45 Again, all information drawn from the website It’s Only Love.
46 Davies, p75, supported by Liverpool Collegiate school records that confirm his departure on March 11, 1960. No one else left school that day, and it wasn’t end of term.
47 Author interview, April 25, 2005.
48 The Aspinall family home was at 43 Liddell Road, just around the corner.
49 Interview by Alan Smith, NME, March 23, 1968. Rory sang three numbers: “What’d I Say,” “Honey Don’t” and “Willie and the Hand Jive.” Ringo didn’t mention speaking to Pete here, but Pete says it in Beatle!, p47.
50 Interview by Alan Freeman, BBC Radio 1, December 6, 1974. Final sentence added from The Beatles Anthology, p41.
51 Interview by Spencer Leigh.
52 Author interview, July 20, 2006.
53 A Twist of Lennon, p42.
54 Interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971.
55 Author interview, March 4, 2008.
56 John from letter published in The Beatles: An Illustrated Record, by Roy Carr and Tony Tyler (NEL, London, 1978 edition onwards), p3; first Paul from interview by Alan Smith, NME, August 9, 1963; second Paul from interview by Mike Read, October 13, 1987, for BBC Radio 1; George from The Beatles Anthology, p41.
57 Author interview, March 4, 2008.
58 The Real John Lennon, Channel 4, September 30, 2000.
59 A good selection of Cheniston Roland’s photos of the Billy Fury audition appear in How They Became The Beatles—A Definitive History of the Early Years: 1960–1964, by Gareth L. Pawlowski (E. P. Dutton, New York, 1989), pp13–22.
60 The Beatles Anthology, p44.
61 Author interview, March 4, 2008.
62 Millie Sutcliffe from The Beatles: The Days in Their Life, 1981 Canadian radio series. Williams first said it publicly when profiled in Record Mirror by Bill Harry (October 22, 1966): “The groups were narrowed down to Cass and the Cassanovas and the Beatles. Billy [Fury] wanted the Beatles and Larry Parnes swung toward the Cassanovas. It was decided that if the Beatles would drop Stu then they could become Billy’s backing group. But they refused.”
63 Author interview, May 27, 2004.
64 A Twist of Lennon, p37.
65 Extended from interview by Larry Kane, September 13, 1964.
66 From Ringo Starr interviews by Phil Donahue, 1978 and 1995.
67 Interview by Spencer Leigh.
68 Author interview, November 26, 2005.
FOURTEEN: “Where’s the Bloody Money?” (May 18–30, 1960)
1 Remembered by Millie Sutcliffe (interview by Nik Cohn), Observer, September 8, 1968.
2 “I didn’t realize there was going to be a written paper”—Paul in Many Years From Now, p42.
3 Davies, p70.
4 Coventry Evening Telegraph, July 29, 2005.
5 Weekly News, January 4, 1964.
6 Author interview, May 27, 2004.
7 Launched on March 10, 1960, Record Retailer was Britain’s first trade magazine for the record business. Its weekly Top Fifty was the nation’s biggest sales chart, the number of places bettered only by The World’s Fair’s Top 100 chart of jukebox plays.
8 Author interview, May 2, 1991. Previous quote (“we’d wanted a Fury or an Eager”) from the same source, along with Paul’s explanation of how the stress in “Ramon” should be put on the second syllable, French style. “Paul Ramon: God knows where Paul got that name from!” John Lennon remarked in a 1975 interview. Nicolas de Staël (1914–55), born in Russia with French nationality, worked in collage, illustration and textiles but was best known for abstract landscapes. Stuart’s ability to adapt to a variety of painting methods caused some at Liverpool College of Art to call him “Stu the Style,” which may or may not be coincidental.
9 John quote from interview by Paul Drew, US radio, April 1975. Paul McCartney: “There was no longer any need for John to be Long John because we were on tour with Johnny Gentle, so the Long John name fell by the wayside, thank God” (author interview, May 2, 1991). “People have since said, ‘Ah, John didn’t change his name, that was very suave.’ Let me tell you: he was Long John! There was none of that ‘he didn’t change his name’: we all changed our names” (The Beatles Anthology, p44).
