The Beginning of Beatlemania--The Beatles Play Hamburg's Star Club

The Beatles had first played the Hamburg club circuit in 1960, gaining valuable stage experience in the rough-and-tumble clubs of the city's red-light district. Upon returning to England after an extended stay in Hamburg, The Beatles went into the studio with their manager, Brian Epstein, and recorded a fifteen-track demo that was immediately rejected by Decca Records, a move that had to be the biggest boneheaded play in the history of the music business. It seems that Decca thought that The Beatles were a bit too "country and western", and in any event, the future didn't look very bright for guitar bands, or so the executives at Decca thought. Go figure.

The Beatles returned to Hamburg in 1962 to fulfill contractual obligations at the Star Club, even though by that time Epstein had met with George Martin of the Parlophone label, who in turn got EMI, Parlophone's parent company, interested enough to sign The Beatles to a recording contract. Love Me Do and Please Please Me were released, and you know the rest of the story. The only problem with the new found fame was that The Beatles had the Star Club gigs to complete, and they couldn't immediately return to England to bask in the adulation which awaited them.

Live At The Star Club, 1962-Vol. 1 is one of many recordings that would later emerge from the early days in Hamburg. I guess at one time all of these albums could be called "bootlegs", but apparently the proper legal protocol was accomplished, and authentic record companies took these live recordings and issued many different albums. Live At The Star Club, 1962-Vol. 1 is one such album that I have (on cassette tape, issued by Sony Record Company), and I also own The Beatles Rockin' At The Star Club, but I can't review it because it's not listed in the Epinions database yet.

Here's the track listing for Live At The Star Club, 1962-Vol. 1:

1. I Saw Her Standing There
2. Hippy Hippy Shake
3. Sweet Little Sixteen
4. Mr. Moonlight
5. Hully Gully
6. Ain't Nothin' Shakin' (But The Leaves On The Trees)
7. Little Queenie
8. Everybody's Tryin' To Be My Baby
9. I Remember You
10. Reminiscing
11. Kansas City
12. Hey, Hey, Hey

The quality of this recording is terrible--when you consider the primitive recording equipment available at that time, the awful acoustics of the Star Club, and the rowdy, loud crowd, you can see why it would be nearly impossible to get a good mix, even given the modern technology and studio trickery that can be used to dress up a live recording. But that's precisely the allure of an album like this--because it's not dressed up and slick, it perfectly captures the monumental energy of a live performance by The Beatles in their earliest days, warts and all, and for that reason, it's priceless.

The choice of the music played by The Beatles is very revealing too--I Saw Her Standing There is the only original on the album, but the remaining songs identify some of the influences that molded this band, and also some of the styles that they would later come to emulate. The Beatles pay homage to Chuck Berry with fevered covers of Sweet Little Sixteen and Little Queenie, while rockabilly legend Carl Perkins gets a tip of the hat with the band's interpretation of Everybody's Tryin' To Be My Baby. Hippy Hippy Shake and Hully Gully are covers of "British beat" music that was popular at the time, and Mr. Moonlight is a cover of a song by an obscure group called Dr. Feelgood and The Interns, that is given a somewhat parodic treatment by The Beatles.

The Beatles demonstrate their abiding love of the classics by performing I Remember You and Reminiscing, and George Harrison does an adolescent cover of Johnny Burnett's (I think) Ain't Nothin' Shakin' (But The Leaves On The Trees). Finally, the famed songwriting team of Lieber and Stoller is acknowledged with a rousing version of Kansas City, and the manic Little Richard gets Paul McCartney's admiration with a sincere imitation of Hey, Hey Hey.

As I said, the quality of this recording is abysmal, but the energy captured on these few minutes of tape is incredible. Listening to a live, primitive recording like this one will give you a clue as to how Beatlemania caught on so quickly. It captures The Beatles completely unguarded, and they become completely immersed in what their doing as a result. As an interesting recording, it's worth the five or six bucks you'll pay for it--as a piece of musical history, it's beyond evaluation.

Thanks for reading.