Post by Jai Guru Deva on Nov 1, 2006 2:19:35 GMT -5
THE BEATLES MIGHT BE BIG
October 01, 2006 12:00am
Article from: Sunday Herald
Beatles article
Realising a new group called The Beatles might be something special, Hunter Davies went on the long and winding road to writing a biography.
TO BE honest, I didn't take much notice of Love Me Do when it came out in October 1962, but then few people did. And when I first heard John Lennon copying the Americans and screaming his way through Twist And Shout, it gave me a headache.
It was only when I heard Please Please Me and I Want To Hold Your Hand that I started to realise that this new group called The Beatles might be something a little special. You could hear their Liverpool accents by now and, as I learned more about them, I identified with their background, their grammar schools and council houses. They were near my age -- I was just four years older than John -- and they seemed to be singing songs for me, about my experiences.
Some time early in 1964, I went to watch them working on their first film, A Hard Day's Night, at a theatre in Charlotte St, London.
I was hoping to get a paragraph for the gossip column I was working on. I never did.
Two years later, in August 1966, I was in charge of the column and I could write almost what I liked. Eleanor Rigby had come out and I thought the lyrics were as good as any modern poetry. Or so I maintained, without of course knowing much about modern poetry.
I went to see Paul McCartney at his house in Cavendish Ave, St John's Wood. I presumed, from the voice singing, that he had written it, though in those days no one bothered to separate a Lennon-McCartney song.
I got on well with him, so I thought, and we talked about the background to several other of his songs.
The papers were obsessed by Beatlemania, but I realised there was so much I didn't know. I put to him my idea. How about a book about The Beatles? A serious attempt to get it all down, once and for all, so that in the future when people ask the same dopey questions, he could say it was in the book. He said fine.
"But there's one problem. You'll have to talk to Brian -- he's the one who'll decide."
'Brian' was Brian Epstein, their manager. There and then, Paul helped me draft a letter to him. Next day, I typed it out and sent it off.
It was along the lines Paul suggested, boasting that I had interviewed The Beatles several times, which was a slight exaggeration.
BRIAN agreed to see me at his home in Belgravia, London. He appeared in a smart suit as always, very fresh-looking, slightly chubby cheeked, affluent and confident. Looking back, I find it hard to believe that he was 32, only two years older than me. He seemed such a polished, metropolitan man of the world who had achieved so much. I felt quite gauche. He played me the tapes of Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever, their new single, not yet released. He sat back with paternal pride.
I was amazed by Strawberry Fields Forever. It seemed an enormous leap forward from juvenile stuff like Yellow Submarine, full of discordant jumps and eerie echoes.
I eventually got the conversation round to my letter and he said yes, he did think the book a good idea and he would put it to The Beatles. When we met again the following week, he said they had all agreed and he would give me full access.
It was going to be a biography with all the hard work done by me.
I started by having a chat with each member of the group, explaining I'd start off by interviewing people from their past. But going to see The Beatles' parents was one of the stranger parts of researching the book. I wanted to put in more about them and how they had reacted to their sons becoming a phenomenon.
Ringo's mother Elsie and stepfather Harry appeared almost stunned, caught like rabbits in a searchlight of fame, sitting in their new posh bungalow on an exclusive estate, surrounded by new furniture, some of it still with plastic covers on. They were so scared of saying the wrong thing that I had to ring Ritchie, as they called Ringo, and get him to reassure them it was OK to talk to me.
On the other hand, George's mother Louise was loving it, enjoying her son's fame, welcoming fans, opening fetes, signing autographs, making little speeches. She had turned being a Beatle's mum into a full-time occupation.
I stayed with Jim McCartney, Paul's dad, and his new wife, Angie, a couple of times at their Cheshire home. Paul had sent up an advance copy of When I'm Sixty-Four, written with his dad in mind. We must have played it about 20 times, dancing round the room.
Aunt Mimi, who had brought up John, was the only one who had left the Liverpool area, moving into a bungalow near Bournemouth to get away from all the fans. Two had broken into her house one night and were sitting in her front room when she came down in the morning. They were going through her belongings, looking for items John might have worn.
But she never totally escaped. As I sat talking to her, on the back veranda of her new luxury home overlooking the sea, we could hear the amplified voice of a guide on one of the pleasure steamers drifting towards us.
"And over to your left, ladies and gentlemen, on her back porch, is John Lennon's Aunt Mimi."
Did she scream.
There were two missing fathers whom I eventually tracked down. I discovered Ringo's real dad, also called Richard or Ritchie, working as a window cleaner in Crewe. I admired the fact that despite his son's fame and wealth, he had not cashed in in any way or made contact.
After a long search, I found Freddie Lennon, John's dad, who had done a runner years earlier. I found him in a hotel, not far from his son's home in Surrey, where he was working as a washer-up. He gave me his memories of his marriage and John's childhood, all invaluable, with stories John had never heard.
"If it hadn't been for The Beatles," said John, "I would have ended up like Freddie."
John asked me to tell Freddie to contact him, but not to tell anyone. Mimi would be furious as she had always considered "that Alfred" as a very bad lot. The upshot was that John gave Freddie money for a flat. He moved in with a 19-year-old girl, by whom he had a son.
One interview I was desperate to obtain was with Pete Best, the drummer sacked by The Beatles just as they made their first record. He failed to respond to my messages, but I talked his mother, Mo Best, into seeing me. She had helped The Beatles in the early stages by letting them perform at a club called the Casbah she had opened in her house.
She was still furious about Pete's sacking and convinced that, as the authorised biographer, I would take the side of The Beatles. I said I simply wanted to hear both sides, which I would write fairly. It took a while to reassure her. Unbeknown to me, Pete had been in her house all the time, in the next room. She eventually took me through to see him. He was very tired, having just come off shift work, and spoke quietly and rather sadly, but without too much bitterness.
When I next met The Beatles, I mentioned Pete and they were embarrassed, especially when I said he was earning pound stg. 18 a week slicing bread in a factory.
Back in London, I was getting to know more about Brian Epstein. It had taken me a while to realise he was homosexual. At first I thought it didn't matter, either way, until I slowly recognised it was a vital part of his relationships with The Beatles. His background, public school and Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, his tastes in music, his business life and social circle, were so different from them. So what had first attracted him? I believe it was watching John perform at the Cavern in his leather outfit.
Brian was masochistic in his sexual tastes, picking up non-homosexual boys, bringing them home to his house or a rented flat, treating them to drinks and drugs. It usually ended in tears, with him being beaten up and items being stolen, then he would get blackmailed, which led to depression and pill-popping.
Paul, I think, was upset by Brian's homosexuality and didn't like it mentioned. John was the only one I discussed it with. He told me he'd had a one-night stand with Brian when he'd gone on holiday with him to Spain, just after Julian was born. I mentioned this holiday in the book, but not what John alleged had taken place.
He was, of course, happily married to Cynthia, as far as the world was concerned. John wasn't a homosexual, but he was daft enough to try anything once. On the other hand, he did say things for effect, exaggerating what did or did not happen.
I was with The Beatles in Bangor, North Wales, in August 1967, when we heard the news that Brian had died of a drugs overdose. On the train journey down from Euston, I had been in their carriage, along with Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull, all of them in their flower-power clothes.
It was interesting to watch John and Jagger together. They seemed wary of each other, respectful, but distant.
I later discussed it with John. He said he wasn't at all jealous of the Rolling Stones' music, but of their rebel image and clothes. He still resented the cleaning-up operation Brian had done on The Beatles, putting them into little suits. I argued that it was thanks to The Beatles paving the way, with their long hair, that the Stones were allowed to act as they did.
Later that evening, we went into Bangor for a meal. The only restaurant open was Chinese. When the bill came, I did not have enough to cover it. The Beatles at this stage, like the royal family, did not carry money and their roadies had still not arrived. The Chinese waiters suspected we were all going to do a runner.
The atmosphere was turning nasty when George put his foot on the table, slit open the front of his sandal and produced a pound stg. 20 note.
Months, if not years, previously he had secreted the money, in case such an emergency should ever occur.
Back in London, while working on the book, The Beatles in turn visited my house for tea or a meal.
