Tune In

by Mark Lewisohn

  They had Southport in the evening. Pete would have gone home for a few hours, but John, Paul, George and Ringo were tight together through an afternoon’s drinking in the Colony Club, Lord Woodbine’s dicey establishment off Upper Parliament Street. It was right around the corner from the children’s playground factory where 16-year-old Richy had apprenticed to become a fitter. The talk now was of a different job. “George was saying, ‘Would you like to join the band?’ I was saying, ‘Yeah, I’d love to, but you’ve got a drummer …’ and he started to instigate it with the other two, saying to them, ‘Why don’t we get Ringo in the band?’ ”27

  The Beatles weren’t only best, they were top dollar: Ringo pocketed £9 from these two shows. Brian’s steady pushing meant they now earned £12 for a Cavern lunchtime and £24 in Southport, sums that were off-the-scale compared to other groups: a typical “top” Liverpool group in spring 1962 got £5–7 a night, and if the Hurricanes bettered this it wasn’t by much. This would be divided among all the musicians and a roadie, and few lads walked away with more than a pound a night—not always enough to meet the hire-purchase payments on the guitar or drums. Nine pounds for two shows made a deep impression on Ringo.28

  The number of times Ringo deputized because Pete didn’t play with the Beatles would become exaggerated. “Pete used to be off all the time, he used to keep being ill and not showing up,” George would claim, which was as untrue as Pete’s insistence it happened twice.29 There were four gigs: December 27, 1961, two here on March 26, and one more a couple of days later, when Ringo played the Cavern’s Wednesday lunchtime session before Pete resumed in the evening. Whatever the number, though, what was relevant was that George started to initiate getting Pete out and Ringo in. “I was the one responsible for getting Ringo in the group,” he would reveal. “Every time Ringo played with us the band really swung. I conspired to get Ringo in—I talked to Paul and John until they came round to the idea. They all had their reasons [for getting rid of Pete] too.”30 Pete always said he knew nothing of this, and as he only saw them on stage and backstage there wasn’t much opportunity to notice whispers or glances.

  In the meantime, George and Ringo shared a moment they’d always treasure. While drinking on the Monday afternoon, George mentioned he was buying a car and needed to get to Warrington to collect it. Ringo offered him a lift. It happened sometime over the next two days, just before Ringo left for France.

  George was the first Beatle to buy a car. Paul was having lessons but hadn’t yet taken the driving test, and no one ever considered John would drive—the roads in Liverpool would have been a lot less safe if he had. Like his brothers and his dad, George had a strong interest in motors; he took driving lessons and passed the test the first time, probably during March. So keen was he to drive that he got a car right away, even though the Beatles were about to go to Hamburg. He bought it from Brian’s friend Terry Doran, who worked at a dealership in Warrington—it was a secondhand two-door blue Ford Anglia 105E Deluxe and even had a radio. George bought it “on the knocker”—a cash deposit followed by weekly payments—and Terry gave him a good price and asked George to advertise where he’d bought it.

  George had been a Formula One fan since boyhood, and within months he’d picked up two cautions for speeding (one more and he’d be disqualified for a year). This first day he got away with it. George and Ringo raced back from Warrington to Liverpool, Ford Anglia against Ford Zodiac, Beatle versus Hurricane. When a slow car held them up, George squeezed a narrow overtake, put his foot down and pulled clear. Ringo just couldn’t get by and was “right up his arse” when a dog ran into the road, the driver hit the brakes and Ringo, as he later put it, “smashed right into him and broke the fuck out of my car.” He was by a garage and limped in, but because he’d no license or insurance he was in a spot of bother. George tore home, the winner, checking his rearview mirror and wondering where Ringo had gone. He wouldn’t see him again for four months or more, but he had him in his sights all the way.31

