Tune In

by Mark Lewisohn

  Jenny’s mention of inferior “sound effects” referred to the overall audio quality, which was poor. This was how it had been for every performer since the dawn of rock and roll—and earlier. Television’s technological infancy was another reason why miming was rife: studio sound-mixing facilities were so basic that a decent balance was nigh-on impossible to achieve, and technicians still hadn’t figured how to mike a guitar amplifier. Beyond all that, at the receiving end, domestic television sets were housed in small wooden cabinets with one lo-fi mono speaker, and the sound was beamed through the skies with that in mind. The Beatles came a good couple of decades too early for stereo TV and they would always hate their small-screen sound and do everything in their power to improve it, a feeling first shaped here in Manchester.

  Apart from the moment of contrived silliness, what the Beatles were was self-restrained. This TV debut arrived at a time when the front line were switching their stage manner, becoming noticeably less animated. It wasn’t suggested by Brian, it was their own idea. They’d mach Schaued and messed around for a long time and now were trying something different. As John would explain, “Gradually, we cooled it and cooled it, and used less energy. We had a choice between dancing about, creating havoc, and playing. So we concentrated on the playing.”46

  They still acted up between numbers, and John still cripped, but during the songs (except when going to and from the mikes) John was now stock-still, legs astride and grounded, robotically moving his torso and neck; George was motionless except when kicking out one foot or the other involuntarily—what he’d call his “Liverpool Leg”; Paul’s feet still tapped out the beat and he moved around a little, but not much. Personality was conveyed by attitude, looks, humor and natural charisma: they were still having a great time and it still showed, just differently. On TV, though, unfamiliar with the cameras wheeling about them and zooming in for close-ups, they probably underplayed too much. The change certainly came as a shock to Granada’s Leslie Woodhead, whose efforts had brought about the TV booking (for which he says Ringo made a point of thanking him)—he thought the Beatles “incredibly tame” compared to what he’d seen in the Cavern.47

  The Granada booking happened because they’d impressed the People and Places producer in the Cavern, but Brian had yet to do anything about getting them on BBC-tv. There was no alternative to going down the audition route—trying, waiting, hoping—and it all seemed slightly pointless because there was no program to appear on. This was either not known or not considered by David John Smith, a sharp 16-year-old musician and fan who began what amounted to a postal campaign to push the Beatles in particular and Liverpool groups in general. To this day, he’s not quite sure why he did it: “I wasn’t a letter writer by nature, but I suppose I just wanted to get the Beatles some exposure—even though, like many fans, I was afraid of losing them.”48 Smith wrote to two BBC producers in London, urging them to give the Beatles a chance on TV—“Believe me, if you took an interest in this very talented group of lads you would not regret it at all.” He had a reply within four days: his letter had been forwarded to the BBC-tv Auditions Department … and so another train was set in motion.

  The Beatles quickly came to appreciate David John Smith’s contribution to their progress—John nicknamed him “Letters” and Paul asked Brian to give him a job at Nems Enterprises—but someone else was plugging away on their behalf too, a man they knew nothing about and to whom they owed so much. Kim Bennett—professional manager at music publisher Ardmore and Beechwood, in charge of “exploitation”—was making relentless efforts to promote “Love Me Do.” Partly this was because being persistent was his very particular nature, mostly it was for another reason: because it had been his idea that got the Beatles their Parlophone contract in the first place. Bennett and his boss Sid Colman were Lennon and McCartney’s first believers in London, saying yes when all around them (including their parent-company colleagues at EMI) were saying no … and now he was battling to vindicate his faith.

  Parlophone’s plugger Alma Warren hadn’t got anywhere with “Love Me Do.” It had six quick spins on EMI’s Radio Luxembourg shows but nothing else, and she’d since turned her attention to other records. Bennett also had other songs to plug but was still beavering away on “Love Me Do,” doing the rounds and phoning contacts. Though success was elusive, no one in the business was more unflagging than this 31-year-old ex-crooner from Crystal Palace, the man confusingly called Kim though his real name was Tom Whippey. He was a toiler, pushing and pushing—and pushing again—when others gave up.

