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.