Copyright © 2000 Omnibus Press
This edition © 2009 Omnibus Press
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ISBN: 978-0-85712-045-8
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contents
Information Page
Foreword
Introduction
Author’s Note
Acknowledgements
pre-1960
1 When I Was A Boy
1960
2 The Hamburg Treadmill
1961
3 Mr Epstein Visits The Cavern
1962
4 “I don’t like your tie”
1963
5 Beatlemania
1964
6 America Falls
1965
7 Help Me If You Can
1966
8 Bigger Than Jesus
1967
9 A SPLENDID TIME
1968
10 A Group Apart
1969
11 Apple Crumble
1970
12 The End
This is a book I’ve always wanted. I’m a Beatles collector, not just a Beatles fan, and I have these piles of old newspapers, magazines, ancient tapes lying all over the house, getting scruffier every day, yellower round the ages, but aren’t we all.
They contain Beatles’ references and quotes, somewhere inside, but I’ve never got round to arranging or even reading them properly. On the odd occasions I have done, to look up something Beatley, I have to plough through boxes and pages of stuff I don’t want to read, about people and things long gone, before I come to the bit I want. Then I find myself sitting there, the hours going by, thinking gawd, this is fascinating, I’d totally forgotten that, how amazing, did they really say this, did they really think that. Then I shove them back in the box, knowing I should sort them properly, file them sensibly. But I never do.
In a way, Keith Badman has done it for me. And for you. What he’s done is track down every remark, every thought The Beatles ever made or recorded back in the Sixties, in even the most obscure or long dead publication or programme, picked the best and most revealing bits and presented them in a chronological and logical fashion.
He is, of course, a Beatles expert, far more expert than me, and has acquired or has access to hundreds of sources I never even knew existed. And because he knows more about The Beatles, factually, than The Beatles probably know about themselves, he knows the good bits, the meaningful bits, the give away bits.
This is valuable and fascinating for two reasons. Firstly, as a record, as a read with a narrative of its own, but also as a corrective. The remaining Beatles now have a habit of being highly selective when they are remembering being a Beatle. Not deliberately. We all do it, forget things, get the order wrong, put our own gloss on history. I have noticed all of The Beatles, including John when he was alive, making simple factual mistakes about themselves – getting the order of their LPs wrong, giving incorrect years for important events.
When I was doing my authorised biography of them, all those years ago, I had terrible trouble getting them to remember how many times, for example, they’d been to Hamburg and the names and order of the clubs they’d played in. They gave contradictory answers. John could hardly remember anything. Yet Hamburg was vital in their life and had happened relatively recently.
I was there when the Sergeant Pepper cover was shot, and made notes, but some years later when I was talking to Neil Aspinall, their road manager and now boss of Apple, who was also there, we had different memories of that evening. So it goes.
It’s good, therefore, to have this record of what was happening and being said by The Beatles and close associates – at the time it was happening. This is not to say it’s all true and correct. We know, for example, that John always said lots of things for effect or to shock. But compared with some of their later selective and polished or faulty and fading memories, this is much nearer the truth. Well, as it appeared to be, at the time …
Hunter Davies, May 2000
At around 7.00pm on Saturday July 6, 1957, John Lennon, then 16, met Paul McCartney, 15, for the first time. The meeting occurred in the church hall of St Peter’s Church in the Liverpool district of Woolton, following two appearances by John’s group The Quarrymen at the Woolton Parish Church Fete.
While her subjects enjoyed the fete, Her Majesty the Queen had watched the men’s doubles finals at Wimbledon, during which Helen Jarvis of Croydon, Surrey, ran onto the court carrying a banner with the words ‘God Save The Queen’ and ‘We Women Electors Don’t Want World Government’ stitched onto it. At a time when deference to the Royal Family was de rigueur, this was an unusually bold gesture. The country was steeped in the conservative values epitomised by its new Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, an old school Tory more at home on the grouse moor than anywhere else.
The previous week in the House of Commons MPs were discussing proposals to raise their annual salary from the present £1,000 to £1,750 a year. Elsewhere Lord Aberdare, the chairman of the National Association of Boys Clubs, talked of his concern about the increased drunkenness among the young. There was a sit-down strike by 34 fitters and welders employed by the Steel Company of Wales at Port Talbot. Lightning, in one of the many thunderstorms which caused damage in various parts of the country that Saturday, killed 14-year-old Albert Timms of Walthamstow, in camp at Mundesley-on-Sea, Norfolk. It was announced that 60 lengths of roads in the London area had been selected for an experimental introduction of a forty miles per hour speed limit. Also on Saturday July 6, the Rent Act came into force, whereby no controlled rent could rise before September in Scotland or October elsewhere.
Currency …
£1 = 20 shillings; and 1 shilling = 12pence. (NB: one shilling is the equivalent of about 5p in today’s currency; one guinea = £1 1s.)
The pound against the dollar …
The pound’s value against the American dollar was £1 = $2.78.
Wages…
At work, the average wage earner is collecting £506 a year and the average salaried employee earns £764. In real terms, the factory floor man is around 27% better off than he had been in 1949 and the office worker, about 10%. Samples of annual pay … A police constable is on £490, a teacher £1,275 (a sum not increased for two years), a nurse £478, and a clerical worker £523. Weekly pay … A train driver is earning £11 1s 6d, a bricklayer £9 18s and a baker £7 15s 3d.
