The Beatles' 'First Known' Recording Sparks Legal Battle With UMG: 'A Highly Valuable Artifact'
Geoff Emerick was just a teenager in June 1962, employed as an apprentice sound engineer at EMI Studios (later renamed Abbey Road), when a then-little-known English rock band recorded a demo in the studio.
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and drummer Pete Best laid down four tracks that day — “Bésame Mucho,” “Love Me Do,” “PS, I Love You,” and “Ask Me Why” — on a magnetic recording tape, which was then shuttled over to record producer George Martin at EMI’s headquarters on Manchester Square.
You know the rest: After ditching Best for Ringo Starr, The Beatles broke out with “Love Me Do,” launched Beatlemania, and became the most famous band of all time. Emerick rose with them, serving as chief engineer on iconic records like Abbey Road and becoming what Variety once called the “behind-the-scenes brains that helped shape the Beatles sound.”
But here’s what you probably don’t know: Emerick held onto that demo tape, which had been sent to a nearby squash court where “tapes went to die.” He kept it in his possession for decades, all the way until his 2018 death, when it was discovered among his things. And now, six decades after it was first recorded, Universal Music Group (UMG) wants it back.
In a legal battle quietly raging in Los Angeles court, both the music giant and Emerick’s estate are asking a judge to rule them the rightful owner of the tape, which UMG has called the “first known Beatles recording.” The estate’s lawyers say it was essentially thrown away, and that only Emerick saved it from destruction. UMG’s attorneys say it was always company property — and that it wasn’t his to save.
Source: billboard.com/Bill Donahue
