Autographed “Ain’t She Sweet”
John Lennon’s autograph on an ATCO single sleeve.
John Lennon must have given thousands of autographs over the years, but here’s an odd one just about to be auctioned off – from the famous Tony Sheridan sessions for Polydor in 1961.
This was their second trip to Hamburg, and they were playing at the Top Ten Club on the Reeperbahn when they were asked to back singer and guitarist Tony Sheridan on some recordings.
At the sessions, the group got to lay down on tape a couple of songs by themselves, the Lennon-Harrison Shadows pastiche “Cry For A Shadow” and Ager-Yellen’s old chestnut from 1927, “Ain’t She Sweet“, with young John Lennon on vocals.
After The Beatles had struck fame in the USA in 1964, the record company ATCO licensed the songs from the Sheridan sessions from Polydor and released them stateside. Among the releases was this single, with Lennon singing “Ain’t She Sweet ” on side A and Tony Sheridan singing “Nobody’s Child” on side B. Both songs were recorded at the same session on Saturday 24 June 1961 at the Studio Rahlstedt in Hamburg.
Produced by: Bert Kaempfert
Studio Personnel, Engineer: Karl Hinze
Vocals, Electric Guitar: John Lennon
Electric Bass: Paul McCartney
Electric Guitar: George Harrison
Drums: Pete Best
Composed by Milton Ager and Jack Yellen
The record is being auctioned off by Live Auctioneers, who of course haven’t inserted the record into the sleeve the right way, so that it appears John signed Tony’s song. Also calling a single an album is typically done by someone who is no expert on vinyl records. Estimate $300 – $2,500 but the current bid at the time of writing is a measly $10.
Here’s us putting it right:
A picture sleeve also exists for this release, but the record for sale is in a standard factory sleeve.
Picture sleeve
Buyer beware: See comment section.
I don’t know… that website is throwing up all kinds of red flags… lots of signed Beatles records selling for super cheap… with CoAs from “East Coast Authenticators” and “Guaranteed Forensic Authenticators” who… don’t have the best reputation (based on a quick google search).
Yes, agree this auction item doesn’t look right. If you go to the auction site there are heaps of Lennon/Beatle items – all from vastly different eras – which all look like they were signed at the same time by the same person. Every one of them has “John Lennon” scrawled in exactly the same way with a little hurried drawing of his face beneath. Looks very odd to have that every single time.
There are also a lot of clearly fake drawings by Picasso and Dali on the same site. I would stay well away…