There was nothing big in Liverpool.

It iras uery
poor, a very poor city, and tough. But people
have a sense ofhumour because they are in so
much pain ... h is eosmopolitan, and #'s where
the sailors wouM come home with the bhes
records J~om America on ships.
With fons Iookin9 o~, the
Betle~ po~e for ah ealy
p u bliily pholo ol the John I,ennon, ,97o (Rolling Stone)
docks in their notive ci~
ol LJve,ool
16
Tra umatized by bis
poront s' breakup, Bui not
y~t smiMen by rock ond
roll, John [ennon Iooked
deceptively Iik~ ah ongelic
schoo]boy, c 1945
The Bec~tles
From Quarry Men to Beatles 1957-61
Liverpool may never escape its reputation for post-industrial hope
lessness, but as a place that might spawn a pecutiarly Englisti musical
group, ir had eerything going for ir in the years after World War II.
Like any port city, it was a place where diverse musical influences
converged. Saunds from distant places would arrive there lrst, and
ar the time, the most interesting sounds were coming from America
soul, rhythm and hlues and country reco,ds, in particular. The city
also had a more colourful ethnic make-up than many ottier Engiish
cities ar the rime. There was a large lristi population, as wdl as size-
ahle Jamaican, [ndian, Chinese, Slavic and Jewish communities,
making Liverpool the kind of cultural melting-pot that New York was
and London was not.
T}~ese influences, both individual]y and in their mixmre, can be
heard teltingly in the Beatles' early work. Listen closely to 'Love Me
Do', for example, and a peculiar hybrid comes into ocus. The song was
meant to be h]uesy, and it is to a degree. But would an auttientic blues
band embellish its plaint with vocal harmonies in thirds, fi fttis and
octaves, harmonies that in this context have an almost medieval sound?
The founder ofthe group, John Winston Lennon, was bom dur-
ing a German bombing raid on 90ctober I94O, to Juiia Stanley and
Alffed Lennon. They had married in I938, bur Alffed, a merctiant
seaman, was absent for long stretches during Lennots early years.
Julia was described as a free ifsomewhat flighty spirit. It was decided
in ttie spring of 1941 that John would have the greatest chance of a
stable home life ifhe were brought up by Julia's childless sister Mary
Elizabeth, known as Mimi, and her husband George Smith, ira
Woolton, a LiverpooI suburb.
Ttius Lennon was insulated from the breakup ofhis parents'
mar riage in 1942. He saw his father occasionally until hc was tive,
whereupon Alfred disappeared unti11965, when a London newspaper
reported that while his son was making miltions, Alfred Lennon was
a dishwasher in a hotel. They maintained an add, rocky relationship
From Quarry Men 10 Beatle$1957-61 17

thereafter. Julia, on lhe other hand, look up the role ofthe affec-
tionate, eccentric aunt, who countered the strict upbringing Mimi
was giving John by indu[ging and encouraging his earliest
bohemian instincts including his interest in music.
One trait emerged early: a penchant for rwisting the hnguage.
From the time he was a somewhar mischievous seven-yea>old ar
Dovedale Primary School through his years at Quarry Bank High
School and the Liverpool College ofArt, he entertained bis friends
by writing booklets of parodies and nonsense verse, illustrated wkh
cartoons and caricatures. This talent came to full flower not only in
bis song lyrics, bur in the two books he published during the Beatles
years,In His Own Write in 1964 anda Spaniard in the Works in 1965,
and in the posthumous compilation, Skywriting by Word of Mouth,
published in x986.
In 1955 and 1956, rock and roll, a high-energy pop form based on
rhythm and blues, was revitalizing American popular music and had
found its way to Britain via rhe film BlackboardJungle, which featurd
Bill Haley and the Comets singing 'RockAround the Clock'. Elvis
Presley records soon followed, and Presley quickly gained a hold on
Lennon's imagination.
Presley was essentially a blues singer with a heavy country and
western accent - or was it the other way around? He drew his reper-
tory from both sides of the track, but his vocal style struck listeners of
the rime as a black sound. He was also a very physical performer: his
hip swivelling drew ecs*atic scrcams from bis female Cans. The quali-
ties that made Elvis so appealing to peop[e of Lennon's age struck
rheir parents as cause for grave concern. Just when their kids seemed
to be *urning out right, wearing crew cuts and dancing to saccharine
ballads, here was a Southern truck driver with jet black hair stacked
elaborately but with a touch of waywardness, gyrating behind a guitar
and growling 'you ain' noc'n but a hound dog'.
In truth, parental concern was not wholiy unwarranted. There
was, after ali, a decidedly anfi-authorirarian undercurrent in early
rock, an attitude that teenagers seized upon immediately. And Presley
was only the tip ofthe iceberg. Jerry Lee Lewis, a wildman who was
wont to play rhe piano with his feet, carne from the same Memphis,
Tennessee milieu as Presley and offercd a similar musical admixture.
Carl Perkins's brand of roek leaned closer to country, and sounded
 TheB~tles

