The Beatles Live at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962 - Rarität

	€		20
	$		23

The Beatles Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany (1962)

The records are as good as new. Only played once!

Background
The Beatles' five residencies in Hamburg during 1960 to 1962 allowed the Liverpool band to develop their performance skills and widen their reputation. Drummer Pete Best was added to the band in August 1960 to secure their first Hamburg booking, where they played for 48 nights at the Indra Club and then 58 nights at the Kaiserkeller. The Beatles returned to Hamburg in April 1961 to play at the Top Ten Club for three months.
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".

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. 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. 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.
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. However, song arrangements and dialogue from the tapes pointed to late December 1962, and a recording date of 31 December 1962 (the group's last day in Hamburg) was commonly cited.[9] Later researchers have proposed that the tapes are from multiple days during the last week of December; 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.
The tapes captured The Beatles performing at least 33 different titles, plus some repeated songs. Of the 30 songs that were commercially released from the tapes, only two were Lennon–McCartney compositions. The others were an assortment of cover versions, seventeen of which would be re-made by The Beatles and appear on their various studio albums or Live at the BBC. The arrangements played at the Star-Club are similar to the versions recorded later, albeit less refined, although there are a few cases with distinct differences. For example, "Mr. Moonlight" has a much quicker tempo, a guitar-based instrumental break, and an intentionally altered lyric with Lennon proclaiming he is on his "nose" instead of his "knees"; "Roll Over Beethoven" was described as "never taken at a more breakneck pace".
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". 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.

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) – 02:09

Side three 1. "Nothin' Shakin' (But the Leaves on the Trees)" (Eddie Fontaine, Carino 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) – 01:57 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) – 02:17  
    Based on The Olympics' arrangement of "I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate"; sometimes misidentified as "Shimmy Shimmy" or "Shimmy Shake" 6. "Long Tall Sally" (Enotris Johnson, Robert Blackwell, Penniman) – 01:45 7. "I Remember You" (Johnny Mercer, Victor Schertzinger) – 1:54