Tune In

by Mark Lewisohn

  For Brian, Little Richard would be more than just a show—he prized it as the crowning glory in his promotional plans for the second half of the year, a night ripe for his particular brand of prestige. He hired Bob Wooler to help organize, stage-manage and compere it, and—in place of the tour’s usual supporting cast—Brian would book all his favored local acts. The Beatles, naturally, were to head that particular list, their name writ as-large-as-one-dared next to their fabulous American idol’s.

  So it was too when they played second to Joe Brown and the Bruvvers on July 26 and 27, the first at the theater-like Cambridge Hall in Southport, the second in the ballroom at New Brighton Tower. Despite the “Nems Enterprises presents …” label, these were 50:50 promotions with Allan Williams, the Beatles’ second manager working in harmony with the first. The long old spat between Williams and the Beatles evaporated in this period of cooperation, to the extent that he lifted the ban preventing their entry to his Blue Angel nightclub. As he recalls, “Brian came and pleaded with me, and I relented. I said to him, ‘Tell them they can come in tomorrow night,’ and he said, ‘Well they’re outside now.’ So they came in, threw their arms around me and that was the end of our difficulties.”28

  Cambridge Hall was demonstrably a big night, drawing the great and the good. Leslie Woodhead from Granada TV was back to take another look, Queenie and Harry Epstein saw the Beatles here for the first time, and it was also the first time the Beatles had the services of Mal Evans as their protector. The 27-year-old telephone engineer from Mossley Hill, married with a baby son, was dropping into Cavern sessions and growing friendlier with them all the time; he was also genuinely impressed by having such proximity to stage stars. George had recently taken him home to Speke, where they’d listened to records, and then he had the bright idea that Mal should become one of the Cavern’s team of doormen. As Mal would recall, “George said, ‘Look, Mal, you’re big and ugly enough, why don’t you get a job as a bouncer? Then you can get paid, get into the bandroom and meet the bands.’ ” So Mal did just that. He’d classify himself “a middle-class bouncer … an ardent coward,” more intent on talking people out of trouble than swinging his fists, but his sheer bulk—tall and broad with it—put most people off any idea of causing trouble, which was why Brian offered him the job of “chief bouncer” at his Joe Brown night in Southport.29

  The long-established presentation format was for top-billed artists to go on last and for “second-top” to go on before the interval, but at Southport and New Brighton, Brian placed the Beatles as the penultimate act, just before Brown closed the show. “The idea of doing that,” says Brown, “is that you get the audience standing up and screaming so much that the main act can’t get on. The Beatles were a real hard act to follow but we did it—to our credit we did do it.” John and George had first use here of their new Vox amps, and at New Brighton George got to wear, momentarily, a guitar he’d never seen and instantly coveted, Joe Brown’s slim, twin-cutaway Gibson. It would be twenty years before Brown discovered that, while he nipped out to the toilet, George posed with it for Mike McCartney’s camera.30

  Afterward, the Beatles (minus Pete), and Joe Brown with some Bruvvers, decamped to the Blue Angel where the late-drinking license extended past midnight, and it was during these hours that Brian invited Bruvvers drummer Bobby Graham to join the Beatles. He can’t have been offering the position permanently—John, Paul and George were clear they wanted Ringo—but Ringo was at Butlin’s until early September and Leslie Woodhead had told Brian that a Granada camera unit would be filming the Beatles in the Cavern on August 22. This put a point on matters—the contractual situation with Pete was tricky enough as it was without him appearing in their TV film, especially as he’d be gone by the time it was shown. Brian wondered if Graham could bridge the gap between Pete’s departure and Ringo’s return, but the drummer declined: “I didn’t want to leave the Bruvvers to join a group no one had ever heard of, and I was twenty-two and lived in Chingford—I didn’t want to move to Liverpool.”31