civi]ized by contrast, yt it was funky enough to make its appcal.

Over in Texas, Buddy Holly took ali those elements and moulded a
somewhat more refined style. And then there was the wave of black
performers who carne to reclaim rock and roll flora Presley and
company, the most notablc being the spectaculady uninhibited Little
Richard and a sly guitar master from Si Louis, Chuck Berry.
MI these musicians made a profound impression on Lennon and
the other Beatles-to-be. Several oftheir songs remained in the
group's performing repertory; in fact, their final public concert, at
Candlestick Park in San Francisco, on )-9 August J966, began with
Berry's 'Rock and Roll Music' and ended with Little Richard's 'Long
Tall Sally'. More immediately, though, the tide o f American rockers
creatcd a boom n]arket for guitars in Liverpool, England. One eager
customer was John Lennon. Julia, who played the banjo, taught him
his first chords.
In a middle-class home in Allerton, not lar from Lennon's home in
Woolton, Paul McCartney was also fascinated by Elvis Presley. Born
James Pau[ McC'armey on 18 June 1942., be was the most musically
inquisitive ofthe Beatles, probably because a rather more advanced
musical culture flourished in his home. Lennon's parents were ama-
tcurs: Julia could sing to her own banjo accompaniment, and Alfred
fancied himseJf a singer too. Bur McCarmey's fther, a self-taught
pianist, actually led his own Jim Mac Jazz Band in the r9zos. I n I941
he married Mary Mohin, a nurse and midwife. The McCarmeys had
a piano in.their house, although Paul seems to have ignored ir after a
few lessons. He also took up the trumpet briefly, and taught himself
to pick out a few tunes. Bur what really excited him was the music
he was hearing on Radio Luxembourg, which played some ofthe
American pop records that were making their way across the Adantic.
Imported rock w~~ not the only music to engage young Lcn non
and McCarmey. In January I956. just a few momhs before Elvis~s
'Heartbreak Hotel' began to electrify the ait~vaves, a ski~e traze
broke out ali over England, instigated by Lonnie Donegan's hit
recording of 'Rock lsland Line'. The song was another American
import, an old tune made famous by the blues singer Huddie
Ledbet~er, better known as Lead Belly. Skifl]e was based on country
blues, and its attraction was that anybody cou[d join in. The guitar,
or sometimes the banjo, was the central instrument in a skifl]e band,
Dom Quarry Men lo B~olles I57-61
Liverpool, lhe northern port
clly from which, Landon
mu$J wodd ~xecliv~s
insisted nothing great
would come
19
which might also include a percussionist who used a thimble to
scrape away on a washboard, and a bassist who played ah instrument
made from a tea-chest, a single string and a broomsrick.
Like Lennan, McCarmey clamoured for a guitar. When he got
one, there was a problem: being left-handed, he had trouble coaxing
his fingers to make the chord shapes be was trying m learn. His solu-
tion was to restring the guitar ba&wards, so that be could play it
upside down. Thereafter, he spetlt night and day ahernately picking
ar the instrument and perfecting ah imitation of Litt[e Richard's
screaming vocal style.
Once he heard Elvis, Lennon disdained crooning and soft pop.
Bur McCarmey was not so immune to ir. He later cited 'White
Christmas' and 'Over the Rainbow' as early favourites. And from the
middle ground between light pop and Elvis, he was particu[arly fond
ofthe Ever[y Brothers, an America. duo whosc cioso, bcautifully
worked-out harmonies wou[d serve as a modeI for the early Beatles.

