Eight unreleased tracks are said to be among the recordings, including Paul McCartney singing Hank Williams’ “Lovesick Blues” and McCartney and John Lennon singing “Ask Me Why.”

Apple Corps claims that the songs were taped without the consent of the band and that Fuego and sister companies Echo-Fuego Music Group LLC and Echo-Vista Inc. have no right to distribute them.

The recordings are claimed to be the first made after Ringo Starr joined the band as drummer. Fuego Entertainment has entered a joint venture with British producer/promoter Jeffrey Collins to release the 15-song recording.

The organisation claims the recordings include never-heard live recordings such as covers of Hank Williams’ ‘Lovesick Blues’ and Maurice Williams’ ‘Do You Believe’, as well as ‘Twist And Shout’, ‘I Saw Her Standing There’, ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’, ‘A Taste Of Honey’, ‘Money’ and ‘Ask Me Why’.

Astrid recently gave a great interview to NPR’s Terry Gross to promote her new book  Yesterday: The Beatles Once Upon a Time. You can download, or listen to, the interview here.

The Beatles returned to Hamburg, Germany for the fifth and final time for a 13 night engagement at The Star-Club.

They would playe every night, except for Christmas Day, with their final perfomance on New Year’s Eve being taped for posterity. Recordings of this final Hamburg show have been reissued many times since first released in 1977.

This 42 hour stint would bring The Beatles total number of hours perfomning in Hamburg to just under 800.

The DVD is described as covering the period “from the formation of the Quarrymen in 1957, and The Beatles early years in Hamburg, this 60 minute music documentary uses contemporary film, and recently rediscovered and restored footage to tell the definitive story of The Beatles, their rise to international stardom and their crowning as one of the most successful bands of all time. Containing rare and exclusive interviews from those who knew them best and featuring the musical recordings of Tony Sheridan, an early collaborator of The Beatles.”

The release date if listed as February 19th, 2008

While the Beatles were travelling back from Hamburg, a columnist in this week’s issue of Mersey Beat was posing the question of if The Beatles  could become “national stars.”

The Beatles play a fourteen day engagement at the Star-Club in Hamburg. This was the first time they had played two consecutive engagements at the same hamburg club. By the end of this 14 day stretch they would have played for a total of 49 hours. An average of 3.5 hours each day.

In the morning The Beatles flew to Hamburg, Germany in preperation for a series of gigs at The Star-Club.

It’s taken more than 40 years for the city to do anything about capitalising on The Beatles’ legacy, but now it sees value in reminding tourists of the connection with the U.K.’s Fab Four and also that the north German port plays an active role in international live music.

On a personal note I can add that it’s about time. I was a regular visitor to Hamburg in the late 1980s for business reasons, and at that time there was nothing in the city to mark its Beatles connections. Tracking down Beatles related sites was always something of a challenge.

The Beatles returned from Hamburg on a Lufthansa flight to Heathrow airport in London. From there they caught a flight to Ringway airport in Manchester. The final journey home to Liverpool was by car.