Freiman notes that Johannes Brahms used to perform in the St. Pauli district where The Beatles would hone their musical and live performance chops much later.
In the early 1960s, Freiman said, Jimmy Page thought Tony Sheridan - for whom the early Beatles John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Pete Best served as a backing band in Hamburg and on his 1961 single, "My Bonnie"- was the best guitarist he had ever heard.
The Beatles' first formal audition for a London record company was for Decca on New Year's Day, 1962. Of the seven songs they performed, only two - "Love of the Loved" and "Like Dreamers Do" - were their own compositions. Decca chose to sign Brian Poole and The Tremeloes over the quartet from Liverpool.