AllMovie

While most music fans know that the Beatles cut their teeth as a live act with a residency at a rough-and-tumble nightspot in Hamburg, Germany, called The Star Club, fewer people are aware that the group also made their earliest studio recordings during their German sojourn. Tony Sheridan, a German pop star, liked what he heard when he saw the British upstarts on-stage, and he recruited them to back him up on a single, featuring rocked-out versions of "My Bonnie" and "When the Saints Go Marching In." the Beatles returned to the studio with Sheridan for further sessions, including a take of "Ain't She Sweet" with John Lennon singing lead and an instrumental piece written by Paul McCartney and George Harrison, "Cry for a Shadow." The Beatles with Tony Sheridan: The Beginnings in Hamburg is a documentary which, through interviews and vintage footage, tells the story of Tony Sheridan and how he gave the biggest rock band of all time its first break in the recording studio. The DVD also includes new Dolby Digital 5.1 remixes of the Sheridan recordings and preserves the original versions in uncompressed PCM stereo.