THE BEATLES LIVE! AT THE STAR CLUB IN HAMBURG, GERMANY; 1962

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I thought a bit before including this album in this Discography: it was legally released in 1977 in Germany, the U.K. and in the U.S., but it wasn`t authorized by The Beatles, who fought in the courts to cancel the release, but they lost, with the Judge saying that "this album is of authentic historical interest, and The Beatles should have sued earlier, because they knew about the existence of the tapes and the plans to be released legally".

The details of the history of these recordings are better told in websites dedicated to The Beatles (for example, in www.jpgr.co.uk). I knew that The Beatles years later, in the 80s or 90s, fought again in the courts to stop the re-issues of this recordings, even on C.D., and they finally won.

These recordings were done with a mono open-reel tape machine in December 1962. The new owners of these recordings in the seventies tried to "polish" them because they were even more poor in quality in comparison to the released recordings.I can see why The Beatles were very against the idea of the release of these recordings, because there are some mistakes in the performances of the songs, BUT I still like this album! Why? Because it shows The Beatles with a more "raw" quality, playing with energy in a German Club, being this an example of their work in this kind of places where they started their career before becoming famous. They also said jokes, said "hello" to some of clients of the Club in a very familiar way, and played sometimes very "heavy". This album also has a lot of songs which The Beatles never recorded for their studio albums. Their repertoire also shows some very old songs, maybe playing them to satisfy clients of the Club of different ages, or even playing to the German audience an old song like "Falling in Love Again", a song sung by German actress Marlene Dietrich in the 30s! The German people happy clap to this good gesture done for them by The Beatles.

Other interesting things are:"Matchbox", sung by Ringo Starr when they recorded it in the studio, is sung by Lennon in this live album. The Beatles also let some of their German friends to sing some songs, so they let German waiter Horst Obber to sing "Be-Bop-a-Lula" and "Hallelujah I Love Her So"!

I really enjoy listening to this album, even if the recordings are of bad quality. I can understand the reasons that The Beatles had against it, but...this album is of real historical interest, IMO, too.

A final note: This album was relased in the U.K. 5 days before the live album authorized by The Beatles called "The Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl" . It seems that EMI and The Beatles were trying to "kill" the release of the "Star Club" recordings releasing their authorized recording at almost the same time. Of course, the "Hollywood Bowl" sold very well in comparison to the "Star Club" album, even being at the top of the charts.

Shock, horror, chopper gives one star to Beatles album!

Well, you certainly get the feel and the atmosphere of the early Hamburg days of the Beatles on this record but be warned, these songs were recorded by a fellow musician ("Kingsize" Taylor) on a handheld tape recorder and it took a lot of work to get them to a sufficient quality to release, and even then they're extremely rough.

These recordings are of interest to Beatle fanatics such as myself but they're really only the sort of thing you'd listen to once or twice. There are a few tracks that resurfaced on the early studio albums (A Taste of Honey, Mr Moonlight, I Saw Her Standing There and of course Twist and Shout) but most are cover versions which The Beatles used to fill their sets up to the required 12 hours!

It is said that "When I'm 64" was written around this time but there's no sign of anything like that here. Strictly for Beatle fanatics only.