  Ringo went overseas with the satisfaction of knowing the Beatles wanted him, but it may quickly have receded in his mind. His destination was the USA6 base at Fontenet, in the Charente-Maritime department of southwest France, about ninety kilometers from the Atlantic coast. Rory, Johnny, Ty, Vicky and their luggage filled a car, so Ringo and Bobby Thompson (replacement for Lu Walters) went by train. It was a marathon journey dragging drum cases—train to London, across London, train to Dover, boat to Calais, train to Bordeaux, then taxi—and there was police trouble in Paris when they were mistaken for Algerian independence terrorists. They arrived at the camp the night of Sunday, April 1, exhausted and wishing they hadn’t bothered … and yet here they were with their instruments and their bright red suits, and for at least a month—three hours a night, six nights in every seven—they’d be the English musicians pumping rock and roll back at the people who’d exported it, their American audience in the Enlisted Men’s Club.32

  The Beatles first wore their suits in Liverpool on March 29, in the long, narrow basement of the Odd Spot coffee bar on Bold Street. Brian said that this booking—and up to three others in the immediate period—was too important for them to wear anything else, although he and the Beatles were still planning a dramatic unveiling of the new look in a week’s time in the Cavern during The Beatles for Their Fans show. He asked a friend, Alan Swerdlow, to take some live action photos in the Odd Spot, but they didn’t turn out well. Brian also needed studio photos, and these were taken toward the end of March by Harry Watmough, 28, who had a studio in Moorfields, in Liverpool’s business district.

  Watmough found the Beatles, and Brian, awkward customers, full of opinions about what they wanted him to achieve. He worked in black-and-white and must have shot several rolls of film, though only six images are known. Brian picked three of them for “throwaway cards”; Watmough added “The Beatles” underneath in Gill Sans Bold and printed a thousand. The vast leap in the availability of Beatles autographs in spring/summer 1962 owes not only to their growing popularity and accessibility but also to these thousand cards, plus a further thousand of the Beatles in their leathers—the best of Albert Marrion’s photos. John, Paul, George and Pete took some to every show to give away, proffering their signatures if not asked. They’d been signing as “stars” since May 1960, but not too often; from this point in spring 1962, giving autographs became a forever fact of life.

  They took the cards with them when, on March 31, they played their first real date in the south of England, organized by Brian with London-based promoter and musician Jack Fallon. The booking was in Stroud, 150 miles from home, and the Beatles were outsiders here, Liverpool accents in Italianate suits—although, just as much as the southern audience was watching the northerners, the northerners were sussing the southerners, especially the southern girls, forming opinions to be succinctly expressed in the van going home. The birds and lads here spoke with a Gloucestershire burr but they weren’t hicks when it came to rock. Stroud was an out-of-the-way place and its grand Subscription Rooms ballroom an unlikely venue, but, through Fallon’s efforts, the Saturday-night hops usually had “name” headliners. Paid £30 for their night’s work, the Beatles broke into a new circuit here, drawing the same kind of attendance as others—466—because people went to “the dance” no matter who was on.33

  One of the 466 was Bob Lusty—local DJ, knowledgeable music aficionado and record shop assistant—who didn’t work at “the Subs” but went every week to check out the groups. The area around Stroud was home to a sizable number of European migrants and Lusty’s record shop specialized in continental labels like Polydor. He knew “My Bonnie” and, when he read the Beatles were coming, gambled on an order of two boxes of twenty-five, taking them to the dance in the hope of selling them. Getting there early, his inquiries revealed the Beatles had arrived and were in a café across the street.

  I told them who I was and what I did, and asked if I could talk to them. I sat with them for ages and wish I’d had
a tape recorder or written it down. I realized right away they were unlike any other group I’d seen, that they had a lot of experience. They’d been around and had old heads on their shoulders. They were quite amazed someone in this neck of the woods knew about them, and said, “Are you going to sell all those records tonight?” I said I’d try.