10 The Beatles Anthology, p44.
11 Author interview, August 28, 2006.
12 The Beatles Anthology, p44.
13 The eyewitness was Leslie Bisset, who was at Keith on Wednesday May 25. “Darin, Benton, Como, Washington” from New Record Mirror, June 23, 1962. (The Record Mirror became Record and Show Mirror from August 22, 1959, and New Record Mirror from March 18, 1961.) “Alright, Okay, You Win” was only a relative oldie (1955), recently revived by Peggy Lee. Disc piece, January 2, 1960.
In the BBC Radio 2 documentary The Beatles in Scotland (September 24, 1996), Johnny Gentle said his act was “only six or seven songs, and then they [the Beatles] played for an hour after.” This is highly unlikely, given that he was the main attraction. Speaking about it eleven years after the tour, John Lennon recalled, “We’d only be on [alone] about twenty minutes and he’d be on most of the time” (interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971). Even twenty minutes seems too much—it would have been ten at most.
Alex Harvey (1935–82) was billed as “Scotland’s own Tommy Steele.” He went on to lead Alex Harvey’s Soul Band and, in the 1970s, most notably, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band.
14 The Alloa Circular and Hillfoots Record, May 25, 1960.
15 Night in the van recalled by George in The Beatles Anthology, p44. Hayloft anecdote by Colin Manley of the Remo Four, who knew Paul (and George) from Liverpool Institute.
16 The Beatles Anthology, p44.
17 Fifty Years Adrift, p95.
18 Davies, p71.
19 Interview on Good Morning Australia (Channel 10), spring 1982. Williams quote from author interview, May 27, 2004.
20 Author interview with Paul McCartney, May 2, 1991. Margie was Marjorie A. Overall (born Maidenhead, 1940). As a firsthand witness to the Beatles’ tour with Johnny Gentle she may have interesting memories to relate, but can’t be found.
21 Thank U Very Much, p70.
22 Interview by Spencer Leigh.
23 Interview by Johnny Beerling, early 1972, for BBC Radio 1.
24 Davies, p71.
25 The Man Who Gave the Beatles Away, by Allan Williams and William Marshall (Elm Tree Books, London, 1975), pp53–4. Of course, John wouldn’t have been able to see detail without his glasses.
26 Author interview, June 20, 2005.
27 Ibid. Sach was played by Huntz Hall—his photo is on the cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Peter Blake, who conceived and jointly staged its artistic design, claims to have added Hall to the gallery, though one or two books (while unaware of any connection) ponder if John Lennon was responsible for the choice.
28 The promoters at Fraserburgh, Keith, Nairn and Peterhead were Bert Ewen and Hilda May, a married couple from Inverurie who operated as North-East Dances.
29 The Beatles Anthology, p44.
30 The Beatles in Scotland, BBC Radio 2, September 24, 1996.
FIFTEEN: Drive and Bash (May 31–August 15, 1960)
1 Interview by Spencer Leigh. Feather was a Jewish homosexual artist who owned the Basement nightclub at 62 Mount Pleasant.
2 A Cellarful of Noise, p43. Newley was headlining this week at Liverpool Empire.
3 April 2, 1960, review by Don Nicholl.
4 Author interview, July 24, 2004.
5 Weekly News, January 11, 1964. Ringo from interview by Jerry G. Bishop, August 13–24, 1965.
6 Birkenhead News and Advertiser (Heswall and Neston edition), June 11, 1960. Fifteen years later, John Lennon—given a copy of the cutting in 1964 and keen ever after to show it around—called it “possibly the first review of Beatles ever” (see The Beatles: An Illustrated Record [1978 edition onward], p3). It was definitely so.
7 Based on Ha
rry Harrison’s remarks to Davies, p59.
8 Author interview, March 15, 2007.
9 Davies, p101.
10 Author interview, August 12, 2010.
11 Author interview, November 3, 1994; audio issued on 1995 album The Beatles Anthology 1.
12 “You’ll Be Mine” and an edit of “Hallelujah, I Love Her So” were released on The Beatles Anthology 1. Nothing else from the tape is legally available but the tracks circulate unofficially.
13 Dot Rhone interview by Bob Spitz, The Globe and Mail, Toronto, November 15, 2005. Margaret Kelly, Brian’s widow, who worked closely with him on the dances, remembers him saying, “They didn’t come and they didn’t let me know, and that’s it.” (Author interview, November 25, 2005.) Rod Murray from author interview, August 10, 2004.
