29 Author interview, November 11, 2004.
30 The photographer was Leslie Kearney, 29, a design engineer from Allerton who took up photography as a hobby and was retained by Charlie McBain to take photos at his dances.
31 Interview by Barry Miles, September 23–4, 1969, partly published in Fusion and Oz.
32 Interview by Jon Wilde, Uncut, July 2004.
33 April 3, 1957.
34 Interview by Alan Rowett and Geoff Barker for Paul McCartney’s Routes of Rock, BBC World Service, Oct–Nov 1999. Paul recorded a version of Fabulous that year.
35 McCartney Rocks! electronic press kit, 1999. The store was either Wood Brothers at 225 Park Road (that most unlikely of combinations: a bicycle shop that also sold records, and occasionally contributed a chart to The Record Mirror) or Park Music & Radio Company at 271 Park Road, where Richy Starkey had first become besotted with the notion of playing drums after seeing a tom-tom in its window c.1954.
36 The Beatles Anthology, p36.
37 Photos by Charles Roberts, a friend of Colin Hanton’s who’d asked the Quarry Men to perform at the party and written the lettering for his bass drum head (COLIN HANTON. THE QUARRY MEN). His mother’s efforts had been key to Rosebery Street being awarded the prize in a Liverpool Corporation street decorating competition, marking the 750th anniversary of King John issuing Liverpool a royal charter in 1207. The party was celebrating this prize. Toxteth wasn’t the Quarry Men’s native part of town, though Rosebery Street was close to where the Lennon and Stanley families lived earlier in the century.
38 Interview by Andy Peebles, December 6, 1980, for BBC Radio 1.
39 From interviews with and letters to the author, January and February 2006. Philip Burnett lived 1930–95.
six: Come Go with Me (July 6, 1957)
1 The Observer piece (SKIFFLE INTELLIGENTSIA) by Hugh Latimer, June 16, 1957; The World’s Fair piece by Don Anthony, June 29, 1957.
2 Interview by Stuart Colman, Echoes, BBC Radio London, June 17, 1984. The line John sang as “down to the penitentiary” was actually “don’t let me pray beyond the sea,” partly buried by backing vocals in the original recording.
3 Davies (1985), p471.
4 Davies, p21.
5 “… almost standoffish” from In My Life, p55. The scout hut has been clearly and consistently remembered as the meeting place by Colin Hanton—e.g., in The Day John Met Paul, BBC Radio 2, June 26, 2007.
6 Interview by Mike Read, February 23, 1989, for BBC Radio 1. The first half of the following quote is from an interview by Julia Baird, 1988; remainder from The Beatles Anthology, p20.
7 First half of quote from interview by Jann S. Wenner, December 8, 1970, for Rolling Stone; remainder from Davies, p35.
8 Interview by Dave Sholin, Ron Hummel and Laurie Kaye, RKO, December 8, 1980.
9 From CD enclosed within John, Paul & Me: Before The Beatles by Len Garry.
SEVEN: “He’ll Get You into Trouble, Son” (July–December 1957)
1 Interview by Joan Goodman, for Playboy, December 1984.
2 Interview by Anthony Cherry, BBC Radio 2, June 28, 1992. The guitar’s advertised price was 14 guineas (£14 14s). Paul has never specifically mentioned that George was with him when he got the Zenith so the Jim Gretty “jazz chord” anecdote could belong to a subsequent occasion. In his book Many Years From Now, Paul said he swapped the trumpet for the guitar at Rushworth & Dreaper; Hessy’s is more likely, and this was where Gretty worked.
3 Author interview, May 19, 1987. Born in Poland, Mairants (1908–98) moved to Britain aged five. He owned his own musical instrument shop in London from 1962. Stringent import restrictions were evident throughout the 1950s as countries tried to revive their postwar economies. One such ban prevented the import into Britain of musical instruments made in America (it was lifted in 1959). The Conservative government also applied 30 percent purchase tax on instruments, and 60 percent on records.
4 Interview by Anthony Cherry, BBC Radio 2, June 28, 1992; Mike from Thank U Very Much, p65.
5 Author interview, September 30, 1987.
6 “Portrait of Paul,” by Mike McCartney, Woman magazine, August 28, 1965.
