This box set won't be for every Beatles fan, covering as it does the group's earliest sides, recorded during 1961-1962 in Hamburg, Germany, but it may please many more of them than one would expect. Some onlookers will be astonished that anyone could build a two-CD compilation out of the eight released songs that the group recorded for producer Bert Kaempfert in Hamburg, all but two featuring their fellow Liverpool musician Tony Sheridan on lead vocals (and, in some instances, lead guitar as well) -- Bear Family has not only done it, but they've done it well. The eight songs appear in 36 different masters (plus two editions of a song that the Beatles did with Sheridan, but which has been lost in their version), all but eight of which have been issued numerous times as singles and on albums and CDs. The producers here have done diligent tape research, however, finding the earliest generation source tapes on each track, and the resulting music does sound amazingly good, rivaling and perhaps even surpassing some of EMI's reissues of the group's much better known early Parlophone sides. Additionally, they've sorted out the different Tony Sheridan versions of "Sweet Georgia Brown" and found the master on which the Beatles (as opposed to the other groups that backed him, all of which were referred to as "the Beat Brothers") actually played. The eight songs appeared in various guises, in finished masters that were edited for release at various times in Germany, England, the United States, etc., in straight mono and, in most cases, remixed for stereo. Disc one contains the 19 known mono masters, all sounding very strong and comprising great listening for pure pleasure, while disc two is devoted to the 17 known stereo masters of the same material, which offer the chance to pick out elements of the playing, as well as to appreciate the nuances in Sheridan's singing. These recordings predate the period in which the "Liverpool sound" (heavy rhythm guitars and bass, suppressed lead) was established, so George Harrison's playing is as exposed as it ever was, with the division between his and John Lennon's guitar clearly delineated, and since Pete Best was on the drums -- with a decidedly lighter (though interesting) technique than Ringo Starr -- the overall sound is rather different from what the Beatles started delivering in the studio to producer George Martin at Parlophone late in 1962.

As for the songs themselves, the group's musical skills may have been rougher than listeners remember them on their Parlophone recordings -- though some of the sides here were cut just a few months before their Parlophone era began -- but the Beatles were exciting even in 1961, and Sheridan was one of the more imposing singing talents in Liverpool or Hamburg at the time. He owed a lot to Elvis Presley, but he was also a charismatic vocalist who knew how to work a song. And the recordings reveal some of the musical attributes that were to grace their later work, albeit in almost embryonic form -- the lean, brittle playing on "The Saints" anticipates the style they would bring to their rendition of "Long Tall Sally," their bluesy playing on "Nobody's Child" shows their clear debt to Buddy Holly & the Crickets as well as to Elvis' early RCA sides, "Why (Can't You Love Me Again)" captures an early manifestation of the ballad style that they would perfect on Paul McCartney-sung numbers such as "Till There Was You," and "Take Out Some Insurance on Me Baby" is a forerunner of their rendition of "Kansas City." They needed to change their focus, and evolve their vocal and instrumental technique, but they did play louder and better than most of the competition, and also revealed a level of sophistication on the only original here, the Lennon/Harrison-authored instrumental "Cry for a Shadow" (a parody of, and tribute to, the then chart-topping British quartet the Shadows); its mere existence set them apart from their rivals, who were content to thump away at whatever rock & roll song was at hand. What makes this set worthwhile, however, is that the stuff is eminently listenable in its own right, and that goes double for fans who like early rock & roll. The other major attribute is the 100-page hardcover book that comes with the box; written by Hans Olaf Gottfridsson and featuring photos by Ellen Piel and Astrid Kirchher, it does for the group's Hamburg period what Bruce Spizer's three Beatles books did for their recordings (and accompanying history) on Vee-Jay and Capitol Records in America. It's worth every cent, and will keep readers and fans busy for weeks taking it all in with the music. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide