Tune In

by Mark Lewisohn

  I didn’t know what it was, but my friend and I were getting bored with the local dances—all the “Fräulein, Fräulein” Schlager music—so we dared ourselves to go. If my parents had ever known that I was going to the Reeperbahn! I was getting dressed up in my nice skirt and white blouse and high heels and I was going down to the local dance, wasn’t I? Was I heck!

  I’ll never forget the first time I went. It was the Beatles, and that was it, I was hooked. I’d never heard anything like it. We thought they were fabulous and I fell madly in love with Pete Best. I thought he was absolutely gorgeous, though I never spoke to him; I didn’t speak to any of them because none of us spoke English.33

  Memories have stayed distinct and precise for other Top Ten habitués. Ellen Piel, then 18, says, “Paul was always smiling, a nice guy to everybody, very easy, but John was sometimes dangerous; he used to drink on stage and burp into the microphone.”

  Elvi Erichsen, also 18, was a passionate dancer, never happier than when jiving. She says it was common knowledge among her friends at the time that Pete was “an outsider who didn’t get on very well with the others.”

  Icke Braun, 24, liked it when John was late returning from a break because Paul would say over the microphone “Quasimodo, get on the stage!” and John would go into one of his cripple imitations, which made everyone laugh.

  Kathia Berger, 22, was deeply in love with Paul.

  He looked like an angel with big eyes. He found it hard to say my name so he would play a request for “the girl with red hair” and sing “Till There Was You.” I wished that he loved me but I was not his type: he liked small, tender blondes. But he did like me and we talked. I could speak English, which not many could do; I told him the Beatles would be famous and he laughed.

  The Beatles were sexy. Very. You couldn’t decide who was sexiest. They didn’t try to be sexy, they just were, and they were natural.34

  The angel friends were there too, in their select seats by the stage. Astrid’s favorite song was “One After 909”—a rare (and possibly unique) instance of the Beatles performing a Lennon-McCartney number in this period. But playing for seven, eight hours every night necessitated regular additions to what was already the broadest of repertoires; Sheridan and the Beatles would respond to the atmosphere, playing fast when the dance floor was packed and slowing right down when the clock edged past two or three. Paul fondly recalls how John sang “Lazy River” when the mood mellowed. It was yet another prerock standard which they considered fair game because Gene Vincent had recorded it—much like “Summertime,” Paul’s “Over the Rainbow” and John’s “Ain’t She Sweet,” which the Germans particularly liked. They sometimes played the Harrison-Lennon instrumental from their first Hamburg visit, the twangy Shadows pastiche they still called Beatle Bop, and Pete says that even he sang from time to time, sticking the microphone between his thighs to render Carl Perkins’ “Matchbox”—one of the songs Ringo was doing in Starrtime!, back home with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes.

  “In the few months we played and lived together the Beatles became probably the best rhythm and blues band I’ve ever heard,” Sheridan says—high praise in anyone’s language and especially his. He was a demanding and volatile leader. As Rosi describes it, “Tony was always shouting at them, for eight hours a night, ‘Do it in B-flat minor!’ or ‘Pete, you’re too fast!’ and ‘Why can’t you play that?’ ” The Beatles had been thrilled to meet Sheridan on their first Hamburg visit, and they realized the benefits of playing with him here, but they didn’t always appreciate his company. One night, in the middle of a song, Sheridan saw someone asking Rosi to dance, and without hesitation he rushed over and knocked the man out; another time, in a fight that involved a broken bottle, Sheridan severed a tendon in the middle finger of his right hand and was taken off to the hospital. He had to miss a night or two, and his damaged finger would always protrude when he played. “It was good to have Sheridan there,” George said, “but at the same time he was such a downer. He was always getting into fights.”35

  Tony says it was John who goaded him into fighting Pete. John felt that Pete “lived a lie” and needed to be taught a lesson … provided he could find someone to teach it. As John would recall, “He was always telling us all the fights he’d had, and the people he’d thumped. We’d pretend to be asleep when he came [to the attic] and started to tell us. He also pretended he was a judo expert, which we knew he wasn’t.”36 Sheridan relates what happened next: “John was saying fuckin’ judo this and fuckin’ judo that, and because I was pissed off with Pete when he didn’t put enough effort in[to] his drumming, John cleverly manipulated me into fighting him. ‘Look, Tony, if you and Pete don’t fuckin’ see eye to eye, go outside and have a fuckin’ fight or something.’ And I said, ‘That’s a good idea, John. Come on, Pete, when we’ve finished, two o’clock, outside, and we’ll see about it.’ ”

