The Beatles - Star-Club, Hamburg, Germany, 12-1962

I've been on the verge of posting this very early live Beatles album for a few months now. One reason is the sound quality. Bluntly speaking, the sound quality is pretty bad compared to just about everything else I've posted at this blog. But the good news is, thanks to recent advancements in audio editing technology, it sounds better than it ever has before. Still, this is not for the casual fan. 

The second reason is the story behind this recording is very complicated, and I lacked the enthusiasm for a long write-up. So I ultimately decided to skip most of what I was thinking of writing. Instead, I can point you to a Wikipedia article for the short version:

Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962 - Wikipedia 

But if you want to dig deeper, I've included a PDF of a lengthy but I think interesting article from Record Collector Magazine about the long and tangled story about this recording.

Before I go any further, I want to say: all hail Lord Reith! The only reason I'm posting this is because a super Beatles fan by that name has made repeated efforts to improve this recording, each one sounding better than the last. The most recent one is from late 2024 (as I write this in February 2025). All I'm basically doing is posting what he did, with minor changes. He even is the one who came up with the PDF of the article mentioned above. I've also included a text file from him that explains some more about what he did. If you want to find more of his Beatles-centric audio editing, search for his name at the Beatlegs forum. He's one of the best at this audio editing stuff, for sure.

Here's a link to that forum:

https://forum.beatlegdb.com/

Anyway, while I'm not going to write a tome about this recording, I will give the basics. As most Beatles fans know, the Beatles honed their musical skills playing in small clubs in Hamburg, Germany, from 1960 to 1962, before they became famous. This recording comes from December 1962, when they were on the brink of fame. Their drummer Pete Best had recently been replaced by Ringo Starr, who plays drums on everything here. Their debut single "Love Me Do" was released in October 1962, and reached Number 17 in the British charts around the time these recordings were made. In fact, the Beatles didn't want to play in Hamburg anymore, but they felt obliged to finish off a contract they'd signed many months earlier.

Their stay this time was relatively short. They played from December 18th until December 31st. Nobody knows the exact dates these recordings were made, except that they come from that time period. What happened was, recording equipment was set up, and every now and then someone hit the record button, and nobody kept track of details. There are three big continuous chunks, probably recorded on different nights. Plus, there are some extra individual songs recorded here and there. 

So what we ended up with was a luck of the draw thing. For instance, no recording of "Love Me Do" made it, despite that being their sole hit single at the time that they certainly must have played. And we only got a couple of originals, "I Saw Her Standing There" and "Ask Me Why." But what really makes this fascinating is the Beatles played a bunch of cover songs. Some covers made their early studio albums or singles, and some were done later at the BBC and thus recordings survived, but for many, maybe half of the songs here, these are the only Beatles versions we have. 

Note that this version isn't complete. If you want that, check out Lord Reith's version at the Beatlegs forum. I didn't cut out much, but I cut out a few songs that had sound problems, or were otherwise problematic, such as a version of "Road Runner" that barely got started and then petered out after less than a minute. I also cut out some dead time between songs when nobody was talking. But I tried to keep as much as possible. For instance, there are three versions of "A Taste of Honey" here because each one is somewhat different. One is the standard Beatles version. Another has a little-known extra verse. And another has singer Tony Sheridan guesting on it. (The Beatles backed him in the studio for a couple of songs in 1962.)

I also tried to make some improvements to Lord Reith's edits. I couldn't do much with the actual songs. But for the times between songs, I separated out just the talking (using the UVR5 program) from everything else, then lowered the volume of everything else. That helped somewhat, but be warned that the banter between songs is often unintelligible due to the poor sound quality.

Finally, I have a bit to say about the history of this recording. The actual recording was done by Adrian Barber, the stage manager of the club. Apparently, the Beatles gave approval in return for free beer! Barber then gave the tapes to Ted Taylor, the leader of the Dominoes, another band playing in the club at the time. Some other bands were recorded as well, but few people care about that since those other bands never made it out of obscurity. 

