The Beatles

by Bob Spitz

  Which is why everyone was dismayed when it all soon collapsed.

  Stories abound about how the Beatles hemorrhaged money, mostly because there was so damn much of it and no one to tend the purse strings. But in the early days they could tell you where every farthing went. “They didn’t have much… in those days,” Mona Best recalled, “so they’d fight over a halfpenny.”

  Inconceivably, the Quarry Men blew off their gig at the Casbah over the equivalent of a whopping seventy-five cents. On the seventh Saturday night that the Quarry Men rocked the Casbah, Ken Brown, who had done a capable job of handling rhythm guitar, turned up suffering from a mighty bout of the flu. He was ordered upstairs, to the Bests’ living room, where he lay slumped across a sofa for the rest of the night. The band went on without him, which didn’t make a speck of difference to their performance, of course, since a fourth guitar was almost as superfluous as the fact that Ken didn’t sing. But he was missed. Ken was “an immensely likeable guy,” whose ongoing work around the club had endeared him to Mo Best and Pete, whom he had encouraged to learn the drums. In the spirit of appreciation, “Mo decided to pay [Ken], even though he didn’t play,” said Pete, who should have heeded the consequences with a keener eye.

  According to an observer, John, Paul, and George “went ballistic.” Since Ken hadn’t played, they argued, he didn’t deserve a cut, and they demanded Ken’s share of the fee, which amounted to a measly fifteen shillings. It didn’t matter that the three others each received the amount due them; even if Mo wouldn’t fork over Ken’s share, they stood opposed to his getting it. Nobody, they insisted, was going to get a free ride.

  Mona Best was the last person who would yield to a band’s demands, and there was never any effort made to appease them. Said Pete: “She kept Ken’s fifteen bob and gave it to him later.” When the Quarry Men found out, they decided to ankle their residency. “Right, that’s it, then!” Ken Brown remembered Paul shouting before they stormed out of the club.

  A few days later, as Pete Best recalled, Ken came up with a solution. They’d form their own band—the Blackjacks—which would get them “back into the business.” Initially, Best balked at the offer. He had only recently taken up the drums after months of tattooing the furniture with “pencils, and later drumsticks.” At the time, the most he could do was “knock beats out” on his thigh, the way successive generations of teenagers have marked time to “Wipeout.” Bright, coordinated, and energetic, Pete could probably muddle his way through some standard rock ’n roll covers, but not capably enough to power a band. But as time wore on, as unexceptional bands passed through the Casbah, the idea seemed to make some sense. Rationalizing, Pete figured that it provided him with a hands-on opportunity to practice and right an unprincipled wrong at the same time, Pete still being “shocked” by the way Ken had been treated by his former bandmates. Little could he have imagined that Brown’s dismissal was a mere dress rehearsal for the sacking that would haunt Pete Best for the rest of his life.

  [II]

  When the Liverpool College of Art reopened in September 1959, John was permitted to enroll in the painting department, working toward a National Diploma in Design, but only on a probationary basis. Having failed his intermediates, only the advocacy of Arthur Ballard allowed him to advance to a permanent area of concentration instead of having to resit the general studies program.

  Having stuck his neck out for John, Ballard enlisted the help of his prodigy, Stuart Sutcliffe, to somehow inspire and motivate this problem student. “Stuart was his last hope,” says Bill Harry. “[Arthur] knew if anyone could reach John, it was Stu.”

  Somehow, Sutcliffe hit the right note, and before long the two boys began painting together in late-afternoon sessions conducted in an empty studio on the top floor. Long after the other students had gone home, they worked furiously on technique, experimenting with free expression and a nebula of colors to generate a flow of ideas. In what was essentially a painting tutorial, Stuart introduced John to the basics of image and composition, doling out tips on how to control the brush or direct the flow of paint. Sutcliffe taught him how to grind his own paints, which oils produced the most effective mixtures, how to control and exploit the flow of emulsions. Cynthia, who sat framed by the windows, where soft, blue light filtered in off the street, remembered being “fascinated” by the way John took instruction. “Here with no one watching, no one to entertain, and no one to criticize, [he] could relax and learn,” she recalled. “John was having a wonderful time, splashing bold colors across his canvas, throwing sand at it—trying out all sorts of experiments that he would have been too cautious to try in front of anyone else.”

