The Beatlesâ famous audition for Decca Records took place in London on New Yearâs Day in 1962.
The session followed the labelâs A&R representative Mike Smithâs attendance at a Cavern performance on 13 December 1961. The Beatlesâ performance that night hadnât been strong enough to secure them a record deal, but the label was willing to offer them a session in their studios at 165 Broadhurst Gardens, West Hampstead, London.
The group â John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best â travelled down from Liverpool with driver and roadie Neil Aspinall. Beset by snowstorms, the party eventually arrived just in time for the 11am audition. Brian Epstein had travelled separately on train.
The group was annoyed that Smith turned up late, having spent the night before seeing in the new year. Smith further unnerved them by insisting they use Deccaâs amplifiers, having judged The Beatlesâ own gear to be substandard.
The Beatles recorded 15 songs altogether. The likely order was:
- âTill There Was Youâ
- âTo Know Her Is To Love Herâ
- âTake Good Care Of My Babyâ
- âHello Little Girlâ
- âCrying, Waiting, Hopingâ
- âLove Of The Lovedâ
- âBesame Muchoâ
- âSearchinââ
- âMoney (Thatâs What I Want)â
- âThe Sheik Of Arabyâ
- âMemphis, Tennesseeâ
- âThree Cool Catsâ
- âSure To Fall (In Love With You)â
- âSeptember In The Rainâ
- âLike Dreamers Doâ
Three of the songs â Like Dreamers Do, Hello Little Girl and Love Of The Loved â were Lennon-McCartney originals. The entire session took roughly an hour from 11am, and the majority of songs were likely to have been recorded in a single take without overdubs.
Of the Decca recordings, five songs â Searchinâ, Three Cool Cats, The Sheik Of Araby, Like Dreamers Do and Hello Little Girl â appeared on the Anthology 1 collection in 1995. The rest have been widely available on bootleg since 1977.
Although nerves meant The Beatles didnât perform at their best, all four members and Brian Epstein were confident that the session would inevitably lead to a contract with Decca. The label, meanwhile, was erring towards Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, who had also auditioned that day. As head of A&R Dick Rowe later remembered:
I told Mike heâd have to decide between them. It was up to him â The Beatles or Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. He said, âTheyâre both good, but oneâs a local group, the other comes from Liverpool.â We decided it was better to take the local group. We could work with them more easily and stay closer in touch as they came from Dagenham.
The official reason given, meanwhile, was that âguitar groups are on the way out, Mr Epsteinâ. These words would become infamous, and Dick Rowe later became known as âthe man who turned down The Beatlesâ. He did, however, sign The Rolling Stones on the recommendation of George Harrison.
Brian Epstein didnât take rejection lying down. He travelled back to London for further meetings with Decca, even promising their sales team that heâd buy 3,000 copies of any Beatles single they released. Had Dick Rowe been informed of this, history could have been quite different.
I was never told about that at the time. The way economics were in the record business then, if weâd been sure of selling 3,000 copies, weâd have been forced to record them, whatever sort of group they were.
However, the Decca audition tapes did prove fortunate for The Beatles. Had they signed to Decca, their career may never have involved Ringo Starr, who joined the group only after George Martin expressed concerns about Pete Bestâs drumming.
Furthermore, the audition gave Epstein some good-quality recordings of the group, on reel-to-reel, enabling him to take them around the remaining London labels. One of these tapes, labelled â2â, was auctioned at Sothebyâs in London in December 2019, and contained the songs from Money (Thatâs What I Want) to Like Dreamers Do.
The manager of the HMV record store on Londonâs Oxford Street suggested that Epstein transfer the recordings from reel-to-reel to disc, to enable them to be more easily played. Epstein agreed, and immediately took the tapes to a studio and pressing plant situated above the store.
Engineer Jim Foy was impressed with the recordings. When Epstein told him three of the songs were original Lennon-McCartney compositions, Foy contacted Sid Coleman, of music publishers Ardmore & Beechwood (a subsidiary of EMI), who offered Epstein a publishing deal.