When Paul and girlfriend Jane Asher came, Paul insisted on walking round the corner to the local shop to buy something. I tried to stop him, knowing he would be recognised and be pestered and followed back to the house. I think he was still at the stage when he quite enjoyed being spotted.
When George and wife Pattie came, Pattie brought flowers and chocolates, being a well-brought-up girl.
Before Ringo and his wife Maureen arrived, Ringo warned me he had become a vegetarian. My wife Margaret got out a vegetarian cookbook and made a rather ambitious if complicated dish with aubergines and stuffed courgettes.
RINGO took one look at it and pushed his plate away. What he meant by being a vegetarian was beans on toast or, failing that, fried egg on toast. He didn't actually like vegetables.
The most enjoyable part of writing the book was being at Abbey Road studios while The Beatles were recording. Beforehand, John and Paul would usually assemble on the top floor of Paul's house nearby, trying out any ideas they had had on their own, sparking off each other.
In Abbey Road, John or Paul would write out the latest versions of a new song on the back of an envelope or scrap of paper, so George and Ringo would know what was happening. At the end of the sessions, I would often pick up these scraps from the floor, ask if I could have them, as otherwise the cleaners chucked them out. The Beatles themselves had no interest in such items.
When I was interviewing them, at their homes, I would use a notebook. But in the studio, when they were working, I was observing rather than note-taking, keeping out of the way. Outsiders were never allowed in the recording area itself -- until Yoko Ono came along.
Afterwards, I would rush home and type out everything I had heard and observed as quickly as possible. I wish now I had made more detailed notes on their music making, which I observed as it was happening, especially the making of Sergeant Pepper.
Looking back, of course, I should have tape-recorded all my interviews, as the tapes would now be fascinating, and worth a lot. I have kept all my notebooks, though. Glancing through them recently, I found Paul had done a drawing for me, of how John looked when they first met.
I also found some good notes I'd made on the photo session for the cover of Sergeant Pepper. In them I recorded how a cardboard figure of Hitler had stood to attention during the whole of the evening.
They had wanted a line-up of heroes and gurus, goodies and baddies. John had been talked out of including Hitler at the last moment.
He'd caused enough trouble by saying the group were more popular than Jesus.
I had suggested to them that, given where they came from, their heroes should include a Liverpool footballer. As a football fanatic, it was a disappointment to me that they had no interest in the game. In the end, John had stuck in Albert Stubbins, who played for Liverpool in the late 1940s and early 1950s -- but only because he thought his name was funny.
I didn't want it all to end as I was enjoying it so much, watching The Beatles at work, interviewing them. But the book had grown enormous, to about 150,000 words, so I had to stop. I sent copies to the four of them to approve. Paul and Ringo had no worries. George did twit on a bit, saying he would have liked more about his spiritual side, but I said there just wasn't room.
John said it was fine, but then a few weeks later he wrote asking me to cut out a reference to a Welsh boyfriend of his mum's. He also said Aunt Mimi was "worried sick . . . she must see the book before publication . . . Do yer duty Hunt, lad, don't let me down. Love John".
So I rushed down to Bournemouth to see Mimi. She said she didn't want him swearing in the book, or stealing. As a boy, he'd never done that. I said these were John's memories, I couldn't change them. But I calmed her down by adding an extra paragraph, at the end of the first chapter, saying that Mimi and his other aunts always found John "as happy as the day was long".
Technically, Brian Epstein owned my contract, as he had signed it, so I had now to deal with his next of kin -- his brother and mother, Queenie, who always denied he was homosexual.
As he was dead, I could have gone into detail, but to keep the family happy I described him only as "gay bachelor", a term which Queenie -- and most of the population -- did not understand at the time.
It was altogether a more innocent age. For me, the Sixties was a time of work and babies and domesticity, not sex and wild parties, though Ringo once gave me a reefer.
My wife and I kept it for a few weeks and then one evening we thought we should at least try it. We closed the curtains, made sure the children were asleep, took the phone off the hook, then lit up. Neither of us has ever smoked, so the sensation of smoking was new in itself. We sat and waited. Nothing happened.
The next time I saw Ringo I told him all this.
"It was cabbage leaves," replied Ringo.
