The young men from Liverpool had gone into London’s HMV record store to cut a record, one they hoped would lead to their big break.
Within a couple of years, the Beatles were the biggest thing in music. And now, the 10-inch acetate disc that helped launch them there is up for sale.
Omega Auctions of Warrington expects the recording, featuring the Beatles’ singing “Hello Little Girl” on one side and “Till There Was You” on the other, will fetch upwards of £10,000 ($13,800). It’s one of several items tied to the legendary band to be auctioned off on March 22.
The songs featured on the record to be auctioned next month aren’t among the string of Beatles hits that dominated the charts in the 1960s, but that doesn’t mean they’re not important in the band’s — and music’s — history.
The seeds had been planted in Liverpool in 1957, when Paul McCartney met fellow teenager John Lennon at a church picnic. McCartney and his friend George Harrison would join Lennon’s group, the Quarrymen (one of several names they tried before settling on the Beatles in 1960).
A year later, the lads hooked up with manager Brian Epstein.
It was Epstein who in 1962 brought the Beatles to an HMV (His Master’s Voice) store in London that had a small recording studio where musicians could cut records.
Epstein took the 78-rpm disc they made to producer George Martin “in his desperate attempt to get them a recording contract,” according to Omega Auctions.
“This meeting, despite Martin’s initial reticence, was to eventually lead to the breakthrough they were looking for,” the auction house said, with Martin going to produce the Beatles chart-topping first albums for the EMI label.
According to the Beatles Bible website, “Hello Little Girl” was the first song Lennon ever wrote. “Till There Was You” was a cover of the song from “The Music Man,” which the Beatles would perform, along with four other songs, in their groundbreaking February 9, 1964, performance on the “Ed Sullivan Show.” It reappeared in the 1995 compilation album “Anthology 1,”
The one-off acetate record containing both these tunes was instrumental in the Beatles’ rise, but — until recently — it was locked away in another musician’s loft.
It went from Epstein to Martin, back to Epstein, then to pianist Les Maguire of Gerry and the Pacemakers, another Liverpool group who went on to become popular in the UK, Omega Auctions noted.
“This is one of those Holy Grail items like the original Quarrymen acetate that the band recorded themselves,” Rare Record Price Guide editor Ian Shirely said in the auction house news release. “This acetate is a unique item that, in many respects, helped Brian Epstein to start the ball rolling to musical world domination.”