RIP Tony Sheridan. . .

The late Tony Sheridan onstage at the Top Ten Club in Hamburg ca. 1961 with the Beatles.  You can juts make out Stu Sutcliffe in the distance and Paul McCartney's back (in a gray sweat) at the piano along with Pete Best's drums at the far right.

Time to get this poor blog cranked up again!  And, sadly, the occasion is the recent death of the legendary Tony Sheridan.  So, here's a double-shot of the early Beatles for you, a version of My Bonnie and Cry for a Shadow both recorded during the Bert Kaempfert sessions in the spring of 1961.  The first track one features Tony singing lead with Messrs Lennon and McCartney very much in evidence on the backing vocals while the latter track is the famous Lennon and Harrison instrumental.  Enjoy!

A long overdue post. . .

Looking down the Grosse Freiheit from the busier Reepebahn in Hamburg, Germany, ca. 1960.  The Indra club is a couple of blocks down the street on the right-hand side.

Well, it's been over a year since my last post here. . .  Shame on me!  Lets get back to rooting around through the music played by the very early Beatles during their various residencies in Hamburg 1960-62. . .  BEFORE they started playing their own material.

When John, Paul, George, Stu (Sutcliffe), and Pete (Best) arrived in Hamburg in mid-August 1960, it didn't take long before they ran out of material, since they were expected to play something like eight hours a night onstage at The Indra.  WHile they were forced to repeat songs several times during an evening, they viewed having to do so as the mark of amateurs.  They were a professional band by this point after all.  So, they began wracking their brains for material to fill out the act, everything from rock & roll and rockabilly, to old pop standards and movie themes, to country & western numbers.

One such tune, that I've seen on some list of Hamburg-era cover tunes online or in a book, was the Don Gibson song from 1958 (featuring Chet Atkins on guitar), Oh, Lonesome Me.  Click on the preceding highlighted link to hear the original version.  Now, this is based purely on speculation, but since The Beatles, and particularly John and Paul, were such huge fans of the Everly Brothers, it seems plausible that they might have covered Phil and Don's version of the same tune, which featured more interesting interplay between two harmonizing voices.  Give a listen to The Everly Brothers singing Oh, Lonesome Me and see what you think.  

Hearing this, it's easy to close one's eyes and imagine the still inexperience, teen-aged Beatles playing this on the tiny stage at The Indra as the club patrons smoked, drank, and fought, indifferent to the recently hired group of young scousers onstage.  Three of these young men, boys really, would, in just a few years, go on to become part of the biggest music phenomenon of all time. . .  Unless, of course, we are talking about Katy Perry or Justin Bieber!

High Time for a New Post!!!

Might the young, leather-clad Sir Paul have been singing 'I Remember You' when this photograph was taken?

Well, it's been too long between posts here, so let's get cracking.  Besides the many rockers that The Beatles kicked out during their Hamburg and Cavern days, they also included many slow tunes and middle of the road pop tunes in their sets.  A virtual walking jukebox as one author noted years ago (maybe Phillip Norman in Shout!).  

One tune such that the band covered was 'I Remember You', originally recorded and perfomed by Frank Ifield, which was apparently a hit in the British charts of 1962.  I think I read somewhere that it was the first million-selling record by a British artist, though I wouldn't swear to it.  As usual, just click on the highlighted link above to hear the original version of the song via the wonderfully magical YouTube.  Anyway, a very Slim Whitman-esque little number!

Now, to hear The Beatles' treatment of the same number, click HERE to hear a less-than-stellar recording of Sir Paul and the boys performing the same tune at the famous Star Club in Hamburg during December 1962. I like the slightly faster tempo here, though that could be the result of bad recording technology, or the fact that the guys in the band were probably slightly drunk, or stoned out of their gourds on Preludin.  I've read that John Lennon, in particular, indulged heavily during the last visits to Hamburg in 1962, which might explain the out-of-tune harmonica.  I suspect he was having difficulty adjusting to (sudden) married life and the arrival of a child, and so booze, pills, and women acted as a distraction of sorts.

Anyway, what brought 'I Remember You' to mind this morning is that my own band THE INDRAS is currently practicing this song, and we'll give it a whirl live for the first time in our third set this Saturday evening.  The specialty of the band is playing the wild, quirky music of the Hamburg and Cavern-era Beatles. . .  long before they were molded into the cute moptops that conquered the known world by the moderating hand of Brian Epstein.  If you are at all interested, visit THE INDRAS' website by clicking on the highlighted link.  You can learn more about the band there, hear several of our cover tunes, and find links to our Facebook and Myspace pages.  Enjoy!