  They were a breed apart, and Sutcliffe looked it, too. “Stuart wore tinted glasses in honor of his idol, Cybulski, the so-called Polish James Dean, to say nothing of his underground art heroes,” Harry recalls. “[He] had a lot of innovative ideas about how to dress,” said Rod Murray. “Stuart wore what we called Chelsea boots, Italian pointy-toed [shoes] with side gussets… and one of those old flying jackets made out of the inside of a sheep.” Cynthia referred to Stuart as “a tiddler” because of his size and frail build, but it never detracted from his stature. As Rod Murray pointed out, there is a difference between being weak and being quiet. “Stuart was not an outwardly forceful personality—not insofar as John was—but he was a very strong character. He was small, but determined… a very intense person.” No art student was more respected or better liked. In whatever class Stuart sat down in—painting, drawing, lifework—“a tremendous energy and intensity” filled the room. He painted with power and conviction, and John knew it. In most cases, that would have been enough to drive John into an envious rage, but Stuart didn’t affect him that way. Neither his popularity nor his talent proved threatening to John’s ego. He didn’t flaunt his artistry or try to stick it under John’s nose, and he always encouraged John without making an issue of his deficiencies. It also impressed John that, unlike so many other students he encountered, Stuart wasn’t handed everything on a silver platter. He had no grant, no student subsidy. Whatever “milk money” his mother set aside for him was spent on paint. “Stuart never let on how hard he had it,” says Bill Harry, “but things were really difficult for him at that time. He had practically no money, and you were only allowed a certain amount of free materials from the college. It was never enough. Canvas was expensive, so his art was done on big sheets of cheap foolscap paper; otherwise, he broke up furniture and painted on the unfinished surface. But as hard up as he was, you were always entitled to half of anything he had.” That was Stuart’s power: his sincerity.

  “John did all the things that Stuart would have loved to have done if he had the courage,” Stuart’s mother, Millie, recalled. And he had the same passion for music and poetry that Stuart exhibited for art. In fact, John exuded onstage what Stuart felt like in front of an easel, something real and visceral.

  By the mid-sixties, the prevailing cultural sensibility would embrace both Shakespeare and Pynchon, Rembrandt and Warhol, Beethoven and the Beatles. But in 1959, in an insular city such as Liverpool, the aesthetic took longer to gain a foothold. The incipient taste was enshrined in popularized “experimental work” such as The Catcher in the Rye and The Outsider, both of which, according to Bill Harry, “were highly regarded” by Stuart and John. Throughout the fall, the two mates were inseparable, reinforcing each other’s pressing passions. And exploring the fringe. John schooled his painting mentor in all the vagaries of rock ’n roll—playing every record he could get his hands on and rhapsodizing about Elvis, Buddy, and Chuck—to which Stuart responded in kind, dragging out museum exhibition catalogues and analyzing John Bratby or Russian abstractionist Nicolas de Stael in great detail, explaining the composition of each picture. In the evenings, they would head over to Ye Cracke, tanking up on half-pints of beer, and then wind up at the Jac, drinking coffee and talking until closing time.

  For John, it was an idyllic semester. He practically move
d into the little Percy Street flat—“kipping in [Stuart’s] room” most weekdays, much to Mimi’s consternation—where there was always space to paint, play guitar, or cuddle with Cynthia. It provided a place to exchange ideas and escape the loneliness of Menlove Avenue, and Rod and Stuart were happy to have him around. When they got tired of working or just bored, a party solved the doldrums. They could always count on an interesting mix of acquaintances turning up, not just other art students but people they’d met in Ye Cracke: nurses, dockworkers, faculty—even Paul and George, whose presence confirmed their boost into John’s orbit. Music was never a problem. Stuart had an old turntable, Rod a tape recorder, and with John handling music chores, enough records to go all night, which was usually the case.

