by Larry Kane
It worked.
At their Seattle hotel in 1964, the boys pissed on the rug of their suite after hearing that the staff wanted to cut it up and sell it to fans.
When reporters asked Taylor about this, he replied, “In the case of the alleged moisture on the floor covering, I can neither confirm nor deny. The truth is that . . . well . . . well . . . I think I have to go now!” Taylor was a wonderful teaser.
Both Derek Taylor and the amazing Tony Barrow had a finite understanding of how to promote the aura of the Beatles. Taylor was especially interested in visuals. And both men continued employing a technique mentioned earlier. In most of the movie-theater concerts, they would allow limited film by the newsreel photographers of the day. The photojournalists were encouraged to show the delirious crowds, and in some cases, the fans chasing cars down the street. By the time the boys got to America in 1964, American fans were quite ready to emulate the UK hysteria—and they did, with gusto. There is no doubt that the two press giants were able to stage the filming of the wildness and love of the crowds. Was it a distorted look? Quite the contrary. The original newsreel footage in the UK, mostly of smaller crowds and smaller venues than the Beatles would face in America, did show a realistic sense of the rampages and uncontrolled crowds that followed the boys and their music. The images gave a picture of emotion, regardless of the size of the crowd. Imagine the work of two great and former writers and promotion men carefully serving as gatekeepers to the British press. The Beatles were already the stuff of legend, but the pictures reinforced their imagery.
There is no question that Taylor channeled the Beatles in his appearance and style. For that, he would always get heat. Epstein was especially wary of his style. But as a pen pal, a buddy of sorts, and a real crowd-pleaser, Taylor did the job both on stage and off.
CHAPTER THIRTY
MOMENTUM WITH A ROYAL AND FOREIGN TOUCH
“Suddenly, they were a real happening. Even the adults were digging them. As I said, ‘It was big.’ . . . They were about seven to eight years older than me, but the shoes, the hair, the dynamic style . . . all of that became a standard for the times. I just thought, ‘If only I could play with them . . .’”
—Alan White, drummer for the band Yes and for the Plastic Ono Band
THERE WERE TRIUMPHS AND DANGER LURKING BEHIND THE SCENES IN THE FALL OF 1963.
Many dates have been described as the beginning of Beatlemania, but only one really qualifies, and that is October 13, 1963, when the Beatles appeared on the TV show Live at the London Palladium. The national showcase was a blockbuster, and the British press covered the event in the Monday papers as a major cultural event.
Part of the success was due to the mother of all photo ops. “Looking back,” Tony Barrow says, “I would like to have taken credit for staging this event, and some press agents would have said they did stage it, but I had nothing to do with it.”
“It” was a spontaneous near-riot near the Palladium’s entrances, with teenage girls and boys straining the patience of usually reserved London police officers, resembling a modern-day flash mob, moving back and forth in waves and hoping that strength in numbers would help them get to the boys.
The press responded in kind with Monday headlines like “Beatles Fever,” and yes, the first occasion of the printed word in the national media—“Beatlemania.” The photos and the story of this new phase of fever were noticed by the nation.
Alan White, future drummer of the progressive rock group Yes and John Lennon’s drummer on the immortal track “Imagine,” was fourteen when he saw the show, and read the papers. He chose his career path early, first as a guitarist, then as a drummer. In 1963, he was looking for inspiration at all levels, and the ascent of the Beatles got him excited and inspired him to make a career of it.
“I was so thrilled. Four northern boys [Alan was from northern England] suddenly the rage of the nation. Like all young musicians, I thought that could be me out there. And they were so good. Watching them on TV, listening to the records.”
During a chat with me before a Yes gig in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 2010, White remembered the impact of that appearance.
“Suddenly, they were a real happening. Even the adults were digging them. As I said, ‘It was big.’ . . . They were about seven to eight years older than me, but the shoes, the hair, the dynamic style . . . all of that became a standard for the times. I just thought, ‘If only I could play with them . . .’”
