The owner of two audio cassette reels containing a one-of-a-kind, superior quality Beatles concert recorded directly from the soundboard at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens on August 17, 1965 is up for sale. Only seven people are said to have heard the wheels, since the show nearly 60 years ago at the height of Beatlemania.
The question now is who will buy it, how much it might be worth — and whether it will ever be released for the general public to hear.
“I have never offered it for sale before” Pierce HemmingsenToronto-based Beatles historian and author The Beatles in Canada series, he says Bulletin board. “This is the best recording of any Beatles concert in Canada, if not North America, other than the one professionally recorded for the Beatles themselves.”
For a band as legendary as the Beatles, any rare artifact is likely to attract a horde of would-be buyers. But a unique recording of a concert held at the top of the band is a rare among the rare.
Hemmingsen, who has a copy on three cassettes for listening purposes only, says the reels contain the Beatles' entire afternoon set, the opening act, venue announcements for upcoming events (The Beach Boys, wrestling) and a press conference with Beatles “director Brian Epsteintheir PR person Tony Barrow and the BBC Brian Mathewheld in the arena's large-paned Hot Stove Lounge.
The Beatles' set lasted about half an hour and included 12 songs (in order): 'Twist and Shout', 'She's A Woman', 'I Feel Fine', 'Dizzy Miss Lizzie', 'Ticket To Ride', 'Everybody's Trying to be my baby', 'Can't Buy Me Love', 'Baby's in Black', 'I Wanna Be Your Man', 'A Hard Day's Night', 'Help!' and “I'm down.”
Opening was King Curtis and the Capitol Recording Band (12 songs). Cannibal and The Headhunters (five songs). Brenda Holloway (five songs) and Sounds Incorporated (five songs), which Epstein also repeated. In total, the tapes contain 39 songs.
Courtesy of Piers Hemmingsen
The first look at Hemmingsen's letter — a sales sheet describing the opportunity to buy the tapes that were shown exclusively on Bulletin board — says the original concert tapes are “now available privately for the first time, to select individuals that resonate for their rarity and historic imperative.” And an appraiser who spoke to me Bulletin board it is estimated that the wheels could be valued between $60,000 and $80,000 and could fetch up to $100,000 or more at auction. But the only potential buyer with the ability to release the recording to the public would be Apple Corps — and so far, there has been no offer.
According to Hemmingsen, the recording was organized by the former Toronto Argonauts football player and two-time Gray Cup champion. Don “Shanty” McKenziewho after retiring from the Canadian Football League (CFL) worked for 40 years as a building superintendent for Maple Leaf Gardens. He passed away in 2001.
Hemmingsen considers himself the “custodian” of these tapes and realizes that he is unable to share them publicly because Apple Corps owns the rights. (Apple Corps is aware of the recording, but declined to comment when reached Bulletin board.)
While doing years of research for his book in 2016, The Beatles in Canada: The Origins of Beatlemania! (Red Book), Hemmingsen discovered the existence of a black-and-white 8mm home film McKenzie shot, without sound, of the Beatles' September 7, 1964 concert at the Gardens. He bought the film from McKenzie's son around 2010, who disposed of the two reels.
“When I bought the items, it was really just for the film, which was not the original but a copy,” says Hemmingsen, a collector who recently curated and lent many of his treasures to the Beatles exhibition that opened last month at Calgary National Music Centre, titled From Me To You: The Beatles in Canada 1964-1966. “I certainly didn't expect to know what was on those two wheels. I still find it hard to believe.”
Hemmingsen didn't say that Bulletin board what he paid his son McKenzie for the tape and reels, but says it “wasn't expensive” because they didn't know what was on the tapes at the time. “I took a risk in buying them as it took a while to find a suitable player and listen to them,” he says. “The film boxes were undated.”
The August 17, 1965 concert was the Beatles' first since their appearance at Shea Stadium in Queens, New York on August 15, which opened their 1965 North American tour with 55,600 in attendance. The famous footage of that concert shows the 'Beatlemania' that had taken hold, as well as why the live bootlegs circulating and posted on the internet are not of good quality.
“Most of these recordings captured only the sounds of the audience's screams of delight at seeing the Beatles,” the first look of Hemmingsen's letter begins. “This live recording, made on professional equipment by a soundboard engineer at Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens, on August 17, 1965, is the best live recording made in Canada during their tours.”