  By early November, however, the parties stopped as every effort was being made to accommodate Sutcliffe, who was preoccupied almost obsessively, often lapsing into long, trancelike work sessions, painting for the prestigious biennial John Moores Exhibition at Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery. Underwritten by the city’s most eminent philanthropist, the show was a tour de force of local talent and eagerly anticipated throughout the year. All students at the college were encouraged to submit work, even though it was hardly ever accepted. Stuart, however, was determined to make the final cut and had been struggling with a “monumental painting”—in size alone, its eight-foot-square proportions filled the bill—that captured the impetuosity and restlessness of his generation. His progress was excruciatingly slow, but worth the effort: the canvas had “real resonance,” its scrim of irregular shapes on a field of green and blue shading giving off a rhythmic, abstract energy that lent legitimacy to Stuart’s mission.

  The painting, which was actually done on a board, had to be assembled in two pieces and hinged because of its size. “We carried half of the painting down to the Walker Art Gallery,” recalled Rod Murray, whose own entry, a piece of sculpture, had already been rejected. “Something happened, and the other half never [made it, but] the half that got carried down got into the exhibition—and got sold!” And to no less formidable a collector than the show’s esteemed sponsor, the John Moores Foundation, which paid £65 for the piece.

  Stuart was ecstatic. The fabled arbiter of the local art scene had reached across a vast field of inveterate talent and conferred honor on a young abstractionist. It was the ultimate endorsement. To be selected for the exhibition and achieve critical success, along with his first sale! The combination proved thrilling, to say nothing of a financial boon. “All of a sudden Stuart had some serious money,” Murray said. How he spent it would be unforgettable.

  [III]

  John undoubtedly felt the loss of his friend’s attention, but if he was stung or resentful, it didn’t show. Eager to harness the progress made at the Casbah, he rechanneled his energy into the band. Paul and George shared his urge to push ahead. But in the fall of 1959, logistics presented some uncommon obstacles. Paul remained close by, at the Liverpool Institute, where he had advanced into the Remove* and joined the regular lunchtime crowd at the art college. But George, who by this time had become an integral part of the band, was unable to tag along.

  At the end of the term, no doubt in response to his persistent truancy, George received a particularly dismal report showing how he’d “failed everything”—art, language, literature, math, science, even phys. ed.; attached to the bottom was a scathing rebuke by the headmaster that said: “It is very difficult to give an assessment of this boy’s work—because he hasn’t done any.” If the comment was intended as a wake-up call, it failed. George was already thin-skinned and intellectually insecure; nothing rankled him more than authority. He was especially infuriated by criticism from a teacher—“some old fellow chundering on”—and in retaliation he quit school.

  Arthur Kelly says, “His parents were fairly easygoing about it”; however, it is reasonable to assume his father’s profound disappointment. Using Louise to run interference, George bumped aimlessly around the neighborhood each day, hoping to stumble into a trade. “At that stage, he didn’t have any idea what he wanted to do with his life,” says Kelly, who remained a close friend. Everyone weighed in with a suggestion, one more implausible than the next. Days stretched into months. Eventually, at Harry’s insistence, George took the city’s apprentice exam but failed. Soon afterward, a youth employment officer referred him to a window-dressing job at Blackler’s, one of Liverpool’s thriving department stores, which led to an apprenticeship there, at a salary of £1.50 a week. The job came as a relief, but having entered the workforce, it became impossible for George to spend his lunch hour singing.

  Only rarely that fall was the band able to do something meaningful together. With their boycotting of the Casbah, few gigs provided much of a satisfying audience, or adequate money. A handful of competitions became the band’s lifeline, keeping them in front of a crowd, but they were simply going through the motions; there was nothing of substance to be gained from those opportunities.

