Tune In

by Mark Lewisohn

  I literally said to Bill, “I’ve never groveled before but I’m groveling to you now because I need to get this record in this program to show me I’m wrong. And if I’m wrong, I’ll stop working the bloody thing.” I pushed home that point because I felt that unless I was proven wrong by a peak program, I would never know if I was right. Bill said, “I’ll see what I can do,” and I flew out of Cologne not knowing whether I’d achieved it—but a couple of weeks later, Bill came through for me.8

  Bennett wasn’t wrong. The Beatles worried that “Love Me Do” would slip down the charts in their absence, but it climbed instead. Sales in the week after Two-Way Family Favourites pushed it to its highest position yet, 23, in Record Retailer, it was up to 26 in Melody Maker, it was now in the Disc chart at 27, and up to 28 in The World’s Fair’s Juke-Box 100. Bennett could never be considered solely responsible for “Love Me Do” ’s success, but he made a decent contribution and was, for some time, the only man in London shouting the name Beatles. Other accomplishments would follow … though not for much longer, because Ardmore and Beechwood was about to be handed a different script.

  Kim Bennett went to Germany to get the Beatles on the BBC—which the Beatles didn’t hear because they were in Germany.‡ Not being in England, they were fuckin’ missing out, and letters home made clear their frustration. Paul wrote several. To girlfriend Celia Mortimer he said he was “tired, tired, tired, and just about keeping awake … Nothing’s happened: a thoroughly uneventful week has passed; Hamburg is dead as far as we’re concerned.” To Huyton schoolgirl and devoted McCartney fan Fran Leiper, he said he couldn’t wait to get home, there being so little of note happening for them in Hamburg that even if he was of a mind to write a long letter, “I doubt I could find anything of interest to put in it.”

  John could barely stir himself. He very likely wrote to Cyn, but only one Lennon letter has surfaced from this trip, sent to Lindy. She’d been at Liverpool Airport to see them off, and then followed up by sending him one of her funny dispatches—but his reply, unlike those sent from here in the spring, was downbeat to the point of depression.

  Thanks for your lovely letter, you’re a gas man. I can’t think of anything funny for you ’cause I’m so cheesed off I could bloody cry. I hate Hamburg and I wish I was at home. I loved you being at the Airport, it was very thoughtful or something and your hair was good god. This letter won’t be a long one ’cause I’m tired and I don’t feel like writing, even to you—I haven’t answered any other letters ’cause I’m fed up—everyone will think I’m a bastard but I don’t care, so there.

  Sent from “The Shit House, Hamburg,” the letter ended with “PS. Wish I was there” and two new additions to John’s religious cartoon series—one of a naked man on a cross, with crucifix-shaped genitals, the other of a guitar being crucified.

  Conscious of his less-developed written English, Ringo was always a minimal correspondent compared to his bandmates. Identifying himself Ringo-Richy to cover all eventualities, he sent a postcard to Roy Trafford and family saying they had arrived, were with Little Richard (“he is fab”), were having a good time, had plenty to drink, but that the weather was cold.§

  George had almost as many pen-pals as Paul. To Margaret Price he said that while everything was going fine, Hamburg remained “a ‘DRAG’—still, only 1 week to go and then back to civilization.” And he sent a warmly funny postcard to Vi Caldwell (addressed to Mrs. Violent Stubb), asking her to make sure she’d have the kettle on for their return. “To caress your teeth once more would be just heaven, also to hold your lungs in mine and drink T.B. John sends you all his lunch, also Paul and Ring-worm greet too!”9

  The Beatles’ contract stipulated three stage hours a night but only two were needed—one earlyish, so under-18s could see them, and one much later, when the club was all-adult and raucous. Their old Cassanova and Big Three mate Adrian Barber had made improvements to the sound system; the Beatles used the house guitar amps, not having bothered to bring their own, and while Ringo had transported his kit, he sometimes used the one that stayed on stage. The Beatles were sartorially casual—they brought their suits but didn’t always wear them, playing mostly in shirts and sweaters or polo-neck sweaters—and they were musically loose.

