In the spring of 1961, Gerd âGerminâ Mingram, a German photojournalist, captured some images at the Top Ten Club that featured a few soon-to-be famous faces⌠and local criminals (seen in the foreground). One of the images (photo 1) was published in July 1961 in Einigkeit (Unity), a union newspaper (the union in question: Nahrung-GenuĂ-Gastätten, or food, enjoyment, restaurants), illustrating an article (about union songs featuring melodies from the U.S. with adapted lyrics in German).
Mingram took numerous photographs at the Top Ten to showcase St. Pauli nightlife, and The Beatles appearing in them was purely coincidental. One of the criminals pictured was someone whoâd go on to be known as Hamburgâs so-called âGodfather,â Wilfrid Schulz; the other â also seen in one photo singing onstage â was Walter Sprenger.
âThey used to have a talent night at the Top Ten Club, a Tuesday evening. People from the audience would come up and sing and weâd have to back them up. At that time, we didnât know that much about music; all we knew were the names of each key. This guy started playing his sax and we were playing along with him when we decided to play a joke. We began to say among ourselves another key, say D; someone gave the nod and we all suddenly changed into that key, pretending nothing had happened. The guy didnât know what was going on, but he tried to follow. And then we whispered, âB flat,â to each other and we all changed key again. We were really stretching this guy and he was trying desperately to find out what key we were in and keep up with us.
There were other Germans whoâd come on stage and try to sing Little Richard and Chuck Berry songs without knowing the words. They knew the sounds of the words but they couldnât really get them, especially if it was something like âTutti Frutti.â And the German accent doesnât really lend itself to rock ânâ roll so it could be quite hysterical. The funniest noteworthy story is how, back then, when we were still performing the latest records, one was Johnny Kidd and the Piratesâ âShakinâ All Overâ and it went, âShivers down my backbone, shaking all overâŚâ but the Germans thought we were singing âSchick ihn nach Hannoverâ â âSend him to Hanoverâ â the German equivalent of âsend him to Coventry.ââ - George Harrison, The Beatles Anthology
âIn my opinion our peak for playing live was in Hamburg because at that time we werenât famous. So the people who came to see us were drawn in by the music or by whatever atmosphere we created. [âŚ] The Hamburg days, in retrospect, were probably the most important times of our lives because it was what you would call our apprenticeship. We worked very hard and we worked long hours. We played for eight hours a night, seven days a week for over four and a half months on our first go-round there. We really got a lot of material down, a lot of material we would never have learned if we hadnât gone there. It was one great rehearsal and it really got the group going.â - George Harrison, The Beatles: An Oral History (1998)
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