  The venue was the attractively ornate, turquoise-tiled alley between the front door of the club and the Reeperbahn pavement, possibly closed off at each end to make “a ring.” It was a chance for Pete to show all he’d learned from the Best boxing dynasty in Liverpool, and for Sheridan to prove, as John Lennon regularly did, that being ex–art school didn’t mean you weren’t handy. Tony says they had maybe twenty to thirty cheering spectators, and while it isn’t certain if Beatles numbered among them, John—having shoved Sheridan into this—was expecting Pete “to kill him.” Pete might have bragged, but he was clearly hard. “We agreed the fight had to be clean,” says Sheridan, “no kicking in the bollocks.”

  The result would always be a matter of dispute. John said Tony “shut Pete up without a whimper”; Pete says they beat hell out of each other but that, if anybody won, he did; Rosi thinks it was a draw; and Tony is sure Pete conceded but admits they both suffered—“The next day we could hardly move.” John probably had a good laugh at both of them.

  When Cyn and Dot arrived from Liverpool, they were even more wide-eyed at St. Pauli’s sights than the Beatles had been the previous August. Incredible! It was the first time either had traveled abroad and they left Lime Street with unsuppressed excitement, cheese butties, a hot Thermos and farewell waves from Lil Powell and Jim Mac. John and Paul arranged to rendezvous with their Brigittes at the Hauptbahnhof and they came “fresh” from the Top Ten stage, dressed in leather, all larks and boots and smoke and booze, shouting and jumping, living on Prellies time. The girls were disappointed, but then it passed; a fried English breakfast at the British Sailors’ Society helped settle them in, and they were soon taking Preludin too.37

  Paul had told Mutti his fiancée was coming to Hamburg, and expressed concerns about such a shy girl sharing the tight Top Ten attic. The Toilettenfrau, eager to help the boy she liked so much, suggested he and Dot stay on her houseboat, moored on the Elbe. John arranged for Cyn to stay with Astrid, Nielsa and Stuart at Eimsbütteler Strasse; Cyn gelled with Astrid and marveled at her style. Astrid’s all-black bedroom contrasted sharply with her very English boudoir back in Cheshire, with its standard dressing table and floral nylon bedspread. Because Cyn’s staying here made sex a bit difficult, there were also occasions when the girls slept over in the attic—as remembered by Rosi and also by Pete, who says he and George got the command “look the other way.”38

  Cyn and Dot’s presence was a mixed blessing for John and Paul. It cramped their style (and there was always the chance the girls would learn of something they shouldn’t), but it was also the first time either had been away with their bird. It was like being on a holiday that involved an evening job. Warm spring days were becoming hot summer days and on one of them John and Cyn joined Astrid and Stu in a run out to the coast in her VW convertible. She drove them to Scharbeutz, the Ostsee (Baltic) resort to which she’d been evacuated as a child, and where her family kept a holiday home. It was about an hour away and they had to be mindful of the clock, to be back at the Top Ten by early evening, but they spent a happy day on the beach—despite John suffering sunburn. Si
mple snapshots record John and Cyn happily hugging by the water’s edge, and two close mates enjoying a moment: John in a T-shirt, Stu in a floppy hat with a ciggie clenched between his teeth, together crafting a piece of art with driftwood and sand.

  John and Paul showed Cyn and Dot the Hamburg they knew, from the harbor to the wicked Herbertstrasse. One such day, Stu and Astrid joined them and they climbed the great green-copper tower at Hauptkirche St. Michaelis (St. Michael’s church). Here on the viewing platform, which presented a grand panorama of the metropolis, a wooden handrail would preserve three testimonials to love, carved with care and a pocket penknife: John + Cyn, Paul + Dot, Stu + Astrid.39

