3 - Germany Calling

Episode 1 - Schlager You Than Me Having said all I have, the first part of Hamburg Calling contained no sex, no drugs and no rock and roll. Hamburg was a city of air-raid shelters during the war as it was a relatively easy target for bombers and casualties were high. Ironically, many citizens did not support Hitler. Liverpool comedians discussed German jokes and Ken Dodd said, “Of course I went to Germany. I went over there to complain.” Because of its black origins, jazz was banned in Germany, and once the war was over, it had a new found popularity. Chris Barber’s Jazz Band did particularly well and through Barber’s banjo player, Lonnie Donegan, they learnt about skiffle. In the 1950s, German popular music became bland and Schlager was lightweight pop songs about holidaying in the sun and falling in love. The UK had its own Schlager with Cliff Richard’s ‘Summer Holiday’, while Elvis Presley’s ‘Wooden Heart’ was based on a German folk song and had a passage in German. The German fans were agreed that English was a much better language for performing rock and roll.

Episode 2 - Wonderland By Night This programme featured a walk around St Pauli with Ulf Kruger, interspersed with appropriate music. He was an excellent, witty guide, full of information and it worked well. We passed shops selling guns, knives and handcuffs. Some of the guns were replicas but how are going to know what somebody is pointing at you? We saw a country and western shop where the Beatles bought their cowboy boots, although there was nothing to say so, and we saw Polizei, the police station where Paul McCartney and Pete Best were taken when they were arrested. I hid my microphone as we went down Herbertstrasse, a street with 30 prostitutes in the windows, just as it was in 1960. You tapped on a window and negotiated a price. There were walls at each end of the street and only men were allowed through the opening. Ulf said that AIDS had affected the sex trade, which made me wonder what it was like before. The Erotica museum had had its day but there were plans to turn the premises into a Beatles museum. We saw the sites where the Beatles played – Indra, Kaiserkeller, Top-Ten and Star-Club. The Star-Club premises had been destroyed by fire. We visited the Bambi-Kino, the cinema where the Beatles had originally slept. Despite all this mayhem, there was collusion between club owners and police to maintain order and the 10pm curfew for those under 21 was observed. Into all this came the Beatles in August 1960 with George Harrison only 17 years old. While Ulf and I were talking, the beautiful chimes of the clock on the Catholic church in Grosse Freiheit rang 9pm. In the midst of mayhem, there was this oasis of calm. Chris Curtis and the Liverbirds attended the church while John Lennon was accused of peeing on the nuns. Little Richard called him ‘The Devil’s own child’.

Episode 3 – The Night The Beat Was Born When the owner of the Jacaranda Allan Williams was checking out clubs in Hamburg with Lord Woodbine, he saw Bruno Koschmider beating up a customer and immediately thought, “This man needs some Liverpool acts in his club.” Koschmider thought British rock and roll was a good idea but his first signing was Tony Sheridan and the Jets. Then Koschmider had a Liverpool act, Howie Casey and the Seniors, followed by the fledging Beatles. The Beatles used the long hours to develop into a tremendous rock and roll act. They returned home in December 1960 expecting to play Williams’ new club, the Top Ten, but according to its DJ Bob Wooler, “It lasted five days and someone got careless with the Bryant and Mays.” Instead, they found themselves at Litherland Town Hall where they gave a jaw-dropping performance. The Big Freedom Dance Tony Ashton

Episode 4 – My Bonnie The German bandleader Bert Kaempfert produced records for Polydor and in 1961, he was alerted to Tony Sheridan who was working at the Top Ten Club on the Reeperbahn. He was accompanied by the Beatles, although the label called them the Beat Brothers. The audiences liked the rocked-up ‘My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean’ and hence, ‘My Bonnie’ was a single, even making the German charts. The Beatles recorded an instrumental, ‘Cry For A Shadow’ which was very like the John Barry Seven’s ‘Rodeo’. Tony Sheridan was talented but there are many stories of how outlandish he was on stage (and off!) and he was often encouraged by another wild rocker from the UK, Roy Young. A Liverpool singer Paul Murphy worked for Polydor and recorded Tony Sheridan and Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes.

Episode 5 – The Hedgehog Manfred Weissleder made cheap sex films and ran sex clubs but when he purchased Stern-Kino on Grosse Freiheit 39, it was too big and not intimate enough for sex and so it became a beat club, opening in April 1962. He hired Horst Fascher as manager, who immediately recruited Tony Sheridan and the Beatles. Also the Searchers, Lee Curtis and the All-Stars, Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes and the Liverbirds, all from Liverpool, had residencies at the Star-Club. There are many stories of the difficulties of getting to Hamburg, insulting Horst Fascher by accident (well, no-one would do it on purpose) and the disgusting story of the hedgehog, involving the Beatles and told with relish by Lee Curtis for the first time anywhere. There was the comfort of the Seamen’s Mission where the groups could have an English breakfast.

Episode 6 – Working For The Man This episode shows how demanding playing the clubs could be, especially if you had asthma like John McNally. You had to perform with enthusiasm and Horst Fascher would shout ‘mach schau’ if you didn’t move around. It was hard on vocalists and they often suffered from Hamburg throat. The Swinging Blue Jeans went there as a jazz band but after a disastrous first night, changed their stance. Johnny Gus from the Big Three described it all as ‘drunken insanity’.

Episode 7 – Heroes And Villains You could meet your heroes at the Star-Club but they were often not what you expected. Gene Vincent might knock you out by touching your pressure points. In the midst of all this licentiousness, Little Richard might be quoting from the Bible and Chuck Berry might want you to back him with no instructions at all. Kingsize Taylor overturned a bar and it took several policemen to arrest him, while one of his Dominoes was practising black magic. Gerry Marsden and John Lennon visited a brothel. Jerry Lee Lewis has never been wilder than his night on the stage with the Nashville Teens.