by Larry Kane
Back in 1963, Ellis was a shrewd and enterprising young man who had the fix in with a pen pal from America, Ronnie Kellerman. Kellerman would ship the albums, or records, to Ellis, who would deliver them to two successful British groups: Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, and the Searchers. Eventually Ellis reached out to the Beatles, and for good reason; he knew they were getting to the point where they could afford the albums.
As always, it was the great leader of the group, the most avid reader and listener, who wanted the most.
Ellis had a tidy little business going. And he tells me that John was his best customer. John’s shopping list provides an insight into the great songwriting learning curve that John was always willing to tackle. Ellis remembers:
“The records that John ordered were ones by the harder-edged R&B artists such as Dr. Feelgood, Inez & Charlie Foxx, Bobby Blue Bland, James Ray, and Rufus Thomas. George went for the Coasters and Ben E. King. Ringo wanted everything in the catalog, particularly the most obscure gospel albums. They all wanted Tamla Motown records which hadn’t been released in this country.”
“What about Paul?” I ask.
“Well,” he says, “that’s a story that comes a bit later.”
WHEN THE RECORDS ARRIVED FROM THE STATES, I RANG JOHN AND HE SAID THEY THAT WERE PLAYING AT THE FLORAL HALL, SOUTHPORT, THE FOLLOWING WEEK. AS I LIVED ACROSS FROM THE FLORAL HALL THEY AGREED TO COME TO MY HOUSE AFTER THE SHOW AND HAVE SOME SUPPER AND COLLECT THEIR RECORDS. TURNS OUT IT WAS THE DRAMATIC DAY WHEN THEY DISCOVERED THAT THE BEATLES WERE INVITED TO THE ROYAL VARIETY PERFORMANCE [IN NOVEMBER]. THAT, LARRY, WAS AS BIG AS IT GOT. THE ROYAL FAMILY WOULD BE THERE, AND SO WOULD EVERY PRESSMAN IN THE WORLD. IT WAS HUGE. I WENT BACKSTAGE AT THE FLORAL HALL AND WE AGREED THAT, WITH ALL THE EXCITEMENT, I WOULD DELIVER THE RECORDS LATER. JOHN, GEORGE, AND RINGO ADDED SOME NEW TITLES TO THEIR LIST, BUT PAUL SAID NOTHING.
Ellis is a keen observer. A man who understands the nuances of human behavior, he was, even as a young man, fascinated by the dressing-room behavior of artists, which in the case of the 1963 Beatles was telling. He saw them backstage twice: once in Southport, and then at the Odeon in Liverpool for the group’s triumphant Christmas concert in December 1963. It was there that he finally delivered the records to John, George, and Ringo.
AND WHEN I WENT IN, THEY WERE ALL IN THE DRESSING ROOM AND PAUL MCCARTNEY WAS MINCING ABOUT, IMITATING BRIAN EPSTEIN, “OH, ’ELLO, BRIAN,” AND THIS SORT OF THING, TAKING THE PISS OUT OF HIM. GEORGE WAS A QUIET PERSON; JOHN WAS VERY PLEASED TO GET HIS RECORDS; RINGO WAS, WELL, LET ME TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED. BILLY J. KRAMER AND THE DAKOTAS WERE ON THE BILL AT THE TIME AND THEY’D HIDDEN RINGO’S POLO SWEATER. AND THEY MADE HIM CRAWL AROUND THE ROOM AND BEG BEFORE THEY’D GIVE IT BACK TO HIM.
“They . . . liked him?” I ask.
“Oh yeah, they were just joking with him, you know?
SO I LOOKED AT MCCARTNEY AND I THOUGHT, “THIS IS SOMEBODY WHO’S ON A DIFFERENT LEVEL.” JOHN WAS IN IT, YOU KNOW, FOR THE LAUGHS AND THE MUSIC AND THE BIRDS [WOMEN] AND EVERYTHING. RINGO WAS ENJOYING THE RIDE . . . HE WAS LUCKY; SUDDENLY NOW HE’S A NATIONAL STAR, YOU KNOW? JOHN LOVED ALL THE MUSIC AND FUN, BUT YOU FELT MCCARTNEY’S ON A DIFFERENT LEVEL HERE—HE’S A BUSINESSMAN, PLAYING AS A MUSICIAN. THAT’S THE IMPRESSION I GOT. HE WAS VERY SUPERCILIOUS.
I THINK HE CAN SEE THE BIG PICTURE, HE CAN SEE WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN TO THE BEATLES, AND HE WANTS TO BE IN THERE MAKING SURE HE CONTROLS IT.
Ellis, who was a fan and curious observer, saw many of the boys’ earlier concerts, and with those, got a good sense of their dynamics.