  Just as Stuart’s entry into the Beatles came through his art, so too was it his exit. Nielsa Kirchherr bought him paints and brushes and her brother made him an easel, and he resumed his primary passion refreshed and with much to say. Then, from the last week of May, he studied under Eduardo Paolozzi, newly appointed as visiting professor for a year at Hochschule für Bildende Künste, the Hamburg College of Fine Arts. Paolozzi was a founder member of the “Independent Group” of artists in London, fascinated with America’s postwar consumer culture; some of his artwork anticipated the coming pop art style, but he had particular renown as a sculptor—and it was as a sculptor, not a painter, that Stuart successfully applied for both a place in the Hochschule and a support grant. Paolozzi thought his new student’s work and ideas well worthy of encouragement. As he remarked six years later, “He had so much energy and was so very inventive. The feeling of potential splashed out from him. He had the right kind of sensibility and arrogance to succeed.”40

  Stuart was given two non-repayable monthly grants of 100 marks for a summer term beginning June 1, but he remained determined to complete the Beatles’ Top Ten season, to finish on July 1. Playing all night and working all day was exhausting, however, so he did miss the occasional night, on top of which his health was causing genuine concern: his appendix was troubling him continually and he was alarmingly thin and still having headaches.

  Plugging the gap when Stuart was absent, and plugging in, Paul switched from piano to bass, borrowing Stuart’s big Hofner 333 and playing it upside down (so the strings were still in the right place when Stuart wanted it). Paul was back in the Beatles’ front line at long last, though he remained as reluctant as ever to take over the bass full time: in spite of Stu’s skinny frame, he still considered it “the fat guy’s instrument.”41 It was clear the Beatles were rapidly approaching a decision, however: back in Liverpool, they’d either have to find a new bass player or slim down to a foursome with John, Paul or George playing it.

  Would they even have any bookings, though? Clearly Allan Williams had not been able to bring this Hamburg trip to a halt, as he’d threatened, but perhaps he hadn’t tried. The position in Liverpool could be different, however, and that Williams was still angry was known to them—it was made clear in a letter Paul received from his dad, in which Jim reported that Williams was seeing a solicitor about the Beatles’ refusal to pay his commission. Jim told Paul the Beatles were wrong to have treated their manager this way and encouraged him to make amends before the situation became too difficult.42 But the Beatles were going to brazen it out; in fact, measures to get around any problems were already in hand.

  One of Cyn’s main impressions of her Hamburg visit was that Pete was “a misfit” in the group, “a loner who brooded a great deal on his own.” It’s also true that the same Pete, with his energetic mother Mo, was working harder to secure the Beatles’ future than the other four members combined, and he was doing it without their acknowledgment or thanks. The Bests, in their unrewarded role as organizers, were laying the groundwork for the Beatles’ Liverpool return, and shooting high. They’d never again play for the scale of fees earned at the start of the year, typically between £5 and £10 a booking. These had already exceeded the earnings of any other group but now they were raising the stakes. Cavern lunchtime sessions that had paid them £5 were pegged at £10, evening bookings at the Cavern and elsewhere rarely less than £15. “Let’s get the cash in!” was the motto, and this tone was set from the start.43 The Beatles’ first post-Hamburg date would be for Mona Best herself—at St. John’s church hall in Tuebrook on July 13—and their fee an astronomical £20. The promoters’ grapevine glowed red hot. The Beatles pulled in the crowds for these men and now, through gritted teeth, they were going to have to pay for it.

  One had already agreed. Pete set up a long-term booking with Wally Hill, to play every Saturday and Sunday night, for £15 and £12 respectively, until at least the end of September. Hill wasn’t mad on the Beatles—“They were dirty: it looked like they never washed their hair”44—but he was desperate to block-book them just as Brian Kelly had monopolized them between January and March. It suited the Beatles to be the subject of interpromoter rivalry.

  There was also one other development: Neil Aspinall—Pete’s best friend, his mother’s lodger and lover, and George and Paul’s pal from school—had chucked in his steady job as a trainee accountant, done away with his laborious correspondence course, and was buying a new van. The Beatles were set to become the only group in Liverpool with a driver and assistant who did nothing else but drive and assist, a staunch ally and devoted employee to boot.