George Harrison, Das liebschen Kind. . .

George and his Czech-made Futurama guitar take the lead as John and Paul look on.

It has been easy, in Beatles historiography, to forget that other members of the band were very talented in their own right and enjoyed a fan base, even in the early days.  Such is the case for George Harrison, who has always seemed to take a backseat to the more prolific songwriters in the band, John Lennon and Paul McCartney.  

This is a shame, because George had his own thing going on although perhaps that was not readily apparent until some of the band's mid-career albums that featured very well-crafted, interesting George compositions.  But even during the Beatles' Hamburg days, George contributed to the band's look and sound, much to the delight of the German audience, who referred to him as "Das liebschen Kind" (the beautiful child).  

George could even be the most adventurous of the five Hamburg-era Beatles where his personal appearance was concerned.  According to one biographer, George was the first to buy cowboy boots from the Texas Shop in Hamburg and wear them onstage.  He was also the second Beatle (after Stu Sutcliffe) to begin combing his hair down over his forehead into something akin to what became known later as the beatle haircut.

As I've already mentioned somewhere on this blog, George was a huge fan of American rockabilly/country artist Carl Perkins, and so naturally many of Perkins' tunes featured in the Beatles' set lists during their Liverpool and Hamburg days.  One that has a particularly country feel to it is Glad All Over, which was recorded by The Beatles for one of their BBC radio programs in 1963 or '64.  And here's a link to the original Sun Records version of the song by Carl Perkins, which really moves right along at a break-neck pace.   

Just click on the highlighted links above to hear recordings of the song in question, featuring George (and Carl of course) on lead vocals and guitar.  And if you close your eyes, it's very easy to imagine that the former might have been singing Glad All Over when the photograph at the top of today's entry was taken in 1960 or '61.  Enjoy!

The Beatles and Elvis. . . The Beatles and County & Western. . .

Smokin' George!  He looks very young here, so I don't know if this picture was taken during one of the band's Hamburg jaunts, or not, but I like it a lot.

I'm certain that I have nattered on and on here before about the Beatles' fondness for early Elvis Presley tunes.  However, there is one very early Elvis song, covered by the Hamburg-era Beatles and sung by George Harrison, that I haven't been able to get out of my head lately.

So, it seems like a good idea to devote a posting to it today.  The tune is called I Forgot to Remember to Forget.  As usual, just click on the blue highlighted song title to be magically transported to a YouTube track of the Beatles performing the song at the BBC.  

This version of the song comes, naturally, from the Beatles at the BBC CD set, first issued back in the mid-1990s.  And it doesn't get much more country & western than that.  I just love Paul's twangy Hofner bass!  Interestingly, this tune was THE very first hit (on the country charts) for Elvis Presley when he was still at Sun Records in Memphis, not Heartbreak Hotel as is commonly thought. 

Ok, we've heard the Beatles' cover.  Now, let's give a listen to the original version of I Forgot to Remember to Forget from 1955.  A good tune, but the the Beatles' version is preferable.  George's guitar work during the break, among other things, just has a certain something about it that the original lacks as nice as it sounds.  

Well, that's it for this time around.  Be sure to help spread the good word about the Beatles in Hamburg and Liverpool blog.  And a special hello and thank-you to those of you who already follow it regularly.  Today's post and its musical links are dedicated to you.  Enjoy!

What instrumental numbers did the Hamburg-era Beatles play?

Here's another shot of the very early Beatles in their jeans and leather jackets.  From left to right: George Harrison, Pete Best, Paul McCartney, and John Lennon.  Is Pete singing a lead here, or does their rather relaxed stance suggest that they are playing an instrumental?

As an attempt to repair yesterday's Gene Vincent gaff, I thought I'd throw in another post today, featuring some of the instrumental tunes the Hamburg-era Beatles probably included in their nightly sets.  Quite a few tunes to be sure.

Perhaps most famous is the Harrison-Lennon composition Cry for a Shadow, otherwise known as Beatle Bop.  This was a parody of several then-popular tunes by the instrumental combo (and Cliff Richard's backing group) The Shadows, which was thrown rapidly together as a joke to fool Rory Storm.  It was later committed to tape in the June 1961 sessions in which the Beatles backed Tony Sheridan during a three-month residency in Hamburg at the Top Ten Club.  Another interesting piece, written by the Beatles, is Catswalk, which might very well have appeared in Hamburg-era setlists, though this particular recording is allegedly from a rehearsal at Liverpool's Cavern Club sometime in 1961 or '62.

