Friday's Early Beatles Rarity. . .

Today's old photograph features Stu Sutcliffe and John Lennon onstage at the Top Ten Club (I think) in Hamburg, during the spring of 1961. Since they are seated, my guess is they are either playing a slower number. . . or it was a very late set, and they were extremely tired.

One less well-remembered R&B singer, whose songs were performed by the Beatles very early on was Bobby Freeman. His other tunes of the day consisted of titles like (I do the) Shimmy Shimmy and Do You Wanna Dance? A slower tune of Freeman's from 1960, which John Lennon liked to sing in Hamburg, was You Don't Understand Me, a melodic, sweet slower tune, which I really liked when I heard it for the first time. You might like it to. Just click on the song title above to hear it.

On a more personal and somewhat frustrating note, I tracked down and ordered a copy of The Man Who Gave the Beatles Away by Allan Willams, one-time owner of the Jacaranda and Blue Angel in Liverpool, through Amazon Marketplace the other day. Paid extra for a copy in very good condition, which arrived only two days later (yesterday). What a drag to discover that the first 29 pages are missing! A refund is no problem for the owner, but I am faced with the inconvenience of returning the book and tracking down another copy that is both affordable and is not falling apart. Don't you hate when that happens? Grrrrrr. . .

The County & Western Influence. . .

Is John Lennon singing a Hank Williams tune in the grainy photograph above? We may never know for sure, but The Beatles included several country and western tunes in their setlists during the very early 1960s.

Of course Beatles were influenced by Elvis, Little Richard, Buddy Holly and a slew of other early rock & roll and rockabilly personalities, but we tend to forget that they also listened to and performed songs by country and western artists of the day. Hardly surprising if you remember that Liverpool was a huge seaport, with many young men, who worked aboard those ships, bringing back records by American C&W artists as well as the the cowboy-influenced dress they favored. So, it should come as no surprise to discover that the odd Hank Williams tune found its way into the Beatles' setlists during their early Liverpool days and Hamburg residencies. One Hank Willams number that John Lennon apparently sang was You Win Again. Kind of an odd tune but certainly not unpleasant sounding, and it's not that much of a stretch to imagine the Beatles playing it given the hours they were onstage each night at places like The Indra, The Kaiserkeller, and the Top Ten Club.

Many Other Liverpool Bands Did Time in Hamburg Too. . .

Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, featuring Ringo of course, onstage somewhere in the very early 1960s here. Looks like Ringo is just as much of a ham for the camera as Paul McCartney is rumored to be still.

Of course, the Beatles weren't the only Liverpool group to spend time playing the various clubs along the Reeperbahn and Grosse Freiheit in Hamburg. Many other bands, including Rory Storm and the Hurricanes , polished their chops in the notorious St. Pauli section of the city. One interesting tune Rory and his band performed was an old Bill Haley and the Comets number, entitled Thirteen Women, which was actually the A-side of the single on which the famous number Rock around the Clock appeared. Amazingly, that tune was the B-side though it became the hit and is much more readily remembered today. In any case, give the weird, creepy Thirteen Women a listen. You might be pleasantly surprised!

Here's another interesting tune from the very early Beatles' song catalog. . .

Here's a photograph of John Lennon onstage at the Casbah Club in the Spring of 1962, by which time the Beatles had abandoned their leathers thanks to the moderating hand of Brian Epstein, though the mohair suits and neckties were still some months in the future.

The Beatles were also great Buddy Holly fans and included several of his songs in their early stage shows in Hamburg and Liverpool. And one of these tunes was Mailman Bring Me No More Blues, which my sources suggest was probably sung by a very young John Lennon. Enjoy!

Another Oddity from the Early Beatles Stage Repertoire. . .

Mach Schau! Here's another shot of the guys performing on the Top Ten stage in Hamburg, during the spring of 1961. Stu Sutcliffe (far left) is still present on his huge Hofner President bass, and Sir Paul is on piano in the corner, but you can see his new Hofner 500/1 violin bass in its case just to his left behind George. Close you eyes for a moment and imagine the band kicking out a number like Fever to an appreciative German audience.

Another song that the very early Beatles included in their sets during their Hamburg (and possibly Liverpool) days was Fever (1956) by Little Willy John. Yep, the same song, more or less, that was later made famous by vocalist Peggy Lee (nee Norma Deloris Egstrom from North Dakota). Elvis also covered the song later, making it fair game for the Beatles since they were such huge Elvis fans, though they also made a practice of digging up obscure American blues and R&B numbers too. By the way, the Elvis version is much truer to Peggy Lee's famous recording.

In any case, you can find the song title scrawled on a partial setlist, pictured in the chapter on Hamburg in the oversize Anthology coffee table book. While I'm a big Peggy Lee fan, and enjoy the minimalist bass-drum groove of her version, the original R&B number by Mr. John is a lot more what you could call moody and smokin'. I'm not sure which Beatle sang this song, but wouldn't it be cool if there were a decent recording somewhere of the guys performing this one onstage in Hamburg?

The Quest for Hamburg-era Beatles Tunes Continues. . . .

The Quarrymen at the Casbah Club in Liverpool. Might Paul possibly be serenading Cynthia Powell with a rendition of Elvis Presley's Wooden Heart in this photograph?

Here's a Hamburg-era Beatles oddity, actually an Elvis Presley song from 1960, that was very popular in Germany. And so naturally that meant that the very early Beatles learned and played it onstage in Hamburg. I remember reading somewhere years ago that this was a tune the young Paul McCartney sang at the time. Anyway, the song is Wooden Heart, a tune I frequently whistle to the wry amusement (or possibly annoyance?) of my German-speaking wife. Enjoy!

It was almost 50 years ago. . .

The Beatles at The Casbah Club, Mo Best's basement coffee bar, in 1961. You can just make out John Lennon's Rickenbacker 325 guitar in front of Paul McCartney (still on guitar), Stu Sutcliffe (still on bass) to his left, and finally Pete Best at the far right of the photo.

Lots to mention in this post everyone! I've stumbled onto a German blog, which lists lots of tunes (new to me) that the very early Beatles played in their early days in Hamburg and Liverpool. I really must be a huge geek, because I find this kind of thing terribly exciting. Look for some of these tunes right here and maybe a few Youtube links, so you can hear the original artists performing these songs. Hmmm, maybe I should have been an archeologist? It's kind of like that with all this digging around to figure out early Beatle setlists. You know, kind of like Heinrich Schliemann looking for the city of Troy in the mid-19th Century. But I digress!

Second, there is a band out of New York City, called Bambi Kino, that performs many of these very same songs. Even more interesting, the band is booked into The Indra Club in Hamburg for three or four nights in mid-August, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' arrival and first residency in Hamburg. And of course that was at The Indra until they moved to the larger Kaiserkeller in October of 1960, following noise complaints and closure of the former by the dreaded polizei!

In any case, you can learn more about Bambi Kino by clicking on their name. You can also see them performing the old Larry Williams tune Slow Down recently at the Bowery Electric in NYC as well as Arthur Alexander's Anna . These guys really nail that early Beatles Hamburg sound, as heard on the Star Club recordings, and I can't get enough of it. Neither could the audience at the Bowery Electric from the sound of things! Hopefully, an album, er, um, a CD might be forthcoming from Bambi Kino soon. But you've gotta make sure to check out these guys in the meantime!