Welcome to BROW. It’s a snowy day in my neighborhood. This week’s post takes a look at another snowy January Monday, 47 years ago, when The Beatles, supervised by A&R assistant Mike Smith played 15 songs, carefully selected by their new manager Brian Epstein, for Decca Records in West Hampstead, London in hopes of securing a recording contract. Pete Best was still on drums, and the band was shaky and nervous with so much at stake. Consequently, it wasn’t one of their more spontaneous sessions of the time, however Mike Smith was impressed with them. He had seen them a month earlier at a Cavern Club show and had high hopes. It’s well known history though, that the man in charge, Decca A&R executive Dick Rowe turned the band down flat, citing to Brian that groups with guitars are on the way out. Two of the fifteen songs performed were early Lennon-McCarney originals (Hello Little Girl, Like Dreamers Do) and the rest were covers that they often performed for their stage act. These two originals, along with three others from the session (Searchin’, Three Cool Cats and The Sheik Of Araby) were officially released on the The Beatles Anthology 1 CD set in 1995. The others were not officially released in the US but have been widely bootlegged. To Know Her Is To Love Her (originally To Know Him To Love Him) was written by another big name in Beatles history: Phil Spector, for his first band The Teddy Bears (with lead singer Annette Kleinbard). Here it is performed by a young and nervous sounding John Lennon. Perhaps I should have featured this last week since the date of the performance was New Year’s Day, 1962.

The Beatles (Left to right: George, Pete Best, John & Paul at their Decca Audition, 1/1/1962)

Want to make a suggestion for a future Beatles Rarity of the Week? Then let me hear from you. Read about more Beatles rarities and suggest one for me to post. You can begin by searching for different versions of specific tracks right here.

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