Fact #53285
When:
Short story:
The Beatles record tracks, including My Bonnie and The Saints, with Tony Sheridan for Bert Kaempfert of Polydor Records in The Friedrich-Ebert-Halle, Hamburg, Germany, Europe. They also record two tracks without him, laying down Ain't She Sweet and Cry For A Shadow.
Full article:
Hal Fein (associate of Bert Kaempfert] : It (My Bonnie] was just a single. On the record it said, 'Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers.' They (Polydor) didn't use the word Beatles because they thought it sounded strange, like an animal.
Roy Young (Beat Brothers) : They [The Beatles] wanted to do a record deal badly, I mean - like we all did. I actually was already making Records so it wasn't that bad for me but for them, you know you could feel the hunger for putting product out which was natural, really.
Hal Fein : After they were signed, I had to leave for Copenhagen. My parting words to Kaempfert were, 'Give the boys some money and make sure they get haircuts.' If it had been left up to me, I think they would've been called 'The Oxford Four' instead of the more avant-garde Beatles.
Four of them lived in one room - a small, cramped room - with hardly space for four. They slept on two bunk beds. And there was no window, they just had a transom for air and ventilation. And there was a stand-up coat rack for their clothes.
Tony Sheridan: We went to bed at five and got up at eight to make the record. We took uppers to keep awake. Bert told us to record something that the Germans would understand. They knew My Bonnie because it was taught in English lessons. My Bonnie is public domain so, normally, I would have expected to get the royalties for arranging it. However, the guys who wrote the German introduction got it instead.
Alfred Schact (German music publisher) : When they came to the studio to record, their way out primitive sound was under-rehearsed and so not very successful.
Roy Young : We'd come out of the club and go to the music Halle or wherever it was, we would record and for me it never felt like we were actually recording - we just felt like I'd come out of one stage and onto another because it was like in a theatre. And because we just played, there were never agreements made - it was very loose. And I mean we just didn't care. It wasn't like, you know, "Do you want to make an album? Yeah!! Where do you wanna play? Now? Can I do it now?" You know, it was so different so we would just play and... "Is that okay?" And of course the producer was Burt Kaempfert. "Is that all right, Burt?" "Yeah, sounds great, Roy!"
A lot of writing has been that it's Paul playing piano and it's me! That's always been a question. I know it's me because I know Paul can't play like that - and it's my style. I mean I could play it for you right now and you would hear it, you know. But Paul would never play like … I'm not putting Paul down because Paul is a very incredible musician.
Hal Fein : When the record was released, the initial sales were about 180,000 copies, a fair sized hit for Germany, Europe. Due to its success in Germany, it was played on Radio Luxembourg - one of the most powerful stations in Europe, beaming in all directions - into Germany, south into the continent and north into England.
(Source : not known)
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Roy Young (Beat Brothers) : They [The Beatles] wanted to do a record deal badly, I mean - like we all did. I actually was already making Records so it wasn't that bad for me but for them, you know you could feel the hunger for putting product out which was natural, really.
Hal Fein : After they were signed, I had to leave for Copenhagen. My parting words to Kaempfert were, 'Give the boys some money and make sure they get haircuts.' If it had been left up to me, I think they would've been called 'The Oxford Four' instead of the more avant-garde Beatles.
Four of them lived in one room - a small, cramped room - with hardly space for four. They slept on two bunk beds. And there was no window, they just had a transom for air and ventilation. And there was a stand-up coat rack for their clothes.
Tony Sheridan: We went to bed at five and got up at eight to make the record. We took uppers to keep awake. Bert told us to record something that the Germans would understand. They knew My Bonnie because it was taught in English lessons. My Bonnie is public domain so, normally, I would have expected to get the royalties for arranging it. However, the guys who wrote the German introduction got it instead.
Alfred Schact (German music publisher) : When they came to the studio to record, their way out primitive sound was under-rehearsed and so not very successful.
Roy Young : We'd come out of the club and go to the music Halle or wherever it was, we would record and for me it never felt like we were actually recording - we just felt like I'd come out of one stage and onto another because it was like in a theatre. And because we just played, there were never agreements made - it was very loose. And I mean we just didn't care. It wasn't like, you know, "Do you want to make an album? Yeah!! Where do you wanna play? Now? Can I do it now?" You know, it was so different so we would just play and... "Is that okay?" And of course the producer was Burt Kaempfert. "Is that all right, Burt?" "Yeah, sounds great, Roy!"
A lot of writing has been that it's Paul playing piano and it's me! That's always been a question. I know it's me because I know Paul can't play like that - and it's my style. I mean I could play it for you right now and you would hear it, you know. But Paul would never play like … I'm not putting Paul down because Paul is a very incredible musician.
Hal Fein : When the record was released, the initial sales were about 180,000 copies, a fair sized hit for Germany, Europe. Due to its success in Germany, it was played on Radio Luxembourg - one of the most powerful stations in Europe, beaming in all directions - into Germany, south into the continent and north into England.
(Source : not known)