  After an impressively adept week or two with Stuart’s bass, Paul played himself into the job he didn’t want. As George would remember, this question of who’d become the Beatles’ bassman kind of decided itself when two of the three possibilities ruled themselves out of the running: “I said … ‘One of us three is going to be the bass player, and it’s not going to be me,’ and John said, ‘I’m not doing it either,’ and Paul didn’t seem to mind the idea.”45 Paul says he was left with no choice: “I doubt I would have picked up the bass if Stuart hadn’t left. I certainly didn’t start playing it by choice: I got lumbered with it.”46

  Either Paul didn’t want to buy Stuart’s bass or it wasn’t made available to him, because he went into Hamburg and bought one. His initial intention was to buy a Fender, but he thought the price prohibitive and ended up at Steinway & Sons trying the hollow-bodied, violin-shaped Hofner 500/1. He liked its symmetrical appearance and was pleased to find it light, like balsa wood in his hands, where Stuart’s guitar was heavy. Buying a Hofner inside its country of manufacture made it easy to request a left-handed model; although a special order, it was available within days and became the first guitar Paul wasn’t forced to play upside down. The price was also appealing—DM360, a little under £31. “I didn’t really want to spend that much,” he’d recall. It was only £10 more than he’d spent on the Rosetti a year earlier, and he’d soon regretted his decision to buy cheap. That guitar fell apart within months, so it remained to be seen how long this “Hofner Violin” bass would stay in use. As for the old Rosetti, its overdue demise was mourned right there on the Top Ten stage in a heartfelt festival of Prelly-fueled performance art. As Paul would recall, “George, Stu, Pete and John—especially John—had a great time smashing it to bits by jumping up and down on it.”47

  A pair of photographs show Paul and Stu on stage with their basses. At the start of the year the Beatles didn’t have one bass player and now they had two, and comments were surely passed. Although Cyn would write of how Stu “restrained himself” when Paul was niggling him, there was one occasion when he didn’t, when the Top Ten witnessed an explosion, and yet another fight: Beatle on Beatle this time, Stu on Paul.

  The fight’s origin is vague or varies in the telling, but everyone agrees that a tease or derogatory mention of Astrid set it off. Klaus says Stuart owed Paul some money, and Paul, nagging to get it back, made a flippant remark about Astrid being able to afford it. As Paul would remember, “I’d always wondered, if he and I ever had a fight, who would win? He was probably wondering too. I assumed I’d win because he wasn’t that big, but the strength of love or something entered into him because he was no easy match at all.”48

  Everyone
was amazed by the manner in which Stu, so manifestly puny, could summon up such power, as if his every muted response to eighteen months of snipes and gibes accumulated in one volcanic eruption. As George put it, “Stuart suddenly got this amazing strength that Paul hadn’t bargained for.” Klaus says Stu “picked Paul up and put him on the piano.” Pete says Stu “landed Paul such a wallop that it knocked him off his stool. [They] began struggling on the floor, rolling around locked in the most ferocious battle … a fury of flailing fists.” Paul always speaks of it being “a silly fight—you just stay locked for about an hour, with nobody doing anything. All the old German gangsters were laughing, but it was very serious for us.”49

  It has never been explained how the fight ended or how they were able to work together afterward, because this wasn’t a skirmish that cleared the air and left the protagonists friends again. The situation remained awkward, and it was just as well Stu’s remaining days in the Beatles numbered in single figures. He, not Paul, was now the spare part on stage, and it was Paul, not Stu, who played bass when the Beatles went off to make a record.

  RECORDING SESSION

  Thursday *June 22, 1961. Friedrich-Ebert-Halle, Hamburg-Harburg.

  RECORDING: My Bonnie; The Saints; Why; Beatle Bop**; Nobody’s Child; Take Out Some Insurance; Ain’t She Sweet**. Order of recording not known.

  By Tony Sheridan and the Beatles except **the Beatles only. *Possibly also the 23rd.

  The Beatles’ first recording session took place in a civic concert hall annexed to a high school. This didn’t reflect any lack of intent on the part of producer Bert Kaempfert: the auditorium was regularly used for recording, typically when Hamburg’s main facility, Musikhalle, was occupied. Friedrich-Ebert-Halle—named after Germany’s first president—was in Harburg, twenty-two kilometers south of Hamburg, and the Beatles got there by way of the St. Pauli Elbtunnel, which transported vehicles underground by elevator before the road stretched away beneath the great river.