  When the Big Three crashed back from Hamburg, Brian made the same offer to Johnny “Hutch” Hutchinson, and he too turned them down. His reason was different: he’d despised the Beatles since first setting eyes on them at the Larry Parnes audition in 1960, when he’d reluctantly sat in as their drummer. Pansies. John, Paul and George all knew Hutch was hard but he was also strong behind the kit, the only man on Merseyside who did solos. John said he was the best drummer in Liverpool, with Ringo second. Paul says he liked Hutch because he spoke in a mad hip lingo, saying things like “You drive me berdzerk, man”—but Hutch was also prone to acts of harm: just recently he’d beaten up the Beatles’ young pal Bernie Boyle and put him in hospital. So it was with mixed views that they let Brian offer him the chance to join them for a while—and it’s entirely appropriate that Hutch’s only published remark about it was “I told Brian I wouldn’t join the Beatles for a gold clock.”32

  It was at this same time, around the end of July, that—probably—a strange incident took place, when John and Paul made a 332-mile return road trip to talk to Ringo at Butlin’s. Paul had just passed his driving test but had yet to buy a car, so they went in the van—Neil would remember them taking it, and reliable witnesses saw them at the camp, including Johnny Guitar and Rory Storm’s mother Vi Caldwell, who was on holiday there at the time. But it all lacks clarification. Paul could have phoned Ringo from home, but the suggestion is that he and John (who was “navigating”) made a mystery trip along England’s winding A-roads, west coast to east coast, like The Nerk Twins Go to Lincolnshire. There’s also no explanation why George, who’d instigated getting Ringo into the Beatles, didn’t drive them to Skegness in his car. And while witnesses have insisted it all happened, the story is short on verification from the key parties: Ringo has never mentioned it, John never did, and Paul (asked about it in 2011) has just “a vague recollection.”33

  By the end of July, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were two-thirds of the way through their three-month season, playing six days a week in the Rock Ballroom (Saturdays excluded) from 8 until 11 or 11:15 every night and 3:30 or 4 until 5 every afternoon. Their £18 weekly pay for twenty-five or more hours’ stage time wasn’t as enticing as it had been—each Beatle was clearing double that amount—but the usual Butlin’s compensations were on tap, chiefly the stream of lasses looser with their elastic because they were on ‘oliday. Rory and the Hurricanes were pictured in Butlin’s printed weekly program for the first time, although as the season progressed the drummer took on a different appearance: Ringo now had a chinstrap beard that joined up to his long sideburns.34

  The summer of 1962 was a newsworthy one at Butlin’s Skegness—the camp’s elephant, Gertie, walked into the outdoor swimming pool and drowned (this made a national splash), and the camp’s head chef received a fatal electric shock in the kitchen. Not making the news, the camp’s rock drummer accepted an invitation to join King-Size Taylor and the Dominoes. They were at the Star-Club, but on returning to Liverpool at the start of September would be losing their drummer and guitarist; Ted Taylor wrote to Ringo and Bobby Thompson to suggest they switch groups, and they agreed. Having left the Hurricanes once before, Ringo felt no compunction about doing so again, and Rory and Johnny Guitar were resigned to finding a permanent replacement.35

  It’s unclear why Ringo said yes to the Dominoes after George had already asked him to join the Beatles. Insecurity possibly, or not. Certainly, he didn’t yet know when he’d be needed in the Beatles, whereas the Dominoes’ position would open as soon as the Butlin’s season closed. But it probably explains why two of the Beatles might suddenly have driven all the way over to Skegness, to make sure they got their man. Johnny Guitar would remember their arrival: he and Ringo were sharing a trailer off-camp after being caught with girls in their chalet, and it was here that John and Paul fetched up around ten o’clock one morning.†

  On the basis of what would transpire, it’s fair to surmise that Ringo was
left assured the Beatles did want him, and soon, and that they’d phone to summon him when the moment came … which was just as quickly as Brian and his lawyer gambled on a way to sack Pete. Would it really come down to the Beatles breaking up and re-forming? Whatever the method, now that Granada was coming to film them in the Cavern on August 22, there was a deadline—Pete was to be out and Ringo in by that date.

