Lost Beatles Tapes Found?

Police in England and the Netherlands say that raids they conducted Friday may have unearthed lost original Beatles recordings. Five men were arrested, two in London and three south of Amsterdam, where the more than 500 tapes were found.

"We're currently investigating whether they really are the originals, but it appears to be so," Robert Meulenbroek, spokesperson for the public prosecutor in Amsterdam, told press.

The tapes are thought to contain material from the legendary 1969 "Get Back" sessions, an album the Beatles abandoned. Phil Spector later reconstructed material from hundreds of hours of sessions and added overdubs to produce the Beatles' 1970 swan song, Let It Be.

Police claim the tapes were stolen in the Seventies, but, if so, not many people even knew they were missing. Paul Freundlich, spokesperson for former Beatle Paul McCartney called the discovery "fascinating," but did not know the likelihood of the tapes being authentic. "There have been things found [in the past] though," he added.

If the tapes are real, it would be a case of life imitating art, as "The Beatles Album No One Will Ever Hear," a fiction piece in the September 17, 1970 edition of Rolling Stone, dramatized three men's stealing of a lost Beatles album from these same sessions called Hot As Sun.

According to Meulenbroek, the authentication process could take awhile. "There are about 500 tapes, so there's quite a bit to research," he said.

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Song Stories

“All Along the Watchtower”

The Jimi Hendrix Experience | 1968

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."

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