  For the first time, all four Beatles played here under the influence of Prellies. On the spectrum of consumption, John was at one extreme, George and Ringo weren’t far behind, and Paul took the fewest, while they all drank booze in large quantities. Musicians could indulge in any vice they liked so long as they were ready at the appointed time, with Horst Fascher always on hand to hit home the need for promptness. “You had to go on, however bad you felt,” Ringo says. “I heard musicians saying, ‘Knock me out, I don’t want to go on’ [but] they would kick you on stage.”10

  There are few—perhaps no—photos of the Beatles in the Star-Club on this trip. Some scrappy stage shots exist from their two late-’62 visits, but it isn’t obvious which. They partied with Little Richard for twelve days but there are no new pictures, and none with Billy Preston or Sounds Incorporated; Manfred Weissleder didn’t get out his camera and hired no photographer to snap the talent together. But the Beatles did have an important photo session elsewhere, with Astrid.

  Brian needed studio photos for publicity—well lit, properly framed, something arty. A great admirer of Astrid’s work, he commissioned her to do it. This would be her sole studio session with the boys she loved, two years (perhaps to the day) since she’d enticed John, Paul, George, Stuart and Pete out to the Hamburger Dom funfair and created the definitive images of the punk Beatles. Since then, she’d only photographed John and George, grieving for Stuart in his artist’s garret.

  Astrid was in her element when matching subject to setting, but less comfortable in a studio, which was where she now shot the Beatles. She never felt good about this session. “I didn’t really know what I was doing,” she reflects. “I think they liked it, though I never got round to asking. I sent the prints straight to Brian—he liked the photos very much.”11 Despite Astrid’s reservations, several fine images resulted that certainly did the job for Brian: he had group and individual shots printed up for publicity, photos that would become widely seen and always enhance the Beatles’ artistic, cutting-edge image.

  A nightly visitor to the Star-Club, Astrid was delighted (during the Beatles’ second week here) to make a new friend: fan club secretary Bobby Brown. Few 19-year-olds in 1962 were widely traveled. Bobby took the Mersey ferry every morning and evening, Wallasey to Liverpool and back, but not much more—so suddenly being in Germany, in Hamburg, in neon-bawdy St. Pauli, was a huge culture shock. She was, though, keeping experienced company. “I found Hamburg quite scary, but wherever we walked at night I was with John and Paul, so I felt safe. Doormen were constantly trying to entice people into the clubs and bars, and John would pretend he wanted to go in while we’d pretend to pull him back out—it was like a Charlie Chaplin routine.”12

  In April, during the incredible Cavern night that was The Beatles for Their Fans, John had encouraged Bobby to down a few drinks. She usually kept to the soft stuff and quickly lost her sobriety, necking with Paul, throwing up in the Cavern toilets and leaving her own event early. Her second drunken experience was here in Hamburg, when the villain turned caretaker.

  John had been really drunk the night before, on and off stage. He was quite depressed and whingeing about wanting to go home to Liverpool. I had my arm around him, trying to cheer him up.

  The following night, I had some German beers with Astrid, and after the Beatles came off stage and we were all sitting there together, I suddenly felt ill. I told Paul, Astrid took me outside and I was sick. Now it was my turn to whinge, and John looked after me, telling me how lovely I was and how special I was: “You looked after me last night, I’m looking after you now.”

  Bobby knew she was only part of John and Paul’s late diversions. They took her out to eat, they mooched around the streets, had a laugh and then
walked her back to her hotel before, as she puts it, “going off for another kind of night life.” With the possible exception of George, who spent much of his time quietly talking to Astrid, the Beatles again had knowledge of the Star-Club Barfrauen. Paul was with blonde Ruth Lallemannd, Ringo fancied Heike Evert—known as Goldie, Paul’s girl on their last visit—and John resumed relations with BETTINAAAHHHH. Fat Betty (as George called her) would even claim that John invited her up on stage with the Beatles to sing Fats Domino’s Blueberry Hill; it seems plausible, because non-musicians were asked up from time to time. Two of the Faschers, Horst and Fredi, occasionally machine-gunned some old rock number or other, to the amusement of the locals.

