The Beatles - Red Hot (Rare Full Version)

• published: 20 Aug 2015
• views: 15

The Beatles live at the Star-Club in Hamburg, Germany 1962. Red Hot was a song in their rotation a lot back then but this is the only known audio recording of it. There has been a lot of controversy on who is singing the song. By first ear you hear John Lennon singing but it has been proven in many books that it is indeed George Harrison singing although it is still a fight between hardcore fans. For the longest time there was only 30 seconds of the song in circulation but in the last few years a longer version was leaked. Although the recording runs out of tape towards the end of the song it was great to hear the longer version. I ended up patching up the song at the end for my own listening pleasure and did some audio work on it and figured why not share it with all you Tuber's out there. Put up some cool pictures over some old footage. MORE INFO: This recording is from the tapes of The Beatles German stage show recorded 31st December 1962. These tapes were recorded by Adrian Barber on a mono Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder using a hand-held microphone. He had been asked to make recordings by Ted "Kingsize" Taylor, a Liverpool singer who sung with the Dominos. Once the Beatles had some commercial success, Taylor offered these tapes to Brian Epstein, but Brian would only offer as much as £20 for them as he felt they had no commercial value. Little did Brian realize, but the tapes did in fact legally belong to Parlophone anyway, as they had been made AFTER the signing to E.M.I. of their contracts, but there was some confusion over the date of recording of the tapes. Although, once again, listening to them, it was clearly December 1962 ... John mentions Christmas between songs, and Buddy Holly's "Reminiscing" had only just been released in late 1962. They then lay in derelict offices until 1972 when they were found under piles of rubbish by Allan Williams who had managed the Beatles before Brian. Williams offered the tapes to George and Ringo for £5,000, but at that time Apple were going through financial difficulties so they too turned them down. After spending £50,000 on cleaning up the sound, and transferring them to 16-track tapes, Williams found a buyer and the first release was in Germany. Immediately the Beatles sued, but lost the case because the judge ruled that the tapes were of historical interest, they were not trying to fool anyone by pretending it was a new release (the records clearly stated "old recordings"), and, the Beatles should have sued earlier and not left it until a release was imminent. 33 songs are apparently on the tapes, But the U.K. version of this album (and German version) had 4 tracks different to the U.S. version, which of course meant that the four "missing" songs in the U.K. often turn up as long lost rarities. The missing four were : "Where Have You Been All My Life" "Sheila" "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry Over You" "Till There Was You". Two other tracks were alternate versions of "To Know Her Is To Love Her" and "Roll Over Beethoven", which obviously weren't required as the best versions were used. This means one track is left, "My Girl Is Red Hot" which has never appeared anywhere ! Unfortunately, the finished article caught the Beatles just as they were about to release "Please Please Me" in Britain, and clearly the thoughts were on home. Their lack of enthusiasm comes across in the introductions and comments between the songs and of course the recording quality is still very poor. BUT this is an essential historic document. In 1981, after the Lingasong release was deleted, the rights to the tapes were again sold and again were treated to a further re-mix providing a bit clearer sound yet again. But the new owners Audio-Fidelity spoilt re-releases with cheap packaging and labeling errors The pictured sleeve is the original release on Bellaphon catalog number BLS 5560 as this came out one month earlier and I had already purchased this version. The first C.D. release was 16th December 1985, all 30 tracks on Overseas Records, cartilage no. 38CP-44.