Your shopping basket …
A tin of Nescafé is 3s 6d, a quarter of Typhoo Tea is 1s 9d, Bird’s Custard is 1s 8d, a pound of potatoes is 3d, a large loaf of white bread is 4d, a pint of milk 7d and a Mars bar is 6d.
The cost of houses …
The average house price is £2,330. A six-bedroom house in Chelsea is £12,500; a three double-bedroom country house near West Sussex golf club is £7,000; a three-bedroom suburban house in Chessington, Surrey is £3,280 and a Georgian two-bedroom terraced cottage in Richmond, Surrey is £4,950.
Brand-new cars …
A Ford Anglia deluxe is £400; a Ford Popular is £390; a Rover 60, billed as the most economical Rover of all is £1,298 17s and a 12-horse power Austin car is £820. Vauxhall introduce the new Cresta and Velox cars. Road tax is £12, fully comprehensive insurance is £34, petrol is 4s 11d a gallon, average car mechanic labour charges (per hour) is 15 shillings, and a brand new car tyre is £6 8s 6d each.
Sport …
Althea Gibson, of the United States, became Wimbledon’s first black singles champion, beating Darlene Hard 6–3, 6–2. There were race meetings at Haydock Park, Newmarket, Chepstow and Stockton. Surrey sat at the top of the Cricket County Championship and England was playing the West Indies in the Third Test at Trent Bridge in Nottingham. As ever, the annual Henley Regatta took place at Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.
Holidays …
The travel agents, Cooks, are offering eight days to Paris for £25, six days to the Italian Riviera for £38, and to Spain and Gibraltar for 15 days for £79 and six days in San Sebastian for £39. To stay for one night in one of London’s respected hotels, such as The Bonnington Hotel, will cost 16s 6d for a single room, fully inclusive of dinner, bed and breakfast.
Newspapers & magazines …
Which! magazine chooses the humble aspirin for its first comparative study. They briskly point out that plain, unadvertised, unbranded aspirin BP from Boots, the chemists, costs a mere 4d for 25 tablets as against eleven and a half pence for 26 tablets of the most expensive, soluble, nationally promoted competitor. For curing headaches, there was little to choose between them. The Sunday Times had just risen in price from 4d to 5d. Children’s comics such as Eagle, Girl, Beano and Dandy cost four pence halfpenny.
Cigarettes and alcohol …
A bottle of King George IV old Scotch whisky is 36 shillings; a bottle of Booth’s dry gin is 34s 6d; a bottle of Plymouth 17 higher strength gin, 83% proof, as supplied to the Royal Navy, is 41s 11d. A pint of beer is 1s 4d. A pack of 20 Churchman’s cigarettes is four shillings, two shillings for ten. A two-ounce tin of Craven tobacco is nine shillings ten pence and a box of 25, five-inch Havana cigars cost £7 15s.
Clothes…
At Harrods, a ladies brown Indian Lamb fur coat costs £149 and a shaded Lamb fur coat costs just £27.
Playing at picture houses around the country …
Kenneth More in The Admirable Crichton, Sophia Loren in Aida, Jack Palance and Anthony Perkins in The Lonely Man, George Baker and Frankie Vaughan in These Dangerous Years and Laurence Olivier and Marilyn Monroe in The Prince And The Showgirl.
British records and the charts …
At number one in the new singles chart, published today, is ‘Gambling Man’ by Lonnie Donegan. Elvis Presley is at number two with ‘All Shook Up’. The average price of a 7” single is six shillings, an EP is ten shillings and an LP is £1 14s. To date, Elvis Presley’s top ten hits have been ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ (May 1956), ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ (May 1956), ‘Hound Dog’ (September 1956), ‘Blue Moon’ (November 1956) and ‘Too Much’ (May 1957). Buddy Holly & The Crickets will not enter the British record charts until December this year.
Statistics …
UK figures show that 1.5 million people are living alone, twice as many as in 1931. The prescription charge, per form, is 5d.
Home entertainment …
A Rogers Eungblut upright piano costs 139 guineas, and an HMV portable three wave band three-speed record player radiogram is 22 guineas. There is also a rapid growth in television. ITV, Independent Television, had opened up in 1955, and customers are still falling over themselves to obtain a new TV set (usually made by Pye or Bush). In April, the seven millionth television licence was taken out, just eight months after the six millionth. The eight millionth will follow within weeks. The price of the TV sets range from 69 guineas for a 17-inch screen to 88 guineas for a more impressive 21-inch model.
Television programmes do not begin broadcasting until after 1pm. On Saturday July 6, BBC TV covered the Wimbledon Tennis Championships during the afternoon, beginning broadcasting at 1.40. In the evening, BBC TV screen’s (between 6.40 and 9.00pm), Extra Special starring Shirley Bassey, another episode of the exciting Western stagecoach series Wells Fargo, starring Dale Robertson, Ray Milland in the drama That’s The Man and the Saturday Comedy Hour, featuring The Ted Ray Show. On ITV (between 6.15 and 10.00pm), there is further coverage of the Wimbledon tennis championships, the Adventure Hour presents The Buccaneers, starring Robert Shaw, Wyatt Earp, a Western adventure series starring Hugh O’Brien, the weekly quiz series The £64,000 Challenge, hosted by Robin Bailey, episode four of the six-part drama series Motive For Murder and Val Parnell’s Saturday Show. Regional variations include The Dickie Henderson Show (on ABC Midlands).
