When They Were Boys

by Larry Kane

  “Ironically,” Bramwell muses, “if Dick Rowe of Decca was making the decisions, the Beatles might never have been the Beatles, so Brian’s search for a recording studio and the link to Parlophone and Martin was extraordinary.

  “In a way, he was going behind the same EMI people who rejected them in early 1962, since EMI owned Parlophone. People talk about missed opportunities all their lives, but Epstein’s chance meeting with Syd Coleman, as he looked for a studio to simply make copies [of the demo], was the most powerful turning point. With all their talent, they still could have been ignored, or bureaucrats could have buried them in the waste bin.”

  George Martin was no bureaucrat. He was forward-looking and willing to take risks. After Epstein signed a basic artist’s agreement with Parlophone, the boys performed an artist’s test. It was in that session that Martin and another producer, Ron Richards, decided they needed a session drummer, a decision that had continuity when Pete Best left and Ringo came aboard. As the summer months arrived, there was also disagreement, a friendly dispute, between the boys and Martin over what single they should record. The Beatles wanted “Love Me Do”; Martin wanted “How Do You Do It.”

  Martin demurred. “Love Me Do” was recorded. Ringo played the tambourine while session drummer Andy White played drums, although Ringo later played drums on the album version of the song. Abbey Road was busy for the Beatles, George Martin, and Ron Richards, another significant producer. Both men insisted on recordings and re-recordings. They were regular drill sergeants on demanding the best the boys could offer.

  It was a long road for “Love Me Do,” and its history will show just how good timing and patience paid off. “Love Me Do” had been in the boys’ bag of goodies for four years before it surfaced as a hit, thanks to the chance meeting with Syd Coleman; and thanks to Syd Coleman’s referral to George Martin, who technically worked for EMI, which had rejected the Beatles in the first place; and thanks to the carefully crafted words of Tony Barrow, Bob Wooler, Derek Taylor, and the venerable Bill Harry. The truth is that Paul McCartney wrote most of it, back in 1958 and 1959, and John wrote the so-called middle eight, or bridge.

  So, it took four years, constant revision, help from friends and writers, and two masterful producers, plus the addition of John Lennon’s mouth organ (harmonica) to make it work.

  There are many myths and disagreements about the Beatles’ first single, notably that Epstein bought up thousands of copies to help the record make the charts. That has never been verified, but the following stats have.

  “Love Me Do,” the very first Beatles single, with “PS—I Love You” on the flip side, hit the market on October 5, 1962. Its highest ranking in the United Kingdom was seventeen, in the fall and winter of 1962. Total sales were 17,000. In fourteen months, it would be number one in America. In 1982, twenty years later, after an official reissue, it hit number four on the UK charts, with sales totaling 150,000. While not totally accepted in the beginning, the song was the linchpin of the Beatles’ roar to greatness, and the biggest hit as the Beatles began their iconic era following John Lennon’s death.

  “Love Me Do”? Remember the early test when Paul played the song for boxer–bouncer–star maker Horst Fascher in Hamburg? “Love Me Do” survived Fascher’s review of it.

  The rollout for the song was classic Epstein. Location was very important to him. He arranged for the Beatles to play supporting act for Little Richard at the Tower Ballroom. In fact, a full-page NEMS ad purchased for Mersey Beat emphasizes Little Richard, with the Beatles as first supporting act, but never mentions “Love Me Do.”

  For press genius Tony Barrow, one of the invigorating pen pals, the Beatles’ status as supporting act was inappropriate. For Epstein, location, in the beginning, was everything. For Barrow, space was the key.

  In his column for the Liverpool Echo newspaper, he decided to give the boys extra space. After all, they were the breakthrough group from Liverpool.

  The headline read: “Big Date for Beatles.”

  Barrow’s review was even more emphatic than the headline, and more powerful. He called the song “an infectious medium-paced ballad with an exceptionally haunting harmonica accompaniment that smacks home the simple tune and gives the whole deck that extra slab of impact and atmosphere so essential to the construction of a Top Twenty smasher.”

  Was Tony Barrow good? In the words of John Lennon, over and over again in taped interviews on different topics, “You betcha, Larry!”

  Tony Barrow’s words were smooth as silk. And Bill Harry was doing his thing. In the Liverpool area, “Love Me Do” was ranked number one in Mersey Beat, the only publication to give it top ranking.

  The most important thing was that the Beatles had a nationwide hit—and number seventeen was not so bad. Young fan Tony Bramwell heard the song for the first time a few months after joining Epstein as a weekend warrior of sorts. After checking out Epstein, Bramwell’s mother gave him the green light to work for Epstein and the boys, but only on weekends when school was not in session. Bramwell was impressed with “Love Me Do,” even though it was not the element of hard rock he loved so much.