White got his wish when he received a call from John six years later, inviting him to Toronto for the “Live Peace” effort, along with Eric Clapton and, back again with John, old friend from Hamburg Klaus Voorman. Two years later, White would play the drums on “Imagine.”
“I lived the dream of every young musician. When I got that call from John, who had seen me in some clubs in London, I thought it was a prank. I said, ‘No way it is John Lennon on the phone.’ But it was.”
So, really, along with the music, the Palladium appearance was an emotional moment for White, and for the nation. People in Liverpool watched with awe. After all, Tony Bramwell remembers, “It was those same boys at Litherland Town Hall in December of 1960, the friend [George Harrison on the number 61 bus], but now they were on the national TV.”
Ten days after the Palladium, there was a journey that proved beyond doubt that John, Paul, George, and Ringo had gone international—arriving for their first real foreign tour, in Sweden. If you don’t count Hamburg, which the Beatles first visited as an unknown band, Sweden was their first journey overseas as a hit group.
Behind the scenes, though, the boys’ obsession with sex almost got out of control.
Mal Evans remembered the “selection process”: “There were many beautiful girls in Stockholm, but I was getting a bit upset because the guys were taking too many chances, going where they shouldn’t have been going.”
“Where is that?” I asked.
“Not going to say,” Mal replied, “not even to you, Larry.”
Turns out that Brian Epstein was also concerned, for fear that winding up with more teenagers would be a scandal. But Neil Aspinall, always loyal, and John, always looking, convinced Epstein that “all was in order.” That was Epstein’s version of things.
The “selection process,” as Mal described it to me, was fairly organized: find the young women, screen them to determine their safety and maturity, and make sure their ages were appropriate. How Mal and others could make those judgments always fascinated me. As it turns out, the episode in Las Vegas with the young girls was the closest to a full-blown scandal, even though nothing happened. But it is very obvious that in the contemporary environment, the Beatles and their buddies would never have survived the tabloid press. That they did survive the press in 1963, and later when I toured with them over three summers, is a testament to the protectionism of Neil Aspinall and the guile of Mal Evans, and their intense loyalty to the boys. There were “tell-all” books published that presumed to know how the boys “operated,” but none came from the immediate traveling circle. Tony Barrow, Derek Taylor, and Tony Bramwell all wrote memoirs, but none included any play-by-play of the boys’ sex lives. In the modern day, that would be expected, but not so in the sixties.
Bramwell, one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met in the entertainment world, does admit that sometimes the fruits of celebrity were shared, especially in the early rush of fame in 1963. “We all shagged the same people, at times. And the boys had a great time in Sweden.”
Outside of what might have been unnecessary risk-taking, the Beatles were a big hit in Sweden, an omen that the American tours might also be a hit. The biggest problem, according to Aspinall, was that “local authorities were not ready for the security measures that were necessary,” though some of the concert halls were not sold out. One newspaper reported that even though there were some empty seats, the people who were there were “in a state of craziness.”
The Sweden tour—nine concerts in five days—was co
vered as a huge international success. In their lives, news coverage played a big part in the “avalanche” of success. When the Beatles returned to London on October 31, 1963, 20,000 fans were waiting at the airport. Epstein remembered, “The boys thought the crowd was waiting for the queen. They couldn’t believe they were there for them.”
Though the queen was not there, the Beatles would soon be breathing the same air as royalty.
Back home, safely on British soil, the Beatles got ready for the biggest show of all, one that cemented their early success and accelerated the tremendous wave of national pride that was already rolling through Britain. The Beatles had received an invitation from Buckingham Palace to entertain at the Royal Command Performance at the Prince of Wales Theater in London’s West End. The charity gala was a tradition going back to the Victorian era. The queen would be there, along with other royalty and members of high society.
It was not a solo engagement—there were nineteen acts on the bill—but it may have been the boys’ most important gig yet. Also on the bill was American entertainer Sophie Tucker, movie icon Marlene Dietrich, and others. Would the boys win over England’s society crowd, and how would the royal family accept the phenoms of the North?
Despite urgings from Epstein to tone it down, the boys stuck true to form, ending a four-song set with the always raucous “Twist and Shout.”