The television licence is £3 and the radio licence is £1. BBC radio presents for this evening, on the Home Service at 6:45, Harry Davidson & His Orchestra in the music programme Those Were The Days, and, at 8:00, a fellow called George Martin welcoming you to Holiday Playhouse, which encapsulates a summer season of radio variety. On the Light Programme, at 8:00pm, there is an omnibus edition of The Archers, a drama series about country folk. Over on the Third Programme, at 8:40pm, there is an Australian radio recording of King Arthur In Karachi, a lecture by Geoffrey Sawer, a professor of law at the Australian National University.
It is little wonder then that Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who had been in office for just six months, replacing Sir Anthony Eden, announces, at a cheering Conservative rally in Bradford just two weeks after John met Paul, “Let us be frank about it. Most of our people have never had it so good.”
Very soon, the world of popular music will be feeling that same way about … The Beatles.
On Saturday July 6, 1957, the sun rose at 4:51am …
In May 1999, just weeks after completing my first Omnibus publication, The Beatles After The Break-Up 1970–2000, I began work on this book, which is comprised entirely of Beatles and related interviews. But instead of being a retread of endlessly repeated quotes and stories, I have endeavoured where possible to use only recently recovered original interviews, transcripts and reports. Many are what I would consider to have been lost, many have never been in print form before, and many have been rescued from long lost newspapers, defunct magazines, audio tapes and television and radio shows.
Archive interviews with one or more of The Beatles hold immense fascination. Our hope is that they drop into the conversation the odd trinket of fascinating information which will encourage us to follow the transcript until the very end. More often than not, however, the newspaper and magazine articles feature the Beatle or Beatles simply answering ad nausea the same tiresome questions from hacks who generally couldn’t really care what The Beatles said, so long as they got something for tomorrow morning’s paper. This often meant a story that combined quirky references to their long hair and what they intended to do when The Beatles’ popularity bubble burst. This may have been important for teenagers then, but is of no historical importance 30 years down the line.
Nevertheless, the determined researcher can still find some fascinating stories among the piles and piles of witty – and sometimes irritable – retorts and teenybopper drivel. Look hard enough and you’ll find fascinating references to Shea Stadium, drugs, recordings, touring, projects that never happened, their private life and each other. These stories jumped out at me and from them I have collated the best examples from both common and unknown sources and put them into one large book. It is through these chronological anecdotes that I feel the story of The Beatles can be best told … the story of The Beatles at the time it was happening.
About ninety per cent of Beatles’ transcripts contained within this book are taken from the period they are discussing. The other ten per cent are retrospective and come with the benefit, or disadvantage, of hindsight. Everyone suffers memory lapses through the mists of time and we’re all inclined to brush under the carpet those matters we might consider best forgotten. The Beatles are no different. Their recollections about a song over thirty years on are likely to differ from their thoughts during the excitement in the immediate aftermath of recording it. With this in mind, I hope I have presented the reader with a new insight into The Beatles’ wonderful music. In addition – through the transcripts of numerous American press conferences between 1964 and 1966 – I feel I have exposed the interviewing hell that the group went through on the road, leading in August 1966 to their inevitable decision to give up touring altogether.
For the first time in any Beatles book that I know of, I have compiled in print, almost in their entirety, many of these archive press conferences, most notably for the MBE in 1965, George and Patti’s wedding in 1966, the Yellow Submarine press screening in 1968 and, most significantly, for the launch of Sgt Pepper in 1967. In addition, working from good reliable sources such as original notes and the excellent 1973 book The Longest Cocktail Party by Richard Dilello, I have tried to recreate the madness that was Apple in its freeloading late Sixties heyday, with its colourful assortment of staff and eccentric business practices. Another source of quotes for this book comes through my access to previously thought lost TV and radio appearances, transcripts of which appear here in print form for the very first time.
From my personal involvement in various Beatles conventions around England and Europe since 1986, I have collated interesting quotes from when I sat in, listened and participated in interviews and speeches by various Beatles-related people such as Bob Wooler, Allan Williams, Pete Best, Tony Barrow, Cynthia Lennon and Alistair Taylor, to name but a few. Incidentally, I am honoured to be the person who was responsible for getting The Beatles’ delightful ‘Mr. Fix-it’, Alistair, to appear at his first Beatles convention back in 1988. I’m sure he will remember the infamous bus rides around The Beatles’ sites of London. I have made a point of using interviews and quotes from these people as well as many, many others because I feel they are in a small way just as much an integral part of The Beatles’ history as someone as important as George Martin. However brief their role in The Beatles’ success, or their private life, it is important to recognise everyone who played a part during the group’s collective career.
Whether you’re an obsessive buyer of Beatles books or if this is your first, I hope it offers not just a new insight into the life and work of our greatest ever pop group but also that it stands as a fascinating historical document of twentieth century fun.
Very special thanks, in no particular order, go to Peter Nash (yet again for allowing me unlimited access to one of the truly great Beatles collections in the world), Pete & Fenella Walkling (for additional research that was nothing short of brilliant. Another truly great Beatles collection), Mike Dalton (for his most invaluable help with this book, over and above what was required), Stephen Rouse (for patiently supplying information when requested and for being a great friend for over 20 years), Steve Vallis (the computer whiz-kid, always there when I’m in a bit of a fix), Bob Boyer (from the USA, for his most invaluable stateside research, digging up music cuttings we can only dream about here in England) and Terry Rawlings (my former writing partner in crime).
