Dame Vera Lynn’s unearthed audition tapes are to be released more than 90 years after they were recorded.
The recordings were found after Lynn’s daughter moved out of the family home in Ditchling, East Sussex where her mother had lived with her father Harry Lewis for nearly 40 years.
Virginia Lewis-Jones made the discovery having decided to donate her record collection to the British Library after her mother’s death in 2020 aged 103.
The three aluminium master discs had been tucked into the paper sleeve of It’s Home, one of only 100 copies of Lynn’s first pressed disc, recorded in 1935.
Two of the discs are hand-labelled with the song titles What a Difference a Day Makes and Spring Don’t Mean a Thing to Me.
A medley features a section of I Hate Myself (For Being So Mean to You), as well as a piano-only version of It’s Home.
On another track a mystery voice joins Lynn and they can be heard scatting together.
Using specialist equipment, musicology experts at the British Library were able to listen to the masters and identify them as audition tapes.
Lewis-Jones said that it was wonderful to hear her mother’s voice “from the early days”.
“I always had the feeling these would be worth exploring so I am absolutely thrilled that the audition tapes we’ve never heard can now be brought to life, and add significantly to what we already know about Ma,” she added.
She added that it was plain to hear that her mother’s vocals changed as she got older. “On the audition tapes, she was still so young. She’s just starting out and her voice and tone hasn’t developed fully,” she said. “The younger you are, the higher your voice is. Listening to her latest albums, her voice has dropped considerably and is rounder and more finished.”
The record label Decca released the “simple but nostalgic recording” of What a Difference a Day Makes on Friday to commemorate the 80th anniversary of VJ Day.
Lynn in 1956, rehearsing for a radio show
PA
Lynn was dubbed the “forces’ sweetheart”, for her patriotic songs including We’ll Meet Again, (There’ll Be Bluebirds Over) The White Cliffs of Dover and There’ll Always Be an England. The records helped to sustain both those at war and their loved ones at home during the Second World War.
Other previously unheard and rare tracks will feature on a new Vera Lynn album called Hidden Treasures, which will be released on November 7.
Lynn in 1964
MANCHESTER DAILY EXPRESS/SSPL/GETTY IMAGES
Karoline Engelhardt, the curator of popular music recordings at the British Library, said that it was a “fascinating collection”.
“The previously unreleased songs captured a special moment in music history, when Dame Vera Lynn was still in the early stages of her career and was yet to become the voice of a generation,” Engelhardt added. “Our role in preserving and digitising these recordings will enable them to be enjoyed for generations to come.”
Weeks before her death, Lynn became the oldest artist to have a top 40 album in the UK with her greatest hits album 100.