7 Interview by Alan Rowett and Geoff Barker for Paul McCartney’s Routes of Rock, BBC World Service, Oct–Nov 1999.
8 George sold the Egmond for a pound or two to the son of a man who worked with his dad at Speke bus depot. It sold again at auction in 2003 for £276,000. The date George got the Hofner isn’t known.
9 The David Frost Show (American TV), December 3, 1971.
10 Lennon, by Ray Coleman (Pan, London, 2000 edition), p138; Mimi from Davies, p17.
11 First half of John’s quote from interview by Alan Smith, NME, August 30, 1963, remainder from The Beatles Anthology, p13.
12 The Beatles Anthology, p36. In the TV documentary Going Home (Disney Channel, April 18, 1993), he says he first played the Cavern as drummer with the Darktown group. As he joined them after leaving Eddie Clayton, and Eddie’s group appeared there on eight advertised occasions and probably several more unadvertised, this is in question. A well-written Liverpool Echo article (September 16, 1957) about the explosion of guitar playing on Merseyside concluded with a music teacher remarking, “Liverpool was the first city to start the skiffle vogue.” It’s likely, though difficult to prove.
13 Interview by Patrick Humphries, Beatles Book magazine, issue 283 (November 1999).
14 The photo can be seen in two of Mike’s photo-archive books, reproduced particularly well in Remember: The Recollections and Photographs of Michael McCartney (Merehurst, London, 1992). It was also the cover art for a Paul McCartney CD in 1999. Paul and Mike’s second cousin, Edward “Ted” Robbins (b.1955), is a well-known British TV comedian and actor, as is his sister Kate (b.1958). Amy (b.1971), the youngest of three further sisters, is an acclaimed actress.
15 Remember, p23.
16 Paul McCartney once rebuked me for saying his stage debut had taken place at the Butlin’s camp in Filey, insisting it was Pwllheli. “Why do people keep saying it was Filey?” he asked, seemingly unaware his brother Mike had placed these 1957 activities there when writing of them, at some length, in his first book Thank U Very Much (pp61–3). The conclusive proof is Butlin’s printed entertainment program for the Filey week, which has a photo of Mike Robbins as “compere producer.”
17 Davies, p26.
18 “Horrible” from Many Years From Now, p40.
19 Author interview, July 18, 2006.
20 Author interview, November 11, 2004.
21 Observer Music Monthly, September 18, 2005. “Butting is the first move used by the Liverpool lout,” John Lennon would remember. “I only tried it once but my opponent moved and I nearly cracked my head open.” (Love Me Do! The Beatles’ Progress, p37.) In the same book Ringo Starr said that in earlier years his Starkey grandad had threatened to head-butt him “if I gave him any cheek.”
22 Interview by Melvyn Bragg, The South Bank Show, LWT, January 14, 1978.
23 Many Years From Now, p30.
24 The John Lennon Story, 1982 Australian TV documentary by John Torv. In 1971 John appended some biographical information about himself in a publicity booklet and in the section on his schooling deleted “No GCEs” and wrote “½.” It’s not clear what he meant by this. He may have kept his results secret because he was meant to have passed at least one O-Level as a condition of college admission. The 1957–8 prospectus is clear on this, stipulating too that the student also had to pass an entrance test. If John took this he never mentioned it in later years.
25 Jeans from Davies, p51; blazer from author interview with Pat Jourdan, November 10, 2005.
26 Interview by Kevin Howlett, April 6, 1990. Bill Harry was a first cousin of June Harry, who’d played such a vital role in getting John into the college; both were students there.
27 Many streets in Liverpool are prefixed “Back,” running behind a bigger street with the same name. Back Broadway is literally behind Br
oadway (less glamorous than even the worst parts of its New York namesake). Liverpool has unusually distinctive street names. A hill is often a “Brow” and some short lanes are suffixed “Hey,” from the French word haie, meaning land enclosed by hedges. Hackins Hey, which sounds very much like a chest complaint, is an interesting little thoroughfare in the city center.
28 First part of quote from author interview, November 3, 1994; middle from The Beatles Anthology, p21; final section from interview by Roger Scott, Capital Radio (London), November 17, 1983.
29 The photographer was Leslie Kearney.
30 Evening Express, August 28, September 3 and 5, 1957.
31 September 21, 1957.
32 Letter sent by John in September 1974 in response to an inquiry from a Holly fan, Jim Dawson, who asked him what it was about Holly he liked. Illustrated in Memories of Buddy Holly, compiled by Jim Dawson and Spencer Leigh (Big Nickel Publications, Milford, NH, 1996), p101; also in Record Collector magazine, issue 234 (February 1999).
