Tune In

by Mark Lewisohn

  28 Beatle!, p55.

  29 Interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971; “… sneak one of his own” from Beatle!, pp66/94.

  30 From recording of legal interview with Pete Best, New York, 1965.

  31 August 25, 1960. The article, which had no byline, was written by Roy Corlett, who’d been a year above Paul McCartney at Liverpool Institute and was now a trainee journalist.

  32 The Beatles Anthology, p39.

  33 Interview by Chris Evans, TFI Friday, Channel 4, June 26, 1998.

  SEVENTEEN: A Cellarful of Oiks (October 1–December 31, 1960)

  1 Interview by Elliot Mintz, April 18, 1976.

  2 Best of the Beatles DVD (Best Wishes Productions, 2005).

  3 Interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971.

  4 Davies, p86.

  5 The Beatles Anthology, p49.

  6 From Pete Best interview by Spencer Leigh.

  7 From Stuart Sutcliffe letter to his sister Pauline, written mid-October 1960.

  8 Author interview, July 20, 2006.

  9 No more is known of this. Allan Williams ought to have been handling the negotiations but remembers nothing of it. Bruno Koschmider didn’t operate in Berlin so perhaps the Beatles were fixing the deal themselves with another club owner. It never happened.

  10 Akustik was the recording division of a film advertising company, Ernst Breuel Verlag, and its professionally equipped studio was in the Klockmann building at Kirchenallee 57. Though Ringo recalls the recordings being cut straight to acetates, the multiplicity of disks (see below) must mean they were recorded to tape first.

  11 An article in Mersey Beat (December 19, 1963), with information given by Lu Walters, said the Beatles played on “Fever,” “Summertime” and “September Song,” and that “the discs are still available in Liverpool and being played regularly.” Several were pressed, it seems: Williams remembers “five or six.” In Disc of August 13, 1966, he claimed ownership of two, though within five years he mislaid them both.

  Despite telling Mersey Beat he’d recorded three titles with the Beatles, Lu Walters told me in 1983 they played on only one and that “Fever” and “September Song” had the Hurricanes behind him. He also said nine disks were cut but he was aware of only one still in existence, in the hands of a relative in Australia. It has yet to surface, and when asked about it again in 2012 he said he was aware of no surviving copies at all. It’s the number one lost recording for Ringo, who often mentions how much he’d love to hear it again.

  12 Stuart said this in a letter to Susan Williams; it equated to DM1400.

  13 The Story of the Fender Stratocaster, by Ray Minhinnett and Bob Young (Carlton, London, 1995), quoted in Beatles Gear, p38. The Steinway shop was at Colonnaden 29, near the Binnenalster lake.

  14 The LP sleeve photo John saw was Shearing on Stage! by the George Shearing Quintet, recorded by Capitol in 1958 and released in Germany in 1960 (the guitar was played by Toots Thielemans). The Rickenbacker 325 is generally described as three-quarter scale but some guitar experts call it five-eighths. There’s conflicting information about which shop John got the guitar from; the figure £90–100 was reported by John in a document detailing his Hamburg expenses; “… a hell of a lot of money” from interview by Ray Coleman, Disc Weekly, March 26, 1966. It isn’t known if John or Stu volunteered customs duty on these Hamburg purchases when returning to England, though not likely. The risk was a sizeable fine, about £60.

  15 From interview (probably by Tony Webster) for Beat Instrumental, December 1964. John made the final drip repayment to Hessy’s for the Club 40 on July 31, 1961.

  16 Letter undated, started at the end of September and completed in mid-October. In another letter of this period, sent to Rod Murray, Stuart wrote, “I don’t drink, except the odd Coca-Cola.” No one remembers him being teetotal, but, if true, he was the one sober Beatle on stage in the Kaiserkeller.

  17 Author interview, March 29, 2006. Unless otherwise stated, all Klaus Voormann quotes in this chapter are from this interview.

  18 Reinhart Wolf (born Berlin 1930, died Hamburg 1988) was a witty, stylish, intelligent and gifted photographer, internationally active in advertising, portraiture and architectural photography. His studio was at Rothenbaumchaussee 3. The art institute was the Meisterschule für Mode, Werkkunstschule für Textil, Werbung und Grafik (Vocational College for Fashion and Commercial Art School for Textiles, Advertising and Graphic Design).

  19 Author interview, March 11, 2006. Unless otherwise stated, all Astrid Kirchherr quotes in this chapter are from this interview.

