Tune In

by Mark Lewisohn

  When you’re at art school and you’re not a child any more it was unusual to invite in a couple of schoolboys in blazers. That’s why John asked our permission, which he did, formally, because he must have felt we wouldn’t want little schoolboys coming in. It would have been hard for him to ask, but he did it because he wanted them there. John was an extremely generous person—he would give you anything and do anything for you. He invited anybody into his world.18

  Familiar only with the strictures of grammar school, Paul and George reveled in the relaxed atmosphere of the art college canteen, where instead of what George would satirize as “school cabbage and boiled grasshoppers” they could eat spaghetti on toast for 7d, beans on toast for 8d or egg on toast for 9d, or sit on the small stage and tuck into scallops bought from Vaughan’s. As George said, “There’d be chicks and arty types [and] we could go in there and smoke without anyone giving us a bollocking. John would be friendly to us—but at the same time you could tell that he was always a bit on edge because I looked a bit too young, and so did Paul.”19

  Nigel Walley managed to get the Quarry Men back into the Cavern in this period (not advertised, date unknown), a booking secured through the ever-thinning umbilical cord of skiffle, as well as a pretense that they could play the blues. Paul remembers, “We announced songs like ‘Long Tall Sally’ as being written by Blind Lemon Jefferson, and ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ as ‘the famous creation of the legendary blues guitarist Lead Belly’ ”; George would recall, “The owners sent up little notes to the stage complaining. We’d say, ‘Here’s another one by Big Bill Broonzy called “Rip It Up,” ’ and they threw us off.” John said they were “banned from the Cavern for a year after that,” nothing more doing until spring 1959, but actually it was more than this: it was the Quarry Men’s final appearance here.20

  George had started going out with his first girlfriend just before being invited into the group. Arthur Kelly went out one night with a girl named Ann Harvey, and afterward when he asked to see her again she said, “Only if you bring a friend for my friend.” This was how George (closing on 15) came to meet Iris Caldwell (almost 14) at the Palace Ice Rink on Prescot Road, Kensington. A foursome developed and the girls took to calling Arthur and George “Azzer and Nazzer,” though Iris can no longer remember why, except they too had a great sense of humor. After a date or three, just hanging around places, George went to her house and met her parents; and here began an important relationship that would long outlive his sweet but brief courtship with Iris.

  Her brother Alan, often known as Al, was leader of the Texan Skiffle Group, aka the Texans, aka Al Caldwell’s Texans and formerly the Ravin’ Texans; whatever the name, they were reckoned one of Liverpool’s better groups, regulars at the Cavern. Born in January 1938, Al developed a chronic stutter at the age of six when Iris was born, and could barely complete a sentence; 1950s medical science was tested to its limit in the hunt for a cure—he even underwent injections and hypnotism—but the stutter did lift, completely, miraculously, when he sang, especially when he aped an American accent. So he sang, with a twang. He loved skiffle and rock, and as a very good-looking lad with a stack of blond hair (like Iris), he had no shortage of female admirers—though less so after he spoke. He was also a fine athlete, competing in high-level track meetings. George liked Al immediately, and he became especially fond of Al and Iris’s parents, Ernie and Vi, whose home at 54 Broad Green Road was an ever open house for their children’s friends, any time of the day or night.†

  Just before Paul got him into the Quarry Men, George had made a pitch to join the Texans. “George was always playing the guitar,” says Iris, “especially the old song ‘Wedding Bells Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine.’ The main reason he went out with me was that he wanted to get in a group. He used to come around and play this to my brother, and my brother used to say, ‘Come back in a few years, son.’ ”21

  Vi Caldwell is remembered by Arthur Kelly as “an Ethel Merman figure, and a great encourager.” With an unquenchable spirit, great sense of humor, love of people and generous, supportive nature, Vi was a true Liverpool character, endlessly chatting, laughing, joking, smoking, making fry-ups and brewing pots of tea. George loved her like a second mum, as did almost everyone who met her. As Iris says, “I’m sure half the boyfriends I ever had and half the girlfriends my brother had was because they liked my mum so much. She was such a brilliant personality. People just used to love coming to our house and being part of it.”