33 November 2, 1957.
34 Author interview, November 3, 1994. Black or white from Arena: The Buddy Holly Story, BBC2, September 12, 1985.
35 Unknown source, quoted without attribution in The John Lennon Encyclopedia, by Bill Harry (Virgin Publishing, London, 2000), p904. The full wording suggests it may be from the type of fan magazine where quotes were routinely manufactured. John never mentioned this at any other time, so without further corroboration it may be unwise to give it too much weight.
36 Many Years From Now, p30; weren’t even proper banjo chords (John)—from interview by Mike Hennessey, Record Mirror, October 2, 1971.
37 The Day John Met Paul, BBC Radio 2, June 26, 2007.
38 Thank U Very Much, p53; also “Portrait of Paul,” by Mike McCartney, Woman magazine, August 28, 1965, and Paul McCartney interview by Sir David Frost, Channel 5, December 28, 1997.
39 John from interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971; Paul from author interview, November 7, 1995.
40 It was confusing: Holly had records under his own name, clearly using the Crickets although they weren’t mentioned, while the Crickets had records under their name without mentioning Holly, who was clearly the lead singer. “When we started to record something we didn’t know if it was going to be a Crickets record or a Buddy Holly record,” recalls Jerry Allison (Crickets drummer and cowriter of Peggy Sue) in Remembering Buddy (by John Goldrosen and John Beecher, Omnibus Press, London, 1996, p59). The same book (p53) has a long quote from the group’s rhythm guitarist Niki Sullivan about how they arrived at the name Crickets, saying that when they went through a list of insects they briefly considered Beetles.
41 Interview by Alan Freeman, BBC Radio 1, December 6, 1974.
42 Interview by Spencer Leigh. The uncle was probably Eddie French, who emigrated to Canada in the early 1950s.
43 Interview by John Wilson, Front Row Special, BBC Radio 4, August 29, 2005. Bourrée was from the fifth movement of “Bach’s Suite in E Minor” for Lute (BWV 996).
44 Author interview, May 2, 1991. The tune often called “Pink Champagne” was composed as a light orchestral piece titled “Bubble” (or “Bubble, Bubble, Bubble”) by George Forrest and Robert Wright. The vocal version, “Pink Champagne,” was published in 1950.
45 Interviews by Russell Harty, BBC1, November 26, 1984, and Janice Long for Listen to What the Man Says, BBC Radio 1, December 22, 1985.
46 Author interview, February 5, 2008.
47 Unrelated to this—and John Lennon wouldn’t have known it—a song titled “Hello Little Girl” was released in America in October 1957 by Lloyd Price, on Atlantic subsidiary KRC. Trade ads announced, “He wails to a hi-shaking mambo beat.” The lyric includes the line “I wanna hold your hand.”
48 Paul McCartney in His Own Words, by Paul Gambaccini (Omnibus Press, London, 1976), p17.
49 Starting in 1977, Paul occasionally performed the song on radio, TV and in concert. It’s on his album Unplugged: The Official Bootleg, recorded and issued in 1991. Even with a newly added bridge (the twice-sung “Well gather round people, let me tell you the story of the very first song I wrote”) it runs only 1.14. As well as the clear Buddy Holly musical influence, Paul’s vocal includes a Holly hiccup, pinpointing its creation to post–September 1957. As it was written on the guitar, which he only began playing after rock’s breakthrough, and as he always said he wrote the two piano songs (“Call It Suicide” and what would become “When I’m Sixty-Four”) before rock arrived, “I Lost My Little Girl” was not his first song but his first guitar song—a distinction he, as the creator, was entitled to make.
50 Interview for Friends of the Earth, December 15, 1989.
51 Author interview, July 18, 2006.
EIGHT: “Where We Going, Johnny?” (January–May 1958)
1 Davies, p47.
2 Interview by Anthony Cherry, BBC Radio 2, June 28, 1992.
3 Evidence given at the Royal Courts of Justice, London, May 6, 1998; George Harrison, James Paul McCartney, Richard Starkey, Yoko Ono Lennon (as executrix of the will of John Winston Ono Lennon [deceased]) vs Lingasong Music Ltd. John quote from interview by Ray Coleman, Melody Maker, October 24, 1964.
