Just how many new Beatles songs there are - and just what McCartney meant when he said “a couple” - is not clear, though McCartney reportedly visited Yoko Ono recently at her Manhattan apartment to listen to Lennon tapes in search of “new” Beatles songs. And Paul Freundlich, publicist for Beatles-related projects at Capitol records, confirmed that McCartney, Harrison and Starr, who re-entered the studio in February, were still recording as late as three weeks ago in connection with the “Anthology.”

And with the success of “Live at the BBC,” there’s more archival material on the way. Beatles producer George Martin (whose own Beatles book is due out in May, called “With a Little Help From My Friends”) has confirmed that the outpouring will continue with the future release of five CDs of archival material. The first will draw from the band’s years as leather-clad rockers before Martin met them in 1962, and the last four are jewels drawn from the group’s nearly eight-year studio career, such as Lennon’s first solo version of “Strawberry Fields Forever” and Harrison’s delicate first take on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps.”

And last, there’s another new recording involving the Beatles family: In January, McCartney, his wife, Linda, and their children Mary, Stella, Helen and James got together with Ono and Sean Ono Lennon at McCartney’s studio near his house south of London, and recorded an Ono composition called “Hiroshima Sky Is Always Blue.”