JERRY AND THE BEATNIKS, Stade, “Basement Beat” - live in their rehearsal room in Stade, 1965

Jerry and The Beatniks were Gerd “Jerry” Dethlefs, voc, rg, Ditmar Riesling, lg, Horst “Plinschi” Werner, voc, b, Dieter “Dieten” Meyer, dr, and Gernot Schäfer, rg. Dethlefs had been a member of The Blizzards from Stade, a band that released a wonderful album and a couple of great singles, but he had been drafted into the German army before The Blizzards recording career took off. Schäfer and Meyer had also been members of The Blizzards, but Schäfer had already been replaced before Dethlefs joined and Meyer left the band after the release of the their first single. Ditmar Riesling had been a member of The Minstrels, also from Stade, who had won 200 Deutschmarks when they came second in the „Wir suchen die Hamburger Beatles“ competition at the Star-Club, Hamburg. In the finals (also at the Star-Club) „Wir suchen die deutschen Beatles“, September ’64, they did not do as well as they’d expected and the band soon petered out. Thus the bandless guys got together to show their competitors they were still to be reckoned with. Also on board came Horst Werner, who had done the Eddie Cochran in a number of bands around Stade.
These recordings were done on a tiny tape recorder in the band’s rehearsal room. Gernot was absent that day. The tape I once got from Gerd Dethlefs contained 7 songs and 25 seconds, but I cut it down to 6 songs and 25 seconds, as their rendition of “Hippy Hippy Shake” was unbearably out of tune. I needn’t mention here that the band (like most German bands) wasn’t perfect in regards to the lyrics. They tried it onomatopoetically, but often they didn’t even come close. And their choice of songs showed that they were still rooted in the past not the present of 1965.

01   Jerry and The Beatniks - Tallahassee Lassie     02 Jerry and The Beatniks - C’mon Everybody     03 Jerry and The Beatniks - Sweet Little Sixteen     04 Jerry and The Beatniks - Summertime Blues     05 Jerry and The Beatniks - Let The Four Winds Blow     07 Jerry and The Beatniks - Whole Lotta Shakin’     08 Jerry and The Beatniks - Good Golly Miss Molly (25 seconds)