Epsteinâs priority was to get the group signed, and so Coleman arranged a meeting between The Beatlesâ manager and George Martin, the A&R head at Parlophone. Upon hearing the Decca recordings, Martin was sufficiently interested to offer The Beatles an audition at Abbey Road.
Also on this day...
- 1965: Live: Another Beatles Christmas Show
- 1964: Live: The Beatlesâ Christmas Show
- 1963: Travel: Hamburg to London
- 1959: Live: Wilson Hall, Liverpool
Want more? Visit the Beatles history section.
I have a three-record box set entitled The Beatles.
Two records are referred to as GEMA (HIS 10982) and are listed as Beatles Live (Hamburg) while the third record is entitled Silver Beatles and is referred to as STEMRA (HIS 11182) and contains 12 of the 15 Decca Audition songs.
Two of the three songs mentioned above (Take Good Care Of My Baby and September In The Rain) are contained on this third record of the set.
All three of the Lennon-McCartney Decca recorded originals are omitted from this collection.
All of the labels on the records contain commercial quality printing and facing with correct spelling and contain historical info as well.
The white box that contains the records is commercial quality as well.
If this is a bootleg, itâs a pretty damm good one.
It was purchased by me through Readerâs Digest many moons ago.
JosephâI have the same box set. I donât remember where I bought it. I donât think itâs a legitimate release.
Pete Best was involved in the release of a Silver Beatles album (on Backstreet Records) which also contained the Decca recordings.
Paul and George tried very hard to keep the Star Club tape from getting out. They managed to limit its release pretty well, but of course once somethingâs out there, you canât control the bootleggers.
There are 2 types of beatles album
The EMI/Apple albums and the non official (My Bonnie) albums
There are three types:
1. Official EMI/Apple/Capitol
2. Official (and likely otherwise) âMy Bonnieâ/Sheridan materials.
3. Bootlegs
this may sound crazy, but i have a reel to reel ofâ to know herâ it is a one sided, studio quality version, once verified to be studio quality by the cbc in edmonton alta canada. my father was a recording artist in vancouver canada in the late sixties early seventies, he somehowe aquired this tape. my mother ended up with it in 1970 and still has it to this day. how can this be?
Thereâs something about the Decca sessions that always puzzled me until recently. I wondered for years (decades, actually) why the group would go and do a serious audition like this on a holiday? Well, I just recently found out that New Yearâs was not a holiday back in the early â60s in Great Britain, just another regular work day. Being from the US, I didnât know that. Problem solved!
Another thing, does the Tremeloesâ audition tape from that day still exist, and if so, has anyone here heard it? Iâd love to be able to compare the two groupsâ talents, especially at this stage in their careers. I know that itâs always been said that Deccaâs choice was based more on logistics & economics (due to the fact that The Tremeloes were local & The Beatles werenât), but if I could hear both auditions, it would put the matter to rest once & for all.
Also, why hasnât the complete Decca audition been legally released by now? Iâm pretty sure that it was originally owned by the Epstein family (since Brian paid for the session himself), but obviously, the legal hurdles have been overcome since 1/3 of the audition has been released on âAnthology Iâ⌠Câmon, letâs get the show on the road!
I never before wondered about the Tremeloes audition! Very good point â itâd be interesting to hear.
Bill, the remaining 10 songs of the Decca Audition not included in Anthology 1 were issued in 2013 in a record named The Beatles I Saw Her Standing There (RMMCD101)⌠A very interesting double album, by the wayâŚ
A bootleg.
The question is why it hasnât been officially released by The Beatles, as they doubtless own it.
From a historical perspective, the Decca audition would be the equivalent of other artistsâ pre-fame recordings, such as Elvis Presleyâs Sun sessions, The Beach Boysâ pre-Capitol recordings for Candix, & Buddy Hollyâs pre-Crickets recordings for US Decca.
No, they are not the equivalent, as Elvis âSunâ records, The Beach Boysâ pre-Capitol records, and Buddy Hollyâs Decca recordings were all commercially released.