  During the course of these visits to the Caldwells, George heard plenty of enthusiastic (if stuttered) talk about a music club Al and Johnny Byrne (his Texan pardner from around the corner) were planning to open in the cellar of a big house a couple of hundred yards away. It was a nurses’ residence, a detached Victorian property, and the woman in charge said they could use the basement as a teenagers’ venue. They decided to call it the Morgue Skiffle Cellar, open for business two evenings a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays.‡ The club was unlawful—the boys never bothered to obtain licenses—so when the opening session, on March 13, 1958, was advertised in the Evening Express they didn’t give the address, which was close to useless. Attractions were detailed only on handouts typed on colored sheets and individually signed “Al Caldwell (manager).” The Morgue was not at all in the Quarry Men’s part of town, but John and Paul heard about it through George and they played here on the opening night in rotation with Al Caldwell’s Texans, performing from the tiny makeshift stage.22

  Except for three of the sessions, details of who played the Morgue and when have not been preserved, but the Quarry Men performed possibly several times, at least once as a trio of guitarists and at least once with Colin on drums (Duff never figured because there wasn’t a piano). John, Paul and George also came along other times as clubgoers, because the place was full of nurses; however it was shut down by the end of April. Next-door neighbor Mr. Brown complained about teenagers “frolicking” in his garden, and there were also grumbles about litter and late-night noise in this residential district. John, Paul and George saw less of the Caldwells after that, but a bond had been created between them, to be rejuvenated in years to come.

  It was to the Morgue Skiffle Cellar that they traveled the evening of Thursday, March 20, where they watched the Texans, the Bluegenes and the Sioux City Skiffle Group in action. But why they were here and not back in the city, at the Philharmonic Hall, remains unexplained, because this was the night Buddy Holly and the Crickets came to play in Liverpool—and these most devoted of fans chose not to go. It wasn’t just because of the attractions at the Morgue: tickets for Holly had been on sale a month, before the cellar club was even known about. Nor was it the expense: tickets were reasonably priced, only four to twelve shillings. Even more oddly, they weren’t the only absentees: the Evening Express reported afterward how the combined audience for both houses at the Philharmonic would not have half-filled the Empire.

  John, Paul and George were well aware Buddy and the Crickets were in the country because they’d been glued to TV the night of March 2 to watch them on Sunday Night at the London Palladium. As Paul says, “That was the big occasion—to watch his fingers, see what guitar he had, to see if he played the chords right, to see how he did that solo in ‘Peggy Sue,’ see whether he used a capo or not, all the various technical things—that was where you got the info.”23

  “I only saw them on the London Palladium [on TV],” John stated. “He was great! It was the first time I saw a Fender guitar! Being played! While the singer sang!! Also the ‘secret’ of the drumming on ‘Peggy Sue’ was revealed … live … We did practically everything he put out. What he did with ‘3’ chords made a songwriter out of me!! He was the first guy I ever saw with a capo. He made it OK to wear glasses! I WAS Buddy Holly.”24

  Given such enthusiasm, it is astounding they didn’t go to see him in person when it was so easy to do so. At four o’clock that afternoon, John came out of art college and Paul and George came out of school, and thoug
h Buddy Holly—Buddy Holly!—was just a couple of hundred yards along the same street, all the way over from Texas and rehearsing in “the Phil” with the Crickets and his drool-over Fender Stratocaster guitar, they turned and went home. Then, after tea, they took a series of buses up to the Morgue.

  Records by Buddy Holly and the Crickets were not to be missed, however. Like many other fine American discs, they were available in the Liverpool shops through licensing arrangements with British companies (almost entirely Decca’s London label) … and what rich pickings could be had in the first half of 1958, sourced from the thriving independent labels across the great continent:

  • From Sam Phillips’ Sun in Memphis came “Breathless” by Jerry Lee Lewis, and the rockabilly “Lend Me Your Comb” by Carl Perkins. From Josie in New York came the infectiously upbeat “Do You Want to Dance” by Bobby Freeman, and from Chicago, on the Chess subsidiary Checker, was “The Walk” by Jimmy McCracklin—a silly attempt to create a dance craze but a fine record with a swaggering beat.