  20 Author interview, March 12, 2006. All Jürgen Vollmer quotes in this chapter are from this interview.

  21 Author interview, May 3, 1994.

  22 Voormann, Kirchherr and Vollmer have each given their account of these events more times than they care to remember. The same essential truths are ever-present but a few of the lesser details no longer dovetail. The record was a cover version of the Ventures’ hit instrumental “Walk Don’t Run,” by the Typhoons, on the Heliodor label.

  23 Astrid kept no diary of her photography, and the chronology of events has been told differently in the many accounts given in subsequent decades, so the sequence reflected in this chapter might not be definitively correct. If her first session was indeed with Stuart, and not with the Beatles as a group, it was probably the one at Krameramtsstuben—a seventeenth-century courtyard tucked away not far from the other end of the Reeperbahn—and, perhaps this same day, on Wohlwillstrasse. (An atmospheric double-exposure of Stuart standing in a doorway here is the best known of these images.) Her second solo session with Stuart (it probably followed her shoot with the Beatles) was on a rainy Monday in the first half of November, among trees in a wood by the Elbe river.

  24 Stuart: The Life and Art of Stuart Sutcliffe, p131.

  25 Many Years From Now, p64.

  26 Author interview, March 18, 2006.

  27 The Beatles Anthology, p49.

  28 Many Years From Now, p65.

  29 Author interview, November 3, 1994.

  30 DM100,000 was the equivalent of £8550—a strangely large amount in 1960. Koschmider said this in the only recorded interview he’s known to have given about the Beatles (for BBC radio, 1972) and wasn’t asked to substantiate it.

  31 A few years later John gave an original print of the photo to Beatles biographer Hunter Davies and captioned it on the reverse Me sightseeing Hamburg, Nov. 1960 and ONE GIANT PHOTO COMING SOON.

  32 Abendblatt, November 4, 1960. The Hamburger Dom still operates at the same site three times a year.

  33 Anecdote told by Pete Best in Beatle!, p104, except he says the Shadows’ tune Rory demonstrated was “Frightened City.” The title “Beatle Bop” was probably inspired by the dance of that name, as cited by Bill Haley in “Rock This Joint.”

  34 Author interview, November 7, 1995.

  35 Interview by Malcolm Searle, Melbourne, June 15, 1964.

  36 Davies, p106.

  37 Pete Best has told the story in two of his books: Beatle! (pp58–62) and The Best Years of the Beatles (pp75–6). The gas-gun is in both, but John didn’t mention it in Davies, pp84–5.

  38 Four Track Stories, by Klaus Voormann (self-published, München, 2005). Erdmann-Lederbekleidung was at Reeperbahn 155, opposite the Top Ten Club. It may be that John, Pete and Paul bought their leather jackets here too.

  39 First clause from Davies, p92, remainder from The Beatles Anthology, p55.

  40 Davies, p93. Monika Paulsen says she and her friend Helga took George to the station to begin his homeward journey, giving him a packed meal prepared by her mother. (“Mach Schau!,” p94.)

  41 Author interview, March 7, 1985. Pete says (Beatle!, p72) there were four rubbers and always speaks of them in plural, Paul speaks of one.

  42 December 12, 1960, sent to Ken Horton. This letter provides the only suggestion that John was arrested in the roundup; he’s not mentioned in other accounts.<
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  43 Interview by Paul Gambaccini, Rolling Stone, June 12, 1979. Rathaus means “city hall.” Instead of the main prison at Fühlsbuttel, it’s more likely Paul and Pete were taken to the remand prison near St. Pauli called Untersuchungsgefängnis (easier done than said).

  44 The Beatles Anthology, p55; last sentence from Davies, p95.

  45 Beatle!, p76. Mike from Thank U Very Much, p72.

  46 Davies, p93.

  47 Ibid.

  48 Davies, p96. Renshaw Hall was a large hall adjacent to Benson Street, opening on to 63 Renshaw Street.

  49 Author interview, December 14, 2004.

  50 Interview by Elliot Mintz, January 1, 1976.

  51 Author interview, August 11, 2004.

  52 “Being A Short Diversion On The Dubious Origins Of Beatles,” Mersey Beat, July 6, 1961.

