When They Were Boys

by Larry Kane

  As the Merseybeats entered their development stage, Crane and Kinsley walked into the Cavern in January 1962, getting their first look at the Beatles. It was love at first sight.

  From Billy Kinsley, soon to be a compatriot and colleague of the boys, the view of them in the beginning is emblematic of why teenagers, especially in 1962, were drawn in like flies to light.

  “They were just as dirty and scruffy as the Cavern. . . . I was in a trance for days. . . . They were playing rock ’n’ roll raw and alive, just as it should be played. . . . The Beatles stood out. . . . Paul jumped into the audience screaming ‘Long Tall Sally’ and John Lennon lay on the floor and played guitar solos. They were great.”

  So, there you have it. Billy Kinsley confirms. The Beatles’ first attraction, much as it was in Litherland Town Hall, and Hamburg, was animalistic, over-the-top hysteria, partially inspired by Rory Storm, copied with efficiency from the likes of Chuck Berry, bearing a likeness to Teddy Taylor, Elvis, and Little Richard, and with the musical power of the Big Three. But there was a difference, as Kinsley explains:

  ALTHOUGH THEY WERE SMOOTHED-OUT AND CLEANED UP BY BRIAN, IN WHAT YOU CALL “THE MAKEOVER,” LARRY, THEY TOOK WHAT THEY LEARNED FROM THEIR INFLUENCES, LIKE GEORGE FORMBY AND LONNIE DONEGAN AND THE LIKES, AND THEY MERGED IT INTO A PERFORMANCE LEVEL, NOT JUST ACQUIRED BUT DRAMATICALLY THEIR OWN. THEY WERE THE HOTTEST GROUP EVER SEEN WITH A HARMONY THAT WAS BEYOND ANY OTHER GROUP, AND BEFORE THEIR OWN AMAZING MUSIC, THE STUFF THEY WROTE, WAS WOVEN INTO THEIR ACT, THEY HYPNOTIZED THEIR AUDIENCES WITH A LEVEL OF RAW THAT HAD EXCEEDED ANYTHING BEFORE THEM.

  Kinsley and Crane eventually had their own dream come true. In April 1962 they debuted at the Cavern. But it was a rough road. Dave Forshaw, the man who spotted the Beatles at Litherland, got them some gigs and was instrumental in keeping their spirits alive.

  Kinsley and Crane were admired by the Beatles, joining them in shows at the Cavern, where the boys were impressed by Kinsley’s voice. Paul McCartney was so impressed by the group that he has described their “You Are My Love” as one of his favorite love songs. Kinsley and his boys have had a career spanning continents. Never as well known (who is?) as the Beatles, the harmonious Merseybeats had many incarnations—changing their name to Liverpool Express in the seventies—but also had a truly steady career of success.

  Aside from Kinsley’s work during Apple sessions with George Harrison, many eyewitnesses, including Joe Ankrah of the racial-barrier-shattering Chants, remember the Merseybeats as having a positive influence on the Beatles in 1962. After all, Kinsley and Crane’s Merseybeats served a triple role: admiring fans of the Beatles, transitioning to professional musicians, and serving as a motivating group of cheerleaders in the early days when the boys’ smashing success was not yet guaranteed.

  Billy Kinsley has lived a good life of accomplishment, but in youth, there were moments of uncertainty. One in particular comes to mind, for it might have changed his future—might have being the key words here. Although his career would have him recording with the Beatles at Abbey Road and performing for years with them, there was one act he may regret.

  In the beginning, when Brian Epstein seemed to be on a signing frenzy, Kinsley and Crane made a choice—they were the third group Epstein signed. The Big Three was also in the stable.

  Kinsley remembers being a bit jealous. “We left him because he wouldn’t buy us suits. He bought the Beatles suits and we were jealous.”

  Imagine, Kinsley, Tony Crane, and the boys of Merseybeat left Epstein because he wouldn’t buy them clothing. They were jealous and, as you can imagine, young in years and young in spirit and naive to the ways of business.

  Kinsley is, without challenge, the most popular current public figure of the Merseybeat era in Liverpool, and remains an icon for three reasons: he was good, he was caring, and he never left, except to successfully tour, of course.

  “The Beatles had a course, a plan: move on and shut the door,” recalls broadcaster Leigh. “They never veered from that, rarely recalling, except when pressed, some of the people who put them there.”