GEORGE, I THINK, WAS AN AMIABLE SORT. AND I THINK GEORGE WAS AS TALENTED A SONGWRITER AS MCCARTNEY AND LENNON WERE, BUT HE NEVER GOT THE OPPORTUNITY. GEORGE, I THINK, WAS JUST AS TALENTED BUT HE MOVED IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION. AND I THINK HE WAS HALTED BY THE BEATLES BECAUSE HE WOULD HAVE PROBABLY BEEN BETTER WITH OTHER MUSICIANS, WHICH HE EVENTUALLY DID, AND THEN THE WORLD SAW GEORGE’S REAL TALENT.
MCCARTNEY WAS THE BUSINESSMAN. I THINK HE WAS THINKING, LIKE, “WE’VE GOT A GOOD THING GOING HERE, I WANT TO BE IN CHARGE OF THIS.”
While listening to Ellis talk, I had a flashback to Mal Evans’s comments to me, both in Nassau and in Britain, in 1968, about the talents of George Harrison. You will meet Mal later in this book, and in a very personal way.
“You want to know the truth?” asks Ellis. “The truth is that John is the leader Beatle, George is the deep-thinking Beatle, Ringo is the fun Beatle, and Paul is the cute one. But Paul, when it comes to business and those things, Paul was the shrewd Beatle. But I tell you, Larry, that George . . . well, is very talented . . . very.”
Mal knew the inside of the group more than anyone. And researcher Ellis has deeply delved into the idea that Paul and John were controlling George’s destiny as early as 1962.
“Lennon and McCartney were controlling what was said,” Ellis tells me. “‘We’ll give George a song; we’ll give Ringo a song.’ I think they put George in the category of Ringo. A song for Ringo, a song for George.”
The sense of Paul’s quiet ambition and manipulative powers were shared by both Beatles press officers, Derek Taylor and Tony Barrow, who play a pivotal role later in this saga. But my own dressing-room experiences, in 1964, were different. Paul never grimaced in my presence. In fact, he “cracked up” at some of my questions. He did, by his comportment, show an aversion to any sort of controversy. He treated Epstein with respect in public, but privately complained to John whenever he believed Epstein was too controlling.
Ron Ellis, in addition to his work in music, is also a deeply respected football (soccer) writer with a keenly developed intuition on team dynamics. Today he teaches adult education courses in music, with one course being dedicated to the Beatles. His stories on the boys are intriguing, along with his analysis of the early group dynamics that flowered into super success, and eventually, contributed to the group’s disintegration. But one can argue that the group’s breakup was not the end, but just the beginning of the road from early stirrings to enormous success, worldwide domination, and eventually, a state of idolatry and musical immortality.
The Quarrymen—More to the Story
“Out of this rock, you will find truth.”
—Motto of the Quarry Bank School
“We were crap, really, just crap.”
—Colin Hanton, on his assessment of the band’s talent level
Before Paul, George, Stu, Pete, and Ringo joined John to form the Beatles, there were the fascinating Quarrymen.
The students and some of the early buddies at the Quarry Bank middle school who joined John Lennon to form the original lineup of the Quarrymen—Pete Shotton, Eric Griffiths, Rod Davis, Len Garry, and Colin Hanton—in their legend have more than compensated for the memories of John’s malicious academic malpractice. The surviving Quarrymen today find solace and gratification in the fact that they were the pre-Beatles and helped John achieve at least the earlier part of his destiny. They knew that John was a little “off-balance,” as former drummer-boy Hanton would say, but they also knew that his recklessness and vigor for danger was also an asset, especially when he had to make a fast escape.
Hanton’s buddy to this day, Rod Davis—scholar, senior pro surfer, and perhaps the intellectual of the group—remembers how the school they attended shaped their future.
“What we [in England] call public school is a paying school. What you [in America] call public school, anybody can go to. We had a good time, studied hard—at least some of us did.”
Quarry Bank was filled with teenagers with dreams. It was a school with strict behavioral standards. That made it a great challenge for John Lennon, who relished his role as troublemaker. But he was also a world-class teenage organizer, recruiting other musicians to join his band. With their washboards, drums, and tea-chest bass, and the nervy leader at the helm, the boys from Quarry Bank performed whenever they were asked. There was very little money, just the pride of a scraggly band of teenage musical novices.
“I mean, it was great being on stage in front of all your friends,” Davis recollects, “and, you know, Auntie, Grandmother, and all this kind of thing. It’s of quite more significance over the years because, you know, we realized later on how important it was . . . although none of us really wake up and wish we were a Beatle.”
That importance is shared by many of the Quarrymen, but Davis offers a rare admission.
“You know, I’m really not a Beatles fan. But I am proud of the early times with John and especially of all the fun we had in our reunions over the years.”