  53 Paul from The Beatles Anthology, p56; John from interview by Barbara Graustark, for Newsweek, September 1980.

  54 Author interview with Johnny Gustafson, March 4, 2008.

  55 Author interview, June 21, 2007.

  56 Chas from author interview, December 8, 2004; Pete from The Best Years of the Beatles, p107.

  57 Beatle!, p82.

  58 First part from The Beatles: The Days in Their Life, 1981 Canadian radio series; second part from The Best of Fellas (The Story of Bob Wooler, Liverpool’s First D.J.), by Spencer Leigh (Drivegreen Publications, Liverpool, 2002), p70. This is the only published account of Wooler’s life, based on months of Leigh’s exclusive interviews with the reticent personality and packed with the subject’s insights and witty wordplay. Unless otherwise stated, all Wooler quotes here are drawn from this source, by kind permission.

  59 Interview, August 28, 1963, for The Mersey Sound (BBC-tv, October 9, 1963).

  60 Ibid.

  61 Mersey Beat, July 4, 1963.

  EIGHTEEN: The Big Beat Boppin’ Beatles (January–March 1961)

  1 Interview by Chris Hutchins, NME, September 25, 1964.

  2 Author interview, March 3, 2007. Jim Gilvey is sure Paul didn’t sign the apprenticeship papers, though it would have happened, given time.

  3 Davies, p96.

  4 Ibid.

  5 Interview by Janice Long for Listen to What the Man Says, BBC Radio 1, December 22, 1985.

  6 Interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971.

  7 Author interview, March 15, 2007.

  8 Interview by Spencer Leigh. The Phantoms became the Coasters in September 1961, when lead singer Bill Ashton, who called himself Billy Forde, changed his name again to Billy Kramer.

  9 Interview for Pop Goes the Bulldog, December 1969; “… laughed me off the stage” told to the author, October 12, 1987.

  10 Author interview, July 20, 2006.

  11 Aspinall worked for J. Oakley Worrall, on the fourth floor of Prudential Buildings, 36 Dale Street.

  12 Author interview, June 21, 2007. All Neil Aspinall quotes in this chapter are from this interview.

  13 There are several TV clips of John doing the big wink—e.g., in the documentary Follow the Beatles (BBC1, 1964), in footage of the Jealous Guy recording session (1971) and at the start of “Stand By Me,” taped for Old Grey Whistle Test (BBC2, 1975).

  14 Pete Best clipped out the Beatles ads and pasted them into a scrapbook, and Ringo’s parents Elsie and Harry cut out all the Rory Storm and the Hurricanes ads. Looking at the Echo’s Jazz column was the surest way for parents of Liverpool musicians to know where their sons were on given nights of the week.

  The morning Daily Post was even further removed from it all. The Echo’s only concession to pop remained Disker’s very good record review column and local sales chart, published every Saturday. The Disker pen name still masked the identity of Tony Barrow, who, having moved to London, sent in his “copy” by mail.

  15 Best of the Beatles DVD.

  16 Author interview, November 4, 2004.

  17 Reproduced in Hamburg Days, by Astrid Kirchherr and Klaus Voormann (Genesis Publications, Guildford, 1999), p126. Hemd is German for “shirt”; Stuart wrote hempt, which is how it’s pronounced in Hamburg dialect.

  18 Author interview, August 12, 2004.

  19 The Beatles Anthology, p57.

  20 Davies, p144.

  21 Interview by Paul Drew, US radio, April 1975. The two subsequent John Lennon quotes about Pete Best are from the same interview. Lomax from interview by Spencer Leigh.

  22 Wooler from Mersey Beat, August 31, 1961.

  23 John’s 1973 homage recording of “Angel Baby” (with a monster production by Phil Spector) is a bonus track on the 2004 reissue of Rock ’n’ Roll.

  24 Love Me Do! The Beatles’ Progress, p34. It wasn’t entirely true. Both John and Paul liked “Move It!” and “Living Doll,” and Paul has related how on one occasion he (and maybe some or all of the other Beatles) saw Cliff and the Shadows in concert at Liverpool Empire.

  25 NME, October 28, 1960.

  26 May 20, 1961.

  27 Dexter’s pick from George Martin’s 1960 work was a beaty production of “As Time Goes By,” by Parlophone singer and Frankie Vaughan soundalike Richard Allan. Jack Good quote re. Nadia Cattouse from Disc, January 21, 1961.

