Harry And His Box Set (V1, 2, 7, 10, 12, 15, 14 update.)

[JoeWadley]

While going through some old cassettes from the late 70s, I found a 45 minute tape that was going around at this time sourced from a lady named Caroline Ellis who seems to have recorded odd songs off the Beeb starting with the first Saturday Club in January 63. It provided the raw material for some bootlegs of the time like Beautiful Dreamer, and also all the, erm, "lesser quality" songs that padded out the American version of the Beatles At The Beeb show in 1982.

Anyway, the complete tape has never been published so I was wondering if there is any interest? These are not upgrades in any sense. They are in fact downgrades. But for years they were the only versions available and then usually only incomplete so I thought it might be worth putting up for historical reasons. If nothing else it'll remind you of how far we've come. Some of the culprits include I'll Be On My Way, I'm Talking About You, That's Alright Mama and alternate unheard sources for things like Beautiful Dreamer.

While doing this I also realised that there was also another person who recorded bits and pieces that are familiar to me. I think a lot or most of these are what comprises the "Joe Pope Tape" that got booted, but there might be some extra ones going from what I heard. This tape provided the source material for early BBC boots like Yellow Matter Custard and Outtakes.

I am sure there is interest. Not from me though. I lived through those years. Bought a lot of dodgy sounding boots. What we have today is much better for me, thank you.

[mitchellmichael]

I would absolutely love to hear it. I adore the grungier (I.e. non- messed around with) bootlegs. I wish more of the old original vinyl bootlegs would get digitized and not mucked with.

[jgjohnson]

I got cassette tapes from Caroline years ago, as did others. One thing I remember was she told me her original recordings were on reel to reel, but she ditched all of them when she transfered the recordings to cassette.
Also, when the Beatles released a song on a record, she no longer needed the BBC recording and taped over it. That is why, for example, the tape she has of one of the Side By Side shows only has the intros to the songs, but the song itself is missing.

[Captain_Kidd]

Anyway, the complete tape has never been published so I was wondering if there is any interest? These are not upgrades in any sense. They are in fact downgrades. But for years they were the only versions available and then usually only incomplete so I thought it might be worth putting up for historical reasons. If nothing else it'll remind you of how far we've come. Some of the culprits include I'll Be On My Way, I'm Talking About You, That's Alright Mama and alternate unheard sources for things like Beautiful Dreamer.

I'd love to hear it. I, too, adore the grungier bootlegs, and to hear their source material would be great. I love the history of the BBC bootlegs as presented in the wonderful book in the Great Dane 9cd Box set, and these tapes tie in nicely with that. Please do it

[Lord Reith]

I got cassette tapes from Caroline years ago, as did others. One thing I remember was she told me her original recordings were on reel to reel, but she ditched all of them when she transfered the recordings to cassette.
Also, when the Beatles released a song on a record, she no longer needed the BBC recording and taped over it. That is why, for example, the tape she has of one of the Side By Side shows only has the intros to the songs, but the song itself is missing.

I'm quite impressed that she managed to record a version of EVERY unreleased song between January 1963 and May 1964! Remember that at the time there was no indication of what would be played. It would have required a religious devotion to the task.

However, relevant to your comment I did find ONE previously unheard snippet where John Dunn introduces Long Tall Sally from Side By Side. We already had part of the interview preceeding it (which going by the background noise was also recorded by Caroline) but not this bit. It's painfull to learn that she taped over the songs from the first Side By Side, from which we have nothing except her partial recording of the theme and an interview which I am guessing she also captured. Her economy with tape is impressive, but it had a terrible consequence!

Do you still have your copy of her tapes? It might have some more of the missing intros for SBS.

[jgjohnson]

I have 2 of them, there may be another. They are in the covers that she filled out herself. I'll see if I can make files out of them to upload here. I started to do that but them something went wrong

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[Lord Reith]

I sent you a PM.

[MarkRJones1970]

I'm interested to know if these are the complete versions and the bootleggers faded them out early on purpose themselves or are they already like that on the tapes?

[Lord Reith]

I'm interested to know if these are the complete versions and the bootleggers faded them out early on purpose themselves or are they already like that on the tapes?

They're not faded out. She taped each song from start to finish.

[Jeff_Hitz]

I'm interested to know if these are the complete versions and the bootleggers faded them out early on purpose themselves or are they already like that on the tapes?

They're not faded out. She taped each song from start to finish.

I assume that you're talking about this abomination - it's one of the very few Beatlegs, or bootlegs of any kind, that I felt was a major ripoff in those early days of collecting.

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