Listen to a beautiful, full-fidelity version of The Beatles' 1962 Decca audition tape here!

“Guitar groups are on their way out,” my arteriosclerotic white ass! But yeah, Pete Best did have to go, didn’t he?

John, George, Paul and Pete, Liverpool, 1961: “‘Dis one’s called ‘Rocakaway Beach!’ Take it, Dee Dee!” “ONE! TWO! THREE! FAW!”

Napalm Nation, I owe you a major apology. After eulogizing Mary Weiss last week, my attention got subsumed by a gigantic piece I’m writing for you about huge, negative changes in the journalism world affecting me and my colleagues. Then there’s The Book, that pesky thing I am trying to get finished by March, so you can start filing your pre-orders and I can start writing The Next Book. So next thing I know, it’s next week!

As a consolation prize, may I offer a killer Beatles (AHEM!) “fan club edition” album someone uploaded to YouTube 15 days ago? It’s a gorgeous, full-stereo iteration of The Fabs’ audition tape for Decca Records, recorded in London on January 1st, 1962. Yep, the very tape that was rejected by Decca’s senior A&R man Dick Rowe. According to Beatles manager Brian Epstein’s memoir A Cellarful Of Noise, Rowe informed him, “Guitar groups are on the way out, Mr. Epstein.” Which, considering George Martin heard what Rowe had his head buried so far up his own rectum to discern, made Mr. Decca a laughing stock until he was buried in 1986: “The man who turned down The Beatles.” Not even signing The Rolling Stones at George Harrison’s recommendation enabled him to live that one down.

Mind you, two post-mortems of  the Decca Beatles disaster shed new light. According to The Beatles Bible, Rowe instructed junior A&R man Mike Smith, who brought The Beatles to Decca’s attention, to choose between JohnPaulGeorgePete (as in Best, their then-drummer) or Brian Poole and The Tremeloes.

“I told Mike he’d have to decide between them,” Rowe buck-passed. “He said, ‘They’re both good, but one’s a local group, the other comes from Liverpool.’ 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.”

*Ahem!* Um, well…”Silence Is Golden” was a pretty good record. But, come on!

Then there’s the 2012 story The man who rejected The Beatles, which claimed that “in some respects it was The Beatles who turned down Decca. Rowe had offered to press their records, but at their expense, not Decca's.”

*blink**blink* Wow. Sounds like a few “record deals” The Hormones were offered. Wonder if Dick Rowe worked A&R for those douchebags, as well?

Well, we can’t be so hard on ol’ Dick, even if he did live up to his name. According to Record Collector, Rowe did shape the career of Billy Fury, one of the better English Elvises. But DAMN, son!

Dick Rowe: What’s it like to fit your first name so well?

But no, we’re not here to make a buncha jokes at Dick Rowe’s expense…even though it is so much fun! We are gathered here today to celebrate what could have been a pretty cool rock ‘n’ roll record, even if none of it is the sorta Earth-shaking epoch that was, say, “She Loves You.” But it’s easy to see this as the bridge between the screamin’ raw punkrock Beatles of their black leather Hamburg days and the suited-and-booted moptop era. Some of it is familiar, such as “Money (That’s What I Want)” and “‘Til There Was You.” And that divide between inflamed R&B/rock ‘n’ roll and sorta supper club balladeering marks much of the rest of the material essayed here.

What’s really cool are three Lennon/McCartney co-writes The Fabs never got around to cutting once their Parlophone contract was in hand. Dunno why they (or perhaps George Martin) didn’t feel such gems as “Like Dreamers Do,” “Hello Little Girl,” or “Love Of The Loved” were as worthy as, say, “It Won’t Be Long.” That one always felt to me like a killer chorus and great George Harrison guitar riff in search of a better song to sit within. But before the mob of Beatlemaniacs comes after me with their pitchforks over that faux pas (because questioning The Beatles’ supremacy at any time is like questioning Taylor Swift’s nowadays), let’s just say The Fab Four’s loss was the gain of The Applejacks, Gerry And The Pacemakers, and Cilla Black.

But honestly, I gotta ask: Does it occur to anyone listening to these tracks that perhaps what Dick Rowe heard was the same thing as George Martin? That they needed to replace the drummer?

You can barely hear Pete Best on these tapes. When you can hear him tap-tap-tapping away in the background, it’s obvious the lad had some skill. But fergawdssake, Pete! HIT THOSE FUCKERS! STOP TICKLING THEM! No WONDER John, Paul and George sent you back to Liverpool and rang up Ringo! The Big Beat was what they needed to put them over! You can hear that clear-as-a-bell guitar interplay, Paul’s fat-toned bass, and those delicious vocals, especially when they lock in those harmonies. But the rendition of “Memphis, Tennessee” doesn't even sound like it has drums! And it’s like I always say: A rock ‘n’ roll band lives and dies by its drummer. Despite the belief of a lotta assholes who think Neil Peart and his five million drums were the greatest thing to hit percussion since the invention of the drumstick, Ringo Starr is brilliant. He was solid, inventive, and hit a fuckuvalot harder than Pete Best on these tapes. You Ringo haters can shut the fuck up now.

But I should shut up and let you listen to these tapes, Napalm Nation. Judge for yourself if Dick Rowe had tin ears or not, or if Pete Best needed to eat his Wheaties. Yes, a few of these tracks got on the first Anthology.  But this is the complete Decca audition tape, all single takes, live-in-the-studio, cut New Year’s Day 1962 after The Beatles and Neil Aspinall drove down from Liverpool to The Big Smoke in a blizzard. And got told by Mike Smith that their equipment was substandard, so please use Decca’s amps. The entire thing has about the clearest sound I have ever heard in any representation of these tracks. And I find myself continually rewinding the Paul-sung “Like Dreamers Do” and weeping at how gorgeous it is, and wondering what kind of dickhead could hear this and not sign this band and rush-release it as a single? (Well, duh — DICK ROWE, that’s who!) Only the completely heartless could listen to this and not be moved. So let me shut up and present The Beatles’ The Decca Tapes, with pride and pleasure. Thank you.

 

#TimStegall #TimNapalmStegall #TimNapalmStegallSubstack #PunkJournalism #TheBeatles #DeccaAudition #1962 #PaulMcCartney #JohnLennon #GeorgeHarrison #PeteBest #NapalmNation #MusicHistory #RockNRoll #DickRowe #GeorgeMartin #Audiophile #Beatlemania #LiverpoolSound #BritishInvasion #MusicIndustry #RecordLabels #ClassicRock #Anthology #RingoStarr #DrummerDebate #GuitarGroups #BeatlesFans #MusicDiscovery #TheBeatlesForever #FabFour #subscribe #fourdollarsmonthly #fortydollarsannually #upgradeyourfreesubscription #bestwaytosupport