  • From Specialty in Hollywood came two dynamic Larry Williams singles, “Bony Moronie” and “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” (the B-side of which was the twelve-bar rocker “Slow Down”), and also the last rock recordings cut by Little Richard before he disappeared into the Church, “Good Golly Miss Molly” and “Ooh! My Soul.” John sang the Williams songs, Paul soon had Richard’s down to sweet perfection.

  • From studios in New York and New Mexico came not only three more inspirational singles by Buddy Holly and the Crickets—“Maybe Baby,” “Listen to Me” and “Rave On”—but also an entire LP, The Chirping Crickets, salivated over by their fans for the cover photo as well as the musical content: it was every British rocker’s initial sight of a Fender Stratocaster. “The first time I ever saw a photograph of Buddy Holly with that Strat, you cream yourself looking,” remembered George Harrison.25 This one guitar instantly occupied George’s mind above all others, as proved by the drawings in his schoolbooks. “You couldn’t get one in the shops but he just loved the shape of it,” says Arthur Kelly. “George used to sit and draw Strats all day long.”

  • From Cadence in New York came Link Wray’s “Rumble,” an extraordinary, distorted electric guitar track; and also “All I Have to Do Is Dream” by the Everly Brothers. (“When we first heard it, it blew us away,” says Paul.)26

  • From Imperial in Hollywood came “Stood Up,” a good catchy rocker by the young American actor/singer Ricky Nelson, bought in Liverpool by Paul.

  • And also from Chess in Chicago came two more singles by Chuck Berry, “Sweet Little Sixteen” c/w “Reelin’ and Rockin,’ ” and “Johnny B. Goode” c/w “Around and Around.” “Johnny B. Goode” didn’t make the British charts (though it was a hit in the jukeboxes), yet both records cemented Berry’s reputation in a nation where he’d always be a hero. John, Paul and George were diehard Berry fans from this moment. Paul’s first real interest in the drums was stirred by the break around the kit in “Sweet Little Sixteen”; George would say, “Everyone learned that guitar playing, everybody wanted to play like that”;27 John became especially possessive of Berry’s music, not only singing the songs but instructing George that, though he was lead guitarist, he, John, was going to play these ones, OK? Methodical study was never John’s style, but he rarely came closer to it than when he set his mind on being Chuck.

  And just in case the bell-ringing guitar sound wasn’t thrilling enough, Berry’s words were extraordinary. No one else wrote so poetically about Americana—which, to British ears, now sounded ever more like nirvana. To this generation in cold, gray, austere postwar Britain, the promised land burst into ever more dazzling Technicolor through Chuck; if you closed your eyes you were halfway there, on American Bandstand, in Philadelphia PA, deep in the heart of Texas, ’round the ‘Frisco Bay and by a log cabin deep down in Louisiana. John Lennon was inspired: “He was well advanced of his time, lyric-wise, in a different class from the other performers. The lyrics were fantastic, even though we didn’t know what he was saying half the time … He’s the greatest rock ’n’ roll poet. When I hear rock, good rock, of the caliber of Chuck Berry, I just fall apart and have no other interest in life. The world could be ending if rock ’n’ roll’s playing. It’s a disease of mine.”28

  And then, of course, there was Elvis, whose success just seemed to grow and grow. All of them—Starkey, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison—went to see Jailhouse Rock when it played the huge Forum cinema in Liverpool city center at the end of March. Elvis’s film character was bad boy Vince Everett and this most impressionable audience—playing at rock stars when they stepped on stage, dreaming of rock stardom as the day slipped away—was given another glimpse of the working practices inside a recording studio, one that pretty much confirmed the information in The Girl Can’t Help It. When Everett cuts the first song for his own label, Laurel Records, the producer in the booth says, “Laurel 101, Take 1!” and points the “go” finger, everyone plays great together in one room, and after two minutes the picture dissolves to Everett and a glamour gal packing 45s into mailing cartons.

