A rare audio recording of the Beatles playing at Liverpool's Cavern Club will auction next month - after being lost for 50 years.
Granada Television sound engineer Gordon Butler recorded the band playing Some Other Guy in September 1962, just days after Ringo had joined. "We want Pete" can be heard from the audience at one point - a reference to Pete Best, the drummer whose seat Ringo had taken.
 The tape stayed in Hamp's desk drawer for 50 years |
Butler made the recording after the sound on earlier footage intended for TV programme Know The North was deemed too poor.
The programme never went out due to contractual issues with a brass band also on the bill. Instead, Butler's recording went into Beatles folklore.
Manager Brian Epstein heard it and asked for five acetate copies, and Butler gave the original to legendary TV producer Johnnie Hamp.
It stayed in Hamp's desk drawer for the next 50 years, yet the sound quality remains superb.
Hamp will sell it for charity at Liverpool's Adam Partridge Auctioneers on November 4. It should make significantly more than the £16,500 ($25,000) achieved by one of the five copies in 1993. The buyer was the Beatles' Apple Records label.
The whereabouts of the other four copies is unknown.
These are exciting days for Beatles collectors. The first Beatles contract to bear the signatures of John, Paul, George, and Ringo auctioned for £365,000 ($553,000) this week.
Check out our great range of Beatles memorabilia for sale.
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