1968 track featuring George and Ringo to be released today

At the Liverpool Beatles Museum the other day, a hitherto unheard song from 1968, featuring George Harrison on guitar and Ringo Starr on drums was played to an invited audience of 100 and streamed online on the museum’s Facebook page. An excerpt of the six minutes long track was played on BBC Radio Merseyside later that evening (see YouTube video above).

The song has been known for quite a while, but no one has heard it – until now. It was during a break in the “Hey Jude” recording sessions at Trident Studios that George and Ringo helped their friend Suresh Joshi to record the track. It was unnamed then, but will be released under the title “Radhe Shaam”. Joshi, incidentally, was the person who introduced George Harrison to Ravi Shankar.

Suresh Joshi, signing the wall at the Liverpool Beatles Museum in Mathew Street. Photo courtesy of the museum.

He was working on the music for a documentary film, called “East meets West”, at the Trident Studios in Soho, London, when Harrison and Starr offered to play. The track also featured renowned Indian classical musician Aashish Khan but Mr Joshi said they never got round to releasing it. “Time had gone on, [then] The Beatles were breaking up and had various problems so no-one wanted to [release it],” he said. The film was not to be released, either. However, Mr Joshi said the coronavirus lockdown was a “blessing in disguise as we had nothing to do”.

He said he had been telling his friend, Deepak Pathak, about his musical past and – as a Beatles fan – he insisted they look for the master tape. After having found the tape, Mr Pathak sent it to music producer Suraj Shinh, who restored the tape and mixed the song. Mr Joshi said his song was still relevant today. “The song itself revolves around the concept that we are all one, and that the world is our oyster,” he said. “[That is] something that we have all realised during this pandemic.”

Fans are in two minds about the musicianship on the excerpted song, with several people saying it reminds them more of Jackie Lomax than George Harrison’s guitar style.

The track will be made available online today, with all proceeds going to charity.

Source: BBC News