  It was a bastard to get “Love Me Do” played, because no one wanted to know. I believed in it—to me, the sound was different and needed to be heard—but all I got was “I’m not having that bloody noise in my program, thank you.” I got that attitude everywhere. “Oh bugger off, Kim, it’s a load of bloody rubbish and I’m not using it.” When it made the charts I phoned around and said “It’s starting to move you know …” and got the same verbal darts as before. “You’re not still going on about that “Love Me Do,” are you?” But I felt it necessary to persist because I needed to prove I’d been right. I’d say, “Look, I honestly think this record is better than you’ve given it marks for. What about it? Have another listen.”49

  Bennett was unable to get “Love Me Do” on Juke Box Jury or Thank Your Lucky Stars but he got it played on Lunch Box, a music-themed weekday TV show for Midlands housewives; he got on well with the producer, Reg Watson, who usually played one disc a day and allowed “Love Me Do” as a personal favor.50 Bennett also tapped one of his lunch companions, BBC producer Brian Willey, to give the Beatles their first radio recording in London. As negotiated with Brian, they’d be taping an appearance in The Talent Spot ten days after returning from Hamburg.

  Bennett’s best achievement was to persuade producer Jimmy Grant to play “Love Me Do” on Saturday Club. It was the ideal showcase for the Beatles’ target audience, averaging ten million listeners a week, but just days before the broadcast the record was suddenly excluded, having fallen foul of sensitivity about bogus record requests. So many postcards were arriving at the BBC from Liverpool, all asking for “Love Me Do,” that Grant smelled hype. It had to be, because whoever heard of a brand-new act being so popular? Bennett went back to the drawing-board wondering what else he could do to get “Love Me Do” noticed. As he would reflect, “It was a case of ‘Where do I go now, please?’ ”51

  While Bennett was pondering his problem—and looking to his passport—Paul McCartney was half a mile away, a solo Beatle in London town. He was without the others but with Celia Mortimer … and a new song. It was Tuesday/Wednesday, October 23/24, the Beatles’ sole two-day break of the year, and Paul decided to leave his car at home and have an adventure: he and Celia hitchhiked to London to see Ivan Vaughan. Paul loved hitching but he’d only done it with George or John, never with a girl. Celia—intelligent, chic, a pretty redhead—made it thrilling in a different way. And it was to see the brilliant Ivy, his Institute mate and John’s boyhood pal. Having introduced Lennon to McCartney in Woolton five years earlier, he was now in London and mixing with the likes of Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Barry Humphries and Lenny Bruce. Vaughan was doorman at the Establishment Club in Soho, earning himself a few late-night pounds while reading Classics at University College.

  The new song was “I Saw Her Standing There,” though it had no title as yet. Its melody and structure skidded into Paul’s head late on Monday as he drove back from a Nems Enterprises Showdance in Widnes. This was a sophistication of delivery he’d never experienced, inspiration so excitingly hot that when he got to Hurricaneville he grabbed an acoustic guitar and started working it out. He had chords, changes and the first two lines, “She was just seventeen / She’d never been a beauty queen.” It was truly a magical moment for Rory Storm, who’d never seen anyone write a song before. Vi and Iris would always maintain that he asked Paul if he could have it, exclusively, and Paul said yes—but as Rory didn’t have a record c
ontract it’s unclear why he asked, and Paul may have said yes only to regain some necessary peace and quiet.52

  He and Celia hitchhiked to London the next day—a bus to the busiest road, then a succession of lorries. “It was a real adventure for both of us,” she says, “a wild, arty thing to do. I told my parents I was staying with a college friend, then off we went. We ate in the Blue Boar at Watford Gap and arrived in Soho well after midnight.”§

  The Establishment cabaret had finished—they’d just missed seeing Eleanor Bron, John Bird and John Fortune—but Paul bought Celia a bitter lemon, and a Scotch and Coke for himself, and they danced into the night. They slept in Ivan’s digs, a tiny room in a well-appointed flat on Great Portland Street—he had a single bed and they had the floor, which was incredibly uncomfortable. But the best part, says Celia, was the next day.‖

  We had an amazing time, just wandering streets in the sunshine, looking at London, holding hands and having fun, and Paul had the melody of what became “I Saw Her Standing There” going round his head all day, humming it and singing it and fleshing out the words. I remember walking around some lovely, elegant squares—I think Fitzroy Square was one—while he made up rhyming lines and asked me what I thought of them. He said, “What rhymes with ‘We danced through the night’?” and I came up with “We held each other tight,” which was really quite naff, but he used it. He’d worked out a fair bit of the lyric by the end of the day.53

