A Liverpool welder has found one of the Beatles' earliest recordings, which could fetch up to $320,000 at auction, The Sunday Times reported.
Peter Hodgson, 30, whose grandfather lent the group a reel-to-reel tape recorder for a session in 1959, found the recording when he cleared out his deceased grandfather's attic.The tape's 16 songs include "Hello Little Girl," a Lennon-McCartney composition that later became a hit for the 1960s band Fourmost but was never recorded by the Beatles. There is also a Ray Charles song "Hallelujah, I Love Her So."
"I could hardly believe it. I thought it was someone copying them, but I listened again and decided I would call McCartney," Hodgson said.
McCartney told Hodgson the tape was authentic, and Sotheby's has expressed an interest in auctioning it, the paper said.