The Beatles

by Bob Spitz

  John, out of town with the Beatles, phoned the next day, “triumphant at the news that it was a boy,” but, ironically it was Mimi who saw Julian first. No one had expected Mimi to rush to the hospital. Relations between the women had always been frosty, and a month of living together had left them straining for ways to remain courteous, then civil. Why Mimi urged Cynthia to move into Mendips was anyone’s guess. Far from comforting Cynthia, whose condition had admittedly made her “over-sensitive,” Mimi was her old supercilious self, “moody and sharp-tongued” toward her rabbity niece-in-law. Even though they attempted to steer clear of each other, there was always some explosive, petty incident that set Mimi off, with her carping about Cynthia’s “willfulness” or the way she left the kitchen a mess. Some people felt as though Mimi got “a perverse pleasure” from the situation, as though it were retribution for the shotgun marriage and the “terrible scenes” that preceded it. Their relationship had deteriorated to the point where, according to a published report, Mimi “didn’t even emerge from upstairs” when Cynthia, doubled over with labor pains, was loaded into the ambulance.

  John turned up two days later, on April 10, fresh from taping an appearance on one of the popular new BBC rave-ups, The 625 Show, followed by a party in a London suburb at the home of the Shadows’ guitarist, Bruce Welch, where the Beatles first met Cliff Richard. Conveniently, the Beatles were slated to play three dates in and around Liverpool that week. Julian and Cynthia were still in the hospital so that the doctors could keep an eye on the baby, who was born weak and jaundiced as a result of the umbilical cord being wrapped around his neck.

  According to various accounts Cynthia gave over the years, John behaved like any other new father. No one was more elated—or proud—than the demonstrative Beatle. He bounced Julian around like a football, gloating at his son’s wan, wrinkled face. “Who’s going to be a famous little rocker like his Dad then?” she quoted him as crowing. The baby was either “bloody marvelous” or “a miracle” in his eyes. In every retelling, Cynthia polished the story to portray John as a devoted dad. But no matter what kind of shine she put on it, Cynthia must have known—or, at least, had a sinking sense of—the truth.

  Like Cynthia, the baby tightened the chains around John. Especially now, with the long struggle to stardom finally within reach. The tiny margin separating the Beatles from their ultimate goal required his undivided attention; the Big Party lay just over the next rise—John was sure of it. There was nothing left in the tank to give a wife and child.

  It had been hard enough keeping Cynthia hidden in the shadows. Brian had insisted that John keep the marriage a secret to avoid diminishing his popularity with the fans. “It was a calculated judgment on [Brian’s] part that pop stars oughtn’t to have partners,” remembers Tony Barrow.* That was the rationale, at least, and apparently John was content to abide by it. And the exuberant success was all about freedom—freedom to pick and choose among the flock of available birds and his choice of crazy scenes, the freedom to experiment, to live it up. With no wife to his credit—at least, not in any published account—John could behave as most rock ’n roll stars did on the road.

  Cynthia may have suppressed this latest slight in order to give herself hope, but she had turned a blind eye toward John’s indiscretions too many times not to know what was going on. The stories that drifted back from Hamburg had upset her until she learned to block them out. And those times at the Cavern, when John disappeared for a few hours—she’d seen the way those girls had looked at him onstage and knew the score. Even in the hospital, she recognized the familiar signs: John “was beginning to feel trapped.”

  Bill Harry, like Cynthia, had been awakened to John’s freewheeling behavior. He spent several late nights at the Blue Angel, drinking with the Beatles, while they were back in Liverpool. It was especially gratifying for Harry to reconnect with his old art school mate and to hear the latest fabulous adventures involving the Beatles and John’s life. “But he never talked about Julian or being a proud father,” says Harry. “Julian was never mentioned. As far as John was concerned, it was as if Cynthia or Julian didn’t exist.”

