Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962
Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962 | ||||
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Lingasong/Bellaphon (GER) | ||||
Producer | Larry Grossberg | |||
The Beatles chronology | ||||
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Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962 is a double album featuring live performances by the English rock band the Beatles, recorded in late December 1962 at the Star-Club during their final Hamburg residency. The album was released in 1977 in two different versions, comprising a total of 30 songs by the Beatles.
The performances were recorded on a home tape machine using a single microphone, resulting in a low fidelity recording.
Although the poor sound quality limits its commercial appeal, the album provides historic insight into the group's club act in the period after
History
Background
The Beatles' five residencies in Hamburg during 1960 to 1962 allowed the
A new Hamburg music venue, the Star-Club, opened on 13 April 1962, with The Beatles booked for the first seven weeks. The Beatles returned to Hamburg in November and December 1962 for their fourth and fifth engagements there, which had been booked for the Star-Club many months in advance. Unlike their previous three trips to Hamburg, their drummer was Starr, having replaced Best in August. The Beatles were reluctant to return for their final two-week booking, which started 18 December, as they were gaining popularity in Britain and had just achieved their first charted single with "Love Me Do".[3]
Recording
Portions of The Beatles' final Star-Club performances (along with other acts) were recorded by the club's stage manager, Adrian Barber, for Ted "Kingsize" Taylor.[4] Barber used a Grundig home reel-to-reel recorder at a tape speed of 3¾ inches per second, with a single microphone placed in front of the stage.[5] Taylor, leader of The Dominoes (who were also playing at the club), said that John Lennon verbally agreed to the group being recorded in exchange for Taylor providing the beer during their performances.[4]
The tapes were originally described as having been recorded in the spring of 1962, an attempt to pre-date The Beatles' June 1962 contract signing with Parlophone.[6] However, song arrangements and dialogue from the tapes pointed to late December 1962,[7] and a recording date of 31 December 1962 (the group's last day in Hamburg) was commonly cited.[8] Later researchers have proposed that the tapes are from multiple days during the last week of December;[9] Allan Williams (The Beatles' booking agent at the time) recalled that a total of about three hours was recorded over three or four sessions between Christmas and New Year's Day.[4]
The tapes captured The Beatles performing at least 33 different titles, plus some repeated songs.
The recording equipment and method resulted in the tapes being unmistakably low fidelity. The vocals, even in the best cases, sound "somewhat muffled and distant".[7] The vocals on a few songs are so indistinct that labelling and liner notes on early releases gave incorrect information about who was singing and the exact song being performed. Much of The Beatles' dialogue between songs is audible, which includes addressing the audience in both English and German, as well as repartee among themselves. The banter is irreverent and coarse at times, an aspect of their stage act that would soon cease under the influence of manager Brian Epstein.[10]
Marketing attempts
Taylor said he had offered to sell the tapes to Epstein in the mid-1960s, but that Epstein did not consider them to be of commercial value and offered only £20. Taylor said he kept the tapes at home, largely forgotten until 1973 when he decided to look into their marketability.