  I sold them all. (My shop manager was amazed.) The Beatles created a lot of excitement—most of the groups who came to Stroud sang chart stuff but the Beatles varied it. They did some current hits but they also played Little Richard and things like The Honeymoon Song and Besame Mucho, which I knew to be continental songs, and they were harmonizing. A lot of people stopped dancing and stood and watched. I thought to myself, “I like this group.”34

  Then, on April 5, came the Fan Club night, every bit as eventful and memorable as Brian and the Beatles had wished. The buzz started at the Cavern’s entrance table—five hundred were getting into both a show and an exciting new club. Many had already completed the application form, printed on the reverse of the admission ticket, and Brian was there to help hand out the free glossy photo of the Beatles in leathers, and to explain that everyone would be sent a membership card within days, receive a newsletter from the Beatles in Hamburg, and be notified of other exclusive offers. Bob Wooler (advertised as the Beatles’ favorite compere) was DJ on this special night, and the Beatles chose the funny rocking Four Jays as their guest act, to keep the laughs going.

  As soon as the Four Jays opened proceedings, the Beatles opened a show of their own in the minuscule dressing-room. The Cavern was “dry” but they’d smuggled down some booze and were getting stuck in. For Bobby Brown, after so much detailed planning and work, the Fan Club night was about to come unstuck. “I was watching the show out front with Mike [McCartney], then we went into the bandroom. I was a fairly quiet person and John was always trying to get me to talk more; he knew I never drank but he kept saying, ‘Come on Bobby, have a drink!’ So I did. I don’t know what it was, but he kept encouraging me to drink it up …”

  The Beatles played their first spot in the outfits everyone knew and loved, what John called “the leather suits,” and as the drink and atmosphere took effect the event zipped merrily along … though a little too merrily for Bobby on her big night.35

  Mike knew I really liked Paul and dared me to kiss him when he came off stage. Because I’d had a drink I threw my arms around him and we had a necking session. Half the other girls wanted to tear my hair out, and Paul was looking at John as if to say “What have you done to her?”

  Soon after that, I was being sick with my head down the toilet, crying. Paul was so lovely—he came to see if I was all right, he fetched my coat and bag and looked after me. My mum would have gone mad if I’d gone home in that state so I went to a friend’s house and phoned to say I was ill—and I was.

  The Beatles peeled off their leathers during the interval and Bob Wooler prefaced their return to the stage with a big announcement: “The Beatles will be appearing in their new suits!” This was the moment of change. Four months earlier, John and Paul had dared play their self-written songs to the Cavern crowd, knowing they’d find the softest landing here, and now came another test of favor from the faithful. Some 650 witnessed it, subsequently explaining their thoughts as if they were felt universally. “When they appeared in the suits everybody screamed because they looked so handsome,” recalls Barbara Houghton. “I still liked them in the leathers but the suits were good.” Bernadette Farrell felt disappointed: “It was a surprise, to say the least—they didn’t seem to feel right in them, and everybody thought ‘They look smart but it’s not our Beatles.’ ”36 Not even the Beatles could please all the people all the time—but this was their special audience, and their special audience wasn’t rushing for the exit.

  Having brought a camera from home, Lou Steen took the first Cavern photos of the new apparel … as well as capturing the instant when Pete Best fell in love. He came to the front to sing “Peppermint Twist” and danced on stage with Walton girl Catherine (Kathy) Johnson, one of a group of dancers called the Kingtwisters who were organized and encouraged by Bob Wooler. John, Paul and George extended the song, turning the middle-eight into a middle-eighty, and Pete and Kathy twisted themselves into love. It was his happiest night in the group, and Lou’s camera snapped him, microphone in hand.

  Lou also photographed her heartthrob on the drums—Paul, blurred in the background, his hair plastered down by sweat, jacket off, tie pulled loose, top shirt-button undone … and grinning from ear to ear because he was having such a fantastic time and because it was his little friend Louey taking the photo. She froze a turning-point in Paul McCartney’s life—in a suit in the Cavern for the first time, things really happening for him now.

  It was an incredible night, and when it was all over, and everyone was put in mind of catching the last bus home, the Beatles quieted the audience for a special parting message, one they’d considered in advance and were keen to transmit: “Don’t forget us.” This was their penultimate Cavern show before leaving and they’d be gone within a week, not returning until June. Nothing fazed the Beatles, people said, but there was always a certain vulnerability. They worried the avalanche of goodwill they’d amassed since July 1961 might melt in their absence. As Lindy Ness remembers, “They said, ‘We’re going to play seven weeks in Hamburg and we don’t want you to forget us while we’re away. It’ll be nice if you write to us.’ And they gave out the address of the club. They thought we’d forget them and move to some other group! My friends and I split the Beatles between us: Suzy wrote to George, Louey wrote to Paul and I wrote one letter to George and many to John, and we all got letters back.”

