CRY FOR A SHADOW ~ THE BEATLES

"Cry for a Shadow" is an early Beatles instrumental. It was recorded on 22 June 1961 at the Friedrich-Ebert-Halle, Hamburg-Harburg, Germany while they were performing as Tony Sheridan's backup band for a few tracks, under the moniker The Beat Brothers. It was written by George Harrison with John Lennon, as a parody of the Shadows style. (The Shadows, who backed Cliff Richard, were the biggest British instrumental rock & roll group at the time of the recording.) It imitates the lead guitar with typical Hank Marvin licks, the melodic bass fills, and even has an imitation during the second middle eight of the famous Jet Harris yell. It is the only Beatles track to be credited to Lennon and Harrison alone.

It was intended to be released as the B-side of "Why", another Sheridan song with the Beatles, but the record company chose to release another song instead. In early 1964, as the Beatles were gaining popularity, the record company Polydor decided to release it, with "Why" changed to the b-side. According to Bill Harry, editor of the Mersey Beat newspaper, Cry for a Shadow's original title was "Beatle Bop".It was also released in 1995 as part of the Anthology 1 compilation.San Francisco new wave group Translator released a cover version of this song as a B-side in 1983

NOBODY'S CHILD ~ THE BEATLES AND TONY SHERIDAN

"Nobody's Child" is a song written by Cy Coben and Mel Foree. It was first recorded by Hank Snow in 1949 and it became one of his standards, although it did not chart for him. The song has been covered a number of times in the UK; it was on Lonnie Donegan's first album in 1956 (which went to #2 as an album in the UK), it was covered by Tony Sheridan and The Beatles in 1961 in Hamburg, and in 1969 Karen Young took the song to #6 on the UK charts and used it as the title track on her album. In 1969 Hank Williams Jr. did a version of it that made it to #46 on the US Country charts. The Traveling Wilburys' 1990 version made it to #44 on the UK charts. The Traveling Wilburys version of "Nobody's Child" was the first track on the benefit album Nobody's Child: Romanian Angel Appeal, released on 24 July 1990. Wilbury member George Harrison had also appeared on the 1961 Beatles/Tony Sheridan version. Other members of the Traveling Wilburys on this track were Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, and Tom Petty.

SWEET GEORGIA BROWN ~ THE BEATLES AND TONY SHERIDAN

Sweet Georgia Brown" is a jazz standard and pop tune written in 1925 by Ben Bernie and Maceo Pinkard (music) and Kenneth Casey (lyrics). The tune was first recorded on March 19, 1925 by bandleader Ben Bernie, resulting in a five-week No. 1 for Ben Bernie and his Hotel Roosevelt Orchestra. As Bernie's then nationally famous orchestra featuring the number did much to popularize the number, Pinkard cut Bernie in for a share of the tune's royalties by giving him a co-writer credit to the song.It is widely known as the theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team. The song was covered by The Beatles while working as a back-up band for singer Tony Sheridan. Two versions exist; the first was recorded on May 24, 1962 in Hamburg, Germany, using the original lyrics. The second (but the first version released) was released in 1964 during the wave of Beatlemania, with Sheridan having re-recorded the vocals with notably more tame lyrics featuring the added verse "in Liverpool she even dares / to criticise the Beatles' hair / with their whole fan-club standing there / oh Sweet Georgia Brown." Recently, bootleggers have utilized the two recordings to produce an instrumental featuring only the Beatles' instruments and backup vocals, entirely eliminating Sheridan. Roy Young played the piano.

MY BONNIE ~ THE BEATLES

My Bonnie is the name of a 1961 single, a 1962 album and a 1963 EP by Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers, better known as The Beatles.

On The Beatles' first visit to Hamburg, Germany in 1960, they met rock and roller Tony Sheridan, and became friends with him. On their second visit, in 1961 (now minus Stuart Sutcliffe), The Beatles backed Sheridan in a series of stage performances. It is sometimes said that German Polydor agent Bert Kaempfert personally saw Sheridan with The Beatles, but others report that a friend of Kaempfert's suggested that he bring them in to put down some recordings. Either way, he produced the material with Karl Hinze engineering. While they recorded a number of songs together (as well as alone), few of them actually made it on to the album, with Sheridan re-recording many of them. The Beatles are known to appear on "My Bonnie" and "The Saints" (this pair was also released as a single, see below). The version of "Swanee River" on the album has sometimes been said to feature The Beatles, however that version is in fact not included here, and it is not known whether the original recording still exists.

Legend says, in 1961, Raymond Jones, a young man from Liverpool, made a request for a copy of the "My Bonnie" single, which brought The Beatles to the attention of then-record store manager Brian Epstein, and set in motion the events that would lead him to become their manager. After The Beatles became successful, the eight tracks The Beatles worked on and some other Beat Brothers material were issued on an album in 1964 titled The Beatles' First.