The Quarry Men - John
Lennon ot lhe microphone,
tlon ked by ~ric GriJfith s
(guitar}, Rod Davis
(behind Lennon, also a
guitarist) Pete Shot~on
{washboard~st} ~nd Len
Garry {washtub bassisi) -
ai St Peler's Church,
Woohon, just hours be fore
Lennon wos inlroduced to
Paul McCarmey
The Bealles
But apart from an attempt to form a duo with his younger brother
in I957, his musical devdopment was fairly solitary. Lennon, by
contrast, saw music as a social avocation from the start, and in March
I957, soon after he got b_is first guitar, be gathered some friends and
formed his own skifl]e band. For a week, the band was known as the
Black Jacks; thereafter ir was Quarry Men, in honour of the Quarry
Bank High School for Boys, where Lennon was ah increasingly
indifferent student.
T h e Q u a r r y M e n h a d a f a i r l y fl u i d l i n e - u p a n d p e r f o r m e d a r
parties and contests in the spring of~957 witla Lennon as its lead
guitarist and singer. Correctly assuming that Mimi would objcct to
his fronting a band, Lennon and his friends rehearsed at Julis house.
It was cntircly by accident that Mimi discovered her nephew's secret
life. On 6 July I9S7 she attended the summcr ftc at St Pcter's Parish
Church, and was horrified to discover that what she later describcd as
From Quorry M~n to Betles 1957 6] 21

an 'eruption of noise' was produced by Lennon and the Quarry Men.

A recording of Lennon singing two songs that day- Arthur Gunter's
'Baby, Let's Play House', which he knew from ah Elvis Presley record,
and 'Puttiff on the Sryle', a Lonnie Donegan hit - turned up in a
private collection in x994. There are also photographs ofthe band
in action on that date. And a local newspaper referred briefly to the
Quaxry Men performance.
Ir is extraordinary that a performance by a band of teenagers in
Liverpool suburb in the late :95os should have been so well docu-
mented - and ali the more so because the date turned out to be a
milestone in the Beades' history. It was at this church f~te, between
Quarry Men sets, that John Lennon mer Paul McCartney. Ivan
Vaughan, one of several tea-chest bassists in the group, was a ciass-
mate of McCarmey's ar the Hverpool lnstitute Grammar School, and
knew McCarmey to be a better guitarist than anyone in the band.
McCarmey was intrigued by Lennon, who played the guitar using
banja chards, and whase haphazard knowledge of song lyrics ]ed him
to make up the verses he didn't know. And Lennon could see that
McCarmey knew a thing or two. For one thing, he could tune a gui-
tar, a skill none ofthe Quarry Men had mastered; and perhaps even
more crucially, he proved his knowledge of rock and roll by writing
out the lyrics to Eddie Cochran's 'Twenty Ftight Rock' and Gene
Vincent's 'Be-Bop-a-Lula', and by singing 'Loi:g Tall Sally' in his best
Little Richard volte. A week passed before McCartney was invited to
join the group. Lennon had no doubt that in purely musical matters,
McCarmey would be an asset. Bur the Quarry Men was nat anly
Lennon's band: ir was his gang, and it was important that he be
perceived as its leader. Having someone better than himself in the
group might mean sharing the spodight. He decided to put the
band first.
McCartney made his Irst appearance with the Quarry Men on
18 October I957, and apparently had designs on the lead guitar spot,
ah ambition he dropped after botching his solo moment. He was,
on the other hand, not shy about pointing out musica] weaknesses
elsewhere in the band. Virtually from the start, his criticisms were a
source of tension that the group had not known when the sole con-
trolling voice was Lennon's. This was an impor tat difference
between Lennon and McCarmey, one that wouid remain in high
 TheBeatles

