The Beatles audition tape for Decca Records discovered in Vancouver record store
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(Credits: Bernard Gotfryd)
A rare audition tape recorded in 1962 by The Beatles has been unexpectedly discovered in a Vancouver record store.
A demo labelled ‘Beatles 60s Demos’ was found in Vancouver’s Neptoon Records when the store’s owner, Rob Frith, was going through his stock. While assuming it was just a bootleg, Frith played the record to find out it was a rare, direct copy of an early audition tape by the Beatles.
Sharing his find on social media, Frith wrote, “I picked up this tape years ago that said Beatles Demos on it. I just figured it was a tape off a bootleg record. After hearing it last night for the first time, it sounds like a master tape. The quality is unreal. How is this even possible to have, what sounds like a Beatles 15 song Decca tapes master?”
Recorded on January 1st, 1962, the tape showcases a young Beatles, with Pete Best on drums, performing for Decca Records in the London studio. Ultimately, the record label passed on the band, who would later sign with Parlophone Records and release Please Please Me.
Frith spoke to CBC about discovering such a rare recording, saying he “thought it was just a reel-to-reel tape that somebody had put bootleg things on.”
After consulting with Beatles experts and listening to it a few more times himself, Frith realised it was a very real recording of an iconic moment in music history. “It seemed like the Beatles were in the room,” he said of its quality.
Following Frish’s publishing of the clip, he was connected with the person who initially brought the tape to Vancouver, Jack Herschorn, former owner of Mushroom Records in Vancouver. It was during a trip to London in the 1970s that Herschorn got his hands on the recording after a producer gave it to him.
While Herschorn was encouraged to sell the copies, he refused, saying, “I took it back and I thought about it quite a bit… I didn’t want to put it out because I felt — I didn’t think it was a totally moral thing to do.”
“These guys, they’re famous and they deserve to have the right royalties on it… it deserves to come out properly,” Herschorn told CBC.
Frith has explained his reservations about selling the tape, and instead has offered a copy to Decca if they wish to release it. He’s also graciously extended an invitation to Paul McCartney and asked him to personally visit Neptoon Records to receive it by hand from Frith.
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