In addition, special thanks must also go to Andy Davis, Martin O’Gorman (Record Collector), Peter Doggett, Dave Ravenscroft, Neil Sommerville & Mike Websell (BBC), Paul Wayne (Tracks), Andy Neill, Matt Hurwitz (USA), Bill King (USA), Rene Van Haarlem (Holland), Maggi Simpson (Melody Maker), Carol Anne Lennie, Frank Lawson, Billy Heckle & Dave Jones and all at Cavern City Tours, Tony Rouse, Miles, Steve Holmes, Michael Colomb (London), Freda (Kelly) Norris, Francis Peters (Belgium), Greg Schmidt (USA), Carol Mitchell (USA), Dave Carter, Dave Withers, Andy Brooks, Robert Batchelor, Jason Hobbs, Dirk Van Damme (Belgium), Lesley Benson, Brian Durrant, Janice Wallis, Joerg Pieper (Germany), Alan Smith, Lizzie Bravo (Brazil), Anne-Marie Trace, Allison Devine, Jane Asher, Michael Randolph, Dr Bob Heronimus, Laura Gross, Danny Wall, Steve Marinucci of the excellent www Abbey Rd Beatles page and the staff of Upton Lea Postal Services …
A note of thanks must go to the following Beatles-related television and radio programmes, films, etc., who were another most invaluable source for worthwhile quotes: Private Get Back sessions tapes – January 1969, The Beatles’ Anthology 3 EPK, All You Need Is Cash (Channel 4), Beatle Wives (E! Network), The Making Of Sgt Pepper (Disney Channel), The David Frost Show, The Frost Programme (Rediffusion), David Frost Salutes The Beatles (ABC-USA), The Dick Cavett Show, Newsfront, The Tonight Show, The Old Grey Whistle Test, The Making Of Sgt Pepper (Radio 1), The Rock ‘N’ Roll Years (BBC), Eat The Document, Last Live Show, Live In San Francisco, The Beatles Story (Radio 1), The Big Breakfast (Channel 4), Parkinson Meets Paul McCartney (BBC1), The Beatles Abroad (BBC Radio), The Eamonn Andrews Show (ABC Television/Lumiere), Detective Records’ Alistair Taylor tapes, produced by George Gumby and Phil Matthews, and numerous original radio shows, such as Saturday Club and the BBC’s Pop Profile series.
And the same must go to the following most invaluable Beatles-related books: Many Years From Now (Barry Miles), The Beatles – A Diary (Barry Miles), A Twist Of Lennon (Cynthia Lennon), In My Life (Pete Shotton), The Longest Cocktail Party (Richard Dilello), Apple To The Core (McCabe & Schonfield), The Lennon Tapes (Andy Peebles), Lennon Remembers (Jann Wenner), Playboy (David Sheff), The Beatles Chronicles (Mark Lewisohn), The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away (Allan Williams & William Marshall), John Lennon – For The Record (McCabe & Schonfield), Ticket To Ride (Scott Muni), Yesterday – Photographs Of The Beatles (Robert Freeman), All Together Now (Castleman & Podrazik), The Beatles London (Schreuders, Lewisohn & Smith), Epoch Moments And Secrets (Lipach), My Life As A Supreme (Mary Wilson), California Screaming (John Phillips), Elvis And The Beatles (Chris Hutchins), Beatles ‘64–A Hard Day’s Night In America and King Of Clubs (Peter Stringfellow).
And to the following Beatles-related magazine & fanzines: The Beatles Book Monthly, Good Day Sunshine (USA), Beatlefan (USA), Beatles Unlimited (Holland), Every Little Thing (USA), With A Little Help From My Friends (USA), The Q Collectors Beatles special, Mojo (Johnny Black).
The following newspapers, magazines and news agencies: Daily Express, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, The Times, Sun, Sunday Times, Evening Standard, Daily Mirror, Financial Times, Daily Sketch, Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian, Evening News, News Of The World, The People, Bass Player, Guitar, Mersey Beat, New York Times, New York Newsday, Los Angeles Times, The Examiner (USA), San Francisco Chronicle, Time (USA), L’Express (France), New Musical Express, Melody Maker, Disc, Disc & Music Echo, Record Mirror, Rave, Crawdaddy! (USA), Circus (USA), Rolling Stone (USA), Playboy (USA), Bristol Evening Post, Psychic News, Reuters, Associated Press.
The following film, video and audio archives around the world: BBC, ITV (Granada), ITN, Movietone, Pathe, Visnews, CBC (Canada), Much Music (Canada), CBS (USA), ABC (USA), NBC (USA), ABC Television/Lumiere, Channel 7 (Australia), The Westinghouse Group (USA), Education TV (New York), NHK TV (Japan), VH-1 (USA), Channel 4, The Disney Channel, E! Network (USA), Apple, Capitol Records, Capital Radio, BVL Enterprises, Thames Television (Pearson), Rediffusion, D.A. Pennebaker, Warner Brothers, United Artists, Sky News, WNEW Radio (New York), K-NUZ (Houston), Radio London, Radio Luxembourg.
The following libraries and their respective staffs who so excellently assisted me with my research: the BBC Written Archives centre, Slough Public Library, the Westminster reference library and the Colindale newspaper library, plus all the other sources of information, too many to list.
