Tony Sheridan

With his 1961 recording of "My Bonnie," Tony Sheridan forever secured rock & roll immortality; while the song was certainly a respectable hit during its heyday, its place in music history is instead assured as the first studio session to feature the Beatles. Anthony Sheridan McGinnity was born in Norwich, England on May 21, 1940; he formed his first band, the Saints, at the age of 15 before relocating to London a few years later. In 1959, he joined Vince Taylor and the Playboys, one of the most popular of the many British groups which rose to fame on the decadent Hamburg, Germany club scene; over time, the band evolved into a new unit called the Beat Brothers, originally featuring Sheridan on vocals and guitar backed by guitarists Ken Packwood and Rick Richards, bassist Colin Melander, keyboardist Ian Hines and drummer Jimmy Doyle. The Beat Brothers' lineup was notoriously nebulous, and among the various musicians which briefly passed through their ranks were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best; it was this early incarnation of the Beatles which backed Sheridan in mid-1961 on at least three tracks -- "My Bonnie," "The Saints" and "Why (Can't You Love Me Again)." (Much of the information about the sessions remain murky, based on memory and conjecture; the true circumstances will likely never be definitively determined, although it is also widely agreed that the same date generated "Ain't She Sweet," sung by Lennon, as well as the instrumental "Cry for a Shadow.") "My Bonnie" sold some 100,000 copies and reached the West German Top Five; it was creditied to Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers as a result of label fears that "Beatles" bore too much similarity to the German word "peedles" -- slang for the male organ. In April 1962, the Beatles also...