  The longer it dragged on, the greater chance there was that the man still being referred to obliquely as “the undesirable member” would find out his fate … which more or less happened when Joe Flannery—“manager and producer” of his brother Lee Curtis and backing group the All Stars—paid a home visit to Pete and mentioned that he’d heard rumors Pete would soon be looking for a new position. Flannery and Brian were old friends, and Brian had shared his Best dilemma in strictest confidence … but the self-styled “Colonel Joe,” shootin’ high and hoping to get Pete to join the All Stars, couldn’t resist disclosing it. Pete didn’t challenge John, Paul and George over what he’d been told, but he did ask Brian, saying, “Are there plans to replace me in the Beatles?” Brian, who must have hated every second of his predicament, blushed and stammered a denial.36

  Such gossip jostled for space in Pete’s mind along with earth-shattering domestic events, because on July 21—right there in the house on Hayman’s Green—his adored mother Mo gave birth to a baby boy. She was 38 and her sons 20 and 17; on the cusp of their adulthood, Pete and Rory had gained another brother. All three boys had a different father, for though the baby’s birth certificate named “John Best, professional boxing promoter” in this position, and gave no indication he lived elsewhere, he was long gone and this was Neil Aspinall’s child. They had—they were—a family. The big detached house in West Derby already harbored its share of secrets and here was the biggest yet—and further intrigue would follow when, with the baby seven weeks old, Mona registered the birth and gave his name as Vincent Rogue Best; when the registrar queried the spelling of the middle name he was assured it was correct.‡

  No sooner was all this excitement bubbling away than another big one popped up: Cynthia became pregnant. She and John had been trusting to luck for three years, and it had run out. She was suffering morning sickness, had missed a period and was fearing “the dreadful truth” when her best friend Phyllis McKenzie fixed an appointment with her lady doctor. Cyn’s reward for braving the moment, and blurting out the symptoms through a curtain of tears, was confirmation of her condition … and then a high-handed moral lecture. Later the same day, Cyn also learned that she’d failed one of her art school final exams. What would have been a major decision—to re-sit the test or abandon plans to become a teacher—paled compared to a new, chart-topping worry. John. Soon-to-be-a-dad John Lennon. How would he react?

  She broke the news in the place where the seed was sown, her room at 93 Garmoyle Road. “I watched his face drain of all its color, and fear and panic creep into his eyes. He was speechless for what seemed like an age. ‘There’s only one thing for it, Cyn, we’ll have to get married.’ ”37

  The conversation was had at the beginning of August, and the baby was due at the end of March 1963, so there was little time to lose: Cyn didn’t want a bulge on her wedding day any more than she fancied people figuring the arithmetic after she’d given birth. John, in his own words, “didn’t fight it” but would stand tall and “make an honest womb of her.”38 He’d have to tell Mimi, but—certain she’d give him one of her brisk lectures—put off doing it as long as possible.

  If they timed it right, Cyn’s mother would miss the wedding. Lil Powell had just returned from Canada when these events erupted, and she was booked to sail back again on August 22. Her opposition to Cyn’s relationship with John had been unremitting through three hellish years—and yet, says Cyn, she took the news surprisingly well. Perhaps she didn’t expect to be around very much; she would anyway welcome the grandchild.

  Brian also had to be told. The Beatles had already acquiesced to his suggestion that girlfriends be kept in the background, and it certainly wasn’t part of his plans that one of them would marry at this time. Nothing is known of where or when John broke the news, but there was naught Brian could do about it: the situation would just have to be accommodated—and kept quiet, which perfectly suited John and Cyn. Whatever other feelings Brian had, clouded by the complexity of his own affections for John, he was his manager and friend: he offered to organize the marriage license and book the registrar’s office. In consultation with the bride and groom, he arranged the wedding for August 23, the day after Lil Powell’s departure and the Beatles’ first date with TV cameras. Pete would be out and Ringo in by this time … so one madly busy week was shaping up.

  Paul and Dot could also have married, but instead they broke up—not for the first time but decisively the last. Cyn would write about a flaming row they had when Paul arrived at Garmoyle Road unexpectedly, catching Dot looking less than glamorously ready for him, but Dot’s own recollection would be more circumspect: “Paul said we’d been going out so long that it was either get married or split up. He said, ‘I don’t want to get married, so even though I love you we’ll have to finish.’ I could see that Paul was growing away from me. I knew what was coming. All these years he had been having his bits on the side and it was getting so easy for him. He was young and he couldn’t resist.”39

  Dorothy Rhone had been 16 at the start of her romance with Paul, a shy slip of a girl at the Casbah; now she was coming up 19, still a shy slip of a girl. Very little is known publicly about a relationship that lasted two and a half years, but it was over. She moved back in with her parents, and Paul was even freer to fancy his chances.