  “The kids loved it. The girls swooned over it. My romantic life, if you could call it that at that age, was looking better. ‘Love Me Do’ was a breakout song for Merseyside.”

  Lennon House curator Colin Hall, also a budding teenager at the time, remembers the tone and rhythm of the ballad. “Prior to this, I could only think of the Beatles in terms of raw, rough, leather, and wild. This song made the girls and boys dream of love.”

  One special feature of “Love Me Do” was the soft sound of the mouth organ, with Lennon’s lips squeezing out the music. Was it the same harmonica that John Lennon stole from a store on Allan Williams’s rocky van journey to Hamburg? Whether the harmonica was purloined or purchased, John’s mouth action was a big hit, along with the romantic voice of Paul McCartney.

  So, again, a chance walk-in by the unrelenting Brian Epstein ended in a score of untold proportions. George Martin was encountered, quite accidentally. That would be a marriage made in heaven, as they say.

  “Love Me Do” would thrill young lovers in Britain and much later in America. Over in Hamburg, the song’s first critic was surprised, but pleased.

  Forty-nine years later, sipping strong coffee on a cold day in Hamburg, Horst Fascher looks at me with a grin and says, “Although I told Paul it wasn’t good, I am happy that I was wrong. I hope he didn’t hold it against me.”

  The breakout song wasn’t the Beatles’ best, but it was the result of their extraordinary talent being actually recognized. The honest truth? No one gets to their goals alone, which brings us to the story of an unusual ensemble of friends and supporters who changed the boys’ lives, and at the same time, changed their own in wonderful ways—in one case with an unhappy ending.

  WHEN

  THEY

  WERE

  BOYS

  PART SIX: SECRETS TO SUCCESS

  A little help from their friends. Faithful Mal opens up in the Bahamas. Tears. Who’s the smart and pretty girl in the office? She’s the secret-agent girl. Sister love and the Harrison hug invade America. The boys pick their shoes—Brian gets the best of the rest. Give a hand to Kingsize, and Johnny Hutch, who has the Big Three. Billy Kinsley, Mr. Unselfish, rules the day. Paul the leftie gets up close and personal with Johnny Boy. Raw goes away. Animal magnetism gets a new suit of clothes and the three buddies, Neil, Tony, and Mal, “pave” the way. Hold the lamé, will you, and the lapels: it’s time for the makeover. For the boys—it’s something borrowed and something new. And all the while, the body shakes and Britain quakes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  BANDS ON THE RUN

  “They were there. Some of them still are. They were extremely talented. Unlike Billy J. Kramer and Gerry and the Pacemakers, they didn’t reach glory, but in all the cases, the Beatles took a piece of their action. They learned and watched and learned some more. Especially from Bill
y Kinsley, who never got the credit he deserved.”

  —Spencer Leigh, BBC broadcaster and prolific biographer of Merseyside

  “Billy Kinsley was and is the real thing. Of course, if you look at his life carefully, you’ll realize he almost didn’t make it. Maybe that’s what drove him to critical success . . . maybe.”

  —Billy J. Kramer

  “They took from each other, not like theft, but a combination of observing, adapting styles, and just learning by being there.”

  —Sam Leach, on the relationship between the boys and the other Merseyside groups

  I HAVE NEVER MET KINGSIZE TAYLOR, OF KINGSIZE TAYLOR AND THE DOMINOES. Teddy Taylor is quite private about the Beatles era, and I assume, from an e-mail exchange, not a big fan of the boys. Taylor, a former butcher, is one of three significant music men or groups who left an indelible mark on the Beatles, and almost every young person in the north of England who grew up on their music. From this perspective, there is no hard rocker of his generation who can belt out the great songs of the era with such a definite energy and excitement.

  His version of “Long Tall Sally” is a classic. Today he still practices his craft in Hamburg, where he plays to sold-out audiences.

  Did the Beatles pick up Taylor’s beat? Possibly. Does any group benefit from playing on the same bill as other groups? Most likely. But Taylor had a rhythm that fans of the day described as “pure contagion.”

  Taylor was promoted by Sam Leach, who understood his appeal: “He got hot, very hot, because he would bring the latest American hits to live audiences. They screamed for him, and he was popular years later because he stayed home, and was devoted to the community.”

  Many of the fans who watched Taylor at the Cavern or one of the other venues remember that members of the other well-known area groups would watch and take something away.

  Paul McCartney was one of those taking notes. He was a quick study, and was never too embarrassed to do so. He loved to learn more, and he learned a lot from Taylor on chords, the latest lyrics, and hard-beat style. Taylor, although not recognized as such back in the day, was a major player in developing the Merseyside sound.

  The venerable Bill Harry remembers the impact of Teddy Taylor.