Another instrumental tune that undoubtedly found its way into the Beatles' stage repertoire in Hamburg was the Bill Justice tune Raunchy from 1957, which apparently was the tune George Harrison first impressed John Lennon with, cementing the former's place in the band.  Given the long hours onstage that the Hamburg-era Beatles were responsible for providing music to, especially during their first residency in 1960, they pulled every song they knew from their collective musical hat.  It seems highly likely, then, that Raunchy continued to be played by the band at least until they began working hard to find new material before their return to the Reeperbahn in 1961.

Next, the great Duane Eddy enjoyed a stream of instrumental hits during the late 1950s and early 60s, and the young Beatles were certainly familiar with his take on rock and roll.  One Duane Eddy song that figured in their early catalog was Ramrod, one of the tunes that was used to audition Pete Best during the summer of 1960, prior to the band's first trip to Hamburg.  Another Eddy tune that the Hamburg-era Beatles surely continued to include in their long sets was Movin' n Groovin', an instrumental that was part of the soundtrack of the recent John Lennon bio-pic Nowhere Boy.

Finally, let's finish with a very early Beatles composition, which saw the light of day on the first Anthology CD set back in 1995.  It's the spicy Cayenne (featuring Stu Sutcliffe on bass and no drums), of course, which was written, as Paul McCartney once explained, because he and John thought they had better knock out an instrumental tune of their own given the popularity of rock & roll instrumentals at the time.  Once again, when the inexperienced Beatles arrived in Hamburg in mid-August 1960 to begin their residency at the Indra Club, and discovered that they lacked enough material to fill several hours of stage time, I'd be willing to bet that they pulled this tune out and played it a few times since they regarded repeating songs as amateurish.  After all, they desperately wanted to come across as professional and polished even at this very early stage in their career.

Without a doubt, there are other instrumental tunes out their that the Hamburg-era Beatles played onstage from time to time, but these featured numbers come most readily to mind.  Enjoy listening to them!

Dancin' in the Street. . .

I've always loved these photos from 1961, which were taken in Hamburg after the Beatles completed their leather gear look.

The young Beatles were huge fans of American rocker Gene Vincent.  So, it should come as no surprise that his songs also featured prominently in the band's set lists between 1960-62.  In fact, there's a version of the iconic Be Bop A Lula on the Star Club recordings sung by Fred or Horst Fascher.  But let's look at two other lesser-known Gene Vincent tunes this time.

The first is Dance in the Street, which the band played early on at The Indra in 1960 to pull people in from the Grosse Freiheit outside.  Paul McCartney explains in some detail in the Anthology coffee table book how the band really worked to build an audience and get people into the club during those first couple of months in Hamburg.  Sadly, the artificially high beer prices kept many away, something the band pointed out repeatedly to owner Bruno Koschmider.  Parenthetically, this song was featured in the 1958 teen movie Hot Rod Gang.

The next Gene Vincent song that was part of the Beatles repertoire at this time was the somewhat unusual Over the Rainbow.  Yes.  It was actually the song mad famous by Judy Garland in the film The Wizard of Oz!  

As many of you know already, the Beatles included many such oddball tunes in their Hamburg-era sets since they had to perform sometimes as many as six or seven hours a night as part of their contract.  It seems that original drummer Pete Best was the Beatle who came forward to sing this one while multi-instrumentalist Paul McCartney took over on drums.  There is even a picture somewhere out there on the web of the Beatles in suits in the Cavern Club with Pete Best singing in front and young Sir Paul on the drums at the rear.

Finally, take a look at some of the various interviews with the members of Bambi Kino from last year (2010).  You might recall that Bambi Kino was formed by various New York-area musicians (members of Maplewood, Cat Power, Nada Surf, and Guided by Voices) to mark the 5oth anniversary of the Beatles' first Hamburg residency at the Indra and Kaiserkeller clubs.  

Anyway, an album of Bambi Kino's Hamburg-era Beatles cover tunes has just been released by Tapete Records.  To my mind, this is a super-cool project, and if you dig the very early Beatles -- before they were cleaned up and groomed for stardom, before they became cute mop-tops, before they had a real contract to record their own tunes -- then you've gotta check out Bambi Kino! 

And after all that, I see that my previous blog post also featured Dance in the Street.  Damn!  Some days it just doesn't pay to climb out of bed.