relief through the Beatles years. Lennon knew what hc wanted, and
be was usually able to persuade bis bandmates to ar least approximate
~he sound he had in mind. But hc was also something ofa bohemian.
and wheJ1 perfection seemed oro of reach, he settled for the attempt.
McCa*mey was a perfectionist, and was loath to abandon ideas ~hat
be knew could be achieved. Tha~ his collaborators might consider
his demands unreasonable did not faze him: the result was ali
that mattered.
By early 1958 the Quarry Men's personnel had stabilized, with
Lennon, McCarmey and Eric Grifliths on guitars, Colin Hanton
on drums, Len Garry on bass, and John 'Duff Lowe as occasional
pianist. As the skifl3e boom faded, Lennon and McCartney were
pushing the band's reper tory toward Elvis and Little Richard, a taste
their bandmatcs did not ali sharc. Within months, Griffiths alld
Garry left, and McCarmey brought in a guitarist he knew from tEe
Liverpool Institute, George Harrison. Harrison was a yar youngr
than McCarmey bur was obsessed with the guitar and was making
quick headway. When be turned up at a performance on 6 February
1958, a few weeks short ofhis fifteenth birthda); he struck Lennon as
a child, and a sullen one ar that. Bur Harrison found his way into the
band the same way McCarmey did: by showing that he could play
things that Lcnnon could not. With McCartney's encouragement, he
tagged along with the band to a few engagements, and by mid-year,
be was a member.
Harrison was bom on 25 February I943, the youngest ofthe four
children of Harold Harrison and Louise French, who married in
I93o. His father &ove the bus that brought both Harrison and Paul
McCarmey to the Liverpool Institute. Harrison was generally disen-
chanted by school, bur until he took up the guitar his main outlet
for rebdlion was dressing in the flamboyant Tcddy Boy style - tight
trousers, elaborate coats, loaag greased-back hair that parents found
menacing, or ar [east irritating. Unlike Lennon and McCarmey, ~rho
approached the guitar as something to accompany their singing,
Harrison wa~s drawn to lhe solos on early rock records. Hc did have
some band experiene before the Quarry Men: he and bis older
brother, Peteri had a band called the Rebels. He also made ir a prac-
tice to bring his guitar to dances in the hope that one of che bands
would ler him sit in or even join. Even after be joined the Quarry
From Qu~rry Men to BeotJes 1957 61 23

Men whose performing dates were few- he continued playing with

other groups.
The Quarry Men's performing fortunes wcre at low ebb by mid-
058, bur there were compensations. In late 1957, Lennon and
McCarmey began composing songs, sometimes togcther and some-
times in competition. McCarmey initiated the collaboration by play-
ing Lennon his first song, 'l Lost My Little Gkl', a simple, three
chord number with a melody rhar would not have beeri out of place
on an Everly Brothers album. Lennon, though impressed that
McCarmey had written a song, was not uncritical. \Vhen McCarmey
revived the song for a television performance in I99I, he said that
Lennon used to rib him about some of the iyrics, particularly the
lines: 'Her dothes were not expensive, Her hair didn't always curl'.
Sillier lyrics were doing perfectly wdl on the pop charts, bur Lennon's
verbal sensitivity was one ofthe most important things he brought to
the collaboration. His other response was to write a song ofhis own,

bsessed with lhe guilot

from the oga o[ lhklaen,
George Harrison practised
until bis fingers bled I~ one
of the fJrsl pholographs to
copture this fosi~otion, be
nrJvigtes lhe frelboad of
bis firsi g uitar, a s~cond-
had steel string acoustic
model, purchased [or 3
 T~ ad=

'Hdlo Litde Gid'. Akhough ehe B~d~ dropped it we]l ~fore th~
became famou~, two early performances mrvive - one on a r96o
rehearial tape, in which they sing ir with Everly Brothers style tandem
harmonies; the other a harder-edged version, performed dung a 1962
auditLon for Decca Record*+
Curiottsly, in light of McCarmey's later reputation as the more
mttsical[y astute compo~r, Len non's song $hows greater sophistica-
tion. The melody of'[ Lost My Little Gid' is zs simplc is can be: ah
~.scending motifbuaed on tbe first four stcps of the major scale.
'HeRo Littte Girl' is f~ prettier and considerab[y more complicated.
Bur [mnnon used a different sort of model - a half-remembered
194as' pop song bis mother used to sing him, though later be was
unable to recall tbe title. Using older song.s as temp[ates was orle o
Lennon's rnodes ofcomposing. Other examples come elsi]y to mind:
'Ple;lse P[a~ Me'. in its early slow incarnation, was patterned after
Roy Orbi~on's 'Only the Lonely'. The opening lines of'Do You Want
to Knm. a Sccret' are taken from a song in Wa]t Disney's 'Snow
\Vhite and the Seven Dwar fs', and the opening line of 'Run for Your
Life' Ls lified from 'Baby. Ixt's Play House', one ofthe so.gs beard on
the I957 Quarry Men tape.
Not that Lennon worked this way ali the rime. Many ofhix best
songs are entirely without precedent or model. Still, using an eadier
piece of music as either a source of ide~s or as the foundation for a
new work is a time-honoured practice. [n the fifteenth and sixteenth
cer*t uries, church composers like Gui[laume Dufay and Jmquin
Desprbs routinely based their Masses on popular melodies, tunes
that any listener ofthe rime would have known. Bur these composers
did not have copyright [awyers Iooking over their daou|ders. Lennon
kne~ that ifhe were going to use existing works its models, he had
to disguise them, bur occasionally he ler a clue dip through. [n 1969
hc patterned 'Come Together' afier Chttck Berry's 'You Can't Catch
Me'. Lennon'~ ~ong was original enough that tbe mdodic similarities
would not have been apparent had he not retained a line of Berry's
lyric. Berry's publisher sued. and in 1975. m part cA'the settlemer~t,
Lennon recorded 'Yott Cafft Catch Me' for his Rock "n'Roll
o[dies co[lection.
F.arly in their collaboration, Lennon and McCarmey agreed to
work as a team, like George and Ira Gershwin, Jerry Lieber and Mike
From Quarry Men la Bealles 1957 61 25

