The Beatles Messages from John, Paul, George and Ringo

Beatle

A POSTCARD FROM JOHN

IT was a warm June day in 1965 when the postcard landed on the desk of my office at the NME (New Musical Express), deep in the heart of Covent Garden. The card was addressed to me but John, whose unmistakable handwriting marked him out as my correspondent, began it ‘Dear Mick’, clearly alluding to Mick Jagger (more on that later). The message went on in typical Lennon vein: ‘Woke up this mornin’ – cornflakes – brown sugar – dig? Shoes – mac – raining down – still digging? … Folk fingers – brass coffee – couldn’t sleep – broke my line. Won’t be back in time. DIG???’ He signed it ‘The BIFOLKALS’.

I read it over and over again but never could work out half of what he was trying to say. Except, that is, for the ‘brown sugar’ bit. It was the term in those days – and this was the Sixties, remember – for heroin (and more on that follows too).

But it was the picture on the other side that was most interesting – a photograph of himself, Paul, George and Ringo. Over each face he had inked-in dark glasses and on his one hand showing, a black glove. There was more: in the centre of the group he had drawn in a fifth person, a fifth Beatle and it was none other than the late Stuart Sutcliffe. Stuart had always worn dark glasses.

The card had been sent from Genoa mid-way through the Beatles’ Italian tour. John had phoned before they left to remind me that I had promised to try to set up a meeting with Elvis Presley for him that summer. But the conversation had become maudlin when I reminded him that he was going to talk to me for an article about Stuart. Sutcliffe was the group’s original bass player and, inspired by the Crickets, he was also the man who came up with their name – The Beatles.

But to John he was much more – he was the best friend he’d ever had, ever would have.

Sutcliffe had died of a brain haemorrhage in Hamburg in April 1962. The injury was caused by a beating he took after a Beatles gig the previous year. He was a brilliant artist but not a particularly good musician. It was Lennon who persuaded him to buy a bass guitar and join the group as a founder member so they could be together.

When he died John was devastated. He wept for days and (according to Yoko Ono) he said of him years later, ‘Stu was my alter ego, a spirit in my world, a guiding force.’

In that sad telephone chat before they set off for Milan, I asked him if he was happy: ‘I’d be a lot happier if Stuart was still part of us,’ he said ‘The Beatles would be complete.’ And before he rang off he said ‘I’ll send you something.’

The postcard arrived a few days later. I have placed it on the cover of this book as John’s tribute to his dearest friend, the man who helped him found the Beatles.

1

PARIS

THE postcard I received from Genoa was not the first John sent me from foreign parts. In January 1964, he dispatched one from Paris where I had left him, Paul, George and Ringo just a few days earlier. The only sign of Lennon using artistic license on that one was a flag he had drawn with the letter ‘B’ on it flying above a photograph of the George V hotel where they were staying.

We’d had something of a wild time in Paris where they were appearing at the city’s hallowed Olympia, playing on a bill topped by local heartthrob Johnny Hallyday – a bit of a tense coupling because, the Frenchman told them, that before they got famous he had refused to have them as his backing group.

The George V was the swankiest hotel in the French capital and I am not sure the management approved of the comings-and-goings that went on during the celebrations in their suite that followed their first triumphant night at the Olympia. John had invited a number of people neither he nor any of the others had ever met before ‘to party’ in their suite. A lot of very expensive alcohol was consumed and the subsequent bill far exceeded their earnings for the weeklong gig.

My lasting memory of the Paris adventure is of what occurred the following morning. I had arrived in the suite to find Paul – the most moderate drinker in the band – already up and, draped in one of the hotel’s finest white fluffy robes, was seated at the piano he had asked to be installed for their stay. We exchanged greetings before I sunk into a sofa to listen to him play, humming along as he did so. There was a knock at the door and I responded to Paul’s request to answer it believing it to be the coffee we had ordered to cure our, er, ‘headaches’.

Alas, it was not the coffee. The new arrival was Dick James, the Beatles genial music publisher and the man best known at that time as the singer of the eponymous Robin Hood TV theme. Seeing Paul seated at the piano he got straight down to business: ‘Mornin’, mornin’. Glad to see you’re at work already. Got some new songs for me?’

Paul turned and gave him a slightly nervous look: ‘See what you think of this, Dick. I’m still working on it mind.’

And with that he played a few chords and sang the few lines he had worked out of what was clearly a plaintive ballad. Dick James seemed especially thoughtful as he and I sat listening in silence. Paul struck a final chord and turned around to ask ‘How’s that?’

The publisher’s reaction was not enthusiastic. After a sustained pause he finally said ‘That’s sweet, very sweet, but have you got anything with Yeah, yeah, yeah in it?’