  George, meanwhile, was enjoying a steady relationship of his own, one that lasted throughout the summer. Marie Guirron was a fan—she went around with Lindy Ness, Lou Steen and their friends, going to the Beatles’ houses and claiming most of the Cavern front row.

  We wore everything black for the Beatles. Black jackets, black polo-necks, black jeans, total beatniks. I fell for George the first time I saw the Beatles, in Birkenhead, so I always sat on the far left at the Cavern because that’s where he stood; Lou was in the middle with Paul, and Lindy was on the end with John. A couple of times when other people sat in those seats John said to them, “Could you move? That’s not your place.” They noticed everything.40

  George noticed Marie. She was a slim attractive blonde, 18 and clearly older than the others. Lindy and Lou were still in school but Marie worked. “Where?” George asked, one lunchtime in the Cavern, and when she replied “the Cotton Exchange,” he said, “Oh, do you know Jim McCartney?” She did, both from work and a drop round to Paul’s house. So they carried on chatting, then George announced he’d pick her up in his car when she finished work that afternoon at half-past five. “That’s how it began,” she says, “we just started going out. I was soon head over heels for him. I thought he was the best thing since sliced bread. He was handsome, had great charisma and was very gentle.” George and Marie spent most evenings together for the next three and a half months. “It was all good fun,” she says, “and a tremendous introduction for me both to growing up and to a new era of music.”

  Marie became the first long-term beneficiary of the Ford Anglia. “George was thrilled to have his own car—he wanted to be independent, to get himself from A to B without having to rely on anyone else.” He drove her to Beatles shows and gave her the keys when they arrived; afterward, she’d wait by the car while he signed autographs, then they’d drive off for something to eat, or go bowling. She lived in a nice house in Prenton, on the Wirral, and no longer had a parental curfew; he’d drop her home in the early hours and then speed back through the Mersey Tunnel as fast as the Anglia allowed, racing through Liverpool’s deserted streets like his great Argentine hero Juan Manuel Fangio or British world champ-to-be Graham Hill.

  John made no reference to George and Marie’s relationship in his letters to Lindy Ness, nor to the man
y dramatic developments in his own life. Lindy was spending the first month of her school summer holidays visiting family in Norway and they corresponded through the last part of July and into August. To begin with, the letters were scribbled in John’s omnipresent fountain pen (“For you sad Lindy I scrape this metal tipped plastic finger …”), but during August he got hold of a portable manual typewriter from Bobby Brown—he told her he wanted to type new songs—and then Lindy received a letter patiently but Lennonly typed on the reverse side of one of Brian’s weekly “Details of engagements.”

  John had always liked typewriters. He’d been a happy tapper from his early teens, hammering out the humor one arfingly mishit word at a time. Paul was very impressed to see John typing on his first visit to Mendips. With his original “Imperial” model long broken or unavailable, John gratefully seized the chance to borrow Bobby’s, and it accompanied (probably prompted) a new and sustained surge of poetic creativity. If he wrote at home, John read his papers in the van or car on the way to gigs—to the great delight of Paul and George who readily chipped in with contributions of their own. It was a laugh a minute with John Lennon; material created on the road might then be typed up (as best it could be remembered) on his return.

  Two typed stories were published in Mersey Beat right away, but only two. The first, “Small Sam,” was awash with John’s repetitive humor, the second was an updating of “On Safairy with Whide Hunter,” the piece John and Paul wrote together “in conjugal” in 1958, one of the early Lennon-McCartney Originals. At the rate they were being created, John’s writings could have appeared in every Mersey Beat from here on, but he stopped handing them over. He was distressed that a stack of some 250 pieces he’d given Bill Harry the year before had been carelessly lost during an office move—Bill says they were thrown in the garbage by his fiancée Virginia. As only two pieces had been published, 248 irreplaceable Lennon originals had gone, lost forever. “We had to let John know and met him that night at the Blue Angel,” Bill says. “When we told him, he broke down and cried on Virginia’s shoulder.”41