Stoller or Gerry Goffin and Carole Kng. Ali their songs would bear
both names, whether they were wfitten together (as many were) or
individually (as most were). By 1959, they had filled a notebook with
sot~gs, a few of which - 'Love Me Do', 'One AfTer 9o9' and 'When
l'm 64' - eventually found their way onto Beades records. Apparently,
thcre was a brief collaboration between McCartney and Harrison
as welL In mid-1958, Lennon, McCarmey, Harrison, and John Lowe
recorded two songs in the home studio of Percy Philfips. One side
was Buddy Holly's 'That'll Be the Day', with Lennon singing lead.
The other, 'In Spite ofAIl the Danger', was credited McCarmey-
Harrison, alrhough McCarmey, recalling the collaboradon in 1989,
said that the song was esset~tially fiis and tl~at Harrison shared the
credit because he devised the guitar solo.
Just as Lennon's musical life was getting into gear, bis personal
life was falling apart. As a teenager and fledgling musician, he had
found a supportive ally in bis mother, Julia. Bu~ oi115 July r958, she
was struck and killed by a car. Her death had a profound effect on
Lennon: not having seen his father in a dozen years, he now felt tfiat
his parental abandonment was complete- a theme he explored on his
pained, intense]y autobiogvaphical Plastic Ono Bandalbum in I97o.
More immediately, Lennon's sense of loss intensified his 'them against
as' approacfi to the world. He had long been a Ioud-mouth and a
class clnwn; now he adopted an aggressive front as well.
Julia's death also gave Lennon and McCartney something clse in
common: McCarmey's mother had died of breast cancer on 3t
October 1956. McCartney's response was notably diflrent from
Lennon's. Whether out of practicality or shock, he wondered aloud
what the fami[y would do without her income. He then tonk on an
extra share of family responsibilities. And he threw himself more fully
into masterirtg the guitar.
By late t958, work had virtually dried up for the the Quarry Men,
and the group essentially disbanded except for occasional perform-
antes into early I959. Lennon and McCarmey continued to com-
pose, and Harrison moved on to steadier work with thc Les Stcwart
Quartet. They reconvened that August to work as tlle house band in
the Casbah Coffce Club, bur quit after a pay dispute. That October,
they renamed themselves Johnny and the Moondogs, and made ir to
the finais ofa Carol Levis talent contest. Lenno:a was by then
 The Beafles

enrolled at the Liverpool College ofArt, where be was supposed to

be studying lettering. Bur with Harrison and McCart~ey next door
a : t h e L i v e r p o o l i n s t i t u t e , t h e t e m p t a t i o n t o fi n d a n e m p t y
dassroom ar the co|lege and spend the day jamming was impossible
to resisr. Lennon did attend some classes: ir was ar the col[ege thar be
me~ Cynthia Powell, whom he would marry in 1962. He also became
friendly with Stuart Fergusson Vic~or Sutcliffe, a Scottish-born art
studem whose Abstract Expressionist paintings showed great
promise. One of Sutdiffe's painfings was induded in the second
b i e n n i a l ] o h n M o o r e s E x h i b i t i o n a r t h e Wa ] k e r A r t G a l l e r y l a t c i n