  28 Interview by Spencer Leigh. The incident happened on either January 20, 21, 27 or 30, 1961.

  29 Millie Sutcliffe recalled the circumstances in an interview by Mike Ledgerwood for Disc and Music Echo, October 31, 1970. “I always waited up for Stuart to come home. It was 3AM when he finally came in—without his glasses. He told me, ‘You’ve had reason to wait up this morning. We’ve been attacked. I got knocked out … OUT unconscious. I was hit from the back. My glasses are non-existent. I couldn’t even pick up the pieces. But John got the thug. And he broke his wrist giving him what he’d given me.’ ” Millie also added that Stuart had refused a medical examination—“He said if I called a doctor, he’d be gone before he arrived.” One fact here is certainly wrong: John fractured his finger rescuing his friend, not his wrist. Also, the book Stuart: The Life and Art of Stuart Sutcliffe, p154, writes convincingly of Stuart allowing himself to be seen by a doctor the following morning.

  30 Author interview, March 11, 2006.

  31 Author interview, August 11, 2004.

  32 Author interview, August 10, 2004.

  33 Document reproduced facsimile in The Beatles Anthology, p55.

  34 Interview for Friends Of The Earth, December 15, 1989.

  35 Author interview, July 4, 2005.

  36 Author interview, August 4, 2005.

  37 Remember, p33.

  38 Author interview, June 21, 2007.

  39 Interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971.

  40 “Hopeless” from interview by Chris Hutchins, NME, September 25, 1964. Covering letter sent with Paul’s final pay and documents is reproduced in Thank U Very Much, p80. “My plan was to go on playing the clubs until I reached twenty-five—a ripe old age—and then go to art college and hang on there for a couple of years,” Paul told Ray Coleman and Chris Roberts in Melody Maker, August 3, 1963.

  41 Author interview, May 26, 2004.

  42 Beatle!, pp118/120.

  43 The Best of Fellas, p88.

  44 First two sentences from Stuart: The Life and Art of Stuart Sutcliffe, p157; remainder from interview by Richard Williams, for The Times, December 16, 1981.

  45 Interview by Spencer Leigh. Astrid usually says Stu first wore the collarless jacket a few weeks later, at the Top Ten Club, prompting John to say, “What’s all this? Have your got your mum’s jacket on?” If Stu did wear it in the Cavern, as Mike McCartney remembers, he (after Astrid) was the first to do so in Liverpool.

  46 The Best of Fellas, p147.

  47 Interview by Spencer Leigh.

  48 Paul from interview by Jon Wilde, Uncut, July 2004; John from interview by Tom Snyder, Tomorrow, NBC-TV, April 8, 1975.

  49 John explained this in his interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971. Bill Harry was the
guiding hand and co-producer of Blues for the Hitch-Hiking Dead, the north’s first Jazz to Poetry concert, held at Crane Theatre on January 31, 1961, a seminal event in the development of Liverpool’s vibrant 1960s poetry scene, which had taken root at 51 Mount Pleasant, at Streates coffee club. Mersey Beat’s office was at 81a Renshaw Street. The businessman was Jim Anderson, a civil servant friend of Dick Matthews, who, along with Sam Leach, helped propel Harry into launching the paper.

  NINETEEN: Piedels on Prellies (April–June 1961)

  1 Author interview, March 12, 2006. All Jürgen Vollmer quotes in this chapter are from this interview.

  2 As mentioned in the previous chapter, the Beatles’ decision not to pay Allan Williams his commission was probably premeditated. Bob Wooler may have forewarned Williams of their thinking.

  3 The Beatles Anthology, p58.

  4 Interview by Ritchie Yorke, mid-September 1969.

  5 “… meanie” from Beatle!, p94. Paul re. “terrible old piano”—Many Years From Now, pp74–5.

  6 Author interview, March 18, 2006. Unless otherwise stated, all Tony Sheridan quotes in this chapter are from this interview.

  7 July 20, 1961.

  8 Evidence given at the Royal Courts of Justice, London, May 6, 1998. Horst Fascher was present when George said it. Paul quote—Many Years From Now, p63.

  9 The Beatles Anthology, p58. Paul information also from here.

  10 Beatle!, p95.

  11 The Beatles Anthology, p50.

  12 “Mach Schau!,” p138.

  13 The Beatles Anthology, p50.

  14 Ibid.

  15 Interview by Jon Wilde, Uncut, July 2004.

  16 The Beatles Anthology, p50.

  17 First section from interview by Paul Drew, US radio, April 1975; remainder from interview by Peter McCabe and Robert D. Schonfeld, September 1971.

  18 Author interview, June 7, 2006. All Rosi Heitmann quotes in this chapter are from this interview.

  19 The Beatles Anthology, p54.

  20 Beatle!, p96. She is remembered by everyone as a stripper though Pete calls her a waitress in his book.