Taylor tried selling the tapes to record companies starting in 1973. However, there wasn't much interest due to the poor sound quality. Eventually, a rather obscure company bought the rights to the tapes, and spent about $100,000 trying to improve the sound. They had partial success at best. The album was released in 1977 with the name "The Beatles Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962." Only 26 of the 30 different songs were included, with no duplicates. 

The Beatles then tried to sue, and years of legal battles ensued. Generally speaking, it was much like a game of whack-a-mole. Different versions of the album came out with different names and track lists in different countries, making it impossible to stop them all. In 1991 though, the massive company Sony tried to release a version. This led to more legal battles. Finally, in 1998, the Beatles won ownership of the tapes and the exclusive rights to release the material. They've just sat on them since. But after director Peter Jackson redid lots of material from the Beatles' "Get Back" sessions in 2022, he said he has the best version of this bootleg available, and he wants to use the latest cutting edge technology to make it sound truly good. Nothing has come of that since then, but who knows what the future may bring.

Anyway, if you want to know more about all that, check out the Wikipedia article above, or the PDF file included in the download. Hopefully, someday Jackson will perform a miracle on this material. In the meantime, this is the best version that's publicly available, in my opinion. 

Oh, another thing. When you listen to the vocals of the first song, you may think, "Who the heck is singing?" That's because that song, "Be-Bop-A-Lula," plus the third song, "Hallelujah, I Love Her So," were actually sung by other people and only backed by the Beatles. Horst Fascher, who sang one of those, was one of the club managers. He also was the club's bouncer and a former boxer. Fred Fascher, who sang the other one, was his brother. The Beatles relied on them for protection from unruly crowds, so letting them sing a little bit was a good way to keep them on their side.

My final comment: don't expect sonic miracles here. This is not for the casual fan, due to the sound quality. But it's fascinating if you're a die-hard Beatle fan and can handle the recording's flaws.

This album is an hour and 28 minutes long.

01 Be-Bop-A-Lula (Beatles & Fred Fascher)
02 I Saw Her Standing There (Beatles)
03 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
04 Hallelujah, I Love Her So (Beatles & Horst Fascher)
05 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
06 Red Hot (Beatles)
07 Sheila (Beatles)
08 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
09 Kansas City - Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey (Beatles)
10 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
11 Shimmy like Kate (Beatles)
12 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
13 Reminiscing (Beatles)
14 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
15 Red Sails in the Sunset (Beatles)
16 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
17 Sweet Little Sixteen (Beatles)
18 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
19 Roll Over Beethoven (Beatles)
20 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
21 A Taste of Honey [Extra Verse Version] (Beatles)
22 Nothin' Shakin' [But the Leaves on the Trees] (Beatles)
23 I Saw Her Standing There (Beatles)
24 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
25 To Know Her Is to Love Her [To Know Him Is to Love Him] (Beatles)
26 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
27 Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby (Beatles)
28 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
29 Till There Was You (Beatles)
30 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
31 Where Have You Been All My Life (Beatles)
32 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
33 Lend Me Your Comb (Beatles)
34 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
35 Your Feet's Too Big (Beatles)
36 I'm Talking about You (Beatles)
37 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
38 A Taste of Honey (Beatles)
39 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
40 Matchbox (Beatles)
41 Little Queenie (Beatles)
42 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
43 The Hippy Hippy Shake (Beatles)
44 talk (Beatles)
45 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
46 A Taste of Honey (Beatles with Tony Sheridan)
47 I Remember You (Beatles)
48 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
49 Ask Me Why (Beatles)
50 Besame Mucho (Beatles)
51 Mr. Moonlight (Beatles)
52 talk (Beatles) (Beatles)
53 Falling in Love Again (Beatles)
54 I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry [Over You] (Beatles)
55 Long Tall Sally (Beatles)
56 I'm Talking about You (Beatles)
57 Twist and Shout (Beatles)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CVJuAYuU

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/u7UoC9JNRT4FHtS/file

The cover photo shows the Beatles performing at the Star-Club at some point, though unfortunately Ringo Starr isn't included in the image. Note I used the venue's logo in the album title at the top.