And almost last, but certainly not least, thanks to the following reporters and journalists from around the world who, so wonderfully, interviewed and reported on The Beatles, both individually or as a group, back in the Sixties … “Some are dead and some are living.” In no order of preference whatsoever, I present these (largely) unsung heroes: Peter Pringle, Allan Hall, Ray Connolly, Don Short, James Green, Henry Raynor, Douglas Marlborough, Trudi Pacter, William Hamilton, Hunter Davies, Robin Turner, Mike Hennessey, Alan Walsh, Ray Coleman, Jann Wenner, Murray The K Kaufman, Peter Jones, Richard Robinson, Derek Boltwood, Anne Nightingale, David Frost, Bobby Dale, Alan Freeman, Larry Kane, Derek Jewell, Hugh Nolan, Mike Ledgerwood, Penny Valentine, Jean Shepherd, Vincent Mulchrone, George Harrison, June Harris, David Coleman, Chris Hutchins, Sean O’Mahony, Eamonn Andrews, Derek Johnson, Brian Matthew, Jerry Leighton, Fred Paul, Donald Milner, Bob Farmer, Derek Bowman, David Swanson, Sydney Gruson, William Hamilton, Miranda Ward, Chris Denning, Tony Macarthur, Norrie Drummond, Joe Garagiola, Bob Dawbarn, Richard Williams, Roy Carr, Alan Smith, David Wigg, Thomas Thompson and the hundreds of unidentifiable journalists found at the various press conferences and located on alarmingly bad audio recordings. I salute you all!
Inspirational thanks must go to Arsene Wenger, still the finest football manager in the world, who has continued to make Arsenal FC the greatest club in the land.
Lastly, but by no means least, a very special thanks go to Kathleen, Sheila, Pauline and Michael, and everyone else who has assisted me in my madness in trying to retell differently The Beatles’ story. Sorry if I have missed anyone out. And to Bob Wise, Nikki Lloyd and Chris Charlesworth of Omnibus Press, who commissioned this book. A very special thanks goes to Chris who, yet again, was an absolute tower of strength as we pieced this huge book together and for realising that a book like this needed to be seen by the world. I hope you all enjoy it.
Keith Badman
Berkshire, England
May 2000
John Lennon “My mother played banjo and I remember my granddad playing it when I was very young. She often played it if there was ever one around but there was never one around, because we sold it, because of the hard times. I used to borrow a guitar at first. I couldn’t play, but a pal of mine had one and it fascinated me. I then convinced my mother to buy me a ‘guaranteed not to split’ guitar for ten pounds that we sent away for from one of those mail order firms. I suppose it was a bit crummy when you think about it, but I played it all the time and I got a lot of practice. She taught me banjo chords. If you look at the early photos of the group you can see me playing funny chords. It’s a joke in the family, ‘A guitar’s all right John, but it can’t earn you money.’” (August 1963)
“My auntie said, ‘Ah, this is all very well, but you’ll never earn a living by it. Finish your education, get your GCEs and then you can play your banjo. You need something to fall back on.’”
“When I was 15, my ambition was to write Alice In Wonderland, and to be bigger than Elvis. In our family, the radio was hardly ever on, so I got to ‘pop’ later, not like Paul and George, who had been groomed in pop music coming over the radio all the time. We never had it in the house and I only heard it at other people’s homes. This fellow I knew, called Don Beatty, showed me the name Elvis Presley who was in the charts in the New Musical Express and said he was great. It was ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, and I thought it sounded a bit phoney, you know, ‘Heart-Break Hotel’. But then, when I heard it, it was the end for me! I think I heard it on Radio Luxembourg.”
“I was obviously very musical from a very early age and I often just wonder why nobody in my family never done anything about it, may be ‘cos nobody could afford it. After a while we formed The Quarry Men with some lads named Eric Griffiths, Pete Shotton, my best mate at school, and myself. We also had a lad named Gary who is now an architect, and somebody else named Ivan. Ivan went to the same school as Paul and he brought him along one day when we were playing at a garden fete.” (August 1963)
“When Paul and I started writing stuff, we did it in A because we thought that was the key Buddy Holly did all his songs in. Holly was a big thing then, an inspiration, sort of.”
“Paul and I hit it off right away. I was just a little bit worried because my old mates were going and new people, like Paul and George were joining, but we soon got used to each other. I think I went a bit wild when I was 14. I was just drifting. I wouldn’t study at school, and when I was put in for nine GCEs, I was a hopeless failure. My whole school life was a case of ‘I couldn’t care less!’ It was just a joke as far as I was concerned. Art was the only thing I could do, and my headmaster told me that if I didn’t go to art school, I might as well give up life! I wasn’t really keen. I thought it would be a crowd of old men, but I should make the effort to try and make something of myself. I stayed for five years doing commercial art. Frankly I found it always as bad as maths and science, and I loathed these!” (August 1963)
Paul McCartney “I didn’t start in a very spectacular way. On a Sunday I remember I used to listen to The Billy Cotton Band Show on the radio, and everything really, except classical, which we used to turn off. When you are about 11, you start to think about what’s going to happen to you. I’ve often thought that I’d never end up in an ordinary job. My plan was to go on playing the clubs until I reached 25, a ripe old age, and then go to John’s art college, and hang on there for a couple of years.” (August 1963)
“I have been painting since I was twelve. In fact, I won a prize at school, it was a big action thing. I’d get these big six-foot rolls of paper and kneel down on the floor and blow paint all over them. But after an hour of that, you’d get all dizzy and funny, and you’d feel, ‘Yeah man! I’m going high, baby.’” (1964)
“I never remember wanting to be anything. I never had any ambitions like driving a train. I suppose one of the things that formed my character was never being under the thumb of authority. My mum died when I was 14, and my dad was the big influence. He was a great believer in moderation. ‘Never overdo it,’ he’d say. ‘Have a drink, but don’t be an alcoholic. Have a cigarette, but don’t be a cancer case.’”