EXTRACTED from The Beatles, Football And Me by Hunter Davies, published by Headline Review.
October 01, 2006 12:00am
Article from: Sunday Herald
Beatles article
Realising a new group called The Beatles might be something special, Hunter Davies went on the long and winding road to writing a biography.
TO BE honest, I didn't take much notice of Love Me Do when it came out in October 1962, but then few people did. And when I first heard John Lennon copying the Americans and screaming his way through Twist And Shout, it gave me a headache.
It was only when I heard Please Please Me and I Want To Hold Your Hand that I started to realise that this new group called The Beatles might be something a little special. You could hear their Liverpool accents by now and, as I learned more about them, I identified with their background, their grammar schools and council houses. They were near my age -- I was just four years older than John -- and they seemed to be singing songs for me, about my experiences.
Some time early in 1964, I went to watch them working on their first film, A Hard Day's Night, at a theatre in Charlotte St, London.
I was hoping to get a paragraph for the gossip column I was working on. I never did.
Two years later, in August 1966, I was in charge of the column and I could write almost what I liked. Eleanor Rigby had come out and I thought the lyrics were as good as any modern poetry. Or so I maintained, without of course knowing much about modern poetry.
I went to see Paul McCartney at his house in Cavendish Ave, St John's Wood. I presumed, from the voice singing, that he had written it, though in those days no one bothered to separate a Lennon-McCartney song.
I got on well with him, so I thought, and we talked about the background to several other of his songs.
The papers were obsessed by Beatlemania, but I realised there was so much I didn't know. I put to him my idea. How about a book about The Beatles? A serious attempt to get it all down, once and for all, so that in the future when people ask the same dopey questions, he could say it was in the book. He said fine.
"But there's one problem. You'll have to talk to Brian -- he's the one who'll decide."
'Brian' was Brian Epstein, their manager. There and then, Paul helped me draft a letter to him. Next day, I typed it out and sent it off.
It was along the lines Paul suggested, boasting that I had interviewed The Beatles several times, which was a slight exaggeration.
BRIAN agreed to see me at his home in Belgravia, London. He appeared in a smart suit as always, very fresh-looking, slightly chubby cheeked, affluent and confident. Looking back, I find it hard to believe that he was 32, only two years older than me. He seemed such a polished, metropolitan man of the world who had achieved so much. I felt quite gauche. He played me the tapes of Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever, their new single, not yet released. He sat back with paternal pride.
I was amazed by Strawberry Fields Forever. It seemed an enormous leap forward from juvenile stuff like Yellow Submarine, full of discordant jumps and eerie echoes.
I eventually got the conversation round to my letter and he said yes, he did think the book a good idea and he would put it to The Beatles. When we met again the following week, he said they had all agreed and he would give me full access.
It was going to be a biography with all the hard work done by me.
I started by having a chat with each member of the group, explaining I'd start off by interviewing people from their past. But going to see The Beatles' parents was one of the stranger parts of researching the book. I wanted to put in more about them and how they had reacted to their sons becoming a phenomenon.
Ringo's mother Elsie and stepfather Harry appeared almost stunned, caught like rabbits in a searchlight of fame, sitting in their new posh bungalow on an exclusive estate, surrounded by new furniture, some of it still with plastic covers on. They were so scared of saying the wrong thing that I had to ring Ritchie, as they called Ringo, and get him to reassure them it was OK to talk to me.
On the other hand, George's mother Louise was loving it, enjoying her son's fame, welcoming fans, opening fetes, signing autographs, making little speeches. She had turned being a Beatle's mum into a full-time occupation.
I stayed with Jim McCartney, Paul's dad, and his new wife, Angie, a couple of times at their Cheshire home. Paul had sent up an advance copy of When I'm Sixty-Four, written with his dad in mind. We must have played it about 20 times, dancing round the room.
Aunt Mimi, who had brought up John, was the only one who had left the Liverpool area, moving into a bungalow near Bournemouth to get away from all the fans. Two had broken into her house one night and were sitting in her front room when she came down in the morning. They were going through her belongings, looking for items John might have worn.
But she never totally escaped. As I sat talking to her, on the back veranda of her new luxury home overlooking the sea, we could hear the amplified voice of a guide on one of the pleasure steamers drifting towards us.
