Beatles – Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg …album review

When I got this album I loved it but at first didn’t understand why the quality was so low but the music makes up for it. The recordings are from 1962 in their last engagement in Hamburg and they didn’t want to be there. I have mentioned this album with some posts but never really went over it.

These are the punk Beatles. Raw and relentless playing fast and furious. The Beatles before the world was paying attention to them. This was recorded on an old reel-to-reel recorder at the slowest speed to conserve tape. It was not meant to be an album or anything commercial. A friend named Ted “King Sized” Taylor the leader of a band called the Dominoes, put a microphone near the stage to record them. The quality is poor, to say the least.

Peter Jackson has mentioned that he would love to work on this album. He could improve the sound a lot using modern technology and I wish they would let him try it. It was released in 1977 and the record company sunk 100,000 dollars just to make the audio listenable. Ted Taylor did ask the Beatles before he recorded and they had no qualms with it. Later on, they tried to sue to block its release but obviously were unsuccessful. I’m glad they were…this is a fun and historic listen.

The Beatles were playing to an audience of sailors, prostitutes, drunks, and gangsters. They would rip through songs at such a speed that only 2 songs on this double album are over 3 minutes long. It was like the Beatles doing a future Ramones imitation. They were “enhanced” by prellies (Preludin) that sped them up quite a bit.

They are a great band here. You catch them with their guard down and acting completely natural. The Beatles were on their last club dates in Hamburg. They had already recorded Love Me Do and it was on the charts. They did not want to be back in Hamburg but they honored a previous agreement and were there. They didn’t mail the performances in but they were loose and relaxed.

It contains mostly cover songs with very few originals. The track listing is at the bottom of the post. This is close to what Brian Epstein heard when he first saw them, this is why they took over Liverpool and this is why they got signed.

Casual fans will not want this album but serious Beatles fans will love it. This is more than a low-fidelity album…it is history. John Lennon always said that the world didn’t hear the best of the Beatles live…I agree. By this time in Hamburg they were getting lazy as well. They didn’t want to be there because they were sitting on Please Please Me waiting for it to get released in the following year.

After they became THE Beatles…they could not hear themselves play because of the long constant jet taking off screaming. On this album, you hear them as they were before the screams. I was 11 when I bought this and I didn’t get the importance until a few years later.

This is out of the book Tune In… Without a doubt the best book out on the Beatles. It’s the first of three volumes.

Their playing is adept and hyper-energetic, and the microphone catches many important moments. The tape’s value has been downplayed on the basis that the Beatles are musically sloppy and perhaps even lazy, knowing they’ve one foot out of the door, but this is to ignore its virtues. The Beatles did hate being in Hamburg this last time … but the recording shows them still cutting the mustard on stage. They’re sloppy because, here, they can be, but they’re not lazy, and they’re not playing with extra care because they’re being recorded: this is an authentic eavesdrop on their club act, not something fizzed-up for the tape machine.

At least three sets were recorded, and because the Beatles rarely repeated themselves in Hamburg, there are only five duplicates among the thirty-seven songs. The repertoire is a real surprise. The only self-written pieces are “Ask Me Why” and “I Saw Her Standing There” (twice), so there’s no “Love Me Do,” “PS I Love You,” “Please Please Me,” “One After 909” or any of several other possibilities, and there are few of the songs from the spine of their all-conquering 1962 stage sets—no “Some Other Guy,” “Soldier of Love,” “Please Mr. Postman,” “Don’t Ever Change,” “A Shot of Rhythm and Blues,” “Devil in Her Heart,” “Baby It’s You,” “Will You Love Me Tomorrow,” “If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody,” “Hey! Baby, A Picture of You,” and so on. What’s here is an idiosyncratic selection of old rock numbers all played at breakneck speed—Prellies pace. The nights of half-hour “What’d I Say” marathons are past: everything is high velocity, only three numbers tipping into three minutes.

