Rare 1962 Beatles demo discovered in Vancouver record store

Hear clips of ”The Sheik of Araby” and ”Money (That’s What I Want)” that were recorded while The Beatles were looking for a record deal.

Mar 26, 2025 - 15:19

Rare 1962 Beatles demo discovered in Vancouver record store

An early Beatles demo/audition reel-to-reel tape was discovered by Rob Frith, owner of Vancouver’s Neptoon Records. He told CBC News that the tape, labeled “Beatles 60s demos,” had been sitting around his store, unplayed. He brought it to a friend who had the right player for reel-to-reel tapes, assuming it was a bootleg, and after hearing the clarity of the audio and then posting a video to social media, he realized it was the real thing.

The tape was recorded at Decca Studios in London on January 1, 1962, when The Beatles were still looking for a record label. The clip he posted is a cover of the Tin Pan Alley classic “The Sheik of Araby,” and he later posted another clip, a cover of Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want)” that The Beatles later recorded for their 1963 sophomore album With the Beatles. The CBC article sheds more light on how the tape ended up in Frith’s hands:

After Frith’s post online with the clip made the rounds on social media, someone from the local recording scene reached out and connected Frith with a man who knew all about the tape’s origin: Jack Herschorn.
Herschorn, a former owner of Mushroom Records in Vancouver, brought the tape across the Atlantic in the early 70s.
During a work trip to London, a producer Herschorn knew handed him the tape and suggested he could put out copies of it in North America.
“I took it back and I thought about it quite a bit … I didn’t want to put it out because I felt — I didn’t think it was a totally moral thing to do,” he said.
“These guys, they’re famous and they deserve to have the right royalties on it … it deserves to come out properly,” Herschorn said, adding that he didn’t personally know the Beatles at that time.
He remembers listening to the tape, enjoying it, and wishing the world-famous musicians had been signed with his label instead.
Herschorn held onto the tape, but only for a while. When he eventually left the business, he forgot the tape.

Read more at CBC and check out the clips Frith posted below…

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