Tune In

by Mark Lewisohn

  John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best and Tony Sheridan, with Stu Sutcliffe accompanying them as a spectator, were collected from the Top Ten at 8AM, an hour the musicians usually saw only if they’d not yet been to bed. And they hadn’t. They’d come off stage at two, eaten and had a few more drinks, killed some time, and then waited in the already warm early-morning sunshine for their transport to destiny. “We did the recordings on a Preludin high,” says Sheridan, “there was no other way we could have done it.” (Pete abstained as usual.)

  Sleep was probably beyond them anyway, because here at last was their chance to make a record—a prized moment for the five lads whose average age was 19. Sheridan had worked in a few studios in England (including EMI’s on Abbey Road) but he’d never been the star. John, Paul and George’s only “studio” experiences had been here in Hamburg eight months previously, when they’d cut some private discs with Wally and Ringo from the Hurricanes, and in Percy Phillips’ terraced house in Liverpool, where twice they’d put down pocket money to finance basic sessions. This German situation was completely different: they were working with the nation’s best-known producer, a man whose single and album had hit number 1 in America just five months earlier, and what they did with him would be issued on a major label and sold in shops. People might buy it and make them rich and famous. At the very least, back in Liverpool, they’d be able to put a piece of seven-inch plastic on a record turntable and say, “That’s us,” which no other group could do.

  Facing the empty stalls and circle of the arena, they set up on the wooden stage as they did at the Top Ten—left to right, Paul, George, John and Tony, with Pete at the back. Kaempfert provided the amplifiers—the musicians didn’t bring their own—and replacement gear was delivered during the session after problems developed. The performances were recorded live, no overdubbing, and there was little audio separation between the drums and other instruments; the sound was taped two-track stereo and balanced by engineer Karl Hinze, who sat either in a small basement room or on the stage behind a curtain. No document survives to detail the start/finish times, the order of work, number of required takes, and whether the session took place over one day or two—most likely it was one, and personal recollections refer to it that way, but some papers show it as two, June 22 and 23.

  As soon as they began playing, while Hinze was setting the levels and balance, there was a problem. The producer didn’t think Pete’s drumming was good enough for recording. As Sheridan recalls, “Kaempfert suggested Pete not play his bass drum, because he used to get too fast … the tempo was a problem.” Pete was quickly exposed and had no allies: Hinze would later say der Schlagzeuger das ist doch verdammt mies—“the drummer is just bloody awful”50—and it’s hard to imagine the other Beatles not being desperately disappointed at such a development in their first session. Kaempfert didn’t only prevent Pete playing bass drum, it seems he had it physically removed from the kit, and with it also went the tom-tom drum. There’s no bass or tom on any of these recordings, and they were missed; Pete had to carry the beat solely with the snare drum, hi-hat and a ride cymbal. He recovered from the setback with admirable tenacity—no drummer could have sounded great with such limited tools, and actually Pete had a fair session.

  It was Kaempfert’s idea they record “My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean.” He’d witnessed them playing it in the Top Ten and felt that, because German children learned the song at school, a modern arrangement cooked up by Sheridan could become a hit. Ray Charles and Gene Vincent had also recorded it, so the lads didn’t mind, and they turned in a tight and dynamic performance—London’s best rock singer and guitarist, on top form here in both respects, was playing with Liverpool’s best group, and it worked. Made in a shade over two minutes, “My Bonnie”—it took that abbreviated title—bristles with energy and deserves to be considered nothing less than one of the best British rock and roll records of the first era, in the ranks with “Brand New Cadillac,” “Move It!” and “Shakin’ All Over.” It’s a European union: a Scottish folk song performed by English musicians with that typical British edge, and recorded with crisp German clarity. Made in America it would have sounded different, and to the musicians’ ears more authentic—but at this time, in the middle of 1961, such explosive rock and roll wasn’t being recorded in the States.

  “I told George he could play whatever he felt like playing,” says Sheridan, “but that I would take the solo.§ It was a blues solo, nothing to do with the song and not thought out beforehand. I don’t remember how many takes we did but they would have been different each time. John had to chug away on rhythm to compensate for the drums, though I still had to instruct him on what was needed: to play sevenths all the time, C7, F7, G7.”