Len Garry, who became an architect, is an introspective man who occasionally offers some frank dialogue about that period, and enjoys the reunions. He has a different perspective.
“At the time, I thought I had talent. Still do, my friend. I can still sing well,” he says.
I can attest—Garry can carry a tune, and his stage presence is marvelous.
He laments, “I mean, I could have made it.”
He smiles broadly.
“But the truth is: I didn’t. So the end result is I get to be with my friends and travel the world fifty years later.”
The trio of Davis, Garry, and Hanton are the remaining touring Quarrymen. Although Garry has pride in his early work, drummer Hanton doesn’t see it that way. He takes you back to the day with a startling reality check, deflating the ballooning romanticism attributed by many, including me, that the Quarrymen were an important step on the road to the Beatles.
“First of all, Larry, we were crap, just crap,” Hanton admits. “We were sweating our brains out, we were so nervous. I am talking about layers of perspiration. We were not all that close, although some of us became closer in time. I think the main misconception is how the Quarrymen felt when John left to form the Beatles. Of course, he didn’t leave the Quarrymen to form the Beatles. . . . Different people came and went from the Quarrymen. It just evolved after he left the Quarrymen. He had no intentions of forming another band, I don’t believe.”
Ironically, Hanton, the Quarryman who played longest with John, has the dimmest impression of those days, especially after Davis left the band, with little fanfare.
“No, it didn’t upset me [when Davis left]. I was right there with John, Paul, and George right up to early 1959, but the experts told me late 1958. Then I left. I had had enough. I walked out after one drunken session—we blew our chance, I believe. We didn’t even have our own car. We had to carry our own equipment, drums and everything, on public transport. Eventually I had enough. We weren’t going anywhere.”
I ask, “In terms of the relationship that . . . you [and John] had, and that Len had with John, was it a buddy relationship, or was it just an association? Were you close friends? Did he like you?”
“If he didn’t [like you], you knew it,” Hanton says.
HE EITHER TALKED TO YOU OR HE DIDN’T. . . . I NEVER CONSIDERED THAT WE WERE BUDDIES, BUT THAT WE PLAYED TOGETHER. WE WERE FRIENDLY, THOUGH. HE TOOK ME TO MEET HIS MOTHER—NOT MIMI, BUT JULIA—WHICH CAME AS A SURPRISE. HE WAS LIVING WITH MIMI, BUT WE NEVER KNEW [JULIA] AS HIS MOTHER; JULIA WAS MORE LIKE HIS BIG SISTER THAN HIS MUM. AND YES, SHE WAS VERY GOOD-LOOKING, PLEASANT, AND FUN-LOVING. AND SHE WAS MUSICAL, TOO. SHE WOULD GET THE BANJO OUT WHEN JOHN ACTED UP, SKIPPED SCHOOL. MOST PEOPLE WOULD KICK HIM OUT, TELL HIM TO GET BACK TO SCHOOL, ETC., GET MAD—BUT NOT HER. SHE JUST GOT THE BANJO OUT AND STARTED STRUMMING.
So, although he met and mostly enjoyed John’s unpredictable company, in the world according to Hanton, the Quarrymen were just an unsuccessful teenage adventure.
“We were just lads trying to have a great time and impress some of the girls along the way. Nothing serious or businesslike about it, really. Not in the early days.”
Hanton is a realist. While he savors the later “reunion” career of the Quarrymen that started in 1997, he has no regrets from the earlier days. His comments on his career path are telling, humble, and most enjoyable.
WE DIDN’T HAVE THAT KIND OF TALENT. I WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH. I REMEMBER I HAD TO GO SOMEWHERE AND TAKE TIME OFF FROM MY APPRENTICESHIP AND THE BOSS SAID, “ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT [TO BE IN] THE UPHOLSTERY BUSINESS, OR DO YOU WANT TO BE A BAND MEMBER?”—SOMETHING LIKE THAT. HE DID END UP GIVING ME THE DAY OFF, BUT MADE ME REALLY THINK ABOUT IT. I COULD HAVE GONE WITH THEM, ACTUALLY, BUT WOULD HAVE ENDED UP LIKE PETE BEST IN HAMBURG. I WOULD HAVE ENDED UP WITHOUT A TRADE. I WAS NOT A GOOD STUDENT. I WAS GOING TO BE LEFT WITH NOTHING. I WASN’T GOING TO GIVE MY TRADE UP AS AN UPHOLSTERER FOR AN UNKNOWN OUTCOME. I WASN’T THAT GOOD AND KNEW IT. WHEN I STOPPED IN LATE 1958 OR EARLY 1959, I PUT MY DRUMSTICKS ON TOP OF THE WARDROBE. AND WHEN THEY ASKED US TO DO THIS ONE-OFF CONCERT IN 1997 TO RAISE MONEY FOR ST. PETER’S CHURCH HALL, I HADN’T PLAYED DRUMS FOR FORTY YEARS . . . AND SAID, “NO! I COULDN’T PLAY BACK THEN; WHY WOULD I BE ANY BETTER NOW?” SO THEY JUST SAID, “LET’S JUST MEET AT LEN’S HOUSE AND HAVE A LOOK.” PETE SHOTTON SAID, “WHY DON’T WE JUST GET TOGETHER AT LEN’S HOUSE.” I TOOK MY DRUMSTICKS DOWN FROM THE WARDROBE, WHICH MY WIFE HAD BEEN THREATENING TO THROW OUT FOR YEARS. WE HAD SUCH A BLOODY WONDERFUL TIME IN LEN’S HOUSE, LIKE WE WERE NINETEEN AGAIN. FORTY YEARS DISAPPEARED, AND WE DID IT EXACTLY THE SAME—NOT BETTER, NOT WORSE—JUST THE SAME.
