VA - Beatles Beginnings Volume One: Quarrymen - Skiffle and Country (2009)

Jazz, rocknroll, blues, music hall, guitar instrumentals, tin pan alley, rockabilly, dance band, soul, bolero, skiffle, trad, R&B, country, old-time, Broadway, doo-wop, folk, high school pop, Motown - the Beatles early influences are so wide-ranging that this series of discs could quite easily pass for an introduction to the history of twentieth century popular music. For the first six years of their career, the Beatles were essentially a covers band. When they were captured live on tape in two sets at the Star Club in Hamburg in December 1962, they played thirty-two songs, only two of which were their own compositions. They established a repertoire of over 600 tunes, allowing them to tailor their set to the occasion for jazz clubs, strip clubs, church dances, folk clubs and working men?s clubs. Covering the period 1957-60, Quarrymen One investigates skiffle and the other music that the individual members of the group grew up listening to before rocknroll burst on to the scene. ?Alerting all Beatles fans! In fact, alerting anyone with even just a passing interest in music of Twentieth century popular music, for here?s a terrific series of albums they may well want to check out... superbly researched booklets, each volume will delve into the music that inspired, influenced and shaped the Beatles individually and collectively. While Quarrymen One explored the band?s very early highly eclectic musical influences from skiffle, C&W, jazz, blues, music hall through George Formby, and pop, Quarrymen Two narrows the focus onto the emergent rock?n?roll of the 1950s and is an absolute gas. Twenty-eight rocking classics and some long-lost gems, here?s the very stuff that changed the world and forged the greatest band of all time. As the music rings out ... you can almost hear the Beatles metamorphosing inside your ears as they listened, learned and immersed themselves, letting these songs open doors and fire their imagination: there was to be no looking back.? Colin Hall R2. ?Every baby-boomer whose life has been soundtracked by pop will be more than merely familiar with most of the items here, whether ?Long Tall Sally', 'Roll Over Beethoven', 'Matchbox', 'Honey Don't' and 'Words Of Love', all revived on disc by The Beatles after they'd left the runway. Almost as potent a selling point is Nick Duckett's entertaining and informative thirty-page essay within a package that is as likely to engross the general cultural historian as much as fans of this particular act.? Alan Clayson - The Beat. A series of compilation CDs highlighting the songs and styles that inspired the Beatles and which ultimately were responsible for shaping their sound. For too long the covers CD has been the province of freebie magazine cover-mounts and shoddy garage cheapies. No more. Because Rhythm And Blues Records are Doing It Right.