  Bobby Brown flew home with souvenirs, including a monkey on a stick, bought for her by Ringo at Hamburger Dom; a Polaroid photo of Little Richard giving her a great hug, taken by Paul; an autograph in her Cavern membership booklet—“To Bobby, A Very Pretty Girl. God Bless You. Little Richard”; and a signed throwaway photo-card across which he’d written his Los Angeles home address in beautiful script. Faced with such overwhelming evidence, Bobby’s mother felt justified in accusing her of having an affair with that Little Richard. The flight back to London was rough—Paul had to use the paper bag—and Bobby watched across the aisle as he and John wrote on a piece of paper, working on something. “They definitely needed each other,” she says. “They always seemed to be laughing together, scribbling on bits of paper and laughing some more.”

  The Beatles were returning to an array of new opportunities. After landing at London Airport they checked into their usual hotel on Sloane Square and went out to buy the music papers. Their fears had been groundless—“Love Me Do” was still going up the charts, and now it was time to push on again.

  * * *

  * Their actual wage was DM600, but Manfred Weissleder deducted Brian’s 15 percent management commission at source.

  † It eventually became six Cavern bookings in January (three lunchtimes, three nights) and three in February (one lunchtime, two nights).

  ‡ Actually, Two-Way Family Favourites was receivable in Hamburg, on BFN, but no young Englishman only just toppling into bed at noon, full of pills and booze, was going to stay awake for that.

  § Hamburg’s average temperature in November 1962 was 4.2°C/39°F, the first indication of a particularly savage winter coming to northern Europe.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  NOVEMBER 16–DECEMBER 17, 1962

  NEW LOOK, NEW SOUND

  The Sixties’ third year was coming to an end with so much still stuck in the Fifties, but every time the Beatles stepped into London to meet the press, a new fuse was burning. The man from Dance News had commented on their “different, un-English style clothes” and now New Record Mirror said, “The Beatles are a very off-beat team. They don’t wear pointed shoes or have layers of grease on their hair. Chelsea boots, suede coats and long flat hair styles are more their mark.”

  Long flat hair. The first to say it in a national paper was the 18-year-old north Londoner Norman Jopling, the youngest writer on the music press. He’d noticed it the instant a Beatles photo arrived in the office. “Their look was a cross between art college and modernist. Music hadn’t caught up with fashion and film—all the pop singers and instrumental groups were still so old-fashioned, with quiffs. When I saw a picture of the Beatles, I knew things were changing.”1

  The transformation was confirmed when Jopling met Paul McCartney. The Beatles’ main appointment this first day back from Hamburg, November 16, was three o’clock at EMI House, to find out why George Martin suddenly wanted to see them, but they also had a lunchtime interview at Disc and, before that, a mid-morning session slotted in at New Record Mirror on Shaftesbury Avenue. John, George and Ringo didn’t stir, but Paul was up for it. Someone had to get them the desired publicity, and he liked seeing the other side of the business: “I loved it, breezing around these guys’ offices. You’d see them [journalists] on their home territory, get a better idea of who they were.”2

  The resulting article had a wacky headline, “WE MADE SURE OF APPLAUSE—WE TOOK OUR FANS WITH US,” after Paul explained how Brian bused Beatles fans to certain out-of-town dates. It conjured up a pleasingly surreal image: the Beatles hadn’t taken people with them, they’d taken an audience, winched up as one. Paul said the Beatles liked to play “Rhythm and bluesy things” but, noted Jopling, he steered well clear of pigeon-holing: “They don’t call themselves a vocal group or an instrumental group or a rhythm and blues group. They just don’t know what they are.”3

  Paul and Brian met up with John, George and Ringo at Disc’s office on Fleet Street. They’d made the paper’s chart and were due some editorial space; June Harris—a bright, savvy Londoner of 24—volunteered to see them and suggested they do the interview over a pub lunch. Her fellow Disc writer Nigel Hunter joined them, and they walked together along Fleet Street to Ye Old Cock Tavern—diagonally opposite the Royal Courts of Justice, the highest High Court in the land, where the most complex business disputes were decided.

