The Beatles

The two posts below record the early efforts of the big band singers of the 40's & 50's so we move to 1962 1st of January to be precise to some early "Beatles".....and you can hear how much they improved in the years after Jan 1962....There is quite a lot of info about that recording date !!!"

I recon that Columbia, HMV, Pye, Philips, and Oriole would have been kicking themselves about the missed opportunity !!

The English rock band the Beatles auditioned for Decca Records at Decca Studios in West Hampstead, north London, on 1 January 1962. They were rejected by the label, who instead opted to sign a contract with Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. The audition was recorded, and five of the songs—"Searchin'", "Three Cool Cats", "The Sheik of Araby", "Like Dreamers Do" and "Hello Little Girl"—were officially released on the Beatles rarities compilation Anthology 1 in 1995.

Manager Brian Epstein met with record companies in London to secure a record contract for the Beatles and was rejected by many, including Columbia, HMV, Pye, Philips, and Oriole. After Epstein had meetings with both EMI and Decca at the start of December 1961, Decca A&R executive Mike Smith travelled to Liverpool to see the Beatles perform at the Cavern Club, and was impressed enough to ask Epstein to bring the band down to London for a test in Decca's recording studios, scheduled for 1 January 1962.

Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best arrived at the audition, formally known as a "commercial test" to be headed by Mike Smith with Decca staff, on 1 January 1962 at 10 a.m.  At the audition, the Beatles performed songs hand-picked by Epstein.

At the time, the standard procedure for a test of this type was to record between two and five songs and then quickly usher the artists out of the studio. However, the Beatles ended up recording fifteen songs, and the recording session was extended after a lunch break into the afternoon. This could suggest that, if offered a deal, their first single and perhaps others would have been taken from the resulting tape.

About a month later, Decca rejected the Beatles. The executives felt that "guitar groups are on the way out" and "the Beatles have no future in show business". Some music historians have suggested, however, that their work that day did not yet reflect their true potential, and the "guitar" comment may have been intended as a polite let down.

Sale of audition tape

The original safety master tape the group recorded at Decca's London studios was sold by auctioneers the Fame Bureau in December 2012 to a Japanese collector for £35,000. A spokesman for the auctioneers said at the time: "The tape went to a Capitol Records executive after the Beatles signed with EMI. He sold it to the current owner who was one of the top buyers for Hard Rock Cafe but it was for his own personal collection." The authenticity of the tape sold remains debatable among experts, however, as the tape of the audition contains 15 songs and the tape auctioned has only 10. Additionally, the auction recording is on Ampex tape, which was not in use in 1962. It has not been firmly ascertained if the original master tape recorded by Decca on 1 January 1962 is in the possession of the Beatles' Apple Corps Ltd.

                                     (All Info Edited From Wikipedia)

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