A lost 1968 song featuring George Harrison and Ringo Starr has been unearthed

A previously unheard song recorded in 1968 and featuring The Beatles‘ George Harrison and Ringo Starr has been discovered in a Birmingham attic.

The song, titled ‘Radhe Shaam’, was written by the journalist Suresh Joshi in 1968 for a documentary called ‘East Meets West’, and recorded at Trident Studios in London.

Harrison and Starr were at the same studios recording ‘Hey Jude’ at the time, and offered to contribute guitar and drums.

The track was first played to 100 people at the Liverpool Beatles Museum, and then received its first airplay on BBC Radio Merseyside along with an interview with Joshi.

“We were making a feature film, we were recording our other music with Asshish Khan, and while we were doing that in comes George Harrison. I stood out like a sore thumb,” Joshi remembered. You can listen back to it here, with the interview beginning at 2 hours 16 minutes, and the song at 2 hours and 27 minutes.

Joshi said the master tape had been stored in his loft in Birmingham, and only rediscovered during lockdown. “It was lost and found many times, but we didn’t have the chance to release it because time had gone on, The Beatles were breaking up and had various problems, so nobody wanted to get it.

“Then about four or five years ago I told Aashish let’s release it, and he said there’s too many things going on, let’s leave it for a while… Suddenly the lockdown was a blessing in disguise.”

Liverpool Beatles Museum manager Paul Parry told the audience who heard the song there, that he “loved” the song, and called it “absolutely amazing.”

“It was unmistakeably George’s guitar [and] it was like almost bringing him back to life,” he said. “It was unmistakeably Ringo’s drumming too.”

There are plans for the songs to receive a full release tomorrow (November 11), with proceeds going to charity. “Leave it to humanity, that’s what George wanted to do,” Joshi said.