The Star Club tape running order

The 2-part series appeared in these issues of Record Collector.

The original Star-Club tape, including almost 300 minutes of The Beatles and other groups live at the club was recorded 53 years ago. In 1977 these recordings were partly released on record by Lingasong, much of the material was however not made available or presented in its original form.

The songs were separated and put together in a different order, and some songs were dismissed because they appeared twice or they had endings or beginnings missing.

Since then both bootleggers and researchers, with more or less success have tried to reconstruct the flow of the original tape, based on atmosphere and various other criteria. It appears no-one has managed to guess 100% correctly. Finally after half a decade, Hans Olof Gottfridsson together with Richard Moore have been allowed to use the notes of Larry Grossberg, producer and director of the initial Lingasong 1977 releases, and are able to present the complete running order of the original tape.

As published in the July 2015 issue of Record Collector, here is now what they believe is the correct running order of the songs. Of course, this was a four track tape, where each track held one recording in mono, and you will just have to guess in which order these four tracks were recorded. Gottfridsson has divided the four tracks into sections, each section effectively a “recording session” where the tape has clearly been started and stopped.

Track 1 (96 minute running time)

SECTION A

1. Short intro

2. “Be-Bop-A-Lula” (Fred Fascher: vocals)

3. “I Saw Her Standing There” (Version 1)

4. “Hallelujah I Love Her So” (Horst Fascher: vocals)

5. “My Girl Is Red Hot”

Abrupt tape ending

SECTION B

1. “Sheila”

2. “Kansas City/Hey Hey Hey Hey”

3. “Shimmy Like Kate”

4. “Reminiscing” (Version 1)

5. “Red Sails In The Sunset”

6. “Sweet Little Sixteen”

7. “Roll Over Beethoven”

8. “A Taste Of Honey” (Version 1)

Abrupt stop.

SECTION C

Abrupt start

1. “Nothin’ Shakin’ (But The Leaves On The Trees)”

2. “I Saw Her Standing There” (Version 2)

3. “To Know Her Is To Love Her” (Version 1)

4. “Everybody’s Trying To Be My Baby”

5. “Till There Was You”

6. “Where Have You Been All My Life”

7. “Lend Me Your Comb”

8. “Your Feet’s Too Big”

9. “I’m Talking About You” (Version 1)

10. “A Taste Of Honey” (Version 2)

Abrupt stop.

SECTION D

1. Beatles chatter

2. “A Taste Of Honey” (Version 3) Has not been released, even on bootlegs!

3. Announcement (Es ist genau…)

Four songs by Kingsize Taylor & The Dominoes follow, ending in yet another abrupt stop.

Track 2 (running time ca 65 minutes, due to it starting half way into the tape)

SECTION E

Abrupt start

Five songs by Carol Elvin & The Star Combo

1. Announcement (Die Beadles aus Liverpool)

2. False start – “Road Runner” (soundcheck/warm up)

3. Announcement (Und weiter gehts..)

4. “Hippy Hippy Shake” (Version 1)

5. “I’m Talking About You” (Version 2)

Abrupt loss of sound

6. “Reminiscing” (Version 2) just the final 40 seconds and never released, even on bootlegs.

7. “A Taste Of Honey” (Version 4)

SECTION F

1. “A Taste Of Honey” (Version 5) – snippet only

2. “Matchbox”

3. “Little Queenie”

4. “Roll Over Beethoven” (Version 2) false start

5. Announcement (Das waren Die Beadles aus…)

Abrupt cut off.

Track 3 – ca 90 minutes running time

SECTION G

16 songs by Kingsize Taylor & The Dominoes

Abrupt stop.

SECTION H

1. “I Remember You”

2. “Ask Me Why”

3. “Besame Mucho”

4. “Mr Moonlight”

5. “Falling In Love Again (Can’t Help It)”

6. “I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Cry (Over You)”

Abrupt cut off

7. “To Know Her Is To Love Her” (Version 2) Incomplete and not released on bootlegs.

8. Beatles chatter…END

SECTION I

5 songs by Carol Elvin & The Star Combo

1. “Shazam” (warm up/soundcheck)

2. Announcement (weiter mit die spitzen band)

3. “Hippy Hippy Shake” (Version 2) Unreleased, even on bootlegs

4. “I’m Talking About You” (Version 3) Unreleased, even on bootlegs

5. “Glad All Over” Unreleased, even on bootlegs

Abrupt end.

Track 4 starts in the middle of the tape and ends before the tape is over, ca 45 minutes running time.

SECTION J

Abrupt start

8 songs by Tony Sheridan & The Star Combo/Carol Elvin

Abrupt end.

SECTION K

1. Beatles chatter and riffs

2. “Long Tall Sally”

Cut off

10 songs by Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers

Abrupt cut off

And that’s that. Curiously, the track “Twist and Shout”, as found on the original releases, is not accounted for. Of course if you want details about each song, we must refer you to the magazine. It has just reached the subscribers, but will be on the newsstands shortly. You may also purchase it online, at RecordCollectormag.com, where it’s also available in the Ipad format.

For listening purposes, Gottfridsson recommends Purple Chick and Darthdisc’s collaboration “Beatles Live 01 – Star Club” and the unlabeled “Starry Night” as the best sounding versions of the Star Club material, both these releases were non-profit projects assembled by amateur audio wizards and fans and were shared freely on the internet.