  Although Merseyside groups would always help other groups behind the scenes, they would rarely praise one another in public. Kinsley is as proud of the Beatles and the other groups as he is of his own group.

  “Without them, where would we all be?” he reminds me.

  Spencer Leigh adds, “Area musicians say bad things about each other. . . . Nobody will have a bad thing to say about Billy Kinsley. Most musicians talk about themselves, but Billy talks about other people and their strengths.”

  And then there is the truly magical American connection. Kathy McCabe, an admiring Beatles fanatic from Baltimore, a city she describes as being so much like Liverpool with its narrow row homes with steps leading to them, decided as a teenager to find a pen pal. Her choice was fateful.

  “I became a pen pal to Robbie Malloy,” she recalls. “He was the brother of Sandra Malloy, who became an English teacher and the wife of a young musician named Billy Kinsley. That began a lifelong friendship with a professional connection.”

  From Baltimore to Liverpool and back many times, McCabe became a close friend of Sandra and Billy Kinsley’s, who had developed an extended family in addition to their two girls and a boy. Inspired by the Beatles, and their new friends, they formed a strong emotional bond with McCabe and Freda Kelly (“Freda the Believer”). McCabe, in the spirit of things, married professional musician Mac Walter, in Baltimore. The couples are inseparable, and McCabe actually helped produce the band’s Liverpool Express albums.

  “I was a Beatles fan, still am, but what I got through my pen pal was a relationship with the most wonderful man in Merseyside, and his most wonderful wife, and through it, I learned that the era, the music, the people have a wonderful side story. Through Billy I learned the other side of the story, that the era was unkind to people who didn’t persist. Billy did and created, through ups and down, his own success. He never complains, but he is always aware of what the Beatles did for him.”

  What the quite insulated surviving Beatles don’t know is what Billy Kinsley did for them.

  Unlike some of the other contemporaries, the unsung leader of the Merseybeats has been a beacon of light, telling the story of what the Beatles were really like. He and his bandmates have never allowed the broad shadow of the Beatles to diminish the flame of their own contribution to music lovers, yet, at the same time, they never forget where they live and who opened the doors for them.

  After years of research, I have learned that few people who “were there” will credit others in the region with a knack for credibility or real talent. Billy Kinsley is an exception. Everybody loves him.

  Kinsley, hiding the scars of his youth, stands as a tribute not just to the music that he has shared and the lower-profile stardom he has achieved, but as a symbol of the rare artists from that era whose glass is always half full, and whose words and style engender total respect in a tough town where respect has to be earned, year after year.

  In that respect, he’s one of the few Merseyside success stories who remain viable, and vital, and very much alive fifty years after the Beatles’ climb to the top began.

  His success, and that of others who mixed their brew of creativity with the boys, is a bit more public than the work behind the scenes of two women who have never been recognized appropriately for their contributions.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  SECRET-AGENT GIRLS

  “I adored them. And I really adored their parents, especially Richie’s mother, Elsie. She was salt of the earth.”

  —Freda Kelly, fan club secretary, assistant to Brian Epstein, teenage fan, and special friend of the boys

  “You might say I was in a good position, being in America, and sending decent information every week.”

  —Louise Harrison, George Harrison’s sister

  Two young women: one transplanted in America, the other a sometimes-smitten teenager in the heart of Liverpool. The effec
t they had on the Beatles’ ascension can’t be measured in full, because the parts they played at home and abroad were key in the boys’ success story even though, like secret agents, they had very little visibility.

  —Freda Kelly, Fan and Friend

  AND SO I WONDERED: WHAT WOULD SHE LOOK LIKE AFTER ALL THESE YEARS? I pictured the devoted seventeen-year-old in those old pictures, the vintage ones. She was just seventeen, and as Paul would say, “you know what I mean.” Imagine being just seventeen and walking into the world of four sometimes awkward and very sensitive young men, and for more than ten years being privy to everything that was going on in those raw beginnings. Imagine seeing them every day, watching them grow from boys into men, getting as close as millions would want to in the crazy years ahead.

  There is no question that unlike the girl in the song, she was not just “standing there,” and there was no romantic connection, but now, in the new century, she says with a blush, “I had a crush on each one of them, depending on the week.” That’s about all you are going to get from Freda Kelly on her private life, and theirs. Nothing else.