  “I Saw Her Standing There” would be completed by Paul and John in the front parlor at Forthlin Road after the Beatles got back from Hamburg, but it kept its subject, the singer dancing through the night with a girl of 17. “It felt like the song was about us,” Celia reflects, “but it wasn’t said. It was implicit, but difficult to state openly because it would have made things terribly intimate. But I was very flattered, and it became for me an abiding memory of our trip to London. It was only a quick thing—we went home that night because I had to get back to college and parental control, and the Beatles were getting busier and busier …”

  • • •

  All this time, “Love Me Do” continued an ascent—slow but steady—of now several charts. Airplay starvation killed the chances of other records but this one had booster rockets, like the Beatles’ strong northern following, their twenty-three live shows in October, their Radio Luxembourg and Granada TV plugs, their dance-floor action in Liverpool and London and ballrooms everywhere, and their jukebox plays. The record’s instant debut at 49 in the Record Retailer Top Fifty had been followed by rises to 46 and 41, it went into the Melody Maker Top Fifty at 48, and into The World’s Fair’s Juke-Box 100 at 51 (positions in this chart were suspect below 5, but they’re fascinating lists). Sales were also holding up locally: Liverpool’s Own Top 5, in the Echo, placed “Love Me Do” at the top in its first week, followed by a second week at number 1 shared with the Tornados’ “Telstar,” and then a week at number 2 shared with Little Eva’s “The Loco-Motion.” All this action was to the good, but “Love Me Do” was about to take a leap and arrive in the NME Top Thirty—it went in at 27, and this altered everything.

  Primary experiences shine everlasting. Just as George would describe first hearing “Love Me Do” on radio as “the best buzz of all time,” and Ringo would call its release “the most momentous moment,” so Paul has retained every joyful detail of how it felt to see the Beatles break into the NME chart. It was Thursday, October 25, and he was just back from hitchhiking to London; as he puts it, “I remember exactly where I was when we actually thought we’d arrived.”

  I was on my own at home that morning, and when I looked at the NME and saw we were in at 27 I was delirious. “There it is! There we are!” I was shaking. We’d been reading those charts for years—seeing hits come and go, up and down—and finally we had a little place on the ladder. I went out in my Ford Classic, and as I was driving by the Grafton Ballroom I wanted to wind the windows down and shout at everyone, “We’re number 27! We’ve made it! I’m a hit! A hit! Number 27 in the NME!” I was sure they’d understand. Twenty-seven was the height.54

  Brian instantly used it to push his pursuit of full national tours, and also to hike the Beatles’ nightly fee—their standard ballroom rate, for playing forty-five or sixty minutes, jumped by two-thirds from £30 to £50—and now, for the first time, proper national interest was developing. He also negotiated another Cavern increase, to £35 for nights and £15 for lunchtimes, with a written guarantee to “refrain from requesting an adjustment before January next year.”55

  “Love Me Do” ’s success prompted George Martin to liaise with Brian about getting the Beatles back down to EMI, to record their second single: they fixed the session for Monday, November 26, 7–10PM at Abbey Road. The hit also prompted People and Places producer David Baker to invite them back; he wanted them on November 2, but, as they’d be in Hamburg then, it was agreed to prerecord on October 29. They were returning to Granada’s Manchester studio just twelve days after their debut.

  Breaching the NME chart was a trigger point in so many ways. It meant the Beatles could finally feature in the paper itself—Alan Smith’s first piece ran this same week, a factual article headlined LIVERPOOL’S BEATLES WROTE THEIR OWN HIT, illustrated with four head shots. It also meant their activities would now be reported on the news pages. From this point on, a comprehensive rolling Beatles news service ran in the four music papers, accurate and reliable and shining revelatory light on all manner of unfolding events. This very week, reporting what Brian mailed them, the NME and Melody Maker informed readers throughout Britain that the Beatles would spend the first half of November at the Star-Club, have a Welcome Home night in the Cavern on the 18th, that they were featuring in Friday’s edition of the BBC’s Teenagers’ Turn (their third broadcast, Ringo’s first), and would be showcased with Little Richard at Liverpool Empire this coming Sunday.