  Elvis had now been in the lives of his fans for two years and it seemed nothing could ever halt his momentum. As Paul says, “Buddy was a special thing for all of us when we were about 15 or 16, but we also had Elvis. We all loved Elvis—he was so hot. We were just so in love with him. He was just the greatest idol, always hamming it up, always doing a little funny thing. He was so great.”29

  As it happened, however, in the very week they were watching Jailhouse Rock in Liverpool, Elvis was inducted into the US Army and everything changed. A neutering process was under way, starting when the star’s great mane of black hair was shorn off in favor of a shortie.

  While Elvis’s posting suggested any visit to Britain would be delayed even longer, other American stars still made the trip, and Richy Starkey had a formative experience through seeing one. The still-popular Johnnie Ray was in Liverpool for a one-night stand at the Empire on Sunday, April 13, and, like most big names, stayed at the Adelphi, a hotel then considered so exclusive that lesser mortals could only dream of the luxuries within, never expecting to walk among them. On this particular Sunday, Richy was in Liverpool with Roy Trafford when they noticed a crowd outside the Adelphi, and there was the great man at an upper-story window, throwing down photo-publicity cards of himself.§ Always a Johnnie Ray fan, Richy was struck significantly by the sight of the star at the window, up there in that wonderful hotel, literally looked up to by his fans. What a life that must be. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is fabulous.’ It was one of the first times I thought, ‘This is the job for me.’ ”30

  Richy constantly contemplated stardom, and those words of family friend Annie Maguire glowed ever brighter in his mind. While the odds were a million to one, Richy dared to dream: “I was always gonna be ‘on the Palladium’—that was the aim when I was playing a club for ten bob a night. I knew some day I’d get that name in lights, that glossy thing. I just felt it.”31

  For now, though, the Eddie Clayton Skiffle Group were stuck in Liverpool. As one of the best on the scene, admired by George Harrison as well as John Lennon,32 they played the better venues, with regular dates at the Cavern and also, at least twice in April 1958, at midweek “Rock” and “Big Beat” dance nights at the huge Grafton Ballroom. Though they kept the skiffle label, their sound was contemporary: Roy Trafford had ditched the tea-chest and bought himself a Hofner guitar, for which Eddie made him a pickup from copper wires. The group were now fully electric. “Eddie was an absolutely brilliant musician,” says Roy, “he could play anything. He was the singer and I used to harmonize with him. Richy never sang.”33

  Richy used his full kit whenever he could, but it remained too dangerous to lug around and he would dictate the tempo on that single snare. Though standing at the back, he attracted attention with his clothes: with a few quid in his pocket from the bookings and the job at H. Hunt & Son, he had become flash. As Eddie would remember, “Richy was a trifle
on the flamboyant side, particularly in his dress—he liked gold lamé waistcoats and snappy suits.”34

  Eddie’s group had much more stage time than the Quarry Men, their dates advertised regularly in the Liverpool Echo, on top of which they played plenty of private bookings. When Harry Graves’ colleague, fellow Liverpool Corporation painter and decorator Harry Birch, mentioned he needed music for his wedding reception, Richy’s stepdad said he knew just the group. The date was January 25, 1958, and the venue Fazakerley Public Hall in north Liverpool. As Birch recalls:

  We paid them £3 and whatever they wanted to drink, although if I remember rightly they had their own drinks with them. They did a great job, and what was amazing was that they could play dance music as well as skiffle. People were dancing to them, proper dancing. They put it across well and everyone had a really good time, it was a smashing night. And at the end, as was the ritual, they played “God Save the Queen” and everyone stood up—everyone except for my Welsh relatives, that is, who were spitting on the floor.35

  Louise Harrison’s invitation to John and Paul, to come and play their guitars at her house, provided useful new opportunities for the three to congregate somewhere welcoming. She was usually there with them, but sometimes was out at her part-time job and they would all sag off school, so to Speke—two boys unofficially absenting themselves from the Institute, John strolling out through the door as art college students could.

  It was around this time that George joined Paul in going electric. George and Arthur Kelly both bought themselves pickups from Hessy’s, and when Paul was around—and when they were on stage together—George plugged into a second input on Paul’s Elpico; on other occasions, lacking an amp of their own, the boys had to improvise, plugging into Arthur’s family radiogram.