14 Author interview, August 28, 2006.
15 Author interview, October 7, 2004. All subsequent Ellis quotes from this too.
16 Letter written to IT, issue 155 (May 31–June 14, 1973). Daily Mirror piece, November 26, 1959. Royston Ellis was born Christopher Roy George Ellis, in Pinner, Middlesex, February 10, 1941.
17 Rave, by Royston Ellis (Scorpion Press, Northwood, Middlesex, May 1960), p17.
18 Many Years From Now, p88.
19 First part from Stuart: The Life and Art of Stuart Sutcliffe, p107; last from Many Years From Now, p88.
20 Vicks inhalers no longer contain Benzedrine. “… they didn’t even know about getting high on Benzedrine strips from nose inhalers!”—from Royston Ellis essay in Generation X (by Charles Hamblett and Jane Deverson, Anthony Gibbs & Phillips, London, 1964), pp143, 148–9. Ellis also fictionalized his Liverpool experiences with the Beatles in his novel Myself for Fame (World Distributors, London, 1964), pp42–9, where they were the Rhythmettes and the Jacaranda coffee bar on Slater Street was the Panda coffee bar on Tater Street. Ellis’s factual exposé of British rock, The Big Beat Scene (Four Square Books, London, 1961), contains no mention of the Beatles though he claims a reference to “the Blanks” (p76) is them. The book was republished in 2010 and in a new afterword Ellis related his tale of being with the Beatles in Liverpool in June 1960, repeating the claim (see below) that he gave them their name.
21 Author interview, October 4, 2004.
22 Paul from Many Years from Now, p50; George from Fifty Years Adrift, p95; John from interview by Paul Drew, US radio, April 1975.
23 It had the byline P. H.—short for Paul Heppel, who wrote the weekly showbiz roundup Show Pieces. Royston Ellis claims he came up with, or somehow confirmed, the name Beatles for them, but this isn’t right. They were using it, and it had appeared in print, a month before they met him. If he told them “Beatles” was a good spelling and worth sticking with, he was right—it was, and they were going to. In a published letter Ellis wrote about them within three weeks of his Liverpool trip, the word was spelled “Beetles.”
24 Interview by Spencer Leigh.
25 Remembered by Lu Walters, Mersey Beat, July 18, 1963.
26 Author interview, August 27, 2005.
27 The Beatles Anthology, p39.
28 Interview by Roger Scott, Capital Radio (London), November 17, 1983. The Melody Maker ad was March 5, 1960, and there was another on June 25, the issue current when Paul made his purchase. The cash price was eighteen guineas, well at the cheaper end of the guitar range.
29 “No one was very impressed at first,” Paul told Russell Harty (BBC1, November 26, 1984), referring to the other Beatles. Nothing more is known of this.
30 Author interview, July 17, 2006. All subsequent quotes from this.
31 Interview by Lisa Robinson, September 29, 1980.
32 A Twist of Lennon, p40.
33 Author interview, August 11, 2004.
34 The reporter was Peter Forbes and the photographer Harold Chapman—he also took important pictures of Ginsberg, Burroughs, Corso and others at what was known as the Beat Hotel in Paris.
35 Paul McCartney anecdote to the author during tour of his recording studio, December 17, 1996.
36 The Beatles Anthology, p44. Beatles Book magazine, issue 3 (October 1963), p9, looked briefly at the Beatles’ drumming situation in this period, as explained to journalist “Billy Shepherd” (Peter Jones) by Paul. It says that he, John and George all learned to play the kit “reasonably well.” They would all continue to get behind the drums from time to time in the years ahead.
37 Interview by Spencer Leigh.
38 “A Little Bare,” Mersey Beat, September 6, 1962.
39 Interview by author and Kevin Howlett, June 6, 1990. The notion “Something’ll turn up,” or words to that effect, was ever John Lennon’s thinking (perhaps inspired by Micawber in David Copperfield, which he’d read). The leader led, the others adopted his attitude.
40 This information recalled by the Echo advertiser, who prefers to remain anonymous though he did once tell his tale in a newspaper.