J959, and when the exhibition ended, Moores bought the painting

A prlze~w[nning arlist bur

a woelully amateurish
6assi$t, Stu SutliI[e ]ained
ihe band ar tennan's
in$istence in 1960, was a
member for less thon o yeor
and died in 1962;
nevertheless, be influenced
the group's attitude and
laok, and suggesled lhe
name Beailes
Fom Quorry Men to B~atles 1957 61 27

for 65, which Lennon persuaded Sutdiffe to spend on an electric

bass guitar.
Sutcliff's talents were not musical, and be never did master the
instrument. But for Lennon to bring him in showed tha: even in light
ofthc band's professional ambitions he sti[l thought ofit partly as a
social club, and he wanted his ffiends to be in ir, musical abilities
notwithstanding. Sutcliffe was in the group for [ess than a year+ but
he made a few notable contributions. He suggested, for cxample,
renaming the group the Beatles (although bis original spelling was
Beatals), a play on the name of Buddy Holly's band, the Crickets,
with a pun on 'beat'. From May to July, the band played in dance
halls ali over Liverpool under the names Silver Beats and Silver
Bcctlcs before Lennon definitively adopte(] Sutcliffe's idea.
Ar the end of 196o, arder the Beatles played their first scason in
Hamburg, Sutclifl~ bailed out ofthe band to remain in Germany
with his fiance, A~trid Kirchherr. But his influence in non-musical
arcas continucd. Hc adoptcd thc forward brushed halrstyle favoured
by the Existenti~]ist student.crowd with which Astrid mLxed in
Hamburg. The Beades, then still Elvis dones, were derisive ar first,
but soon embraced what carne to be known in the early t96os as the
Bearle haircut. He also introduced another early Beatles visual trade-
rnark, the colladess jacket, while the band was still in leather. Beyond
these superficial contributions, hc sccms to havc brought out thc
intellectual curiosity that Lennon was hiding under a tough veneer.
Sutcliffe was morc passionate aboul' art and literature than about
music, and Lennon wanted to understand what Sutcliffe saw in them.
Thc lcttcrs thc two cchanged after the band left Hamburg are full
of anquished philosophizing and serious, if self-conscious, poetry, not
quite what one would expect of a musician with the cocky rock-
guitarist persona that Lennon presented publicl)~
A tape ofthe group from mid96o exists, and although it is clear-
ly an informai rehearsal, ir runs for over two hours and includes both
songs and extended )ams, thcrcby giving ah impression ofd~e then
drummerless quartet's abilities. Sutcliff is inaudible much ofthe
time; when be can be he~ard, his basslines are ora simple one-note-to-
the-bar ~ariety. In the long jams, there seem to be two distinct lead
guitarists+ one comparatively fluem and bluesy, the other awkward
 The Beatles

