The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz
The Malaysian Insider :: Showbiz |
| Rejected Beatles audition tape appears at auction Posted: 24 Nov 2012 01:07 AM PST LONDON, Nov 24 — The Beatles audition tape rejected by a record label executive in arguably the biggest blunder in pop history has resurfaced and will go on sale at a London auction next week. Ted Owen of The Fame Bureau, an auction house specialising in pop memorabilia, said the 10-song tape was recorded on New Year's Day, 1962, at label Decca's studios in north London.  The early Beatles (clockwise from bottom right) John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, who replaced Pete Best. — Reuters file pic The band members had been driven from Liverpool to London the night before, and, despite getting lost on the way managed to get to the studios in time for the infamous session paid for by their manager Brian Epstein. Decca's senior A&R (artists and repertoire) representative Dick Rowe, who later became known as "the man who turned down the Beatles", decided against signing them in favour of Brian Poole & The Tremeloes, who also auditioned that day. "Guitar groups are on their way out, Mr. Epstein," he is widely quoted as saying. Rowe did, however, sign the Rolling Stones, who went on to become one of the biggest acts in British rock, and experts dispute whether it was him or a more junior colleague who passed the Beatles over. There were bootleg versions of the session in existence, but the "safety master", or back-up tape, on offer at auction was unique, Owen said. "The most important thing about this is the quality," he told Reuters. "There are bootlegs out there, horrible bootlegs — some are at the wrong speed, others are crackly and taken from a cassette off an acetate (disc). "This quality we have never heard." Despite its rarity, the tape has been estimated to fetch £18-20,000 (RM88-97,600), which Owen said had been set by the owner and was a "sensible" starting point. He added that only a handful of collectors were likely to bid for the piece of pop history, and, given that the Beatles owned the copyright through their company, a commercial record release based on the tape was extremely unlikely. Marked as the "Silver Beatles", which the "Fab Four" were briefly called, the tape comes with a hand-written track list and black-and-white photograph of the musicians posing in leather jackets that would be been used for the record sleeve. Also on offer at the Popular Culture auction is a guitar used by Jimi Hendrix to play the bulk of his breakthrough set at the Monterey festival in California in 1967. The black Fender Stratocaster is expected to fetch £120-180,000. — Reuters |
| Posted: 23 Nov 2012 08:44 PM PST  Hagman poses backstage at the 18th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles in this January 29, 2012 file photo. — Reuters pic Hagman died at a Dallas hospital of complications from his battle with cancer, the newspaper said, quoting a statement from his family. He had suffered from cancer and cirrhosis of the liver in the 1990s after decades of drinking. Hagman's mother was stage and movie star Mary Martin and he became a star himself in 1965 on "I Dream of Jeannie," a popular television sitcom in which he played Major Anthony Nelson, an astronaut who discovers a beautiful genie in a bottle. "Dallas," which made its premiere on the CBS network in 1978, made Hagman a superstar. The show quickly became one of the network's top-rated programmes, built an international following and inspired a spin-off, imitators and a revival in 2012. — Reuters |
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