Review: Tony Sheridan - My Bonnie (1962)
Tracks: 1) My Bonnie; 2) Skinny Minny; 3) Whole Lot Of Shakin’ Going On; 4) I Know Baby; 5) You Are My Sunshine; 6) Ready Teddy; 7) The Saints; 8) Hallelujah, I Love Her So; 9) Let’s Twist Again; 10) Sweet Georgia Brown; 11) Swanee River; 12) Top Ten Twist.
REVIEW
Although history has ruthlessly ordered Tony Sheridan to occupy his (unforgettable, though!) place as a minor footnote in the story of the Beatles, and although probably the only vocal performance of his to have been heard by millions of people all over the world is ‘My Bonnie’ — for obvious reasons — this LP, originally only released in Germany (and credited, respectively, to «Tony Sheridan Und Die Beat Brothers»), remains behind as documental proof that those managers who actually saw potential in the man were not completely off their rockers. Sheridan did have a powerful rock’n’roll voice, somewhat reminiscent of Jerry Lee Lewis’, a good smatter of charisma, and, most importantly, unlike his far more successful British contemporaries such as Cliff Richard and Billy Fury, all through those «dark rock’n’roll years» of 1960–62 Sheridan remained firmly devoted to genuine rock’n’roll: My Bonnie, pretty much alone among all the pop-rock records released in those years, does not feature even a single sentimental ballad. Presumably this is why Sheridan found no luck in his native country in those days, and, unwilling to adapt to the changing standards of the industry (as well as being far too rowdy and uncontrollable in general), spent most of them in Hamburg — meaning that his teaming up with the Beatles was no accident, but a fairly natural union.
The only LP from those early days is perfectly listenable and fairly enjoyable all the way through, but it is a bit of a mess. The Beatles (retitled «The Beat Brothers» for these sessions, since apparently Beatles reminded the Germans of a dirty word) are actually featured here only on two tracks — ‘My Bonnie’ and ‘The Saints’, both recorded June 22, 1961 and originally released as a single in October ’61 (although the Beatles later added instrumental backing tracks to Tony’s singing on ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’ and ‘Swanee River’, those later versions are apparently not the ones featured on this LP). The other ten, even if they are still officially credited to «The Beat Brothers», were cut by Tony with a completely different backing band on December 21, 1961. A few other tracks that the Beatles did with Tony remained unreleased for a long time, then surfaced on various Hamburg-era official and unofficial records, and today most fans are familiar with at least ‘Ain’t She Sweet’ and Harrison’s instrumental ‘Cry For A Shadow’ because of their inclusion on the Anthology discs — but, for obvious reasons (since Sheridan is not singing on them), they did not make it onto this LP.
Still, chances are that if you ever heard this version of ‘My Bonnie’, you may have been impressed by the quality of Tony’s singing — he is quite a belter, not to mention a trickster as he goes from the deceptively quiet and sentimental intro to the rock’n’roll frenzy of the main verses in an instant (the same trick is later repeated on ‘Swanee River’, though, fortunately, this is as far as Sheridan’s German-funded program of transforming all the old folk songs into rock’n’roll anthems took him). What is not often mentioned is that the maniacal, but tightly controlled guitar break on the song was also played by Sheridan rather than Harrison (allegedly, it was overdubbed from a different take) — this is clearly not George’s style of playing, and I must actually state that at that point, Sheridan was a better rock’n’roll lead guitar player than George, being able to play it faster, tighter, and with more primal rock’n’roll drive (for that matter, speed and fluency were never George’s forte, and it took him some time to come up with his unique playing style that emphasized tone and melody over those qualities). I think it is also Tony on main lead guitar on ‘The Saints’, though here I could be wrong.
As for the rest of the material, it is just a chunk of Tony’s regular repertoire from the Star Club — some well-known rock’n’roll standards like ‘Ready Teddy’, some numbers taken from Ray Charles’ setlists (Ray was clearly one of Sheridan’s main idols), and a couple of Chubby Checker’s twisting classics to quench the German people’s thirst for the newest dance craze of 1961. Only one track is marked as a Tony Sheridan original, the relatively slow blues ‘I Know Baby’ which feels like an attempt to hybridize the sonic atmosphere of a dark Chicago blues session with the more commercial, Vegas-ier feel of tracks like ‘Fever’ — with Tony himself behaving more like a Howlin’ Wolf on the verses and more like Elvis on the bridge section. It’s a bit weird, though not weird enough to be memorable or anything.
There is nothing particularly special and nothing particularly irritating about the other performances, though it bugs me a bit how much effort and patience it took to find any information on the players for the December 21 session — because the piano player, in particular, really stands out from the rest of the band, consistently delivering fabulous performances in the styles of Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnnie Johnson, Floyd Cramer, you name ’em; easily the best piano playing on a pop record to come out of Europe in those years that I have ever had the pleasure of hearing, which almost made me wish the Beatles would have snapped that piano guy as a fifth member of the band before returning back to the UK... and, would you believe it, Brian Epstein actually thought the same — because the piano player, whose name was Roy Young, actually was invited by Brian to join the band, but declined. (Later, he went on to briefly join Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers, but the one spot where people are most likely to have heard his playing is on the first side of David Bowie’s Low). The guitar and sax leads are quite decent, too, but it is largely the piano parts that make me want to revisit these versions of ‘Whole Lot Of Shakin’ Going On’ (sic!) and ‘Sweet Georgia Brown’.
To conclude, it may not be a tragedy that Sheridan, at one time regarded as the potential British star to break out of the Hamburg training grounds, never advanced beyond this level of quality, professionalism, and recognition — but at the very least, these recordings show that he is quite deserving to be placed in that cozy little mini-pantheon of the early heroes of British rock’n’roll along with Johnny Kidd, Billy Fury, Cliff Richard, etc., a mini-pantheon which by itself looks quite pathetic against the major pantheon of the early heroes of American rock’n’roll but which, after all, also did lay the foundation for the British Invasion.