  Paul’s bass is strong on “My Bonnie.” He’d been desperate to avoid the instrument for three years, his real experience of playing it extended to perhaps three weeks, and he was using a new and not yet familiar guitar. Taking these factors into consideration, this was a virtuoso performance, the mark of a naturally gifted musician. He didn’t play single notes but melodically inventive runs, while at the same time singing energetic harmonies and emitting rhythmic yelps. For a beginner to perform these disciplines simultaneously is difficult, but Paul had them under command; he’d have been the first to say he had much to learn as a bass player, but he’d already found a way to sound very good.

  The bass is also distinguished on “When the Saints Go Marching In”—its title abbreviated to “The Saints.” This song had Jerry Lee Lewis’s seal of approval and Sheridan copied his vocal style here. They also taped passable performances of “Why” (written mostly by Sheridan in his 2i’s days), and two tunes Sheridan sang like Elvis: “Nobody’s Child” and a Jimmy Reed blues, “Take Out Some Insurance.” On the second of these Sheridan fluffed the start of his guitar solo but Kaempfert denied him the chance to redo it. “Nobody’s Child,” the old Hank Snow country tearjerker that had long been Richy Starkey’s Liverpool party piece, was recorded here by a trio: Tony on guitar and vocals, Paul on bass, Pete on drums.51

  John and George were much involved in the recording of Beatle Bop, which Pete says they did at Kaempfert’s request. Though no Lennon-McCartney numbers were taped here, they did do this unique Harrison-Lennon instrumental, and Sheridan didn’t participate—it’s just the Beatles, usefully preserving their sound at the very time they contracted from a five-piece to a four. They gave a fair performance but wouldn’t have cared for the bright clean production. Denied the use of his bass and tom-tom, Pete’s snare sound is inevitably samey, but George’s lead guitar is consistently fine and John’s rhythm playing impressive (Tony says John borrowed his Gibson guitar). Paul’s inventive bass again belies his novice status, and he screeches himself hoarse in the background, injecting an audibly vocal presence into the instrumental.

  The Beatles also had a second number to themselves, the first time they were let loose in the studio to record a vocal track … so, of course, it was sung by John.52 They believed this would be the A-side of their first 45, which made the choice of song important. John didn’t go for a Lennon-McCartney Original, he chose “Ain’t She Sweet.” Like “My Bonnie,” this carried the credibility of a Gene Vincent recording, but still the choice was unaccountably odd. The song was thirty-four years old, a relic of the Roaring Twenties, nor was it something Kaempfert made them do: “Ain’t She Sweet” had been in the Beatles’ stage act longer than they were the Beatles, and it may have been one of the songs Julia had played to John on Pop Stanley’s banjo.

  The Beatles’ attitude about this opportunity was typically bullish—according to John, “We thought it would be easy: the Germans had such shitty records, ours was bound to be better”—but actually they made a curious recording. It’s likely that Kaempfert insisted they change the style, because John would later reflect how Gene Vincent’s cover was “very mellow and very high pitched, and I used to do it like that, but they said harder, harder—you know, Germans all wa
nt it a bit more like a march—so we ended up doing a harder version of it.”53

  As recorded by the Beatles, “Ain’t She Sweet” is a curiosity. John gives it a good and powerful go, but there’s a strange timbre to his voice, as if he was suffering from “Hamburg throat” while also straining to deliver Kaempfert’s brittle sound on a song that didn’t suit it. Nor would he have been happy that his vocal was treated with such minimal echo: there’s more reverb on the drums than his voice. This drumming, inevitably heavy on the snare, lacks imagination—there’s no variance, no extra fills or frills, just the same shuffle sound that Pete played on all these recordings. Paul’s bass is accomplished, John again plays Tony Sheridan’s Gibson, but George’s ten-second solo on his Futurama is below average. He’d had a reasonable session up to now but was probably given only one chance to get this right, and didn’t. Rock guitar standards in 1961 were nowhere near as high as they would become, but, judged even in its place and time, this solo wasn’t good, and it was George’s misfortune that he couldn’t take it again.