  Then the Beatles stepped down from the stage and this fantastic night—arguably their best of the year, written up in the next Mersey Beat as their “greatest-ever performance”37—ended in a mass scrum. They were engulfed, swarmed over for kisses and backslaps and autographs, every inch the phenomenon people described.

  All this time, Lindy Ness was drawing closer to John. They were photographed together outside the Cavern two nights later, and she went back to Woolton with him in the van, driven by Neil. John’s interest wasn’t romantic or sexual, which was just as well since she’d only just turned 15; he just enjoyed her personality and sharp sense of humor and didn’t mind having her around. Literally so, because before Lindy walked home from Menlove Avenue, John invited her and Lou to Sunday afternoon tea with him and Mimi. This was a first.

  Lindy’s diary for April 8 is headlined HAPPY DAY, recording the time she went to Mendips and had tea with John, his 14-year-old cousin David Birch, Mimi, and Lou. John himself poured her what he called “a tup of twee.” She was surprised to see him wearing glasses. They talked, ate cake, supped their twee and watched TV. While the diary states “His aunt is weird,” Lindy only remembers Mimi as kind and engaging company. Lou recalls being “Extremely excited. I remember going through the porch and finding it dark inside, though it was bright outside. They had proper cups and saucers, and Mimi was small and dead chatty.”

  It was Mimi’s first real encounter with Beatles fans, and her enduring opinion of their collective character was based on the visitors this spring Sunday afternoon. When, in 1977, she wrote “There is a big difference in intelligence and lively outlook in the girls who like John and those who go for the other Beatles—this has long been clear to me from the very beginning,” she was (a) being typically snobbish; (b) broadly correct; and (c) thinking of Lindy and Lou.38

  Along with the other important developments in spring 1962 was the arrival of a point in the lives of John, Paul, George and (to a lesser extent) Pete when girls started hanging around outside their houses, knocking on doors, and phoning with Cavern song requests or to grab a one-to-one moment. And when the objects of desire were out, it became something for Mimi, Jim, Louise and Harry and Mona to handle. This thing their boys had been doing all these years, this “it’ll never last” music that kept them busy
most nights of the week, was beginning to amount to something, taking on a new shape—a fact that they too had to deal with.

  Lou went to the Casbah that Sunday night for what the home-stenciled poster correctly called THE BEATLES’ LAST PERFORMANCE IN LIVERPOOL BEFORE GOING TO GERMANY. Ironically, George had come down with German measles (rubella) and Brian wouldn’t let him play in case it set back his recovery. The symptoms were known to pass quickly but it was already apparent George wouldn’t be fit to fly two days later. Brian said John, Paul and Pete should go on as booked and he would wait a day or so, by which point George might be strong enough to travel.

  John and Paul were back at 8 Hayman’s Green the morning of Tuesday, April 10. They’d left their guitars here Sunday night and now loaded them into the van with Pete’s drums, while John carried the harmonica in his pocket; Neil then drove the three of them to Ringway Airport, Manchester. There were no direct flights to Hamburg—they had to fly to Amsterdam and change—but where their road and boat journey in 1960 had taken more than thirty-six hours, and their train and boat journey in 1961 twenty-six hours, by the modern miracle of air travel they were in Hamburg mid-afternoon. Pete condensed their initial excitement in a letter home: “From the airport we got a taxi to the club and moved into our rooms. These are OK and we have our own bath and shower and hot water. After this, the trio moved into the club to see what it was like and believe-you-me it’s really something. This club is an old converted picture house and has a massive great stage and a fantastic lighting system. It also has an upstairs where people can sit …”39

  That night, they were treated to drinks and steaks by the new bossman, the flash, crop-haired Manfred Weissleder. It would have been foolish to refuse. John seems to have made no attempt to contact Stuart yet—but it would have been too late anyway.