“My Dad was a pianist by ear and then a trumpeter until his teeth gave out. He was a good pianist, you know, but he would never teach me, because he felt that you should learn properly. It was a bit of a drag, because I never did end up learning properly. I suppose he did teach me, by ear, because a lot of people have said that I do chords a lot like he used to do. I’m sure I picked it up over the years.”
“I got my first guitar when I was 15, and I just used to fool around with it, more or less. As time went by though, I got more interested. I used to be influenced by Elvis, Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins, in the old days. I love them. I can’t really sing like them, but I like them. Dad used to play the piano and he would teach us things like harmony, and that learning helped me write my first song, called ‘I Lost My Little Girl’, when I was 14. It had just three chords, G, G7 and C. I just used to make them up.”
“I was still 15 when I met John at a village fete in Woolton in Liverpool. He was playing with a couple of fellows and I asked if I could join him. That’s how it started really. We used to sag off school together and we’d go back to my house when there was no one in during the afternoon. We’d smoke Twinings Tea in a pipe. It didn’t taste too bad actually. We’d sit around, smoking, and have a little bash on the piano. We’d write mostly Buddy Holly type songs, because they used to have the least chords. We wrote about 100 songs then, before ‘Love Me Do’ was published. Songs called ‘Too Bad About Sorrows’ and ‘Just Fun.’”
“I suppose we went from strength to strength. We always knew that we were that little bit special. We had worked with other bands, but we were slightly more ‘studenty’ than the average bands around at the time. So, we had that little edge. We were a little bit more arty. John had been to art college, and George and I had gone to this Grammar school. I kind of liked poetry and I think it kind of gave us an edge somehow. Ringo was simply the best drummer in Liverpool. He also had native wit. He didn’t know when he was being funny. The three of us went to Grammar school, but Ringo didn’t. He said he only went to school for three days because of this bad operation he had when he was a kid. Ringo had peritonitis. His stomach has a lot of scars on it. His parents were told that he died at age three, so with Ringo everything’s a bonus.”
“I had two jobs, once I was in coil-winding and the second job I was in, I was a second man on a lorry.”
George Harrison “At school I was a very bad pupil, in fact, I was one of the worst pupils they ever had in the school. At the time I was more into having a good time. The only thing I liked at school was art. I realise now that was because the teacher was a nice fellow and he would come round and say, ‘Why don’t you do it this way, or that way.’ The others would just shout at you and give you a belt in the gob! Which did not help. I’d met Paul while I was at school and we both had this interest in guitars. When I first wanted a guitar, my mother bought me this very cheap guitar worth £3 10s. She didn’t mind that I used to stay up until two in the morning polishing my guitar and trying to learn how to play.”
“The first thing I can remember hearing was ‘Meatball’ and I don’t know who did it. I was so knocked out. Then next, I remember people like Kay Starr, Ruby Murray, Frankie Laine, Johnny Ray and all that thing that was going on in the late Forties and early Fifties, and the first thing that grasped me was ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ by Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and those things. That led to my time in the band. One of the greatest people to impress me was Buddy Holly. He sang, wrote his own tunes and he was a guitar player, and he was very good as a guitar player. So, I thought about learning a guitar. My first guitar cost me £2 10 shillings when I was fourteen. I got a manual and it showed me all the wrong chords! I thought, ‘Stupid buggars, they’ve given me a manual which doesn’t show me all the notes.’ But, with Buddy Holly, his guitar playing opened up a new world. Buddy Holly was sensational and a little bit of that rubbed off. The first route that meant anything, musically speaking, was riding down a road, on my bike, hearing ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ coming out of someone’s house.”
“Paul actually had a trumpet first. I remember he always used to be playing ‘When The Saints Come Marching In’, on and on, always ‘The Saints’. Paul realised that he wasn’t going to be able to sing and play the trumpet at the same time, so he traded it in and got a guitar. In those days though, they didn’t cater for left-handed guitarists, so he had to buy an ordinary one and then play the chords back to front. It was a scream, really, because, instead of strumming the strings down, he had to scratch them up from the bottom.”
“I stopped going to church when I was 13, may be 12, when I realised it was about what Harry Jones’s Sunday suit looked like. My dad used to play guitar in the merchant navy, just for his own amusement. I have a brother who was in a choir once. I started playing guitar when I was 14, actually Lonnie Donegan was my great hero then. I suppose it was hearing Lonnie that made me want to play guitar.”
