Horst Fascher
Horst Fascher in Beatlemania museum in Hamburg, April 2012
Background information
Born	(1936-02-05) 5 February 1936 (age 76) Hamburg, Germany
Occupations	manager, producer
Website	[1]

Horst Fascher (born 5 February 1936, Hamburg) is a previous German nightclub bouncer, and a friend of The Beatles during their days playing in Hamburg, Germany.

A onetime professional boxer whose career was cut short (he had unintentionally killed a sailor in a street fight), Fascher found work in clubs along the Reeperbahn in Hamburg.^[1] When the Beatles (including original drummer Pete Best and bassist Stuart Sutcliffe) made their first trip to Germany in August 1960, Fascher befriended the young group, who played at the Indra Club and the Kaiserkeller.

As they rose through the ranks of bands playing the Reeperbahn (making five trips in all over the next two-and-a-half years), Fascher usually managed to be working at the same clubs, and for the same boss, as the Beatles. They visited him at home, and he in turn kept troublemakers away from the band. The only favour Fascher asked was to be able to sing with them occasionally onstage, which was granted; Eddie Cochran's music was a common choice.

The Beatles (with Best now replaced by Ringo Starr, and Paul McCartney changing to bass when Sutcliffe departed) did not want to make their last Hamburg visit, at the end of 1962, preferring to stay in England to promote their new single, "Love Me Do", but were persuaded by manager Brian Epstein, via Horst Fascher, who recalled later "I had to give him thirty marks under the table to make him do it." Nonetheless, the band had a holiday residency at the Star-Club (which Fascher co-ran), through the New Year.

Fascher guested with the Beatles during their New Year's Eve show, which was recorded by another Liverpool musician, Ted "Kingsize" Taylor. Years later (in 1977), the tape was released commercially as Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962. A song from the album, "Hallelujah, I Love Her So", features Horst Fascher's vocals. Another song, "Be-Bop-A-Lula", features his brother Fred's vocals.

Fascher remained a friend and admirer of the band years after they became famous. Some of his stories about the band's Hamburg days (and his impressions of the young Beatles) have found their way into music biographies, including Philip Norman's Shout!. His own memoir was published in 2006.

References[link]

Notes[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Shout! The Beatles in Their Generation, by Philip Norman (Warner Books, 1982)
• The Beatles, by Hunter Davies (McGraw-Hill, 1968)
• Let the good times roll! Der Star-Club-Gründer erzählt, Autobiography by Horst Fascher. Written by Oliver Flesch. With greetings from Paul McCartney and Ray Charles. Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 2006, ISBN 3-8218-5631-9. Additionally: 1 CD (MP3). Read by Gerd Alzen. Radioropa Hörbuch, Daun 2007, ISBN 978-3-8368-0013-6.

External links[link]

• http://www.horstfascher.de/ Horst Fascher
• Horst Fascher at the Internet Movie Database

The Star-Club memorial in St. Pauli, Germany.

The Star-Club was a music club in Hamburg, Germany that opened Friday 13 April 1962 and was initially operated by Manfred Weissleder and Horst Fascher. In the 1960s, many of the giants of rock music played at the club. The club closed on 31 December 1969 and the building it occupied was destroyed by a fire in 1987. The address in Hamburg area St. Pauli was: Große Freiheit 39; Große Freiheit is a side street of the Reeperbahn.

The club achieved worldwide renown through the performances of the Beatles, who played there 13 April 1962 - 31 May 1962 and started another round of performances 1 November 1962. Their last performance there was 31 December 1962; that performance was recorded on a home tape machine, and a remixed version was released in 1977 as Live! at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany; 1962.

The Beatles' first Hamburg Club performance was at the Indra Club (also in Große Freiheit) at 18 August 1960.

[edit] Musicians who played here^[1]

English musicians (alphabetical): The Beatles, Chicken Shack (featuring Christine McVie (Perfect)), Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, Cream, Lee Curtis, Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, Earth (pre-Black Sabbath), The Graduates, The Jimi Hendrix Experience (US/UK, march 1967), The Jaybirds (featuring Alvin Lee of Ten Years After), Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas (band), The Liverbirds, The Overlanders, The Pretty Things, The Remo Four, The Searchers; Richard Thompson, Soft Machine...

American musicians: Ray Charles, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Everly Brothers, Bill Haley, Jimi Hendrix, Johnny and the Hurricanes, Brenda Lee, Jerry Lee Lewis (who released a highly-praised live album recorded at the club in 1964) and Little Richard, who at that point had Billy Preston in his band.

German musicians: The Rattles (Hamburg) and many more Italian musicians: Mino Reitano

Star-Club Records[link]

In the early 1960s the Clubowners also started a record label, Star-Club Records, subsidiary of Philips Records

References[link]

External links[link]

• http://www.center-of-beat.com/ Information about the Star-Club
• http://www.starclub-hamburg.com/ Information about the Star-Club
• http://www.merseycats.com/Maja's-Memories-of-the-Star-Club.html Reminisce to the opening of the Star-Club, with an original recording of the Beatles ("A Taste of Honey")
• http://beatles.ncf.ca/starclubtapes.html Eric Krasker, The Star-Club tapes : The set that never existed.