It's really amazing how when you try to look into the activities of the Beatles it's like circles within circles.
I think they got involved in some really seedy stuff probably due to their manager Brian Epstein.
Sibyllas Nightclub was a hangout for the supposed 'in the know crowd'. Tara Browne the friend of James Paul was noted as being one of
the directors along with Kevin McDonald, Terry Howard, Bruce Higham, Sir William Prggot-Brown, Alan 'Fluff' Freeman and of course
Beatle George Harrison, the evidence for this being scant.
It opened June 22, "66" and hosted some very strange individuals with some very strange ties. It was supposedly named after a wealthy
aristocrat Sibylla Edmonstone whose grandfather was the American shop-keeper Marshall Field.
It wasn't far from the Indica Art Gallery and Bookstore being famous for where John Lennon met Yoko Ono. It was in close proximity to
Al Burnet's Stork Rooms and the Hirondelle both frquented by the Kray Twins Ronnie and Reggie who were East London gangsters
one being homosexual and the other bi-sexual.
It is conjectured that it was a strange place for a club.
In the book ‘Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd’ by Mark Blake, a story is told of Dave Gilmour’s pre-Floyd days in London
trying to cadge a record deal with his then band, Jokers Wild...“The Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein hadn’t offered the band a deal,
but future DJ and musician Jonathan King, then a student at Cambridge University, saw them and invited Gilmour to London….
'Jonathan King noticed Dave at this club,’ recalls Rick Wills now. ‘He hung out where there were good-looking boys, but he was also
on the lookout for musical talent. I went to Jonathan’s flat in London with Dave. He was on the phone talking to someone about
getting a song on Radio Caroline, and it happened right while we were there. We were like, wow! We knew someone in the music business who had real power.’”
Through this contact with King the band hooked up with a guy called Jean-Paul Salvatori…”Nevertheless, under Salvatori’s guidance, the band
were whisked down the King’s Road, kitted out in bell-bottomed, sailor’s trousers and blue Shetland jumpers, and put on stage at Sybillas nightclub
in Swallow Street, where they immediately attracted attention. ‘We were tasty young boys in tight trousers, so we were prime fodder,’ says Rick.
‘The chef took a particular shine to me, chasing us round the kitchen with a meat cleaver.’”
They got an official contract from The Charles Kray Entertainment Agancy (Charlie was the older brother of the infamous Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie).
It would seem that Sibyllas had a large gay clientele, if not being an outright gay nightclub. Any refernce to convicted pedophile Jonathan King
should start alarm bells ringing.
Among the guest list at the opening were: Tara and Nicky Browne, George and Patti Harrison, John and Cynthia Lennon, Ringo and Maureen, Paul McCartney,
Mick Jagger and Chrisse, Brian Jones and Anita. There were others but for our purposes I only hit on these since they are so well known.
Not too long ago someone said to me on this site that the Beatles were into homosexality. If you judge them by the description of the Sibyllas Nightclub
it would easy to come to that conclusion, but, you have to remember Disco's weren't really popular until the mid-1970's to the early 1980's.
If you were a swinging young person in 1966, your choice of places was limited to spend a night on the town and dance to rock and roll
and I seriously doubt that they understood the mechanics of this club - nor would they have cared; they were just looking to have good time.
