The Beatles 'Lost Decca Tapes'

I have a few of the Deccagone colored vinyl 45's and the album from..somebody back in the day.

I have to say, presented with these recordings, I probably would have passed on the Beatles also. The " magic" wasn't apparent yet IMO.

 

Yes. Love Of The Loved was on L.S. Bumblebee. I have not heard it in ages, but I recall it may have been edited to run a bit longer. Sounded like it was sourced from a poorly recorded radio broadcast, but the same basic recording. Radio Caroline, Radio Luxembourg? Anyone know? For what it's worth, would also like to know if anyone has any info on the "Step Inside Love" tape that showed up around the same time in about the same quality. I don't think that one has ever turned up in better quality. Would love to hear it.

 

Why did he have so many (especially compared to his normal cuts) with the Deccan audition?

 

I have a cd player with pitch correction and when I slow my CD (Yellow Dog) down for 3,5 %, then it's in the right key.

 

You might just want to consider finding any one of the numerous upgrades that have been around for the last 15 years that have been adjusted to the correct speed. Just sayin'.

 

There really was no normal until they signed with EMI later in the year-----and one of the many great, groundbreaking things George Martin did was not to settle on any one singer as the lead.

Some have joked that had they signed with Decca, Harrison may have become the lead singer as he was more assured than John or Paul.

 

I have that picture disc + white vinyl release from the 80's and it sounds actually quite nice. I had Pete Best sign the front of the picture disc over his bass drum, so it's in a frame now but it looks awesome!

Not too long ago a 15ips tape copy of the sessions was auctioned off. A few news outlets picked up the story as the original decca audition tapes, but I believe it's much more likely that they were bootleg cutting masters from the 70's/80's rather than any sort of authentic 60's recording.

 

Mark Lewisohn explains a lot of this in his Tune In book: Basically, before John and Paul started to dominate with their songwriting, their live act was pretty much split up 3 ways equally between John, Paul, and George. And Lewisohn also points out that John and Paul were NOT writing a lot in 1961 and early 1962. They only started to ramp up their songwriting efforts after they got their EMI contract.

Arnie

 

Can anybody name a bootleg (without links to sale ofcourse) that has all the Decca tracks in the correct speed and with no fake stereo?

 

Probably Purple Chick but just a guess on my behalf. Is it known where the masters are for this session? Or was the anthology track lifted from a boot?

 

New Years Day is nice, Dr. Ebbetts, also hear Never Mind The Tremeloes is good, but I don't have it

 

"The Silver Beatles - Historical Decca Audition Tape", misterclaudel version purports to have the tracks sourced from the two original sources, The Joe Pope "Deccagone" version and the Circuit LP version. Sounds fine to me or a least as "fine" as this material gets. YMMV.

 

If Brian Epstein was given a copy of the tape I'd bet that Apple still have it, they seem to have all the NEMS Enterprises material these days. My guess is that a copy was made somewhere down the line and 'walked' which is why we have the bootlegs but it's just a guess. Who knows what goodies they have that they haven't told us about. Don't forget that the Blackpool Night Out performance as featured heavily in Anthology was assumed by the company who made it to be lost. Low and behold Apple had a copy all along (It's just a pity they didn't look after Ringo's archives as well as so much of his stuff went up in flames in a house fire - It's rumored he had lots of Beatles TV stuff nobody else did, but you know what rumors are like in Beatleland!)

The funny thing about the Blackpool Night Out footage is that several years after Anthology was shown BY ITV they made an appeal to find any lost footage of any ITV shows that collectors might have and listed the Beatles on Blackpool Night Out on their most wanted list having broadcast a large chunk of it themselves only a few years before!

 

Well, ya know George may have paid the price for the rest of his Beatle tenure with that "Well, I don’t like your tie..." remark. A career killer there...

 

Did anyone ever find out from Joe before he passed about how he came by the tape?

 

Ah… now we're asking all the right questions

 

Indeed; Lennon sounds nervous (VERY unusual), McCartney oversings (especially on the ballads), Pete Best didn't know what his hi-hat was for, but George sounds relaxed AND cocky at the same time - which is EXACTLY how you would have expected Lennon to sound.

 

You know, I've often thought that this contributed to Decca's passing on the band. Back then, EVERY band had to have a lead singer; they had to be called 'somebody somebody & the somethings'. Seems weird now, but that's how it was, especially here in England. They must have confused the s*** out of everyone that auditioned them. Just another of the many reasons I love them.

 

Either Paul or John had a cold so George took more leads.

 

Vigotone CD, March 5th 1963. It has the From Me To You session and the speed corrected version of the Decca Audition tape. I always thought it sounded pretty good , but I haven't listened to it in years. I'm not a big fan of the Decca material

 

Absolutely not. George was an equal lead singer by that phase of their career and the Decca audition simply reflected that. Making George an equal was the first Brian Epstein did after he became their manager.

 

Really? Not in their league. Eppie didn't have the best musical judgment

 

"The Decca Audition" and "The Esher Demos" are available as Japanese imports over at Amazon. People there seem to feel that these versions sound better than others they've heard.

 

This is similar to my copy,but a picture from the web.Those TMOQs from the 70s still sound pretty good.They continue to go up in price,I have a bunch,but have not found one for years.