When the existence of the tapes was first publicly reported in July 1973, Williams was planning to ask Apple for at least £100,000.[13] Williams said he later met with George Harrison and Starr to offer the tapes for £5,000, but they declined, citing financial difficulties at the time.[14] Williams and Taylor teamed up with Paul Murphy, head of Buk Records, to find an outlet for the tapes.[15]
Release
Murphy eventually bought the tapes himself and formed a new company, Lingasong, specifically for the project.[15] He sold the worldwide distribution rights to Double H Licensing, which spent more than $100,000 on elaborate audio processing and mixing of the songs under the direction of Larry Grossberg.[5] The sequence of songs was rearranged, and some of the individual songs were edited to bypass flawed tape sections or make up for an incomplete recording.[7]
After an unsuccessful attempt by The Beatles to block it, the 26-song Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962 was released by Lingasong.[6] The album first appeared in West Germany in April 1977 in association with Bellaphon Records, and was released in the UK the following month.[16] For the album's June 1977 US release (in association with Atlantic Records), four songs were removed and replaced with four different songs from the tapes.[17]
Reissues
Over the next two decades, the recordings were licensed to several record companies, resulting in numerous releases with varying track selections. In 1979,
In 1985, a bootlegger known as "Richard", who had already found infamy by issuing several titles with controversial covers and content, issued his own bootleg version of the Star Club tapes without any of the editing found on the official releases, entitled The Beatles vs. the Third Reich—directly parodying
The release of the recordings on two CDs by industry giant
In 2022, film director Peter Jackson speculated that the technology used to enhance the audio of the Beatles' Let It Be sessions for his documentary Get Back could also be used to increase the quality of the Star-Club tapes.[24] In a 2023 interview, Jackson confirmed that he and his staff recently located and purchased the original tapes and plan on using machine learning to clean them up, though Apple currently has no plans for release.[25]
Reception
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [28] |
The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [29] |
The album had limited commercial success, reaching a peak position of No. 111 during a seven-week run on the US
Track listing
Germany/UK version
(Bellaphon BLS5560/Lingasong LNL1)[35][36][37]
- Side one
- Introduction/"I Saw Her Standing There" (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) – 0:34/2:22
- "Roll Over Beethoven" (Chuck Berry) – 2:15
- "Hippy Hippy Shake" (Chan Romero) – 1:42
- "Sweet Little Sixteen" (Berry) – 2:45
- "Lend Me Your Comb" (Kay Twomey, Fred Wise, Ben Weisman) – 1:44
- "Your Feet's Too Big" (Ada Benson, Fred Fisher) – 2:18
- Side two
- "Twist and Shout" (Phil Medley, Bert Russell) – 2:03
- "Mr. Moonlight" (Roy Lee Johnson) – 2:06
- "A Taste of Honey" (Bobby Scott, Ric Marlow) – 1:45
- "Bésame Mucho" (Consuelo Velázquez, Sunny Skylar) – 2:36
- "Reminiscing" (King Curtis) – 1:41
- "Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey" (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Richard Penniman) – 2:09
- Side three
- "Nothin' Shakin' (But the Leaves on the Trees)" (Eddie Fontaine, Cirino Colacrai, Diane Lampert, John Gluck) – 1:15
- "To Know Her Is to Love Her" (Phil Spector) – 3:02
- "Little Queenie" (Berry) – 3:51
- "Frederick Hollander, Sammy Lerner) – 1:57
- "Ask Me Why" (Lennon, McCartney) – 2:26
- "Be-Bop-A-Lula" (Gene Vincent, Bill Davis) – 2:29
- Guest lead vocal by Fred Fascher, Star-Club waiter[38]
- "Hallelujah I Love Her So" (Ray Charles) – 2:10
- Guest lead vocal by Horst Fascher, Star-Club manager[38]
- Side four
- "Red Sails in the Sunset" (Jimmy Kennedy, Hugh Williams) – 2:00
- "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" (Carl Perkins) – 2:25
- "Matchbox" (Carl Perkins) – 2:35
- "I'm Talking About You" (Berry) – 1:48
- "Shimmy Like Kate" (Armand Piron, Fred Smith, Cliff Goldsmith) – 2:17
- Based on The Olympics' arrangement of "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate";[34] sometimes misidentified as "Shimmy Shimmy" or "Shimmy Shake"
- "Long Tall Sally" (Enotris Johnson, Robert Blackwell, Penniman) – 1:45
- "I Remember You" (Johnny Mercer, Victor Schertzinger) – 1:54
US version
(Lingasong/Atlantic LS-2-7001)[39]
The US version includes the above except "I Saw Her Standing There", "Twist and Shout", "Reminiscing", and "Ask Me Why", and substitutes the following four songs:
- Introduction/"I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry (Over You)" (Joe Thomas, Howard Biggs) – 3:04
- "Where Have You Been (All My Life)" (Barry Mann, Cynthia Weil) – 1:55
- "Till There Was You" (Meredith Willson) – 1:59
- "Sheila" (Tommy Roe) – 1:56
Personnel
- John Lennon – rhythm guitar; harmony and backing vocals; harmonica on track 26; lead vocal on tracks 4, 5 (shared), 7, 8, 14, 17, 22, 23, 24, US1, US7
- Paul McCartney – bass guitar; harmony and backing vocals; lead vocal on tracks 1, 3, 5 (shared), 6, 9, 10, 12, 15, 16, 20, 25, 26, US11
- George Harrison – lead guitar; harmony and backing vocals; lead vocal on tracks 2, 11, 13, 21, US17
- Ringo Starr – drums and percussion
Notes
- ^ Total length is based on a CD reissue of the original 26-song set by Lingasong.[1]
- ^ Lewisohn (2000), pp. 22, 28, 42.
