BEATLES – Day By Day – 1/1/62
Monday, 1st January, 1961
At 11:00am The Beatles arrived at the studios of Decca Records in Broadhurst Gardens, London for the most important day of their career to date. The chance to audition for a major record label. While Brain Epstein had traveled down to London by train the previous day and stayed overnight with a family member his charges had battled snowstorms for a ten-hour overnight journey in an uncomfortable van driven by newly appointed road manager Neil Aspinall, who got lost en-route.
Decca’s A&R man, Mike Smith, who had already seen the group perform at The Cavern, arrived late and was dismayed at the state of the group’s amps which were showing distinct signs of their hard work in Hamburg and Liverpool, he insisted that they use the unfamiliar studio equipment instead. Brian had chosen a list of 15 songs for the audition which he felt showed the group’s versatility. None of the chosen songs were original Lennon/McCartney compositions, instead they performed two standards; seven covers of 1950s material from rock ‘n’ roll, R&B and Country & Western; two ballads and one contemporary chart hit.
The audition ran for just over an hour with now chances for second takes and no overdubs allowed.
Once John, Paul, George and Pete had finished Smith made a fast exit from the control room as he was late for another audition (Brian Poole & The Tremeloes) and promised he would let Brian Epstein know. At some point in the next few days Smith had a small number of acetate discs of the audition recordings made up for internal circulation at Decca.
The Beatles piled back into the van for their return journey to Liverpool while Brian returned via the relative comfort of the train.
