On March 15, 1961, Stuart Sutcliffe flew to Hamburg to visit his fiancee Astrid Kirchherr. While there they cleared some administrative paperwork that would enable The Beatles to return to the city to perform, for the first time since George was deported and Paul and Pete were arrested.
John, Paul, George and Pete left Liverpool to take the train and boat journey to Germany on March 27, 1961, to play their longest Hamburg residency, 92 nights at the Top Ten Club, which began on April 1, 1961.
The club was owned by Peter Eckhorn and The Beatles were paid 35DM each per day. They were required to play from 7pm until 2am each weekday, and from 8pm until 4am on weekends, with a 15-minute break in each hour.
The performances at the Top Ten were so successful that Eckhorn twice extended The Beatles contract. They eventually left Germany following their final show at the club on July 1, 1961, having performed on stage for 503 hours during their stay.
On June 23, 1961, Stuart Sutcliffe, who had left The Beatles the previous month to enrol at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste under the tutelage of Eduardo Paolozzi, returned to the Top Ten Club to celebrate his 21st birthday with his former group. Although Sutcliffe had essentially left The Beatles at the end of 1960, they remained close. He occasionally jammed with them, and he and Kirchherr continued to watch their performances.
Whilst in Hamburg The Beatles had their first recording sessions, with singer Tony Sheridan. They had been approached by orchestral leader and Polydor agent Bert Kaempfert, who wanted them as the backing band for Sheridan. On June 22nd & 23rd, 1961 they recorded at the Friedrich-Ebert-Halle, where the musicians’ instruments and amplifiers were set up on the stage, and engineer Karl Hinze operated the twin-track stereo recording equipment. The Beatles and Sheridan recorded three songs over the two days, with Sheridan singing vocals on "My Bonnie", "The Saints" & "Why". The Beatles also recorded a fourth instrumental song, the Lennon-Harrison original "Cry For A Shadow".
On the 24th, a third day of recording took place at Hamburg's Studio Rahlstedt, situated at Gebäude M1, Rahlau 128, Hamburg-Tonndorf. They recorded three songs more on this day, "Ain't She Sweet", "Nobody's Child" & "Take Out Some Insurance On Me, Baby". The recording of "Ain't She Sweet" was the first recording of The Beatles to featured one of them on vocals, with John singing lead. Tony Sheridan sang lead on the other songs. The session was produced by orchestral leader Bert Kaempfert.
The Beatles were paid 300 marks for the sessions, and the single "My Bonnie", credited to Tony Sheridan and The Beat Brothers, was released in October 1961, reaching number five on the German charts.
The Beatles travelled back to Liverpool on July 2nd & 3rd. Once back they took a well-earned break, not appearing again until July 13th at St John's Hall in Tuebrook, Liverpool.
The group gave themselves a well-earned holiday from 4-12 July. Their next live performance was on 13 July at St John’s Hall in Tuebrook, Liverpool.