“I didn’t realise, until recently, that John and I both went to the same primary school, Dovedale Road. At one time, I used to have a group of my own called The Rebels, or some such name. I remember when Paul and I used to play guitar and John would just sing without any instrument. We were on a Buddy Holly kick in those days, with numbers like ‘Think It Over’ and ‘It’s So Easy’. We did the Carrol Levis discoveries show in Manchester once, and Billy Fury was at the first audition. I think we were Johnny & The Moondogs at that particular time. You were judged by the audience applause, you know, but we had to catch a train home before the end. We never did find out if we’d won, but Billy passed his audition I know that.” (1964/1987)
“When I left school, I was an apprentice electrician for about four months. I remember asking my big brother would you pack in work and have a go at music if you were me, and he said, ‘Well, you might as well, you never know what might happen, and if you don’t, you are not going to lose anything by it.’ The others, John was at art college and Paul was doing an extra year at school, so at the end of the four months we were all out of school and then we got the opportunity to go to Scotland and then on to Hamburg and then, after that, I forgot about the nine-to-five job.” (1964)
Ringo Starr “I took my first photograph when I was five months old. Apart from taking it, I also ate it! Which was most selfish of me, because there was a nasty gap in my mother’s album of album snaps for ages afterwards. It wasn’t filled until dad got around to taking a picture of me trying to ride a neighbour’s pet poodle.” (1964)
“When I was about 14, I was in hospital and, to keep us happy, they had a ward band and a teacher used to come along and she put up a big board with all yellow dots and red dots. When she pointed to red dots, yellow dots or green dots, the triangles or drums would play. It was a funny little band, and I would never play unless she gave me a drum. So I used to fight for the drums. That was when I was first interested in drums and then I used to bang on the locker beside my bed. I’d always liked the idea of drumming, and when I heard any music I used to tap on things. When I came home from hospital, I used to put little bits of wires on top of biscuit tins and bash them with bits of firewood.” (1964)
“When I was 18, for Christmas, my mum and dad got me my first drum kit which cost 30 bob and had a huge one-sided bass drum which used to drive the neighbours all mad. It was a sort of mixture of different parts, mostly about 25 years old, but I was really proud. Every time I got behind it, it used to hide me, what with me being little and the drum being a fantastic size. I wouldn’t be surprised if you told me it was ten feet across! I eventually had three drum lessons once I got interested. I went to this little man who was in this house and he played drums and he told me to get a manuscript. He wrote it all down and I never went back after that, because I couldn’t be bothered. It was too routine for me, parradiddles and all that.” (1964)
“I wanted a bike and I swapped it for a steering cart and my mother would say, ‘I paid a lot of money for that bike and some kid made that steering cart in his back yard.’ I kept wanting things until I got them. I was never hungry and I was never cold. I’m the only child. People say I must have been spoilt, but I wasn’t. My mother went out to work and she was the only one getting any money, so that was the reason I never asked for big things. I only asked for little things.”
“I was on the dole when I was 20. There wasn’t anything for me to stick around for, so a mate and I decided we’d emigrate to Houston in Texas, because Lightin’ Hopkins lived there, and we all liked his stuff. We even went as far as getting the emigration forms to fill in. But, we took one look at the things they wanted to know, and packed in the whole idea. Questions like, ‘Was your grandfather’s uncle’s best friend a dog?’ And all that. We just laughed and packed it in.”
Saturday, 6 July
At St Peter’s Church, Woolton in Liverpool, 15-year-old Paul McCartney meets John Lennon at the Woolton Village Fete …
Pete Shotton, guitarist with John’s group, The Quarry Men “We did a gig in Woolton for the annual village fete, which included the crowning of the Rose Queen, where they’d pick a pretty girl and dress her up. There was also a fun fair going on and, in the evening, over the road in the village hall, they’d have a dance and we were the magnificent entertainment. A friend of ours, Ivan Vaughan, had brought a friend along who, we were told, could play the guitar. So, we got down off the stage and Ivan introduced us. ‘This is Paul McCartney,’ he said. Paul was this chubby faced kid and we all grunted at each other for a bit, in an awkward silence.”
Rod Davis, the banjo player with The Quarry Men “John’s meeting with Paul wasn’t until the evening, in the Church hall kitchen, when another school friend, Ivan Vaughan, brought Paul along.”
Paul “We had a friend in common, Ivan Vaughan, who went to school with George and I, and he used to be in one of those little skiffle groups that John was in. He was known as ‘Jive With Ive, The Ace On The Bass’, and he used to play on one of those tea-chest basses, you know, a bit of string on a broom handle that was attached to a tea-chest. He said to me, ‘You should come along to this thing. This group’s playing and my mate John’s in it.’ This was the Woolton Village Fete. So, I went along and I saw this group on a little stage and the singer, who was John, just looked like he had something. The group did their first thing and they had their first break, and they were due to do the evening thing, so the break was the opportunity for the group to get drunk, really.”
Len Garry, the bassist with The Quarry Men “We were sitting round a table having coffee when Ivan and Paul came in. McCartney was wearing a white jacket and black drainpipes. There was a bit of a stony atmosphere at first and I think Ivan had told John about Paul being a great guitarist, so he felt a bit threatened.”
Pete Shotton “Both John and Paul acted almost stand-offish. John was notoriously wary of strangers anyway, and held back, standing his ground. But Paul impressed me with his cool reserve. Shy he wasn’t! The awkward silence was broken when he got out his guitar and began to play.”