The Beatles as they were

in 1960~ po~ing before a

Homburg ruin in a I~mous

portrait by Aslrid Kirc~herr

From leFt to i~hl Pete Besl

~drumrnerl, the Ihree 9u~tar

nucle~~ of Horrison, Lennon

~lnd MCOr tn~y, ond

$utcliffe with bis I~ass
From Quorry Men to Beatles 1957-~1 2
 The Beal[es

and fumbling, rbougb intent on playing quick scalc gkc runs. ne,
obviously, was Harrison; tbe other migbt havc been McCartney.
Thc are some cngaging momcnts. Most striking are a handul of
Lennon-McCarmey numbe~s. Bmides 'Hego Litt]e Girl', there are
two vc~sions of 'One Affer 9o9' tbat wondcrfugy i]luminate the
band's skiMe roots. Shotten's washboard is of course long gone, but
one can almost hear the echo ofit in the cbunk, off-tbe-bca~ chordal
accompaniment. One bears tbc locomotivc chu~ing along f more
clearly here than in the version the Beatles recorded for the Ler Ir Be
album in I969. Otherwise, the song did not change much. But Til
Follow thc Sun' changcd considerably bctwccn its appearance here
and the version recorded forBeatlesJrSalein late i964. Tbe finished
version begins with a graceful walk through the song's chmd progres-
sion, tben rigbt into the lyrics. The J96o account starts with a t~'angy,
Buddy Holly-ish lead guitar introduction. Tbe melody and tbe lyrics
ofthe first p.vo verses are already therc, although the accompaniment
is a blend of skifl]e and vaudeville, a lar cry from the supple support
ofthe 1964 recording. But the song's bridge section was endrdy
revised bctween thc two rccordings. In 196o it was a simple, brief
country and western pastiche witb tbe Holly-style solo leading back
into the verse. The I964 bridge, more spacious and witb new lyrics,
moves from the bright major key feeling ofthe verse into a bittet-
sweet minor mode digression.
The tape also gires ah impression ofthe band's taste in covcr
versions, wbich are split between blues numbers (Fats Domino's '1
Will AIways Be in Love With You'), brighter rhythm and blues songs
(Ray Charles's 'Hallelujah! [ Love Her So'), country and western
tunes (Carl Perkins's 'Matchbox'), and sizz]ing rockers (Duane Eddy's
'Mooviff 'n' Groovin" in a version that replaces Eddy's slinkiness with
direct aggression}.
Soon after Sutcliffe joined, the Beat]es took on a manager of sorts.
Ailan wigiams ran a club called the Jacaranda, and undertook various
teelance promotions that brought rock stars like Genc Vincent and
Billy Fury to Liverpool, witb local bands filling out the bill. He was
not, at 8rst, impressed with tbe Beatles: they had no drummer, and
were less accomplisbed than Cass and the Cassanovas, Rory Storm
and tbe Httrricanes and Gerry and the Pacemakers, ali local bands
with plenty of experience. Still, gVi[liams enlisted the group to play at
From Quorry Men to Beotles 1957=61 3%

his New Cabaret Artistcs. an inegal strip dub, backing a dancer who
insisted on the accompaniment ofa live band. Actually, she had
hoped to strip to the music of Bccthoven and Khachaturian, and
distributcd scores to Lennon, McCarmey, Harrison and Sutcliffc.
But since they were unable to read thcse, shc had :o settle for
'Summertimc', 'The Third Man Theme', 'Begin the Beguine' and
other standards. According to the account in William s's au:obio-
graphy, =lhe Man Who Gave the Beades Away, McCarmey filled in
on drums,
They did need a permanent dmmmer though, and Williams
found one for them - Tommy Moore, a 36-year old forkqift operator.
Moore accompanied the Silver Beetles on a short tour of Sco:iand as
a backup band for the singer Johnny Gent[e, and for a few engagc+
ments in Liverpool, but Icft the band when his girlfriend persuaded
him to devote his energies more fully to his day job at the Garston
Bottle Works. Another drummer. Norman Chapman, was enlisted
when they heard him practising in a building across the street
flora Williams's Jacaranda; bur soon afier be joined the group, he
was conscripted.
In the summer of [96o, Wi]liams made a connection with Bruno
Koschmider, the owner of several clubs on the Reeperbahn, the red
light district in Hamburg. Koschmider was in the market for English
rock bands, and had contracted several Liverpool groups from
Williams. But the Beatles we,e not held in high regard by their peers,
and when Williams wrote to tell his othcr musicians that the Bcatles
would afrive in mid-August, he received a letter of protest, warning
him that scnding a group as bad as the Beat]es wouJd ruin the scene
for everyone. WilBams ignored the letter, but two weeks before their
planned depar ture date, the Beatles were stilI searching for a drum-
roer. Their quest brought them back to Mona Best's Casbah, where
the proprietress's son, Randolph Peter Best, was lalaying drums in
[xis own band, the Blackjacks. Best had his heart ser on becoming a
professional drummer, and with the other Blackjacks about to leave
for col[ege, he was easily induced to d~row in his [ot with Lennon,
McCartney, Harrison and Sutcliffe.
In Hamburg, the group's daily sets at the [ndra and then ar the
KaiserkeHer lasted Iate into the night, and to maintain the energy they
needed, they began to consume amphetamines prodigiously. The
 The Beafles

Pele Best, who joined lhe

Beatles on lhe eve o{ thei
{ist Hamburg trip in 1960
ond wos unceremoniously
booted out o~ the eve ot
their success in 1962

ambience was entirely decadent, and ]iving conditions were dismal:

