Audio recordings made by Ringo Starr have realised £10,000 at auction in England. But a signed copy of Please Please Me, the Beatles’ debut album, proved more valuable than the remarkable tapes in the same sale, making £24,000.
The cassette tapes were extraordinary.
On them were an early demo of Don’t Pass Me By, the first song penned by Ringo alone to appear on a Beatles record: the “White Album” from 1968. The drummer can also be heard performing on piano.
Starr also recorded tour diaries on the tapes, including interviews with his bandmates.
The three tapes included segments recorded in Japan, Germany and the Philippines in the Beatles’ final year of touring, 1966.
The Beatles at the Budokan, Tokyo in 1966, on a tour they didn’t enjoy.
The miserable trip to the Philippines was just one of the final straws that made the band give up live performance. The band inadvertently snubbed the ruling Marcos family and their party was reportedly roughed up at the airport as a result,
In Germany they sneaked out of their security to visit the Hamburg streets where they first bloomed as a live act.
A new chapter also emerges on the recordings, with audio captured in India, where the Fab Four play Indian classical instruments. George Harrison’s deep interest in Indian music was to colour the rest of the band’s career.
The tapes’ owner was unaware of their content according to the auction house handling the sale.
Had they contained unique or unreleased music they would be much more valuable. Last year a set of recordings by Beatles press manager Derek Taylor was listed online with an estimate of $500,000.
The art work the band made while holed up in their Tokyo hotel on this trip made $1.7 million.
Despite their unique nature the recordings were not the most valuable item in the sale. A signed copy of Please Please Me surpassed them. Sometimes unique items can be hard to value, but signed Beatles albums are a known (and very valuable) quantity.