McCartney looked devastated. The song he had just given us an exclusive preview of was Yesterday.

Yesterday is the most covered song in history. At the last count 3,700 artistes had recorded it and the song was the most played ever on American radio.

2

HAMBURG

AT Massey & Coggins – the Liverpool electrical firm where he landed his first job, winding coils – they nicknamed Paul ‘Mantovani McCartney’ after the well-known classical conductor because of his long hair. Ringo, a favourite target for local bullies, got badly beaten up as he walked home one night from the Admiral Grove pub in the Dingle district of his home city because he wouldn’t give them the shilling (5p) each demanded. On the road George became depressed when he felt the others were pushing him into the background. John used to cry himself to sleep when his thoughts turned to the mother who had abandoned him.

All of that is gleaned from the notebooks I wrote in endlessly during my first days (well, mostly nights) with the Beatles at the back of the Star Club, a dive of a club in the Grosse Freiheit off Hamburg’s notorious Reeperbahn in 1962. I was there as a temporary roadie for Little Richard (it’s a long story, but I’ll come to it) and the ‘Fab Four’, as the legendary American rocker named them, were working their passage in the music business.

It was a shaky start (John didn’t trust ‘reporters’) but we got on well once we discovered we had two things in common: all five of us were crazy about rock’n’roll – and we were hungry. Little Richard’s fat salary solved the latter problem – we ate in his dressing room and he charged the food to the club owner, Manfred Weissleder.

We were of similar age – two of them were older than me, two younger (John and Ringo were born in 1940, Paul in 1942, George in 1943 and me in 1941). Oh yes, and we all took ‘uppers’, amphetamines which loosened tongues particularly when washed down with strong German beer.

The main topic of conversation on the first day was … the Beatles. ‘Our manager Brian Epstein says we’re going to be bigger than Elvis,’ snapped John. ‘So one day you’ll have to queue up with the rest for an interview with us.’

That day had not arrived, however, and I went through the familiar ritual of asking them about their musical aspirations. Who was their greatest influence? ‘Little Richard,’ said Ringo aware that the singer was within earshot, ‘Chuck Berry,’ said George. ‘Elvis,’ said Paul. ‘Yeah, before Elvis there was nothing. He’s the King,’ said John in a quote that was to be re-published many, many times over the years, although it was actually a barb aimed at Richard whose shrill response was ‘Ah, am the King of rock’n’roll. Ah was singing rock before anybody knew what rock was. Sure Elvis was one of the builders, but Ah was the architect.’

‘Sure thing, grandfather,’ said John whom I was later to refer to in print as ‘The Beatle that bit’. When he had an audience – even if was only his fellow band members and me – he had to perform. In reality, he was highly respectful of the American legend and had earlier asked him for an autograph. He showed me the one he got. It read ‘To John. May God bless you always, Little Richard, 1710 Virginia Road, Los Angeles, California.’ It was something he treasured although in later years he was to question the sanity of those who collect stars’ signatures.

Much of the conversation in those heady nights was about things back home. John sent his Star Club earnings back to Liverpool for Cynthia (who, he told me, he had married the that summer and who was expecting their son, Julian, though he was under strict instructions from manager Epstein to keep both facts secret: ‘Fans don’t like stars who are unavailable, John.’). He survived on what he could earn by moonlighting between Beatles sets at nearby clubs where he played for the strippers: ‘I love talking to the prossies (prostitutes). They’re honest. They’ve got nothing to hide.’

Being honest himself, he also admitted that he had a Hamburg girlfriend: Bettina, a buxom barmaid who kept him in drink and pills and could be relied upon to call out for her favourite numbers when the Beatles were on stage.

The topic inspired Ringo to deliver the message about one of his most disastrous dates: ‘I turned up in me best gear – a real Ted suit complete with crepe sole shoes. I thought I was going to knock her dead with that lot! Anyway, we took the bus to a cinema, walked into the foyer and I bought the tickets. She started heading upstairs where the best seats were. But I took her arm and led her down to the stalls where the only two seats left were right in the front row. It was as much as I could afford, you see. We sat there for three hours with our necks achings. Funny I never saw her again . . . ’

I heard him repeat the story almost word for word a few nights later when Richard and his keyboard player Billy Preston invited us back to his hotel suite ‘for supper’. Alas, the supper turned out to be some dried-up sandwiches and our hosts had other ideas about how to entertain us. In a bid to emphasise our heterosexuality, Ringo told the story of his date and I talked about the girl I was going to marry. In a lull between anecdotes, the pair of us made a dash for the door and returned to the relative safety of the Grosse Freiheit. Lucky escape.

‘That’s one little adventure I won’t be telling Harry and Elsie about,’ he said, referring to his parents as he always did by their