  In short, the Beatles in the studio, Germany 1961, were a mixed bag. Instrumental strengths and weaknesses were clear. Missing were the vocal harmonies by John, Paul and George that had become their greatest asset. Since Pete says it was these harmonies that attracted Kaempfert to the Beatles in the first place, it’s all the harder to fathom why the producer didn’t use them. Instead, they sang a peculiarly deep, Mills Brothers style of backing vocal that engineer Karl Hinze would describe as “a whispering Negroid humming.” It’s most evident on the song “Why” and in the two waltz-time introductions recorded for “My Bonnie”—one in German, the other in English—where Sheridan sings and John, Paul and George provide this weird wordless harmony. It was probably Kaempfert’s idea, because they’d not done it before and wouldn’t do it again; while it’s not bad, it’s also not the Beatles.

  Before the five musicians were driven back to St. Pauli for another seven-hour slog at the Top Ten (and yet more Prellies), they were treated to a playback. A subsequent letter written by George suggests the experience wasn’t too bad, but at some point, in a time to come, Paul and John and perhaps the others decided they didn’t like “My Bonnie” at all. “We hated it, we thought it was a terrible record,” Paul said in 1964.54 It seems the Beatles were underwhelmed generally by their first recording session, and beyond such brief mentions hardly talked about it—mostly because they were so rarely asked.

  Alfred Schacht felt sure his friend was disappointed with and unenthusiastic about the session, as was Hanne Kaempfert, a musician professionally involved in her husband’s career. This may explain why it was some months before a record was issued, although the Beatles left Hamburg with the clear impression that a single featuring their two numbers—“Ain’t She Sweet” c/w “Beatle Bop”—would be released in America, Germany and Britain within a few weeks. On June 28, George and John signed contracts with Schacht, vesting in Tonika—his new, privately owned music publishing company—the copyright in their joint composition, a tune that had suddenly assumed a wry new title, the punning “Cry for a Shadow.” These were standard, preprinted contracts with specific details added by typewriter, but because they were in German, George and John had no idea what they were signing.55

  The agreements were made a few days after all four Beatles put their signatures on their first recording contract, a document signed by Bert Kaempfert on June 19, 1961. It was a six-page pact with Bert Kaempfert Produktion (BKP), not a standard document but one typed expressly for the purpose. The signatures on the last page read J. W. Lennon, James Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Peter Best—but, again, they were clueless about what they were signing. Everything was in German and they had no translation. As Paul would reflect three years later, “We signed all sorts of contracts when we were about eighteen, because we had no manager and we didn’t know what we were doing.”56

  In which case they were fortunate, because, in a business infested by sharks, Kaempfert played it straight and gave them a fair agreement—one-sided, yes, because this was typical, but not villainous. The Beatles didn’t know it any more than they knew anything, and they blindly agreed to a contract that was effective for a year from July 1, 1961, and subject to automatic renewals unless terminated with three months’ notice; that paid them a royalty in Germany of 5 percent of the wholesale price on 90 percent of all records sold, and less for exports; and that allowed BKP to use a pseudonym for the Beatles—while not specified in the contract, this would be “the Beat Brothers.”57

  BKP took no publicity photos of the Beatles with or without Tony Sheridan, so if any release was a hit, Polydor would have nothing on file for press coverage—but each of them was given a sheet of paper on which to hand-write his personal biography. These documents are fascinating and revealing on many levels. John, George and Pete wrote theirs in capitals, Paul used the flowing handwriting he knew counted among his attributes, Pete alone wrote his in the third person (PLAYED RUGBY UNTIL HE JOINED “THE BEATLES”) and the difference in John and Paul’s characters is crystallized in two sentences:

  PAUL: “Songs written: With John (LENNON)—around 70 songs

  JOHN: WRITTEN A COUPLE OF SONGS WITH PAUL

  Also here, laid out plain, graphite on paper, the 20-year-old who called himself JOHN W. LENNON (LEADER) stated explicitly what he wanted from life: “AMBITION. TO BE RICH.”

