Sweet Georgia Brown
Written by Ben Bernie, Maceo Pinkard,
and Kenneth Casey
(c. 1925) 1
Recording Details
Studio Rahlstedt, Hamburg
Recorded: 24 May 1962, 7 Jun 1962, 3 Jan 1964 2
John: guitar
Paul: backing vocal (higher harmony), bass
George: backing vocal (lower harmony)3
Pete: snare drum
Roy Young: piano
Tony Sheridan: lead vocal
The Beatles recorded two instrumental backing tracks in Hamburg with producer Bert Kaempfert on 24 May 1962.4 This is possibly the most pointless Beatles studio session since by this time they had been offered a recording contract with EMI and this Hamburg session was only needed to fulfil contractual obligations to Kaempfert. Once again, they were serving as the backing band to Tony Sheridan but, since he didn’t attend this session, the five musicians present were John, Paul, George, Pete, and Top Ten/Star Club pianist Roy Young. Sheridan then recorded his vocals later on 7 June. Both songs were likely recorded live to twin-track.
Kaempfert’s song choices were Sweet Georgia Brown and Swanee River which is odd since Tony Sheridan was just about to release both songs on his My Bonnie LP (recorded in December 1961 with a different band)5 so there was seemingly no need to re-record them. Stranger still, this newer Beatles version of Swanee River was lost before it was ever released and this version of Sweet Georgia Brown is also surprisingly difficult to find. To cash in on Beatlemania, Tony Sheridan re-recorded his vocals on 3 January 1964 to include the lyrics
In Liverpool she even dared
to criticize the Beatles’ hair
with their whole fan club standing there
I mean Sweet Georgia Brown
and this version is by far the more readily available version.
Instruments
Pete Best
1960 Premier Marine Pearl (5.5″ x 14″ “Super Ace” snare) 7
Releases Overview
Mono/Stereo? |
Release |
Format |
Release(s) |
Recommended |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sweet Georgia Brown |
Mono |
1962 |
Vinyl |
Ya Ya EP (Germany) |
|
Sweet Georgia Brown |
|
1964 |
Vinyl |
The Beatles First LP (Germany) |
|
Sweet Georgia Brown |
Stereo |
1997 |
Vinyl |
Hamburg Twist EP (Sweden) 8 |
|
Sweet Georgia Brown |
|
2001 9 |
CD |
Tony Sheridan & The Beatles: Beatles Bop – Hamburg Days |
✅ |
Sweet Georgia Brown |
|
2001 |
CD |
Tony Sheridan & The Beatles: Beatles Bop – Hamburg Days |
🟡 |
Sweet Georgia Brown |
Mono |
2001 |
CD |
Tony Sheridan & The Beatles: Beatles Bop – Hamburg Days |
References:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Georgia_Brown ↩︎
- Hammack, Jerry, 2017, TBRRM: Vol 1 (pp. 24-25) ↩︎
- Both Lewisohn, Mark, 2013, Tune In (p. 654) and Hammack, Jerry, 2017, TBRRM: Vol 1 (p. 24) state George is doing backing vocals but to my ears it’s sort of an auditory illusion as to whether it could also be John but then this leaves George doing nothing on this session so I’ll go with Lewisohn and Hammack here ↩︎
- Lewisohn, Mark, 2013, Tune In (pp. 653-655)
Hammack, Jerry, 2017, TBRRM: Vol 1 (pp. 24-25) ↩︎ - Krasker, Eric, 2002, The Bear Family Polydor Box Set:
Is It Really The Final Word? https://beatles.ncf.ca/krasker2.html ↩︎ - Hammack, Jerry, 2017, TBRRM: Vol 1 (p. 24) ↩︎
- Hammack, Jerry, 2017, TBRRM: Vol 1 (p. 234) ↩︎
- https://www.discogs.com/release/5836434-The-Beatles-With-Tony-Sheridan-Hamburg-Twist ↩︎
- Versions of Sweet Georgia Brown have existed on CD since the 1980s but I haven’t done a deep dive into the release history to determine when the 1962 vocal and 1964 vocal made their first appearances on CD. All I know is the release by Bear Family Records titled ‘Tony Sheridan & The Beatles: Beatles Bop – Hamburg Days’ is the definitive collection of The Beatles output with Tony Sheridan in 1961 and 1962 ↩︎
- To be honest, as I’ve yet to obtain a copy, I have no idea what’s different between the 1964 vocal version and the US version. The US version also presumably exists on vinyl but I’ve not found any good sources documenting the differences so for now I’ve left this off of the releases overview ↩︎