Side one
  1. Introduction/”I Saw Her Standing There” (John Lennon, Paul McCartney) – 0:34/2:22
  2. “Roll Over Beethoven” (Chuck Berry) – 2:15
  3. “Hippy Hippy Shake” (Chan Romero) – 1:42
  4. “Sweet Little Sixteen” (Berry) – 2:45
  5. “Lend Me Your Comb” (Kay Twomey, Fred Wise, Ben Weisman) – 1:44
  6. “Your Feet’s Too Big” (Ada Benson, Fred Fisher) – 2:18
Side two
  1. “Twist and Shout” (Phil Medley, Bert Russell) – 2:03
  2. “Mr. Moonlight” (Roy Lee Johnson) – 2:06
  3. “A Taste of Honey” (Bobby Scott, Ric Marlow) – 1:45
  4. “Bésame Mucho” (Consuelo Velázquez, Sunny Skylar) – 2:36
  5. “Reminiscing” (King Curtis) – 1:41
  6. “Kansas City/Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey” (Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Richard Penniman) – 2:09
Side three
  1. “Nothin’ Shakin’ (But the Leaves on the Trees)” (Eddie Fontaine, Cirino Colacrai, Diane Lampert, John Gluck) – 1:15
  2. “To Know Her Is to Love Her” (Phil Spector) – 3:02
  3. “Little Queenie” (Berry) – 3:51
  4. “Falling in Love Again (Can’t Help It)” (Frederick Hollander, Sammy Lerner) – 1:57
  5. “Ask Me Why” (Lennon, McCartney) – 2:26
  6. “Be-Bop-A-Lula” (Gene Vincent, Bill Davis) – 2:29
    • Guest lead vocal by Fred Fascher, Star-Club waiter
  7. “Hallelujah I Love Her So” (Ray Charles) – 2:10
    • Guest lead vocal by Horst Fascher, Star-Club manager
Side four
  1. “Red Sails in the Sunset” (Jimmy Kennedy, Hugh Williams) – 2:00
  2. “Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby” (Carl Perkins) – 2:25
  3. “Matchbox” (Carl Perkins) – 2:35
  4. “I’m Talking About You” (Berry) – 1:48
  5. “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”;[32] sometimes misidentified as “Shimmy Shimmy” or “Shimmy Shake”
  6. “Long Tall Sally” (Enotris Johnson, Robert Blackwell, Penniman) – 1:45
  7. “I Remember You” (Johnny Mercer, Victor Schertzinger) – 1:54
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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

40 thoughts on “Beatles – Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg …album review”

  2. Hey Max…how are ya’ man, this was just before everything changed in the pop music world literally. I was born in in mid-’64 so I have no memory of this time but it’s a fascinating time leading up to the Beatles explosion in the U.S. & the Western World overall.

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    1. I am doing great…hope you are doing well. I’m all over the hot stove season!
      This is a turning point…little did the world know they were about to appear and change everything.

      Liked by 1 person

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      2. In 1947…the year of Jackie and that is why I’m a Dodger fan…I wasn’t there of course but my dad started to like the Dodgers because of Jackie and his brothers liking the Yankees.

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      4. Yes it helped everyone including the game. It’s like when Fernando arrived…a lot of Latinos came to the ballpark and are still coming.

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  4. Exactly what Randy said – a piece of history and worthwhile if for that alone. Too bad the quality isn’t better but I guess the recording is pretty close to what people in that noisy pub heard. Amazing to me that Epstein saw them around then and recognized their talent and potential!

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      3. The Complete Silver Beatles (UK audio fidelity), The Beatles Beat (German odeon), The Early Years Featuring Tony Sheridan (UK contour), Early Beatles vol 1, Early Beatles vol. 2 (both UK on Phoenix), Live at The Star Club 2 LP (UK lingasong), Rock ‘N’ Roll Music vol 1 and vol 2 (UK parlophone double). I also have the UK mfp releases and USA capitol releases of the Rock N’ Roll Mussic albums.

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      5. I think Beatles Beat was only released in Germany? I forgot to add The Beatles at The Hollywood Bowl (Canada capitol double). The USA Rock N’ Roll albums may have only been released separately? (that’s what I have, same with the UK mfp releases).

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      6. Oh I have the Hollywood Bowl…I got that one and the Star Club at the same time…I really liked that.
        No the RnR was a double album…with the WORST cover ever.

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    2. obbverse…I have a random question to ask you because I’m writing up a post…I know in America people our age would know him but I’m not sure out of America…Walter Cronkite. Was he known at all to you? It might be a stupid question but I was just wondering. I bet a lot of people will know but people from other countries may not.

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  8. When I was in high school and obsessed with things Beatles, I borrowed this album from the library. I thought it was interesting historically but wasn’t impressed by the music. I suspect that 4 decades later I might appreciate it more. Thanks for bringing it back into my attention!

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  12. I also got that album on vinyl in the late ’70s. I was still early in my Beatles journey and didn’t fully understand what I was buying. I remember initially I was a bit disappointed about the sound quality. Nowadays I look at that album as an intriguing piece of early Beatles history. I think you nicely characterized it as the punk Beatles – quite raw and quite fascinating! And, yes, a sound-improved version by Peter Jackson sounds intriguing!

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    1. I would love for Jackson to get his hands on it….he has mentioned it before.
      It sounds like one of the cassette tapes of us out in a garage…they could rock.

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