4 First and third sections from interview by Jann S. Wenner, December 8, 1970, for Rolling Stone; second section from Davies, p48.
5 Said in the 2011 film George Harrison: Living in the Material World.
6 Davies, p48.
7 The Beatles Anthology, p142.
8 Davies (1985), p471.
9 Author interview, November 11, 2004. Scallops (pronounced “scollops”) are flat, round slices of potato dipped in batter, deep fried and best enjoyed with plenty of salt and vinegar. Situated opposite the Liverpool Institute High School for Girls at Blackburne House, Vaughan’s was at 5 Falkner Street (it’s now a café). A profile of George in the number 1 issue of Beatles Book magazine, August 1963, said he first met John “in the fish and chip shop by his school.” This was Vaughan’s, and it may predate any other encounter.
10 Author interview, December 14, 2004.
11 Author interview, May 2, 1991. As ever, there’s no confirmed information about arrivals and departures in the Quarry Men. Lowe’s addition to the group may have been in February 1958 or at any time in the following few weeks.
12 Interview by Spencer Leigh.
13 Interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971.
14 Mike McCartney has named the photo John, Paul, George and Dennis, because a young man standing by Paul’s left elbow, holding a glass of stout, is Ian’s neighbor Dennis Littler.
15 17 Watts? The Birth of British Rock Guitar, by Mo Foster (Sanctuary Publishing, London, 2000), p184.
16 First and last sections from 1970s interview transcript of unknown origin, middle section from The Beatles Anthology, p30.
17 Eric Griffiths joined the merchant navy and was at sea 1958–64. The problem of piecing together the Quarry Men chronology, where so many anecdotes and memories are contradictory, is underlined again by the 2010 discovery of a document showing that Griffiths’ first voyage sailed on February 14, 1958. This means it cannot be him holding a guitar in the color photograph taken a month later … and yet George Harrison recalled instigating Eric’s dismissal, and Nigel Walley remembers Eric’s distress when he was informed of it. The only way these pieces could fit would be if George joined the group considerably earlier than February, but every account says he didn’t and his “audition piece,” “Raunchy,” was little known before this time—besides which, Eric would have been aware of his maiden voyage some weeks before it happened and wouldn’t have been upset at the prospect of leaving the group. Perhaps the sailing record is incorrect and it is Eric Griffiths holding a guitar in the March 1958 photo; but if it isn’t, there’s no clue to who else it was.
18 Author interview, October 4, 2004.
19 The Beatles Anthology, p30. George also expressed his displeasure at Institute school dinners in a 197
5 interview by Sarah Dickinson for LBC radio (London), reflecting on “old sort of Liverpool Council cabbage.”
20 Paul quote from his foreword for The Cavern: The Most Famous Club in the World, by Spencer Leigh (SAF Publishing, London, 2008); George from Earth News Radio, December 1975; John from Pop Goes The Bulldog, December 1969.
21 Interview by Spencer Leigh.
22 It has become part of the folklore that George “auditioned” for the Quarry Men at the Morgue and wasn’t otherwise in the group when they played here, and/or that his vital rendition of Raunchy on the top deck of a bus was after a night at the Morgue. Both seem plausible but for the fact that the club opened on Thursday, March 13 and the preceding Saturday, the 8th, George was photographed playing with John and Paul at the McCartney family party.
23 Arena: The Buddy Holly Story, BBC2, September 12, 1985.
24 Typed letter sent by John Lennon to Jim Dawson, September 1974. Memories of Buddy Holly, p101.
25 Guitar Player, November 1987.
26 Interview by Alan Rowett and Geoff Barker for Paul McCartney’s Routes of Rock, BBC World Service, Oct–Nov 1999.
27 Paul quote from interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, December 1, 1973; George from interview by Joe Brown, Let It Rock, BBC Radio 2, July 5, 1999. George said he especially liked Chuck’s slide guitar on the blues track “Deep Feeling,” the B-side of the 1957 single “School Day.” (It wasn’t made clear if George felt this at the time or later.)
28 First half of quote from interview with Jann S. Wenner, December 8, 1970, for Rolling Stone; remainder from The Mike Douglas Show, US TV, February 16, 1972, when John got to play with Chuck Berry for the first and only time (they did “Memphis, Tennessee” and “Johnny B. Goode”).
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