"And over to your left, ladies and gentlemen, on her back porch, is John Lennon's Aunt Mimi."
Did she scream.
There were two missing fathers whom I eventually tracked down. I discovered Ringo's real dad, also called Richard or Ritchie, working as a window cleaner in Crewe. I admired the fact that despite his son's fame and wealth, he had not cashed in in any way or made contact.
After a long search, I found Freddie Lennon, John's dad, who had done a runner years earlier. I found him in a hotel, not far from his son's home in Surrey, where he was working as a washer-up. He gave me his memories of his marriage and John's childhood, all invaluable, with stories John had never heard.
"If it hadn't been for The Beatles," said John, "I would have ended up like Freddie."
John asked me to tell Freddie to contact him, but not to tell anyone. Mimi would be furious as she had always considered "that Alfred" as a very bad lot. The upshot was that John gave Freddie money for a flat. He moved in with a 19-year-old girl, by whom he had a son.
One interview I was desperate to obtain was with Pete Best, the drummer sacked by The Beatles just as they made their first record. He failed to respond to my messages, but I talked his mother, Mo Best, into seeing me. She had helped The Beatles in the early stages by letting them perform at a club called the Casbah she had opened in her house.
She was still furious about Pete's sacking and convinced that, as the authorised biographer, I would take the side of The Beatles. I said I simply wanted to hear both sides, which I would write fairly. It took a while to reassure her. Unbeknown to me, Pete had been in her house all the time, in the next room. She eventually took me through to see him. He was very tired, having just come off shift work, and spoke quietly and rather sadly, but without too much bitterness.
When I next met The Beatles, I mentioned Pete and they were embarrassed, especially when I said he was earning pound stg. 18 a week slicing bread in a factory.
Back in London, I was getting to know more about Brian Epstein. It had taken me a while to realise he was homosexual. At first I thought it didn't matter, either way, until I slowly recognised it was a vital part of his relationships with The Beatles. His background, public school and Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, his tastes in music, his business life and social circle, were so different from them. So what had first attracted him? I believe it was watching John perform at the Cavern in his leather outfit.
Brian was masochistic in his sexual tastes, picking up non-homosexual boys, bringing them home to his house or a rented flat, treating them to drinks and drugs. It usually ended in tears, with him being beaten up and items being stolen, then he would get blackmailed, which led to depression and pill-popping.
Paul, I think, was upset by Brian's homosexuality and didn't like it mentioned. John was the only one I discussed it with. He told me he'd had a one-night stand with Brian when he'd gone on holiday with him to Spain, just after Julian was born. I mentioned this holiday in the book, but not what John alleged had taken place.
He was, of course, happily married to Cynthia, as far as the world was concerned. John wasn't a homosexual, but he was daft enough to try anything once. On the other hand, he did say things for effect, exaggerating what did or did not happen.
I was with The Beatles in Bangor, North Wales, in August 1967, when we heard the news that Brian had died of a drugs overdose. On the train journey down from Euston, I had been in their carriage, along with Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull, all of them in their flower-power clothes.
It was interesting to watch John and Jagger together. They seemed wary of each other, respectful, but distant.
I later discussed it with John. He said he wasn't at all jealous of the Rolling Stones' music, but of their rebel image and clothes. He still resented the cleaning-up operation Brian had done on The Beatles, putting them into little suits. I argued that it was thanks to The Beatles paving the way, with their long hair, that the Stones were allowed to act as they did.
Later that evening, we went into Bangor for a meal. The only restaurant open was Chinese. When the bill came, I did not have enough to cover it. The Beatles at this stage, like the royal family, did not carry money and their roadies had still not arrived. The Chinese waiters suspected we were all going to do a runner.
The atmosphere was turning nasty when George put his foot on the table, slit open the front of his sandal and produced a pound stg. 20 note.
Months, if not years, previously he had secreted the money, in case such an emergency should ever occur.
Back in London, while working on the book, The Beatles in turn visited my house for tea or a meal.
When Paul and girlfriend Jane Asher came, Paul insisted on walking round the corner to the local shop to buy something. I tried to stop him, knowing he would be recognised and be pestered and followed back to the house. I think he was still at the stage when he quite enjoyed being spotted.