41 Davies, p77. Also told well by Mike McCartney in Thank U Very Much, p70.
42 Davies, p79.
43 Davies, p76.
44 Author interview, February 6, 2006. June Harry died in 2010, aged 73, while this passage was being written.
45 A Twist of Lennon, p49.
46 Author interview, July 20, 2006.
47 Author interview, June 21, 2007.
48 Interview by Paul Drew, US radio, April 1975.
49 The Best Years of the Beatles, by Pete Best with Bill Harry (Headline, London, 1996), p48.
50 Scene described to the author by Cynthia, June 4, 2006. (She was told it by John but hasn’t used it in her books.)
51 Davies, p77.
52 Ibid.
53 Beatle!, pp29/13.
54 Courtesy of Yoko Ono Lennon, a facsimile reproduction of John’s first passport is on display at Mendips (now open as a National Trust property), accurately illuminating this and other facts.
SIXTEEN: “Mach Schau!” (August 15–September 30, 1960)
1 Beatle Pete, Time Traveler, by Mallory Curley (Randy Press, USA, 2004), p22.
2 Author interview, August 11, 2004. Unless otherwise stated, all other Williams quotes in this chapter are from this.
3 Beatle!, p32 and The Best Years of the Beatles, p40.
4 Paul and George recollections in The Beatles Anthology, p45. Koschmider lived three kilometers away, at 14 Eimsbütteler Chaussee. Allan Williams also thinks the Beatles stayed the first night in Koschmider’s flat.
5 Interview by Russell Harty, BBC1, November 26, 1984.
6 The Bambi’s actual entrance was around the corner, at Paul-Roosen-Strasse 33. It was not a porn cinema (as is often claimed) and this street was beyond the red-light area. Typical of tiny picture houses tucked away in cities the world over, it showed creaky old films: mostly melodramas and some children’s movies.
7 Letter reproduced facsimile in Thank U Very Much, p91.
8 Interview by David Sheff, September 24, 1980, for Playboy.
9 Interview by Spencer Leigh.
10 Interview by Ray Connolly, Radio Times, May 18, 1972. George: “Although we did repeat ourselves, we used to try not to.” (Fifty Years Adrift, p169.)
11 The Beatles Anthology, p49.
12 Beatles Book magazine, issue 3 (October 1963).
13 Bild-Zeitung, September 29, 1960.
14 First part from interview by Mitchell Glazer, Crawdaddy, February 1977; second from The Beatles Anthology, p53.
15 Interview by David Sheff, September 12, 1980, for Playboy.
16 Pete’s claims are in Beatle!, p53; a further account on p54 describes how four of the Beatles (omitting Stu) had eight women between them—which was more than two each because the girls swapped around. Such descriptions don’t square with George remaining a virgin until 1961, but no doubt something like this happened. George describes his “first shag” in The Beatles Anthology, p54.
17 Interview by Paul du Noyer, Paul McCartney World Tour program (1989–90), p86.
18 The Beatles Anthology, p54.
&
nbsp; 19 Also wrapped up in the Hamburg legend is the extent of the strip- and sexclub entertainment on offer. The truth is more what George Harrison said: “There were places where there were donkeys shagging women or whatever—allegedly, I never saw it” (The Beatles Anthology, p54). While accounts of what went on become more lurid with every telling, it’s worth noting that German law forbade women to strip off completely: they had to wear a G-string or panties. As for the live sex shows, it was all suggestion and simulation, and there were no donkeys.
20 Hamburger Echo, September 19 and 24, 1960.
21 “Mach Schau!”—Die Beatles in Hamburg, by Thomas Rehwagen and Thorsten Schmidt (EinfallsReich, Braunschweig, 1992), pp92/94. (A recommended book, though it’s in German only; there’s no English edition.) Monika Paulsen had the support of her parents to invite the Beatles home for proper food and a good night’s sleep (they were in one room, but comfortable; she and her friends in another); her mother also cooked them a meal the following day before they had to return to the stage (see “Mach Schau!,” same pages).
22 Stuart: The Life and Art of Stuart Sutcliffe, pp112–13. Stuart’s correspondence has come up regularly at auction (sold by his sister Pauline and others) and numerous examples have been published.
23 Interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971.
24 Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, September 20, 1975.
25 Author interview, March 18, 2006.
26 Interview by Terry Wogan, BBC1, November 20, 1987.
27 Daily letters from A Twist of Lennon, p49; Quasimodo photos, pp50–1; leather knickers from The Real John Lennon, Channel 4, September 30, 2000. Cyn eventually destroyed the letters.
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