- ^ Lewisohn (2000), pp. 62, 69, 86.
- ^ a b c Williams (1975), p. 209.
- ^ a b Traiman, Stephen (11 December 1976). "Reconstruct Old Beatles Tape". Billboard. p. 8. Retrieved 21 June 2009.
- ^ a b Unterberger (2006), p. 38.
- ^ a b c d e Unterberger (2006), p. 39.
- ^ Lewisohn (2000), p. 86.
- ^ Unterberger (2006), pp. 38–39.
- ^ a b c Unterberger (2006), p. 40.
- Montreal Gazette. Associated Press. 13 July 1973. p. 21. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
- ^ Williams (1975), pp. 209–210.
- ^ Badman (2003), pp. 108–109.
- ^ Williams (1975), pp. 210–212.
- ^ a b White, Chris (25 December 1976). "See Way Clear For 'New' Beatles LPs". Billboard. p. 54. Retrieved 21 June 2009.
- ^ Weiner (1992), p. 61.
- ^ Weiner (1992), pp. 138, 159.
- ^ Weiner (1992), p. 139.
- ^ Winn (2008), p. 23.
- ^ Weiner (1992), p. 163.
- ISBN 978-1-84449-151-3.
- ^ "Prime cuts?". Entertainment Weekly. 11 September 1992. Retrieved 19 June 2009.
- ^ Lister, David (9 May 1998). "Beatles win historic ban on bootleg CD". The Independent. Retrieved 17 June 2009.
- ^ Jeakle, Will (28 January 2022). "As The Beatles 'Get Back' Moves To Theaters, Director Peter Jackson Talks Next Steps". Forbes. Retrieved 5 January 2024.
- ^ Things We Said Today #401 – Another Epic Chat With Peter Jackson, retrieved 21 November 2023
- ^ Unterberger, Richie. "Review: Live! At the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany". AllMusic. Retrieved 24 June 2009.
- ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
- ISBN 0-19-531373-9.
- rollingstone.com. Archived from the originalon 20 September 2011. Retrieved 31 May 2015.
- ISBN 9780898201178.
- ISBN 0-394-72107-1.
- ^ Ruhlmann, William. "Review: First Live Recordings, Vol. 1". AllMusic. Retrieved 6 January 2022.
- ^ Du Noyer, Paul (December 2000). "Review: The Beatles Live At The Star Club In Hamburg: 1962". Q. Archived from the original on 1 November 2004. Retrieved 20 June 2009.
- ^ a b Unterberger (2006), p. 41.
- ^ On the original releases, some tracks had inaccurate titles; in this listing, titles have been corrected. Track lengths are taken from the original Bellaphon labeling, which excludes dialogue between songs.
- ^ "UK albums: The Beatles Live at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany, 1962". DM's Beatles Site. Retrieved 24 June 2009.
- ^ "The Beatles—Live! At The Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962". Bootleg Zone. Retrieved 24 June 2009.
- ^ a b Harry, Bill. "A Man Called Horst". Mersey Beat. Retrieved 25 June 2009.
- ^ "US albums: The Beatles Live at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany, 1962". DM's Beatles Site. Retrieved 24 June 2009.
References
- Badman, Keith (2003). The Beatles: Off the Record Volume 2. Omnibus Press. pp. 108–109. ISBN 0-7119-9199-5.
- ISBN 0-600-60033-5.
- ISBN 0-87930-892-3.
- Weiner, Allen J. (1992). The Beatles: The Ultimate Recording Guide. Facts on File. ISBN 0-8160-2511-8.
- ISBN 0-02-629050-2.
- Winn, John C. (2008). Way Beyond Compare: The Beatles' Recorded Legacy, 1957–1965. Random House. pp. 20–23. ISBN 978-0-307-45157-6.