  Determined to break cleanly with the past, they entered the Star Search competition as Johnny and the Moondogs. Most likely they appropriated the name from Alan Freed, whose early radio broadcasts on WJW went out in syndication as The Moondog Show. It may also have been one of those spur-of-the-moment inspirations that took shape on the registration form. Either way, it was characteristic, just odd enough, combining the right touch of goon humor and irreverence necessary to rattle the traditionalists. “Moondogs,” like “Beatles,” was a bit playful, a bit absurd. It could go anywhere and not seem out of the groove.

  Johnny and the Moondogs performed at the Empire on October 18, the second Sunday of the auditions. The band, “singing brilliantly,” qualified for the local finals in two weeks’ time and, following a weeklong elimination, snared a berth at the runoff in Manchester. A larger number of acts than expected had turned out at the Manchester Hippodrome on November 15, 1959. Registration was a daylong process. “We got there in the morning,” says Ray Ennis, of the Swinging Bluegenes, “and there was a queue right around the whole place. Hundreds of kids, dragging instruments and amps. It was four o’clock before we got inside the front door.”

  Johnny and the Moondogs took the train from Liverpool, arriving with a small entourage of friends in the nick of time for rehearsals. “Everyone hung around backstage until the audience was admitted,” recalls Arthur Kelly. “Then we all went out front in order to whistle and applaud as loud as we could so the Clap-o-Meter would hit a certain level.” The band performed a delightful rendition of Buddy Holly’s “Think It Over,” with John handling the vocal in front of Paul and George’s nicely tapered harmonies, and as they came offstage to rousing applause there was a feeling that they could win the top prize. It all depended on the finale, when each act was reintroduced for a deciding round of applause.

  But as the show wore on, time weighed in against them. With the introduction of each new act, John’s eyes searched out a clock over the stagehands’ lit console, nervously noting the hour. The last bus and train left for Liverpool at 9:47; they had to make it or face being stranded in Manchester with less than a pound between them, which was out of the question.

  At 9:20 there were still more than a dozen acts set to go on, too many to permit a reappearance. No question about it, time had run out. Their chance for a TV spot was over. As John, Paul, and George stalked out, followed by two or three long-faced friends, there was a lot of bitter grumbling, although John was unusually subdued. As they were going out the stage door, where various instruments had been stacked, John suddenly veered off from the pack. “He’d had his eye on the guitars other [performers] had left there,” Kelly says, “and as we hit the exit, he just picked up a little electric cutaway number and out he went.”

  After two years bashing around that “old tatty piece of junk,” John Lennon finally had his first electric guitar—“nicked,” he later said, “so the trip wasn’t a total loss.”

  As 1959 drew to a close, the boys spent more time with girlfri
ends than with one another. John and Cynthia, according to friends closest to the couple, were “besotted with each other.” For his part, Paul stopped playing the field and settled down with Dot Rhone. As a couple, they had an appealingly unthreatening air. They discovered each other to be solicitous and sensual, gentle and clumsy, with Paul at times taking on a paternal and sympathetic role. Once, at a friend’s house, Dot happened to mention that she’d been standing all day and he began to massage her feet, stroking them as though they were precious pets. And yet, at the time the gesture felt almost preposterous.

  Eventually Paul’s attention grew relentless, almost disparaging. His simple gregariousness turned uncompromising and willful. Paul was immensely charming, but there was a darker side. He had a need—Dot believes a compulsion—to control every situation. As John had done with Cynthia, he began to pick out her clothes, redesign her makeup. Dot remembers how much it pleased Paul to stand beside her and study her appearance, then, in a roundabout way, critique the way she looked—and suggest how to improve upon it. On one occasion, he insisted that she have her hair done and produced money to pay for it. Not wanting to displease him, Dot went off to the beauty parlor. “Unfortunately, they did [my hair] in a terrible-looking beehive,” she says. “Paul was furious when he saw it. He told me to go home and not to call him until it grew out again.”