Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Beatles as a back-up band: Wow!, September 15, 1999
By A Customer
In the summer of '64 when we in the States couldn't get enough of the Beatles, two songs off this album were released as singles: "Ain't She Sweet" and "Cry for a Shadow". The album had been made several years before when they were in Hamburg. The album was made primarily to showcase the talent of their countryman, Tony Sheridan; but, I believe, these two singles were all-Beatles efforts. While "Ain't She Sweet" sounds hokey today, I remember at the time thinking that it was a swinging record. "Cry for a Shadow" is a great instrumental that holds up even today. It pays tribute to the instrumental style of Britain's most popular group at the time, The Shadows. For the trivia-minded, it is the only song that I know of that was composed by Lennon and Harrison. The rest of the album would only be interesting to those who had an interest in the seminal Beatles and as a historical perspective of what european teenagers thought was hot rock and roll in the early '60's
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Tony Sheridan-- and "friends"!, February 10, 2000
Tony Sheridan was clearly an Elvis Presley wanna-be. He sings great, most of the songs presented here are familiar rock & roll standards, and he happened to have one HECK of a back-up band on most of the tracks: THE BEATLES. Recorded by producer Bert Kaempfert ("Swingin' Safari"), it gave for a brief time the false impression that The Beatles were a group from Germany! I had an LP of this titled THE BEATLES FEATURING TONY SHERIDAN, but this CD has it beat on several counts: It's STEREO! (Not "Electronically created stereo") It's got 2 EXTRA songs! ("Ready Teddy" and "Kansas City") And it's got the FULL-LENGTH INTRO to my favorite song on the disc, "My Bonnie"! (It starts out played slow in the traditional way-- until it turns abruptly into FAST rock & roll!) The intro was missing on the old LP; and BEATLES ANTHOLOGY 1 ruined it by having Paul McCartney's interview segment overdubbed on top of it. My one question: does ANYBODY know what Tony Sheridan LOOKS like? Neither version I have has a single photo of him, and he's the guy doing most of the singing!
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Unnecessary to own for Beatles fans, April 7, 2005
At the time this was made, this was one of the few places to get these early recordings made by the Beatles in Hamburg, Germany. They acted as backing group to English rocker Tony Sheridan (who sounds much like a B-grade Elvis Presley). These early recordings are from the days when Pete Best was still behind the drumkit, instead of Ringo Starr.
HIGHLIGHTS:
The Beatles are only really here on 3 tracks, "Ain't She Sweet?" (where John actually sings lead), "Cry for a Shadow" (an instrumental written by the Beatles as a tribute to English star Cliff Richard's backing group The Shadows), and "My Bonnie", where the group really is only there as instrumental backing for Sheridan. This last single is a key piece to Beatles lore, as it was a fan seeking that song in Brian Epstein's NEMS record shop that led him to seek out the group. The rest, as they say, is history.
LOWS:
No real discernable lows so much as a general malaise. Outside of the 3 Beatles tracks, you get garage band versions of classic 50s numbers. You're better off with Little Richard, Dion, Chris Montez, etc etc etc.
BOTTOM LINE:
The 3 you really want this for are available on "Anthology 1" these days with other Fab Four rarities. The other performances aren't especially noteworthy, but if you're here because you're a big Sheridan fan, you may want to look at his Website. It looks like he still records. http://www.tony-sheridan.de/
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