  They finished at the Top Ten on Saturday, July 1, three months to the day after they started. It was their ninety-second straight night … and Stu’s swan song. He’d been with the Beatles through eighteen remarkable months, joining a group that had no name and no discernible clue, and leaving one that had acclaim, drive, abundant talent and originality, rich ambitions and a recording contract. He’d mostly taken grief for all his time and trouble, but given hugely, if not so much musically then certainly in terms of attitude and appearance.

  By his own admission, Paul was mean to him to the end: “I was pretty nasty to him on the last day, [but] I caught his eye on stage [and] he was crying. It was one of those feelings, when you’re suddenly very close to someone.”58

  Astrid remembers there being plenty of tears and requests for forgiveness for misdeeds and misbehavior. Almost everyone was drunk, pilled and emotional, and when it was all over and they’d had something to eat they wandered around and around the Fischmarkt, as was their Sunday morning way. Jürgen was in Paris, Astrid had Stu, and Klaus was so emotional at the thought of the Beatles leaving that he asked to return with them to Liverpool and join the group.

  The sun was shining and we were sitting on some wooden planks on Talstrasse, close to the Top Ten. We were stoned and I asked John if I could become the Beatles’ bass player. He said, “Oh Klaus, Paul already bought the bass, it’s going to be him.” That would have changed the story—there would have been five Beatles again—but it was clear the Beatles had a plan, and they wanted to carry on and pull it through. How many times in life do you find three people like that, in a bunch? They were incredible.

  It was also farewell to Tony Sheridan, who was staying in Hamburg. His influence on the Beatles would endure, not least through his guitar techniques, steely intensity and, in John’s case, the way he stood at the microphone. Tony planted his feet wide but vibrated his legs, John planted his feet wide and didn’t budge an inch. He held his guitar high and his upper body tilted this way and that as he played, knees flexing, shoulders back, head forward—an authoritative presence peering down his bony nose while singing with complete commitment to the blur beyond.

  Stu let George return to Liverpool with his Gibson Les Paul amplifier; without this, his Hofner 333 bass was soundless, and shortly afterward he sold it to Klaus for DM200, his days as a rock musician seemingly over, Klaus’s just beginning. As Paul’s tiny Elpico amp lacked the power needed for his Hofner Violin, he took over the Selmer Truvoice George had used, and so, once again, the Beatles were returning home from Hamburg better equipped. They were also dressed to
shock and smuggling a load of Preludin, stuffed here and there and inside cigarette packets at the bottom of their luggage. They were risking problems at customs in both Holland and England, but John—with his addictive, compulsive personality and zest for talking—wasn’t the kind to gulp drugs by the handful for three months and then simply stop.

  Ellen Piel happened to be traveling to England on the same train and boat as the Beatles, leaving Hamburg mid-afternoon on July 2, and she recalls how the three Fascher brothers made the group’s departure boisterous, shoulder-carrying them high through the Hauptbahnhof, laughing and shouting and grabbing everyone’s attention on what was otherwise a quiet Sunday afternoon in the city. Paul had told Peter Eckhorn he’d be in touch later in the year to discuss when the Beatles might come back, but right now they weren’t sure they wanted to. As John vividly described it twelve years later, “Every time [after] we went to Hamburg we said ‘Never again! Never again!’ ”59 Astrid and Stu were at the station too, for fond farewells. There were sincere promises to keep in touch; Stu, George and John said they’d write.

  They were exhausted when they reached home, mid-afternoon on Monday the 3rd. Liverpool was still home, though they’d spent more time in Hamburg from last summer to this. They were giving themselves a few days off before the nightly merry-go-round started up again, when the kids and dance promoters of Merseyside would witness another riveting transformation. Kings before they left, they’d taken their performance to another, higher level: now a foursome, all in leather, even more dynamic, packing yet more punch and charisma, and bursting with the experience that only another 503 extraordinary hours on the Hamburg stage could have given them.‖