I have just received a copy of Sure To Fall b/w Money on 7âł blue vinyl with a very new p/c on a label called Deccagone. It also says its a promo.Im sure this is a Pirate record. Im sickened that people are out there conning all us record lovers by passing this off as the genuine article.Got an AC/DC Pirate 7âł last year and im wondering if its been churned out by the same racketeers.I would mind having a record pressing machine of my own but I sure wouldnât sell them fraudulently.
I donât understand why all fifteen songs from the Decca audition arenât included with the rest of the songs that the Beatles recorded?
Is there a reason that theyâre in this separate category?
What do you mean? Theyâre all listed on the Songs page, as well as in this article.
Many Decca audition releases donât include the three Lennon-McCartney songs â probably because of copyright issues.
How do I authenticate if I have a reel to reel unreleased Beatles demo?
I remember the flood of albums that were released in the early 80s featuring the Decca audition. They were usually budget albums, found in the bargain bins of K-Mart and Sears stores. In 1982, I picked up âThe Complete Silver Beatlesâ (which was on the AudioFidelity label) at Fileneâs Basement in Manhasset, New York. It featured all of the audition songs except for the three Lennon/ McCartney originals. The legitimacy of the LP did not phase me a bit.
In fact, I loved the record and played it constantly. The silver album cover was cool, and there were insightful liner notes on the back. My favorite tracks were âThree Cool Catsâ âSearchinâ âSeptember In the Rainâ and âCrying Waiting Hoping.â
A few things about the post-Decca audition/pre-EMI signing (Jan-Jun â62) puzzle me. George Martin has stated that one of the songs that Brian Epstein played him was âYour Feetâs Too Bigâ, which is not on the Decca tape. The only known Beatles recording of that song is from the Dec â62 Star-Club gigs, which is not the recording George is referring to. If Georgeâs memory is correct, that means 1 of 2 things⌠Either thereâs more to the Decca audition than the 15 songs we know of, or George heard an audition tape that we currently know nothing about.
That brings up another thing. Why do we automatically assume that the Decca audition is the only one that exists? John Lennon said, âWe made tapes for Decca and Pye, but didnât actually go to Pyeâ. Were the tapes submitted to Pye from the Decca session, or were they from something else?
Also, keep in mind that the boys were doing their earliest sessions for the BBC during this time. Some of those songs never made it to actual broadcast. Couldnât they be used to submit to record companies as demos also? Itâs a very good possibility that Brian Epstein had more recordings in his briefcase than just the Decca ones while he was making the rounds in London. Tantalizing thoughtsâŚ
I know they didnât pass the audition, but I really like what they did.
I heard the DECCA tapes once. And I liked it very much, thought something was missing. Maybe Ringo.
While listening to the audition tape, I understand why Decca turned them down. Their first impression that day was not too good. A good first impression is very important on such occations, like a job interview.
Brian was given a copy of the audition on two reel-to-reel tapes, the first containing eight songs, the second seven.
The second tape, containing âMoneyâ, âThe Sheik of Arabyâ, âMemphis Tennesseeâ, Three Cool Catsâ, âSure to Fall (in Love with You)â, âSeptember in the Rainâ, and Like Dreamers Doâ and labelled â2â is to be auctioned online by Sothebyâs between 6-13 December.
The tape has been authenticated by Mark Lewisohn: âThe ending of Three Cool Cats is a single bass note longer than any version weâve had before. The song September in the Rain is four seconds longer than any of the circulated versions as it includes a vocal line which is always edited out. These tiny differences do mark out the tape as original to Brian Epstein, not something created from any other known-to-exist sourceâ (private communication, 2018).
Fascinating that this tape has come to light, given that itâs a copy of the audition given to Brian at the end of the day, and that itâs marked â2â, it would seem to indicate the correct order of the last seven songs played at the audition. After all, it seems unlikely that the songs would have been copied for Brian in a different order to which they were recorded; a straight transfer onto the reel-to-reels from the studio tape seems much more likely.