Mal Evans was more nervous than he would be the night he met Elvis in the summer of 1965 when, he later told me, “Met me idol. I was a fan all the way.”
In the fancy dressing room, Mal remembered, “I was nearly paralyzed—all those royals out there. Even [usually unflappable] Neil was very, very nervous.”
While Mal and Aspinall and George and Ringo were “terrified,” according to Mal, Epstein was nearly a “wreck.”
He was nervous that John would say something. And he was right; there turned out to be a “something.” Looking upbeat and totally animated, the former milkman of Menlove Avenue addressed the well-heeled audience on his own terms.
“Will people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? All the rest of you, if you’ll just rattle your jewelry . . .”
Laughter filled the house. The crowd, roused by young people in the audience, saved their most strident applause for the Beatles.
The Daily Mail proclaimed in its headline, “The Royal Box Was Stomping.” And the Daily Express noted, “Night of Triumph for Four Young Men.”
The Daily Mirror was the one Fleet Street tabloid that from the beginning tried to “own” the Beatles. The newspaper had 6 million readers, and they were treated to a magnanimous review, with the use of the word “Beatlemania” and several image-making lines:
“It’s plain to see why these four cheeky energetic lads from Liverpool go down so big.”
“They’re young, new. They’re high spirited. . . . They don’t have to rely on off-colour jokes about homos for their fun.”
Incredible words from today’s perspective, and even more incredible considering their authors were unaware of Epstein’s sexual preference and John’s incessant obsession with satirizing homosexuals, who were not referred to as “gay,” but as something more offensive.
Obviously, neither Tony Barrow nor Derek Taylor wrote the story. Barrow, though, knew the impact that the concert would provide. Though Queen Elizabeth II was pregnant and could not attend, her mother, also known as Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, was there, along with her daughter, the popular Princess Margaret, and her husband, the photographer Lord Snowden.
Once again, writer and press chief Tony Barrow was overwhelmed.
“The combination of the Palladium, TV, the first full foreign tour to Sweden, and the Royal Performance on November 4th, had already built up bits and pieces of major publicity in America. It was all an unstoppable barrage, and since we were planning a brief visit to the US in February, this was more than we could ask for.”
Add to all of this Epstein’s master plan for nonstop concerts in December at cinemas all across Britain, and the charge of the Beatles was in manic mode.
The year 1963—early, mid, and as you will learn, much later—was the biggest year for the boys and Brian. For Tony Barrow, there were seminal moments when everything came together.
THE FAVORITE MOMENTS WERE WHEN THE SINGLES “PLEASE PLEASE ME,” AND THEN “FROM ME TO YOU,” BECAME NUMBER-ONE HITS IN THE UK. LATER WE BECAME WELL USED TO THE GROUP TAKING EACH RELEASE ALMOST AUTOMATICALLY TO THE TOP, AND THERE WAS NEVER THE SAME THRILL FOR US; IT BECAME AN EXPECTATION. I HAVE ALWAYS DATED THE BIRTH OF BEATLEMANIA TO THE AUTUMN OF THAT YEAR WHEN WE GOT A HUGE AMOUNT OF MEDIA PUBLICITY IN THE WAKE OF THE BEATLES’ APPEARANCE ON UK TELEVISION’S SUNDAY NIGHT AT THE LONDON PALLADIUM—WHEN PRESS PHOTOGRAPHERS CAPTURED THE ENORMOUSLY EXCITING ATMOSPHERE OF THE FANS GATHERING OUTSIDE THE THEATER IN LONDON’S ARGYLL STREET—FOLLOWED ONLY A FEW WEEKS LATER BY THE SECOND BURST OF PUBLICITY THAT SURROUNDED THE GROUP’S APPEARANCE IN THE 1963 ROYAL VARIETY PERFORMANCE, WHICH INCLUDED JOHN’S CHEEKY REQUEST FOR PEOPLE TO “RATTLE THEIR JEWELRY.”
What about The boys?
“It was so nonstop, we were so tired,” Barrow said.