  Two weeks after the Tower night, the Beatles were back with their American hero and bearing a gift: the photo of them together, blown up into a large print, signed to him and framed. Little Richard told the man from New Record Mirror it would hang “in the gold room” at his house (by which he meant the lavatory) and that he wanted a second shot to go with it: “I’m going to have a picture taken of Sounds Inc. on one side of me and the Beatles on the other, and next time I invite Elvis over I’ll show it to him and tell him they are the two best groups in Britain.” Little Richard praising the Beatles to Elvis?—hot air maybe, but the stuff of dreams no doubt. The paper also quoted Richard saying to them, “I think your record ‘Love Me Do’ is great. Please don’t be offended, but I think you sound like a colored group. Very few white people have that sound. You should come to America and be famous—you’d go big in the States.”56

  Richard’s tour had been a major success but this was the final date and he’d had enough: he hadn’t sung like this, twice a night every night, for five years, and his voice was hurting. Hamburg still loomed, but he was set to quit rock a second time and stick to gospel. He’d considered withdrawing from this Liverpool Empire show and wasn’t at his sparkling best, but still he was potent enough for Jim McCartney. At the Empire to see the Beatles’ biggest night yet, he realized that Paul’s screaming voice, which he’d always considered ridiculous, was actually a great impersonation.57

  It was, to the day, the first anniversary of Raymond Jones walking into Nems for a copy of “My Bonnie,” and now Brian was a manager, agent and promoter and the Beatles had a recording contract and were in the charts. Still this was only the start. Countrywide theater tours were suddenly in the pipeline for early 1963—Brian was entering talks with three national promoters—and that was what this Empire show was really about, to give the Beatles their theater debut, to introduce them to the decades-old business and structure they’d soon be having to embrace. Every single star toured this way, from the greatest to the smallest—there was no known alternative.

  There were eight acts on this Empire bill; the Beatles went on third and got
a more-than-usual twelve minutes. During the afternoon rehearsal, the representative of another artist—“some cockney manager of one of the so-called stars” as Ringo would sourly describe him—wanted either to cut their time or cut them out of the show completely. “We all went crying to Brian,” Ringo says. Brian had appointed Bob Wooler stage manager and left him to resolve the issue, but with one clear instruction: “The Beatles will do their twelve minutes, even if you have to cut Little Richard’s act.”58 They were also to stay on stage to back the fourth act, singer Craig Douglas—who, billed second-top, closed the first half.

  Nervous before most new stages in their career, the Beatles were uneasy both at the thought of appearing before so many people (potentially, two houses of 2,348, although neither sold out) and playing for just twelve minutes instead of an hour. They’d still to decide which numbers to play and who would sing the first one—and, yet again, Bob Wooler was witness to a private situation. “In the Beatles’ dressing-room it was ‘Who will open the show?’—and then they [John and Paul] were a bit brutal and said, ‘George, you will open the show.’ George was sort of the Laurel of Laurel and Hardy, told he would open the show. He hardly ever opened the show when they were in the local halls and now little George, the junior Beatle, had to open the show.”59

  There’d be time for four, maybe five songs and some friendly if haltingly nervous between-numbers banter from Paul. George would open with Carl Perkins’ “Glad All Over,” then they’d do “Besame Mucho,” “PS I Love You,” perhaps one other, and close with “Love Me Do.” But the first-house performance opened in shambles: the curtain went up and the spotlights and footlights picked them out but they weren’t ready, and Ringo hadn’t finished setting up his drums. It was a horrible moment, singled out by him in a questionnaire a few months later as the worst in his professional career. George opened the show “very well but terribly nervously,” Wooler said, “but all the fans were rapturous.” These fans weren’t grouped together but spread around the theater, those in the cheaper seats clapping their hands, the rest of them ratifying their adoration from the circle. Still, it just didn’t feel right for the Cavernites. Freda Kelly, who was watching from a private box provided by Brian for his staff, remembers “Paul singing ‘Besame Mucho’ with the spotlight on him: I couldn’t believe they were on the Empire. But then, the Beatles weren’t the Beatles on the Empire.”60