Rare Beatles Listening Session Recording Found in Vancouver Music Store
Kyiv • UNN
A cassette with a demo recording of the Beatles from 1962 was discovered in a Vancouver store. The owner is willing to provide a copy to Decca Records for possible release.
An old cassette labeled "Beatles 60s Demos" was found in a record store in Vancouver, Canada. This recording is a direct copy of the Beatles' audition on January 1, 1962 in London. The owner of the record store does not want to sell it, but is willing to provide a copy to the recording studio where it was made if they want to release it. This is reported by UNN with reference to NME.
Details
Last week, Rob Frith, the owner of Neptoon Records in Vancouver, found an old cassette lying around the store labeled "Beatles 60s Demos." At first, he thought it was just an amateur recording of a concert performance on a tape recorder, but after posting a snippet of the recording on social media, he discovered that he had a rare direct copy of an early Beatles audition recording.
"I picked up this cassette many years ago that said Beatles demo. I just assumed it was a bootleg cassette. After hearing it last night for the first time, it sounds like a professional tape. The quality is unreal. It sounded like the Beatles were in the room," he wrote in his first social media post.
Recording history
The audition cassette was recorded on January 1, 1962 at Decca Studios in London. The Beatles then signed with Parlophone Records and released the song Please Please Me.
After a clip of the found Beatles recording circulated on social media, Freet was contacted by the man who first brought the recording to Vancouver - Jack Gershhorn, the former owner of Mushroom Records in Vancouver. According to him, during a trip to London in the 70s, an acquaintance of the producer offered to sell copies of this cassette in North America, but Gershhorn refused to do so.
"I didn't want to release it because I didn't think it was absolutely moral. These guys, they're famous and they deserve proper royalties for it. It deserves to come out properly," Gershhorn told CBC.
What will happen to the found cassette
The fate of the found recording is currently unknown. Freet does not want to sell it, but is willing to provide Decca with a copy if they want to release it. Otherwise, he is going to keep it for himself, unless Paul McCartney himself personally appears in Freet's store. Then the owner promised to gladly hand over the cassette to the musician from the band.
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