“So much to do and so little time to do it,” John Lennon remarked months later.
“The Palladium was exciting,” Paul McCartney recalled. “The queen’s concert . . . well, that was highbrow, and we were nervous. It was a case of ‘touch me, is this really happening?’”
Back home, Allan Williams was incredulous. Could this be happening? In a recent late-morning conversation at the Hard Day’s Night Hotel, Williams’s cheery cheeks turn flush, as he remembers:
“We used to have a very important national television program every Sunday. Live at the Sunday Palladium or something like that, and I was watching that show [when] the Beatles came on, and they were sensational, and I thought, ‘Fuckin’ hell, that’s my group!’ As they progressed, I was quite pleased, because even though I was only a small item in life, at least I was a cog in the wheel of . . . what was to become one of the most famous pop groups in the world.”
The pioneers in Liverpool—Sam Leach, Allan Williams, Bob Wooler, Brian Kelly, the somewhat angry Mona Best, the family members—were in a state of shock, disbelief, and in some cases, joy. And John’s sibling states the simple fact:
“That was my brother.”
The very intense Julia Baird (Lennon) sips her soda, her eyes wandering around the back room of the new Cavern, remembering the excitement in 1963.
“This was the same boy who danced with our mother, lived under the tyranny of Mimi, skipped school—the irreverent but passionate older sibling. He was leading the group that started as a ragtag skiffle gang. He was famous. All of England was into him. It was disbelief. But it was so much fun. I wished Mother would have been around to see this, to see where that first guitar had taken him.”
Mal Evans, the unfortunate Mal, recalled the fall of ’63 as we reminisced in 1966.
“For Neil and me and Brian, it was, you know, the most amazing time. We went from helping them, to driving them, to protecting them. I tried to be a gentle lad, but now I had to use my size to keep people away. And now we thought, ‘What would happen in America?’”
The seeds for that journey were planted.
That October and November were indeed sensational, but in the offices of some Hollywood executives, the stage had been set for a dramatic sequence of events in a December to remember. And it all happened before the boys’ feet touched American soil.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
A DECEMBER TO REMEMBER—THE END OR THE BEGINNING?
“Could I have imagined a future like that? Who could? But, looking back, I knew they had something special, and a level of compassion that was truly unusual for a band on the move.”
—Joe Ankrah, Beatles friend whose band was pushed through racial barriers by the boys
“I knew they were now beyond Merseyside, but I never knew they would go that far.”
—Billy J. Kramer, on his fee
lings about the group in late 1963
DECEMBER 1963 HAD ONLY ONE SIMILARITY TO THAT BLEAK, DEPRESSING, and uncertain December 1960 in the aftermath of Hamburg—the weather was damp and cold.
Three years earlier, a chance appearance at Litherland Town Hall revived the sagging Beatles, with the screams of the fans, the sudden chemistry, and the animal instincts flowing from the stage reigniting that one element of life that you can’t put a price on: hope. After all, December 1960 was the month the boys almost called it quits.
Now, three years later, Brian Epstein’s Beatles were on the verge of the unthinkable—world domination—although again, even in late 1963, there were doubts.
“If we couldn’t make it in America, it would be another setback. America would be the key,” John Lennon shared with me almost exactly a year after December 1963.
If there was any problem facing the boys, it was the schedule—at least 223 concerts in 1963, and twenty in December alone, from De Montfort Hall in Leicester on December 1 to New Year’s Eve at the Astoria Cinema in London, where they continued their Christmas show for the first eleven days of 1964. That’s thirty-one concerts in forty-two days. And one day later, January 12, they finished with a concert at the London Palladium, the scene of an earlier nationwide TV spectacle. They had just three days left before heading to Europe. There were few breaks in their schedule, rare time off, and the suffocating, almost paralyzing life of arrival, hotel, concert venue, hotel, and departure, complicated by the reality that the boys were known to stay up late, discover sunrise at 11 a.m., and eat poorly. All that, combined with heavy smoking and bouts of heavy drinking, made for an unhealthy environment.
