From Merseyside to Hamburg

The Liverbirds are the most underrated group of the Mersey Era. This gutsy R n B band had one problem, they were all female. Had the world's 1st all girl guitar group been male, they probably would have been bigger in the UK. Thankfully the Germans were not as sexist as this country and in West Germany they got the success they deserved. When it comes to Girl Power, they beat the Spice Girls hands down. An excellent no nonsense rhythm and blues album by a band that should have been much bigger in the UK.

I love the music on this album. Yes, the songs you may have heard a lot, but with a female lead vocal, its different. A great collection for lovers of British beat music from the early 60's. I actually like the rough guitar and drums giving it an earthy sound.

Girl groups playing their own instruments are rare today, but were doubly rare in the 1960s. The Liverbirds - from Liverpool of course - found fame in West Germany where they released four singles and two albums on the Star Club label in 1965 and 1966. Everything is here, on this fun CD. These days, producers can make even the most medicore artist(s) sound great. Even way back in the 6Os, records made by groups in Britain were often padded out using professional sessions musicians. Not so in West Germany, where these recordings were made. What the Liverbirds played and sang in the studio, is what you hear on their records. But what they lacked in musical precision, is more than made up for by their youthful dynamism and what the inlay booklet calls 'punkish naivety'. You'll enjoy this slice of pure beat music from the 60s.

The Liverbirds were a fully-fledged all-female Beat band from Liverpool who came together as early as 1962, were regulars at the Cavern, opened for the Rolling Stones several times in late '63, spent two years on the infamous Hamburg circuit, and despite a forecast to the contrary by John Lennon ("All-girl outfits can't last") stayed together for six years, finally bowing out after a tour of Japan. In common with many of their contemporaries they elected to play an abrasive brand of R'n'B with all the spiky garage-band pizzazz of the early Stones or Pretty Things, whilst coming onstage in masculine-cut waistcoat suits and frilled shirts for all the world like a female Kinks. Their enduring lineup featured Pam Birch on lead vocal and rhythm guitar, Valerie Gell on lead guitar, Mary McGlory on bass and Sylvia Saunders on kit, and their recorded legacy reveals that they all had real chops.Beyond cosmopolitan Liverpool, the girls' reception by conservative UK audiences and sceptical record company A&R men proved predictably underwhelming. However, when invited to work in Germany by Star-Club owner Manfred Weissleder early in 1964 they immediately wowed the famously indulgent Reeperbahn audiences with their energetic, high-volume set of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley covers, earning the nickname "die Weiblichen Beatles" - "the female Beatles". As an inducement to a second tour, Weissleder offered to record them on his recently-incepted label; their recording career on Star-Club would eventually stretch to four singles and two albums. German chart entries and TV appearances followed, and the girls toured extensively there and in Denmark and Switzerland, even once sharing a bill with Berry himself in Berlin, where legend has it they defied a management instruction to avoid Berry's songs and brazenly opened with "Roll Over Beethoven".Their recordings were unsurprisingly never released in the UK, and apart from the odd anthologised track remained firmly underground here till compiled by Ace subsidiary Big Beat for this CD, comprising the entire 1964-65 Star-Club recordings, 29 cuts in all. The tracks from their first original album, Star-Club Show 4, are the best: raw, unadorned R'n'B covers recorded live in the studio with tons of bass and in an appropriately unsubtle stereo. These could almost be the Pretties, driven along as they are by Birch's angry, punky contralto, McGlory's muscular, metronomic bass, Saunders's no-nonsense percussion and Gell's scratchy machine-gun Fender Jaguar lead work. Their takes on Chuck Berry's "Talking About You", Berry Gordy's "Money" and the blues chestnut "Got My Mojo Working" are fit to strip wallpaper. The later sessions offer more of the same but also move further towards Motown, with creditable tilts at the likes of Doug Sahm's "She's About A Mover", Holland-Dozier's "Heatwave" and Smokey Robinson's "Shop Around" - all good Reeperbahn fare - plus a couple of modestly Beatle-ish Pam Birch originals which originally appeared as single B-sides; the production is more measured and less viscerally exciting. Overall, this compilation is a great-value testament to a bunch of pioneering female rockers, and is highly recommended.

Female bands from Sixties' Liverpool are few, and scarcer are those who played all their own instruments. The Liverbirds are surely the best of them all and this album is a great presentation of their material - a number of the songs written by lead singer, the late Pam Birch. For reasons known only to history the band were never big in the UK. After moving to Germany they, despite John Lennon's prediction, made a name for themselves and recorded many songs. I do recommend this album.

Recently saw the biographical play about The Liverbirds at The Royal Court Theatre in Liverpool and enjoyed it immensely. I decided to explore the bands music further hence the CD. It was of it's time but very enjoyable. If you're at all interested in the 60's, Merseybeat or music like early Stones you'll love this.

I wanted to hear this cd because, like The Beatles, The Liverbirds worked in Germany, but clearly never achieved anything like the fame of that group. I think the answer is that, while their playing and singing is extremely competent, they seem to lack that essential spark that would make them stand out from any other beat group of the 60s. Pity.

The subtitle "The Complete Star-Club Recordings" says it all. The classic three guitars - lead, rhythm, and bass - plus drums of an immensely talented group. There's a rawness and immediacy in the recordings. This is real music, music as it was heard when performed live. A brilliant album.

du rock comme je l'aime au féminin super

I'm amazed that they existed, yet did not get ANY recognition. There is a great deal of good energy in their music. Maybe they were appreciated in Europe and elsewhere, but why was this band so unknown? Was it because they never toured the USA? Was there that much sexism in the music industry that they were not considered alongside the boy bands? In any event, I appreciate the music and hope they gain the recognition they deserve.

昭和38年頃、レコード店で世界初の女性バンドとのタイトルに引かれてシングルを購入。テクニックは日本のGS程度でしたが２曲のみだったので、アルバムがあれば購入する予定でしたから中古の当商品をamazonで見つけて即購入。ジョン・レノンの逸話で「女にギターが弾けるか？」も印象として残っています。ロックンロールならこう言うのも有りだと思います。

Estupendo trabajo el realizado por Ace Records. En oacasiones hemos pensado que un grupo de versiones es algo menor y suele tener poca gracia, pero en este caso nos equivocamos. Aqui tenemos una sucesión de clásicos del R&R y el garage/R&B muy bien tacados con absoluta naturalidad, deshinibición, energia femenina, espiritu teenager y sobre todo siempre con la chispa de la diversion incitando siempre al baile. De todos los combos femeninos sesenteros estas chicas de Liverpool demostraron que tenían mucha calidad pues aun siendo su repetorio de clasicos sus pocas canciones propias indicaban que podian haber alcanzado cotas mas altas. Es emocionante escuchar las dos guitarras como captan a la perfeccion la esencia del R&R con espiritu sesentero acompañadas de una percusion energica y trepidante. Diversion a go go garantizada.

Was war das für eine Zeit als man Die Frauenband " The Liverbirds " im Star - Club erleben durfte. Diese Band ist auch eine Kultband. Diese Frauenband reiht sich in den Reihen ein, das man es so ausdrücken muss. Damals waren Songs noch leidenschaftlich, magisch und gaben uns das Gefühl alles verändern zu können.