When George and wife Pattie came, Pattie brought flowers and chocolates, being a well-brought-up girl.
Before Ringo and his wife Maureen arrived, Ringo warned me he had become a vegetarian. My wife Margaret got out a vegetarian cookbook and made a rather ambitious if complicated dish with aubergines and stuffed courgettes.
RINGO took one look at it and pushed his plate away. What he meant by being a vegetarian was beans on toast or, failing that, fried egg on toast. He didn't actually like vegetables.
The most enjoyable part of writing the book was being at Abbey Road studios while The Beatles were recording. Beforehand, John and Paul would usually assemble on the top floor of Paul's house nearby, trying out any ideas they had had on their own, sparking off each other.
In Abbey Road, John or Paul would write out the latest versions of a new song on the back of an envelope or scrap of paper, so George and Ringo would know what was happening. At the end of the sessions, I would often pick up these scraps from the floor, ask if I could have them, as otherwise the cleaners chucked them out. The Beatles themselves had no interest in such items.
When I was interviewing them, at their homes, I would use a notebook. But in the studio, when they were working, I was observing rather than note-taking, keeping out of the way. Outsiders were never allowed in the recording area itself -- until Yoko Ono came along.
Afterwards, I would rush home and type out everything I had heard and observed as quickly as possible. I wish now I had made more detailed notes on their music making, which I observed as it was happening, especially the making of Sergeant Pepper.
Looking back, of course, I should have tape-recorded all my interviews, as the tapes would now be fascinating, and worth a lot. I have kept all my notebooks, though. Glancing through them recently, I found Paul had done a drawing for me, of how John looked when they first met.
I also found some good notes I'd made on the photo session for the cover of Sergeant Pepper. In them I recorded how a cardboard figure of Hitler had stood to attention during the whole of the evening.
They had wanted a line-up of heroes and gurus, goodies and baddies. John had been talked out of including Hitler at the last moment.
He'd caused enough trouble by saying the group were more popular than Jesus.
I had suggested to them that, given where they came from, their heroes should include a Liverpool footballer. As a football fanatic, it was a disappointment to me that they had no interest in the game. In the end, John had stuck in Albert Stubbins, who played for Liverpool in the late 1940s and early 1950s -- but only because he thought his name was funny.
I didn't want it all to end as I was enjoying it so much, watching The Beatles at work, interviewing them. But the book had grown enormous, to about 150,000 words, so I had to stop. I sent copies to the four of them to approve. Paul and Ringo had no worries. George did twit on a bit, saying he would have liked more about his spiritual side, but I said there just wasn't room.
John said it was fine, but then a few weeks later he wrote asking me to cut out a reference to a Welsh boyfriend of his mum's. He also said Aunt Mimi was "worried sick . . . she must see the book before publication . . . Do yer duty Hunt, lad, don't let me down. Love John".
So I rushed down to Bournemouth to see Mimi. She said she didn't want him swearing in the book, or stealing. As a boy, he'd never done that. I said these were John's memories, I couldn't change them. But I calmed her down by adding an extra paragraph, at the end of the first chapter, saying that Mimi and his other aunts always found John "as happy as the day was long".
Technically, Brian Epstein owned my contract, as he had signed it, so I had now to deal with his next of kin -- his brother and mother, Queenie, who always denied he was homosexual.
As he was dead, I could have gone into detail, but to keep the family happy I described him only as "gay bachelor", a term which Queenie -- and most of the population -- did not understand at the time.
It was altogether a more innocent age. For me, the Sixties was a time of work and babies and domesticity, not sex and wild parties, though Ringo once gave me a reefer.
My wife and I kept it for a few weeks and then one evening we thought we should at least try it. We closed the curtains, made sure the children were asleep, took the phone off the hook, then lit up. Neither of us has ever smoked, so the sensation of smoking was new in itself. We sat and waited. Nothing happened.
The next time I saw Ringo I told him all this.
"It was cabbage leaves," replied Ringo.
EXTRACTED from The Beatles, Football And Me by Hunter Davies, published by Headline Review.