Paul “John had a few beers and I finally said ‘Hello’ to him. We were backstage and John was leaning over me with this beery breath. One of them leant me their guitar and I had to turn it round because I’m left-handed, but because I had a mate who was right-handed, I had learnt to play upside down, so that was a little bit impressive. But I also knew the words to this song that they all loved and didn’t know the words, and that was enough to get me in. It was called ‘Twenty Flight Rock’ by Eddie Cochran.”
John “I had a group. I was the singer and the leader. I met Paul and I made the decision whether to have him in the group. Was it better to have a guy who was better than the people I had in, obviously, or not? To make the group stronger or let me be stronger? That decision was to let Paul in and make the group stronger.”
Pete Shotton “Once Paul had gone, John asked me what I thought of him and I said, ‘I like him.’ John then asked me what I thought about Paul joining the group. I said, ‘It’s OK with me, that’s if you want him in and he wants to join.’”
Friday, 18 October
Paul makes his live concert début with The Quarry Men at the New Clubmoor Hall in Norris Green, Liverpool …
Paul “I went into The Quarry Men as the lead guitarist really, because I wasn’t bad on guitar. When I wasn’t onstage I was even better, but when I got up on stage, my fingers all went stiff. I had a big solo, on the song ‘Guitar Boogie’, and when it came to my bit … I blew it! I just blew it! I couldn’t play at all and I got terribly embarrassed. My fingers found themselves underneath the strings instead of on top of them. So I vowed that first night that that was the end of my career as the lead guitarist. I goofed on that one terribly and so, from then on, I was on rhythm guitar.”
Thursday, 6 February
A 14-year-old George meets The Quarry Men for the first time during their concert at Wilson Hall, in Garston, Liverpool …
George “I had been invited to see them play several times by Paul, but for some reason, I had never got round to it. I remember being very impressed by John’s big, thick, sideboards and Teddy Boy clothes. He was a terribly sarcastic bugger from day one, but I never backed down from him. He never intimidated me. Whenever he had a go at me, I just gave him a little bit of his own, right back.”
Following the concert, John accompanies Paul and George on a part of their bus journey home …
Paul “George was far ahead of us as a guitarist, but that isn’t saying very much, because we were raw beginners ourselves. He slipped quietly into one of the seats on the almost empty bus we were on, took out his guitar, and went right into ‘Raunchy’. Some days later, I asked John, ‘Well, what do you think about George?’ He gave it a second or two, and then he replied, ‘Yeah, man, he’d be great,’ and that was it. George was in.”
George “John, Paul and I would go skiffling in each other’s houses, and there was Cliff Richard who was really big. We would go and see him, and all these American stars who would come over, and I would lie in bed at night and I’d lie there and I just knew that something good was going to happen. When we used to feel particularly silly, in a funny mood, John used to say, ‘Where are we going, fellows?’ in that dopey American thing and we’d reply, ‘To the top, Johnny.’ And he’d say, ‘Where’s the top?’ And we’d say, ‘To the toppermost of the poppermost, Johnny.’ But, we had done sod all, we hadn’t done anything!”
John “I couldn’t be bothered with him (George) when he first came around. He used to follow me around like a bloody kid, hanging around all the time. I couldn’t be bothered. He was a kid who played guitar and he was a friend of Paul’s which made it all easier. It took me years to come around to him, to start considering him as an equal or anything …
” … He was like a disciple of mine when we started. I was already an art student when Paul and George were still in grammar school. There is a vast difference between being in High School and being in college, and I was already in college and already had sexual relationships, already drank and did a lot things like that.”
George “We found out that John didn’t have a proper guitar. He just had a weird old thing that he used to pluck out a few banjo chords that his mother had taught him. Anyway, he started learning to play on Paul’s guitar which, by this time, had been converted for a left-handed player, and that left John with a problem. Just like Paul, he had to learn to playback-to-front chords, beating his fingers up and over instead of down. Naturally, we made a terrible old sound in those days. We really did.” (July 1964)
Wednesday, 15 July
In Liverpool, John’s mother Julia dies at a bus stop in Menlove Avenue, after being struck by a Standard Vanguard being driven by the off-duty policeman Eric Clague. She had been visiting Aunt Mimi Smith …
Mimi “I always went out with her to the bus stop, but this night she left early, at twenty to ten. She went out on her own and a minute later there was a terrible screeching.”
Eric Clague “Mrs Lennon just ran straight out in front of me. I just couldn’t avoid her. I was not speeding. I swear it. It was just one of those terrible things that happen.”
John “We were sitting waiting for her to come home. Twitchy (Julia’s new man friend, John Dykins) and me was wondering why she was so late. The copper came to the door to tell us. It was just like it’s supposed to be, you know, the way it is in the films, asking if I was her son and all that. Then he told us, and we both went white. It was the worst thing that could happen to me. We’d caught up so much in just a few years. We could, at last, communicate. We got on. She was great. I thought, ‘Fuck! Fuck it! Fuck it! That’s really fucked everything. I’ve no responsibility to anyone now!’”
Paul “John was devastated. He loved his mum more than anything, but at that age, you’re not allowed to be devastated, particularly not teenage boys. You just shrug it off. I know he had private tears. It’s not that either of us were remotely hard-hearted about it, it shattered us, but we knew that you had to get on with your life. We were like wounded animals and, just by looking at each other, we knew the pain that we were feeling, but we weren’t going to break down and cry because you just didn’t do that kind of thing.”
AUGUST
Paul and George hitchhike their way around Britain …
Paul