PRESS ASSOCIATION -- Sir Paul McCartney is to make his first album with Decca, half a century after the Beatles were famously rejected by the record company.
The musician's first ballet, Ocean's Kingdom, which receives its premiere next month, is to be released by the company later this year.
The Fab Four's snub by Decca is often seen as one of the biggest errors in judgment in the music business. Months later, the group signed to Parlophone and began a run of chart-toppers to become the biggest act in the world.
Sir Paul was commissioned by the New York City Ballet to create his new work, with the score recorded in London in June, conducted by John Wilson. The production will premiere in New York on September 22, with the album, performed by the London Classical Orchestra, to follow on October 3.
It is the score's appearance on the label that turned the band down in early 1962 which will tickle many fans.
Decca rejected them on the grounds that "guitar groups are on the way out" and the band "have no future in show business". Instead the firm signed The Tremeloes.
Meanwhile, The Royle Family actress Sue Johnston has revealed her mother disapproved of her hanging out with the Beatles when she was younger.
In her autobiography Things I Couldn't Tell My Mother, she write: "I got to know Paul well, and Ringo. We became good mates.
"The Beatles first appeared on TV on October 17, 1962. They were dressed in leather biker jackets and looked very sexy. My mum was appalled. After that, when Paul came to our place to drop me off, she'd ask in disgust, 'Has that dirty Beatle been in my house?'"