  [III]

  What did exist for John was the new world taking shape around him—a world that increasingly involved success. “Once the Beatles hit the pop charts, we all envied what they had—and wanted it for ourselves,” says Johnny Byrne. “Guys like Gerry [Marsden] and Billy J. [Kramer] rode the Beatles’ coattails for a while. But for the rest of us, who never made it out of the clubs, a kind of resentment took hold.” The Big Three, who were more exciting, couldn’t write their own material; Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes stayed too long in Hamburg, playing bars and getting shitfaced; Rory Storm and the Hurricanes lacked the ambition—and the talent. But after the Beatles, returning from the Tommy Roe–Chris Montez tour, caught the national ear in a big way, the resentment directed toward them at home diminished as a result of the enormous groundswell that was created and the power it conferred.

  If there was one spark responsible, it was the release of “From Me to You,” on April 11. Initially, the record got mixed reviews from the music papers. The NME critic noted that it had “plenty of sparkle” but got in his licks, concluding: “I don’t rate the tune as being anything like as good as on the last two discs from the group.” And Ray Coleman, writing in Melody Maker, expressed his disappointment in the “so-so melody” and questioned whether “if this average song was done by a less prominent group,” it would have the same impact.

  Nevertheless, the impact was stunning. Instead of building steady, solid momentum, as was usual with a potential hit record, “From Me to You” “came crashing” into the charts at the number six position—a first for a British pop group. “From Me to You” flew out of the stores. In the first week alone, sales hit 200,000 copies, outselling the entire issue of “Please Please Me.” A keen witness on the scene observed: “By now, the Beatle legend was beginning to grow…. It was becoming clear that they were something rather special.” Actually, that was putting it mildly. All of London, it seemed, had their name on its lips. The Beatles! What was it with this funny-sounding—funny-looking—group? And where was this great music coming from?

  With few exceptions, the critics caught the drift. “The Beatles could take it to the Americans,” argued a writer from Melody Maker after watching them snatch the stage out from under Chris Montez and Tommy Roe in East Ham. That, in itself, was a remarkable observation, if very un-British. And it was picked up in NME, which led its story with a note on the trend. “Latest visitors from America… were given scream-filled receptions,” wrote columnist Andy Gray. “But the Beatles stole top honours for entertainment and audience reaction.”

  The Beatles could take it to the Americans.

  Amazing! Even though Beatlemania was still a good year off, the tremors were already being felt. There was something quintessentially British about these uncompromising musicians, these charismatic, cheeky, shaggy-haired Scousers from the uncultured North, taking the larger cities by storm but still living in Liverpool, mostly with their parents, where they worked overtime to hone the emerging “Liverpool sound.” Suddenly their beleaguered northern city had become exotic, chic. Suddenly the real Brits weren’t sophisticated Londoners but those with caustic accents who worked in the trenches. Suddenly teenagers across the kingdom made a pilgrimage to the Cavern. Suddenly the North was known as “home of the Beatles.” Suddenly Liverpool was on the map. It was “Music City,” “the Nashville of the North,” even “Nashpool.” And if anyone needed further evidence, they had only to glance at the charts, where suddenly Gerry and the Pacemakers had themselves trudged their way to number one with “How Do You Do It.” A single group from Liverpool was uncommon enough, but two groups—it was revolutionary! And to make sense of it all, you only had to point to the Beatles.

  Unfazed by the outbreak of attention, they plowed through critical appearances on national television, promoting “From Me to You” without pause, in
cluding, of all things, the BBC Jazz ’n’ Pop Festival in the venerable Royal Albert Hall. (The show was broadcast simultaneously as part of the BBC’s Light Programme.) They acted so loose and behaved so playfully during rehearsal, impervious to tradition or other stars on the bill, that the show’s producer, Terry Henebery, bristled. “A couple of records in the charts,” he fumed, “and they think they can do exactly what they like.”