Koschmider gare the group poorly-lit quarters behind the screen at
rhe Bambi, a decrepit cinema. On the other hand, they reli in with a
crowd ofGerman studeJ~ts who were interested il~ contcmporary art
and Existentialist literature, and whose dress, depending on rhe occa-
sion, varied from straight black to the almost costumed look that
became current in London seven years later. Onc ofthe students,
Klaus Voorman, maintained his ties with the group: he designed Ihe
cover for their Revolver album in I966, and was the bassist on a few
of Lennon's early solo recordings. And Astrid Kirchherr and Jurgen
Vollmer, photographers with a sense of the unusui, took what
became the classic early photographs ofthe group, pictures that
capture something of their ambition and defiance.
Sutcliffe in particular was drawn to this crowd, and especially to
OJoposi~e, tennon was Ast rid, to whom he became eng'aged. His immersion in Astrid's
always nostalg[c for lhe
sophisticated world reminded" him that be had put his own artistic
Iough Bohemion days this
196J Hambuvg ortrait destiny on hold. And although he enjoyed playing in the band, bis
evokes; in 1975 he used medocre musicianship gave riso to increasing tensio:~s. McCartncy
il as the cover hoto for
was particularly criticai, bur Lennon later told interviewers that they
Roc~ 'n' Roll, an album
of songs by the musiians alt gave Sutclifl, b a hard rime, so that in the autumn of I96O be
who influenced him. resolvcd to remain in Hamburg and was accepted for further studies
From Quorry M~n to Beatles ] 957 61
 The Beatle~

with Eduardo Pao]ozzi, the Scotdsh-born sculptor and pioneer in

pop ~t.
For the rest ofthe group, the threc and a hall months the BearIes
performed in Hamburg were decisive in their transition from musical
hobbyists to full-time musicians. If hints of the Bcatles style are cvi
dent on the mid-I96o tape, their sound was truly crystalized by some
5oo hours of a[l-night performing. They had to keep current by
working up vcrsions ofthe lamst hits, both rockcrs and crooners,
songs they added to their backlist ofpersonal 6avourites from late
i95os' America. And with these examples in mind they wme churning
out songs of their own with increasing confidence.
Just as li~c in Hamburg was taking shape, the band's luck changed.
In October, when Koschmider discovcred that the Beatles were

In Hambmg, 1961, the

Bec41es abandoned their
Elvis clone ffairstyle s ]n
favour of the brushed
Iorward Iook popular
wilh Smclifle's rl student
}riends Ir ,,vos onother six
monlhs before they lraded
in lheir lec~t her iackets for
stdge $uits
From Quarry Men to Beall~s 1957-61
Colloborotir~g with Torq
Sheridan (righ~I ar the
To Ten C]ub in Hamburg
got lhe Beafl~s tired from
Iheir own job ai lhe
campeting Kaiserkeller in
1960, b~l led to Iheir first
professi~nal reordings, as
Sheridan's back~p band
the following sprlng
35
spending their breaks ar the competing Top Ten club, and sometimes
performing there with the singcr Tony Shcfidan, be cancelled their
contract, l Iarrison, then seventeen, was sudkien]y discovered to be
under age, and was deported. And whe McCartney and Best gath-
ered their belongings from the Bambi in'order to move to the Top
Ten, they ser a condom atire to provide light, leaving burn marks
on the wall. Koschmider had them arrested Irov arson, and rhey ~oo
were dcported.
Sutc]iffe remained in Hamburg, effectively resigning from the
band, although he sar in with them occasiona[ly during their
Hamburg s6nt in ~961.:~nd Lennon returned to Liverpool in
December, ten days after McCarrney and Harrison. He did not get
in touch with 5be others immediate[y: rather, he spent a week won-
dering whether the band was worth continu~ng. On ret|ection [le had
no choice. A[t]~ottgh he had ta]ents for drawing and writing, his heart
was in music, and the Beatles were roo good a resource to squander.
He called the group together, with Chas Newb), (the bass~st ti'oro
Best's Blackjacks) telnporarily taking up Sutdiffe's role during bis
36 ' The Beatles

college holiday, and their performances in the final days ofi96o re-
inforced his decision. Musically, the Beatles were far better than they
had been when they left Liverpool, and the combination of beer,
amphetamines and the encouragement of boisterous German audi-
ences had led them to develop a kinetic, electrifying stage show.
Suddenly, their Liverpool audiences were responding with signs of
the ecstatic frenzy that, three years later, would be called Beatlemania.