  There was an instant problem with the Cock’s cockney managers, Bert and Jean, who wouldn’t allow the Beatles into the upstairs dining-room. The regular clientele was lawyers, court clerks and journalists, everyone in regulation suits, so the suede jackets, boots, Liverpool accents and “long hair” offended. They sat downstairs instead, and across a pub table—over drinks, sandwiches, smoke and management antagonism—June Harris was another writer to scent originality.

  The Beatles were new to London and hadn’t really acquired any sophistication or expertise yet, but they certainly struck me as having more substance, more purpose, than a lot of people I’d interviewed. George was very sweet and kind, a nice young man, Ringo didn’t say much, Paul was sensible and taking things in his stride, and John just got on with it, like “I know where I’m going and what I want to do with this group.” The others were deferential to him—he was the leader and had a sense of direction for all of them, and when he had something to say he said it, and why not? He wasn’t going to take shit from anyone.4

  Music press writers used pen-names as well as their own, to make the staff seem more numerous. The resulting piece was bylined “Jean Carol” and had a hackneyed headline typical of Disc and its time, BEATLES FIND SHOW BIZ ISN’T ALL FUN. This came from John explaining how tired they felt only twelve hours after flying in from Hamburg. George was quoted the most, saying John and Paul had come up with “about another six” songs for their next record, but it would probably be a remake of “Please Please Me”—even though, he said, that title might change because Brian didn’t like it.

  This was one of many things they discussed in their three o’clock meeting at EMI House. Though, inexplicably, none of its participants would ever pause to reflect on it, this was very likely the most significant creative meeting of their lives. Here and now, in the fourth-floor Parlophone office at 20 Manchester Square, George Martin and the Beatles set down all the necessary components for a harmonious and adventurous working relationship, one that would serve them all so well.

  George’s ability to hear a catchy song was usually faultless, but he’d erred with “Love Me Do” and knew it. Despite his misgivings, and lack of support, it had gone into the charts and stayed there—it was now in its sixth week, still rising, selling in thousands, and being noticed in the business. (“I didn’t think it [“Love Me Do”] was all that brilliant but I was thrilled by the reaction to the Beatles and their sound.”)5 He’d signed an original act that people were talking about, and the combination of this and his fascination for them as people, as personalities, absolutely motivated him. By the letter of their contract, he’d no need to record the Beatles again—Parlophone’s commitment was complete—but he wanted to start afresh, to put all the history and histrionics (of which they knew nothing) behind him. Think—and George did—what might be achieved when working together on a record they all liked.

  They’d be making their second single ten days
from now, and—just for the hell of it, sure of the answer he’d get—George re-raised “How Do You Do It.” The song would be a success for someone, and as they still had first dibs, would they reconsider? The answer came hard, fast and flat. They were rejecting a potential smash … and George respected them all the more for it. His view of the Beatles as “very self-opinionated” was reinforced, but this didn’t put him off.6 He generally responded well to such people, and was himself—along with the charming and agreeable persona—seldom short of a firm opinion or shy of expressing it. Such tough characters could only work together with give-and-take, and the will was present on both sides.

  George agreed with the Beatles’ wish that their second record be “Please Please Me”—and, as he personally liked the title, Brian’s objection to it was subdued and forgotten. George was confident it could achieve big things: he’d had an acetate of Ron Richards’ September 11 production on and off his turntable for two months and knew it was strong and catchy, a hit in the making. He’d told them the original was too slow and been impressed by their rearrangement—and now he had a new suggestion to improve it further: that John should play the harmonica.7 The Beatles agreed, though how much they had to be convinced isn’t known. They had an aversion to repeating themselves, but did recognize that reusing “Love Me Do” ’s most distinctive instrument, the one that caught in listeners’ minds, would be a handy continuation.

  George also said he’d let Ringo drum on the recording. He was at least 50 percent responsible for the decision that had crushed Ringo last time down, but was giving him another try: surely he wouldn’t make such a twerp of himself as he had at his first session, and it was obvious that John, Paul and George had complete faith in his ability. Besides, he was playing on the record currently pushing up the charts.