  He wasn’t the only one discomfited by the Beatles’ outsize personalities. Right off the bat, the show’s promoters were forced to deal with the feverish wave of anticipation the Beatles inspired. The dense crowd that had packed the stalls arrived in a bubble of highly charged expectation. A diaphanous buzz punctuated by whistles filled the upper reaches of the cavernous space. This wasn’t the usual contingent that bought tickets to the frequent package shows and sat politely through each performance. These were pumped-up teenagers—most of them girls—in every manner of emotional thrall, behaving rather curiously, as if they all knew one another. “They acted that way because they had one thing in common,” says Tony Barrow, who wasn’t in the theater that night. “They were Beatles fans.”

  Writer and scenemaker George Melly later admitted that even he wasn’t prepared for the reception that crowd gave the Beatles. “It was my chore to announce them,” he recalled, “and the moment I went on I was met by a solid wall of screams. In the end I just gestured into the stairwell, mouthed ‘the Beatles’ and walked off. The screams lasted right through their act.” And through Del Shannon’s as well. Cries of “We want the Beatles! We want the Beatles!” repeatedly interrupted his set, forcing an awkward, abruptly shortened performance.*

  Success at the Albert Hall was no mean feat for any new band on the scene, but the sensation the Beatles caused, marked by the screams and rampant hysteria, heightened its subsequent impact. Their new single rather rudely evicted Gerry Marsden from his perch atop the charts, and their just-released album, Please Please Me, shot to the number two position, breathing down the neck of current top dog, Cliff Richard. After years of working on the entertainment fringe, and only months after being rejected by all major labels, the band was besieged with offers pouring into the NEMS office. The Beatles were wanted on the NME poll winners’ concert at Wembley’s Empire Pool, the self-styled “highlight of the pop music year.” There was an invitation for them to appear on an all-Liverpool version of Thank Your Lucky Stars, which was accepted. A top-of-the-bill appearance on Saturday Club caught their fancy. And from Paris came an offer for them to headline an eleven-day run at the Olympia Theater. Within a relatively short time, the Beatles had moved from the fringes to ground zero of the increasingly fertile British rock ’n roll community.

  The attention left the Beatles in such a state of euphoria that they refused another lucrative offer to join yet a fourth package tour that would leave from London at the end of April. They were exhausted from the months of touring, let alone the spinning of their four heads. Records… tours… television interviews… screams… money… fame… It was too much to absorb at once. They had worked so hard for this—and for so long. And yet, they were running too hard, worn out. There was an urgent need for some breathing room. Fast.

  Earlier in the year Brian had set aside a block of time at the end of April, specifically for a vacation, and recommended the Beatles get away, too: visit a place where they could unload all the incremental tension that had accumulated during the past year—and where nobody knew who they were. At the same time, Brian mentioned to John that he was going to Spain during the hiatus and invited him to go along.

  It is not known what prompted Brian to make such a bold—and potentially dangerous—offer. So far, all his experiences with the Beatles had been strictly professional, and to a large extent protective, leading observers to view their relationship “more like that of a father and his sons” than manager and artist. Only once had Brian stepped over a line, and even then it was more a matter of appearances than of any intent.

  It had occurred on an afternoon almost a year earlier, in Liverpool, after a lunch session at the Cavern. Headed toward his car, Brian offered George Harrison a lift home and somehow they wound up driving through the leafy environs of Childwall. This, in and of itself, wasn’t unusual. Childwall, where Brian grew up, was en route to Speke, and George thought nothing more of it when his manager stopped to show him around the lovely house at Queen’s Drive. According to an account that George later gave Bob Wooler, it was an entirely innocent gesture. Proud of the estate and aware of the impression it was making on this council-house lad, Brian glided rather imperiously through the lavishly appointed rooms, annotating as though a curator at Versailles. It was only when his brother, Clive, showed up unexpectedly that anything untoward was insinuated. “Clive took one look at the scene and exploded,” says Wooler. “The family anguished over Brian’s vulnerability, and here he was, alone in an empty house, with this quite adorable boy.” With George standing there, smoking a cigarette, befuddled by the commotion, screaming broke out as the brothers, their faces white with fury, disappeared behind closed doors to hurl and deny accusations.

