In The Beginning

Performer: The Beatles
Artist: The Beat Brothers
Distributor: Universal Distribution

Notes: IN THE BEGINNING features The Beatles first recordings for Polydor Records Germany as backup band for English singer Tony Sheridan. The album also features 4 tracks by Sheridan backed up by The Beat Brothers. The Beatles: John Lennon, George Harrison (vocals, guitar); Paul McCartney (vocals, bass); Pete Best (drums). Additional personnel: Tony Sheridan (vocals); The Beat Brothers. Producer: Bert Kaempfert. Compilation producer: Bill Levenson. Recorded in Hamburg, Germany in June 1961 & May 1962. Includes liner notes by Tony Sheridan, George Harrison, and Bill Harry. All tracks are digitally remastered. Recording information: Friedrich Ebert Hall, Hamburg, Germany (06/22/1961-01/31/1963); Studio Rahlstedt, Hamburg, Germany (06/22/1961-01/31/1963). Much is made of the Beatles' formative years in Hamburg during the early '60s, and rightly so--tapes of their sessions during the time are rare, and find the band at their most primitive. However, this is anything but a fault--one of the most storied aspects of the Beatles was their explosive energy, the boundless enthusiasm fostered by their first glimpse of popularity. THE EARLY TAPES finds the young Beatles reining in that energy for their first professional recording gigs, overseen by legendary bandleader Bery Kaempfert. The Beatles were originally called upon as a backup band for crooner Tony Sheridan for these sessions; Kaempfert was taken by Sheridan's cool, rockabilly-inflected voice, and the Beatles took the studio opportunity to record a few tunes themselves. Among these is a self-penned instrumental, "Cry For A Shadow," and the album's opener, "Ain't She Sweet," which features the vocal work of one John Lennon. Elsewhere, the album documents other first steps for the group, including the first single, "My Bonnie," which Kaempfert credited to Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers, a name which would continue with Sheridan long after the Fab Four went on to change the world. These are the Beatles' earliest official recordings; obviously, they're historically important, but they're also more listenable than you might think. "Ain't She Sweet" and its B-side "Cry For a Shadow" (a terrific Ventures-like instrumental that's the only known Harrison-Lennon collaboration) was, of course, the record that prompted future manager Brian Epstein to check out the band at a Liverpool club, thus altering the course of civilization in profoundly unfathomable ways. The rest of the album features the Beatles backing fellow Liverpudlian Tony Sheridan (a singer whose enthusiasm makes up for a certain lack of vocal style), plus a few Sheridan performances with other musicians. It's all entertaining in a period sort of way, and if you want to know what rock sounded like between the time Elvis entered the army and the ascendance of the Fab Four, you could do a lot worse.

No other band has had quite the same impact as the four lads from Liverpool. Over the course of eight years and more than a dozen albums, the Beatles changed popular music and culture forever, spearheading the 1960s British Invasion and shaping rock & roll along the way. Along with their amazing musical output and unprecedented worldwide celebrity, John, Paul, George, and Ringo were responsible for many pop music revolutions, major and minor--writing their own material, pushing the limits of the studio, making films of their music, printing song lyrics on albums--that today are taken for granted. Although the Beatles disbanded in 1970, their artistic legacy is permanently ingrained in the entire world's musical vocabulary.

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