Original Decca audition tape found in Canada?

The current grey market Decca Tapes LP uses the same design as the old bootleg LP from Circuit Records.

Yes, this has been a “hot potato” in newspapers, vlogs on YouTube and internet forums of late. We were tipped off about this early on, but decided to wait until something was confirmed before writing about it here.

The story goes that a few years ago, Rob Frith of Neptoon Records in Vancouver, Canada bought a collection from someone who was a sound engineer, and among the posters, the records and the tapes was reel-to-reel tape, and the tape box bore the legend “Beatles 1960? demo.”

The tape box. Tony Cox is probably the record producer and not Yoko’s ex-husband. His name and the original contents of the box has been crossed out.

He did not have a tape machine, so he didn’t know what was on it – he just figured it must be a tape of a bootleg or something. He kept it in his shop for years without thinking about it. Only when he brought it, along with other tapes he wanted to digitise, to a studio to have it transferred he was struck by the sound quality of the tape. “It was like being in the room with The Beatles”, is how he keeps describing it when interviewed.

Further investigations lead to the discovery of the history behind the tape: Jack Herschorn, owner of the recording studio Can-Base Studios at 1234 West 6th in Vancouver, had obtained it in London, England, in one of his trips there from “a well-known record producer” who he declines to name. The record producer had suggested to Herschorn to use the tape to produce bootlegs in Canada and USA. Upon returning home, Herschorn had second thoughts and the tape was just kept in his studio, for the enjoyment of musicians to listen to. Later the studio was sold and became Mushroom Studios, and the tape laned in a collection, later to be sold to Rob Frith, at Neptoon Records.

The Decca Commercial Test

What we commonly refer to as an audition was in fact a commercial test, as described by Mark Lewisohn in his Beatles biography, “Tune In”. The commercial test was two session blocks, totalling 6 hours, for Decca Records, with a view to perhaps use some of the resulting recordings for release. After Decca had decided not to book the Beatles after all, Brian Epstein was given a copy of the results on two ten-inch tape reels. Between them, these contained the fifteen tracks recorded by The Beatles on 1st January 1962. Epstein hauled these around London to play for A&R people, eventually landing The Beatles a recording contract with Parlophone Records after having gotten some or all songs transferred to disc at the main HMV store in Oxford Street. One such disc, containing “‘Till There Was You” and “Hello Little Girl” reappeared a few years ago and was sold at an auction in 2016. One of Epstein’s tapes containing half the Decca commercial test songs was also sold at another auction, in 2019. That tape contained seven songs in this order: “Money”, “The Sheik of Araby”, “Memphis Tennessee”, “Three Cool Cats”, “Sure to Fall (in Love with You)”, “September in the Rain” and “Like Dreamers Do”. However, when Apple/EMI were compiling the Anthology Volume 1 album in 1995, they didn’t have Epstein’s tape and had to use a CD bootleg as the source for the five Decca tracks they included there, “Searchin'”, “Three Cool Cats”, “The Sheik of Araby”, “Like Dreamers Do”, “Hello Little Girl”.

The Decca Tapes bootlegs

The bootlegs, which we have had since the late seventies, mostly stem from a tape which legendary Beatles fanzine publisher Job Pope bought at great expense around 1977. Joe Pope’s tape was at 30 ips, so it must have been a dub. Pope didn’t have a machine with the correct speed and couldn’t play it back, so he dubbed it at half speed and then played the copy back at double speed, which of course made tape a generation further away from the original sound quality. More recent versions are sourced from the original tape, often using modern techniques to improve on the sound, some versions also having  a fake stereo image.

To get his money back, Pope pressed up the tracks as coloured vinyl singles, known as the Deccagones. Later, he compiled the tracks on to an LP, and another LP appeared from a different, but identical tape to that of Joe’s.

The Decca audition tape was first released as a series of bootleg singles on coloured vinyl, known as the Deccagone singles.

Genuine

The song “September in the rain” contains edits, which brings us to the proof in the pudding on this newly discovered tape: The edits in that song are physically spliced tape cuts. Also, it contains an extra vocal line, which aligns with the version on the auctioned Epstein tape. So those are strong indications to what we have here is the actual master tape, made by Decca engineers at the time, prepared for a possible release.

The song order:

1. Money (That’s What I Want)
2. The Sheik of Araby
3. Memphis, Tennessee
4. Three Cool Cats
5. Sure To Fall (in Love with You)
6. September In The Rain
7. Take Good Care of my Baby
8. ’Till There Was You
9. Crying, Waiting, Hoping
10. To Know Her Is To Love Her
11. Besame Mucho
12. Searchin’
13. Like Dreamers Do
14. Hello Little Girl
15. Love of the Loved

You’ll notice that the three Lennon and McCartney originals are placed at the very end of the tape. They are separated from the rest of the tape with a long red leader tape. The other leader tape bits between the tracks are white. The tape is in mono.

Unfortunately, the tape owner has not made a digital transfer available to Beatles audio experts for confirmation. Instead, he has said that if Paul McCartney should come to his store,  he can have the tape for free.

The grey market editions

If Rob Frith wants to get the contents of his tape out in the open, he could just send a digital copy in high resolution to Rhythm and Blues Records in the U.K. , they are putting out Beatles records all the time. And Apple/Universal Music aren’t doing a thing to stop these products here in Europe, it seems as it’s just the USA business they are intent on protecting.

The Decca Tapes album is for sale in high street department stores here in Norway. It’s a pressing from an Austrian company called Second Records, who specify that the album can’t be shipped to USA, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, … (seems they keep adding to this list).

Screenshot from the website of the biggest overground record store in Norway.