  Afterward, in the car, Brian was visibly “flustered.” The remainder of the drive to Speke was uncomfortable, silent. It still wasn’t clear to George what had occurred. The whole baffling incident seemed to have come out of—and to—nothing, and George, who had never seen Brian so debased, couldn’t think of anything to say. Finally, he broke the awkward silence. “Clive’s younger than you, isn’t he?” George wondered. Brian, seized with self-loathing, could only nod. “Well, he shouldn’t talk to you like that.”

  George’s naïveté served to shade the undertones and rescue Brian from complete humiliation. But with John, it was another matter altogether. Lennon was catnip; no young man could have filled Brian’s sexual fantasies more perfectly. Like other encounters Epstein had responded to, John was young, studly, foul-mouthed, dangerous, alternately caring and cruel—and off-limits. For two years Brian had pushed all lascivious thoughts of John as far out of his mind as humanly possible. But it was difficult. He was always around, spotlighted onstage, standing splay-legged with the guitar, or lounging in dressing rooms. (Or sulking, which proved to be another turn-on.) That John sensed this and teased, perhaps even tormented, Brian is undeniable. His attentions, according to Paul, may have been intended to flatter Brian and assert his power, but it had a pitiable effect. It was a constant temptation—all those longings and forbidden looks, the persistent infatuation—but through it all Brian remained creditably aloof.

  It was only a matter of time, however, before the desperate fantasy that had first drawn Brian to the Beatles proved too overwhelming. There is no record of what emboldened him to act on it—whether it was that he’d become successful in his own right, that he was feeling more confident, or that he was just reckless. Certainly, his relationship with John had changed. But since the beginning of the year, he’d begun to construct in his imagination the plans for an inevitable liaison. He just had to bide his time.

  Finally, after the Beatles announced they’d be spending the break at a beach house belonging to Klaus Voormann’s parents, in the Canary Islands, Brian made his move. It must have taken all of his courage to pop the question. The recruiting phase, in fact, lasted several weeks. In between shows, he would entertain John on end with amiable stories about several enchanting visits to Spain: witnessing his first bullfight at a time when few gringos ventured into the arena; eating paella at midnight from a paellera the size of a Ford, hopping from café to café and from nightclub to nightclub where the energy seemed to run on a different—furious—current. As nonchalantly as possible, he described his romance with the mysterious country and wondered if John might want to consider coming along. Whether there was any discussion up front about accommodations is unknown. Certainly John recognized Brian’s attraction to him. “He was in love with me,” John later admitted, with characteristic bluntness.

  How John responded to this brazen
offer is not recorded, except that he said yes. Doubly surprising, perhaps, is that he didn’t cancel the trip, following, as it did, so closely on the heels of Julian’s birth. According to an account that Cynthia later gave, while she was still recovering in the hospital John told her about the planned trip and “wanted to know if [she] objected” to his going. The news, she recalled, hit her “like a bolt out of the blue,” which must be a terrific understatement in light of the circumstances. After all, John had been gone throughout her pregnancy and was absent for Julian’s birth. She’d half expected him to pitch in and help out now that he was back. If the Beatles had obligations, that was one thing. But a vacation wasn’t anything she’d contemplated—or understood. Cynthia tried to maintain her composure in the face of such gall. She was “hurt,” to say nothing of envious. And even John knew “what a bastard [he] was,” while acknowledging he “wasn’t going to break the holiday for a baby.”

  On April 28, George, Paul, and Ringo shuttled to the striking black-sand beaches of Tenerife, which provided some welcome relaxation but little comfort. The Voormanns’ tiny cottage, like most of those that dotted the hillside, was an amusing, rustic affair, without electricity, that overlooked the festive coast, where the last ripples of tidewater spilled into the Atlantic Ocean. From each window was a Matisse-like view of paradise. The land sweeping down to the sea radiated a dizzying canvas of color: patches of blue and yellow foxglove bloomed in the chalky brush, pale pink finches and red admiral butterflies rustled among natural tones of saffron and berries and olives and flax. Orange groves lined the ridges above the town. The light on the land was so strong, the colors so intense, that the scenery often resembled a montage of overexposed snapshots.