  Refreshing, isn’t it?

  She was crazy about the Beatles. While her parents were so afraid that living in the world of rock ’n’ roll would somehow compromise her, in all those years there was never an issue.

  “My parents were old-style. They were quite nervous about my job. But there really was nothing for anyone to get nervous about.”

  The Beatles were always sweet and proper toward Kelly, often giving her car rides home. Not only was this girl with the great work ethic deeply revered—by the four boys and their manager; and by the devoted ones, Tony Barrow, Derek Taylor, and Tony Bramwell; and by the enablers, Sam Leach and Allan Williams; and by all the rest of the Liverpool crowd, some of whom stayed behind—but she was loved, really loved by the families. Kelly had close relationships with a number of the Beatles’ relations, including “Uncle” Jim McCartney, Louise and Harry Harrison, Elsie Starkey and Ringo’s stepfather Harry Graves, and Aunt Mimi, John’s guardian angel, although “angel” would be a stretch.

  “Mimi sometimes gets a bad look at,” Kelly told me recently. “She was stern. She was strong. And John needed someone strong. Although she might not have expressed it, I believe she had John’s best interest at heart.”

  Kelly was the link between stardom and real life, and her constant calming presence gave solace to the families who found themselves in this bright spotlight. When the girl was around, the parents felt relief and warmth. She was so friendly as a liaison with the family members that they practically became family. Uncle Jim would take her out to lunch. Brian Epstein, stiff, proper, and sometimes a difficult boss, took her to a gilded box at the Empire Theater to watch the boys feted by the Merseyside fans.

  She was, is, significant—not just some passerby who shook their hands, but whose life was changed, and who made theirs more lively. The revered pressman Tony Barrow says, “She was one of the ‘boys’ behind the curtain who made it possible for them to rise.” He emphasizes the word “boys” with humor and affection.

  Is she a character? No. But she has character, and as I’ve learned through some of the people who would rewrite history to suit their own agendas, it is rare to find such a truthful, unaffected human being who was really there, and knew them intimately. No, not the way you’re thinking, because this woman, funny and natural, has got standards higher than the restaurant she suggests for our meeting.

  It is a starry, clear night, as Kelly strolls around the rooftop restaurant and, with her hand, gives me a visual tour of Merseyside—the lights shining brightly over the Liver Building, the river Mersey glowing from the moon. “Across there, across there, that’s where I live and work . . . that’s the Wirral over there, the Wirral, the peninsula that leads to the Irish Sea. Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Secret-Agent Girl is a grandmother now, and the first thing we do, quite naturally, is exchange cell phone pictures of our grandchildren. Odd, isn’t it, how life changes. “Freda the Believer,” as I call her—the protector, the pride of thousands of fan club members, the girl who stood in the Cavern and watched through the smoke as her guys lit up the crowd—is now a grandmother. And the twenty-one-year-old news guy, who fatefully joined the Beatles on every stop of their North American tours in 1964, 1965, and part of 1966, and kept in touch with them over the years, is now a grandfather.

  Our dinner is very relaxed. Then, at a nearby sofa in a glass-coated lounge, Freda Kelly tells me her story.

  “I adored them. And I really adored their parents, especially Richie’s mother, Elsie. She was salt of the earth.”

  The beaming woman, Freda Kelly, worked for the Fearsome Foursome in a few different roles from 1962 to 1972, a decade, not interrupted by Epstein’s 1967 death.

  She still has the same wide grin of the doting teenager who kept company with the four youngsters who would become famous. For years, reporters and inquisitors of every type have asked her for the inside story. She tells it sparingly. In the age of gossip, the era of “anything goes,” if you’re looking for secrets—sexual scandals, stories of jealousy, sordid tales of life on Mathew Street, what happened behind the curtain of thick cigarette smoke at the Cavern—you won’t be getting it from her. It is that enduring loyalty, mixed with a wonderful sense of humor, that made the Believer a powerful force on John’s band as it marched to greatness.

  While the circumstances of life have changed, Kelly has not. A dedicated grandmother, Kelly remains a loyal and devoted follower of the Beatles, and a devotee of all things Liverpool. What the surviving and missing Beatles never knew was that Kelly would be the unofficial leader of the small but active Beatles community in Liverpool, the enablers, the promoters, the ones who remain with us and were left behind when the four local kids went off into the wild world of stardom and celebrity with all the joy and agony that comes along with it.