Hanton has sweet memories of the school and the boys, but when it comes to perhaps the most important moment in modern music history—the first meeting between John and Paul—he’s a bit uncertain. It was also the day of the biggest performance in the young life of the boys from Quarry Bank. “It was summer 1957, at the Woolton church fair. I saw some guys talking to John in this wooden shed on the Woolton church property where Boy Scouts hung out and we kept all the equipment and our coats. I was playing drums and Boy Scouts were playing their trumpets. I saw Ivan [Vaughn] come in, and this other dark-haired lad, and I didn’t know who they were, and they were talking to John. The dark-haired lad, I realized [later], was Paul. And that is when they met.”
Paul’s arrival was the beginning of the end of Rod Davis’s musical career, although he still plays a mean banjo and guitar. That meeting is emblematic of a great pairing of talent, when John met Paul amid the burning sun of summer, an innocent meeting, a chance encounter. And I wonder, what if it had rained and young Paulie couldn’t ride his bicycle? Would he have walked? Or would he have stayed home? It is just another “what if” in a wondrous story of trial and error—in those days, mostly error.
CHAPTER THREE
PAUL—YESTERDAY
“He wanted to be accepted, loved, and always appropriate. He viewed criticism as a dagger, and adoration as a source of support. He avoided confrontation like a plague. He was a politician. He was so good at it, that in some other life, he might have been elected prime minister.”
—Tony Barrow
“[My dad] just said . . . ‘Well, you’re never going to make any money . . . in a group.’”
—Paul McCartney, in a 1964 interview with me
“Paul was the Beatle, from the very beginning, who wanted to sustain a good image.”
—Derek Taylor, in an interview with me in the mid-eighties
Jim and Mary and Paul and Michael
Rumor has it that the oldest son of Jim and Mary McCartney was able to comb his streaking black hair with one hand as he held the handlebar of his bicycle with the other, all the while anticipating his arrival at the church in Woolton for the historic first meeting with John Lennon. James Paul McCartney had just turned fifteen. It was only eight months since the death of his mother. Life had been cruel to the music-loving cyclist with the locks of black hair, the slim teen body, and the hopes of becoming a professional musician. The roots of his life dated back, as those of so many children in Britain in the 1950s, to the nation’s fight for survival. In fact, the McCartney family had its start beneath the surface.
Jim McCartney met Mary Mohin
in an air-raid shelter, the earth shaking around them. The parents of Paul McCartney, humble and loving, were married on April 15, 1941. The sirens again wailed after the ceremony, and so their wedding night was spent with family and friends in a shelter. That was life in Britain in the forties.
Although the road was bumpy and surrounded by intrigue, their first son, James Paul McCartney, born June 18, 1942, would become one of the twentieth century’s most famous people.
His friends, the close ones from the old Liverpool days, called him Paulie. The media has renamed him “Macca,” a rather meaningless and unflattering abbreviation of his last name. His mom and dad have always called him Paul. The people of the British Empire, and most others, have called him “Sir” since Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, knighted him in 1997.
Paul was a charming boy. He captivated his parents and relatives, endeared himself to neighbors, and at a very young age made himself a mesmerizing and seductive sex symbol through a sly demeanor, cutesy smile, and hips that would move even when his feet stood still. When he bicycled to the church at Woolton in July 1957 for what would be a historic, life-changing meeting with John Lennon, it is said, by eyewitnesses—how could they possibly remember the detail?—that in some miraculous way, he kept his hair intact on that windy summer day, in anticipation of meeting girls. As I can tell you from witnessing it less than ten years later, Paul was artfully creating a winning combination with women—a personal presence accompanied by the most powerful force of seduction. Paul talked to girls, and later, young women, with an intense seriousness. His words and intimate conversations were powerfully accentuated by a fleeting touch, or the wink of an eye.