Hemmingsen says he hasn't made copies of the tapes or even played them for friends over the years. Only a select group of people have heard it, he says, including the Canadian former concert promoter John Browerwho organized the famous Toronto Rock and Roll Revival music festival in 1969 and helps sell the tapes. and Doug McClementwhom he describes as “one of Canada's most respected sound engineers”.
More importantly, many people closely involved with the Beatles legacy have heard the recording. After bringing the tapes to the attention of Apple Corps, Hemmingsen says the company took him to Abbey Road Studios in July 2015, where he “tested” the original reel on their equipment. He says Bulletin board four people were there: the Abbey Road producer; Giles Martin (producer of the Beatles George Martinson's) Jonathan Clydeproduction manager at Apple Corps. Sean Mageemastering engineer at Abbey Road. and Lester Smith — the technician and “mic keeper” who retired just a week ago from Abbey Road after 56 years — who set up the film's equipment.
“That was for their work Eight days a weekthe Ron Howard movie,” Hemingsen says of the meeting. “Now, it turned out that at the time, they said they couldn't use it for this project, and that didn't mean they couldn't do anything else with it later, but that's how we left it.”
He adds that when he heard the recordings through a recording studio console, “it was a revelation. It's like being on stage with them.”
Bulletin boardHis efforts to reach Martin were unsuccessful.
Hemmingsen says the tapes were authenticated by Apple Corps and Magee. It arrived via email, Magee said Bulletin board is not authorized to comment on what he heard without permission from Apple and Universal Music Group.
Hemmingsen adds that earlier this year, Universal Music Canada director of catalog marketing, Warren Stewartheard some “sample clips” and that two “sample clips” were sent to filmmaker Peter Jackson “this week for his evaluation” given the MAL software technology he used to enhance recordings for the documentary series he directed and produced; The Beatles: Get Back.
Hemmingsen says he'd like to keep the tape, but that everything is negotiable “if someone absolutely insists I give it up.” He wasn't ready to say it Bulletin board dollar amount he has in mind, but he plans to use any proceeds to finance both the printing of his next book, The Beatles in Canada: The Evolution 1964-1970 (Blue Book), which will be released in September. and a second edition of The Beatles in Canada: The Origins of Beatlemania! (Red Book).
The Beatles played only nine concerts in Canada, six of which were at Maple Leaf Gardens: two on September 7, 1964. two on August 17, 1965. and two on August 17, 1966. Hemmingsen also owns the only other known Toronto recording of one of his 1966 concerts, which he acquired on eBay in 2008 from a US seller and donated to the University of Toronto in 2017.
“The value given by the University appraiser was $30,000 [Canadian dollars; USD $22,000]”, he says. “If you compare something that's spread around the world to something that's never been heard before, which is superior sound quality, I think there's a factor of five, at least.”
To try to estimate the value of this unique board entry based purely on the description of what the two reels contain, Bulletin board contacted UK-based music and vinyl memorabilia specialists Omega Auctions Ltd., who are holding a Beatles auction on October 8 and are inviting consignments.
“We've sold a lot of Beatles recordings over the years. This is our position,” says the auction director Dan Muscatelli-Hampsonciting a recent Ringo Starr audio tour diary made in 1966 which sold for £10,000 ($13,000) and a set of unheard interviews which sold for £30,000 ($39,000).
“Concert recordings are different and are obviously more interesting than interviews and will have more value, but the bottom line is that what you can do with it is limited,” he continues. “If you bought this, you have a very nice reel. But if you ever tried to do anything with it commercially, Apple and Paul McCartney would be suing you for the next century. So this limits the commercial value.
“But I think if you put it up for auction, you might think I'd probably say something like £40,000 to £60,000,” he adds. “So that's maybe $60,000 to $80,000, but that's a provisional auction estimate. I wouldn't be surprised to see it sell for over $100,000.”
Muscatelli-Hampson says Hemmingsen “will always be better served putting it up for auction, opening it from a pool rather than just going for the first offer he gets from Apple. [But] some people want to close that circle and give it back to the people who might be able to do something with it.”
Hemmingsen's preference would be for Apple Corps to buy the tapes and release the concert for all to hear. He hopes it will be available to Beatles fans before the 60th anniversary of the Toronto concert next year.
“You can't sit on something like that,” says Hemmingsen. “You want to share it with the world. On the other hand, there is commercial value and the only people who can release it are Apple. Someone could buy the tape from me and enjoy it for themselves, but they could never release it. I have this in writing from Apple. I mean, there's nothing I can do about it.”
