Was the first recorded song by The Beatles a disappointment?
Today, it is almost impossible to imagine a world without The Beatles. The band defined the revolutionary sounds of the 1960s and has had a lasting impact on the face of pop and rock music as a whole; there is scarcely a group in existence that does not owe something to the pioneering spirit of the Fab Four. There was a time, however, when Liverpool’s favourite sons were virtual unknowns, performing almost exclusively for sailors within the small clubs and venues of Hamburg.
From their roots as a skiffle group on the streets of Liverpool, The Beatles did not really come into their own until their residencies in Hamburg during the early 1960s. Providing an opportunity for the group to develop a captivating live show and perfect their own unique sound, the products of which can be heard on many of their early recordings. This period in Germany also proved vital to Beatles history because it led the band to meet Ringo Starr for the first time, though he would not officially join the group until 1962.
Much of The Beatles’ Hamburg era was limited to performances at venues like the Kaiserkeller or The Star-Club, but there were also opportunities for the band to put their voices onto tape too. Thus far, the band’s recording career had been confined to scratchy home-recordings made on the cheap but, in 1961, they were invited to record professionally as the backing band for the rock ‘n’ roll guitarist Tony Sheriden.
These sessions, recorded in the assembly hall of a local school in Hamburg, mainly consisted of Sheriden’s own material, with The Beatles as a backing band. For their part, The Beatles were not even credited on the final product, incorrectly listed as ‘The Beat Brothers’. Towards the end of the sessions, though, the band were offered the chance to record their own original compositions for the first time.
The band ended up recording two tracks, ‘Ain’t She Sweet’ and the instrumental track ‘Cry For A Shadow’. Seemingly, though, the band were pretty disappointed with the results of their first professional recording session. In The Beatles Anthology, George Harrison recalled, “It was a bit disappointing because we’d been hoping to get a record deal for ourselves,” continuing, “Although we did ‘Ain’t She Sweet’ and the instrumental ‘Cry For A Shadow’ without Sheridan, they didn’t even put our name on the record”.
Although the band weren’t all too impressed with their first professional recording session, these early songs now form an interesting aspect of the band’s history. Thankfully for The Beatles – and the music world as a whole – it would not take very long for the group to get another chance at recording. Only a year later, the band were taken under the wing of Brian Epstein and eventually got signed to EMI.
It was with EMI that The Beatles, whom we all know and love, came into their own, recording the early singles and albums that have now become an integral part of music history. It goes without saying that recordings like Please Please Me sound worlds apart from the lo-fi Hamburg instrumentals like ‘Cry For A Shadow’. Nevertheless, the Hamburg sessions provided the band with valuable experience in the studio that would go on to influence their later material.