  Freda Kelly is an organizer. It could be an eightieth birthday party for Allan Williams, or something involving the Best family—Kelly will be there and be involved. She was the go-to girl for the young “boys” and their families, and she remains the center of communication for all the “Beatle people” who make Merseyside their home, from Roag Best, to the surviving Quarrymen, to many, many others you may have found in this book.

  Her credentials are amazing. After all, how many people could say that John Lennon saved her job, or that “Eppy” was a tough but sensitive boss? How many people could turn a shade of deep red when they talk about being around the boys?

  Tony Barrow met her in 1962 and worked near her in 1963.

  “Nobody, I mean nobody was closer to the group in those early days than Freda,” Barrow says. “She was young, a teenager like their fans, and was the main conduit to the families. It was always interesting that when Brian moved the NEMS empire to London, Freda never left, not because she wouldn’t, but because her parents wouldn’t let her go. So she stayed and became our vital link in Merseyside. And what a link she was. She had energy, devotion, and a cheery disposition.”

  Although there has been minimal contact with the Beatles and the Believer since the seventies, the boys, in their time with her, cherished her. On the Beatles’ 1963 Christmas record, George Harrison gives thanks to “Freda Kelly in Liverpool.” The three other Beatles shout out in response, “Good ol’ Freda!,” which now is the name of a first-class film documentary released in 2013 on her life.

  Back in the sixties, Kelly was an avid fan of music, the boys, and the Cavern:

  I LIVED AND DIED AT THE CAVERN. I WORKED AT A FIRM AROUND THE CORNER ON STANLEY STREET AND I USED TO GO TO ALL THE LUNCHTIME SESSIONS. I REALLY LIKED THE BEATLES, THE WAY THEY LOOKED, THEIR ATTITUDE ON STAGE. IT WASN’T JUST THE MUSIC. IT WAS EVERYTHING ABOUT THEM AND HOW MUCH FUN IT WAS. WHEN I WENT TO WORK I HAD A LOT OF CONTACT WITH THEM, DID THEIR LETTERS, WENT TO THE BANK, AND ALL THAT. THEY ALL LIVED IN THE SOUTH SIDE OF LIVERPOOL AND MY CRUSHES ON THEM WAS DETERMINED BY WHO GAVE ME A RIDE HO
ME SINCE I ALSO LIVED ON THE SOUTH SIDE. THE FIRST CRUSH WAS ON PAUL, AND THEN I MOVED ON TO RICHIE AND GEORGE. JOHN NEVER GAVE ME A RIDE HOME BECAUSE HE WAS BLIND AS A BAT AND DIDN’T DRIVE.

  She adds, “In 1962 they were just ordinary boys with ordinary dreams. No stars. Just guys from the area, trying to make some money, and make people happy with their songs.”

  She worked in the office of Brian Epstein and was a powerful force of optimism at a time when the boys were celebrating success, but worried almost all the time what would happen next. More than a secretary and top fan club organizer, Kelly spent countless hours away from the limelight. She is one of the few who can tell us, in her soft but clear voice, that the boys were not so sure that stardom was really their fate, even in the pulsating days of their most significant year, 1963.

  “They were all worried, especially the parents. But Eppy was never in doubt about the end result, just worried about the present. He knew they were going to be idolized. Although he was a bit of a dreamer, he was also a realist, and he thought their music, combined with their personalities, would take the world. The boys didn’t exactly see it that way. They looked cocky, but, like all young people, they were a bit scared.”

  Kelly wasn’t scared, just a bit in awe, when Eppy offered her the job. She has a wonderful smile, and she smiles broadly as she explains how she got the job.

  “Brian knew I was a follower. [Not the screaming kind, she says.] He had seen me at Beatles gigs. I knew he was the boss at NEMS Limited, the record store. He told me about signing a contract with them. It was a Saturday night at St. Barnabas’s Hall in Penny Lane. I was stunned that he even approached me. I don’t know why. I assumed he knew I had secretarial experience.”

  Over the years, the perky assistant and fan had to hold her emotions in. After all, “I had to be professional,” she remembers. And as Beatlemania spread to the human universe, she witnessed the euphoria of her boss and the gradual emotional decline as the grand years of 1963 to 1966 passed into history.