  THEY WERE PROBABLY THE BIGGEST BRITISH ROCK ’N’ ROLL BAND IN THE EARLY SIXTIES. THEY BLEW LIKE MAD. THEY WERE FANTASTIC. TEDDY WAS A FANTASTIC GUY, BUT A BRILLIANT GROUP LIKE HIS AND OTHERS WERE CRUSHED DOWN BY THE LONDON RECORD GIANTS. THEY TRIED DOING IT TO THE BEATLES, BUT EPSTEIN FOUGHT HARD AND IT DIDN’T WORK. PEOPLE LIKE TEDDY WERE SIMPLY STOPPED BY THE LONDON RECORD PEOPLE. THEY DIDN’T WANT ANYONE FROM THE NORTH TO BECOME BIG. I MEAN, TEDDY HAD THE BEST PURE STAGE BAND IN BRITAIN. THE DIFFERENCE WITH THE BEATLES IS THAT THEY ALSO HAD MUSIC THAT THEY WROTE.

  Horst Fascher says that in Hamburg, from a look at pure and raw onstage talent, “there was no band as dynamic as Teddy Taylor and the Dominoes.” And this comes from a man who was so in love with the Beatles’ music that he tried never to miss a set, even when he was securing the gates of the nightclubs.

  Bill Harry also remembers the power of the Big Three. “The Big Three—brilliant, the Cream before the Cream. Brian Epstein wanted Johnny Hutchinson to be the Beatles’ drummer instead of Ringo.”

  Although Harry’s comment may be accurate, Spencer Leigh doubts that Hutchinson’s hard line and tough, fighting demeanor could ever fit in with the accommodating style of John, Paul, and the gang. Leigh thinks that Johnny Hutch, as he was called, “would certainly have fought with John Lennon.”

  Bill Harry adds, “He did play with the Beatles on a few occasions, and they were a bit scared of him. But the Big Three were very special.”

  So special, Leigh adds, “They were the model for . . . Cream. They were the loudest, most intensely raw group in Liverpool. You couldn’t miss them.”

  In addition to Taylor and the Big Three, another group is barely mentioned for their influence on the Beatles, not to mention their influence on almost every group that came after them: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates.

  Kidd, who never played an instrument, had such an influence that bands like Led Zeppelin and the Who tried to replicate his band’s ultra-dramatic presence. They hit the charts with two classics, “Shakin’ All Over” and “Please Don’t Touch.” They dressed and paraded on stage as swashbuckling buccaneers, testing the limits of outrage and sexual tension. Their physical act was risqué before risqué was routine, before Alice Cooper, Bowie, and others.

  “The Pirates,” says Leigh, “were the roots of the beginnings of a lot of bands, and no doubt the Beatles were greatly influenced by them.”

  Denny Somach, American rock historian and Led Zeppelin biographer, says, “They were more successful as an influence on other bands than they were as a group. In fact, Roger Daltrey of the Who shed his guitar because of Kidd’s success as a non-playing singer, and Zeppelin routinely covered their songs as they rehearsed.”

  As with Rory Storm’s antics, the Beatles were enthralled by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. In the real time of the turn of the decade from the fifties to the sixties, it was difficult to measure, but their subsequent music and performance style was clearly affected.

  The Beatles were also impressed by other artists during their rise to success, especially the Americans. They said little in public, though, about the local bands, but they showed their respect in different ways. In public—with the exception of Joe Ankrah and the emergence of a younger entertainer named Billy Kinsley—they offered respect, but little praise.

  For Billy Kinsley, they had a special respect. Billy Kinsley was a hot property. At fourteen, the youngest entertainer in Merseyside began with his group, the Mavericks. With great audacity, and working through coveted deejay and host Bob Wooler, Kinsley, along with his friend Tony Crane, reached out to Mersey Beat publisher Bill Harry to ask if they could borrow the name of the publication for their band. Harry agreed, and the Merseybeats were born.

  It is fascinating that Harry and Kinsley both added to the general consensus that the new wave of bands forever would be titled the Merseybeat from Merseyside.

  In another era, Kinsley would have been arrested for not being old enough to work, but who knew, and frankly, who cared? What the group did care about was the exposure to all that music, “all that great noise,” as Kinsley says today.

  There is no question that most of the bands in Merseyside formed somewhat of an educational foundation for their counterparts. They learned from one another. Sam Leach saw all of them in action.

  “They took from each other, not like theft, but a combination of observing, adapting styles, and just learning by being there.”

  And then there were the Beatles.

  Tony Crane thought he and Kinsley had made an extraordinary breakthrough—a band with two primary singers. Ambitious, young, and excited about music, Kinsley and Crane were convinced they had developed something new.

  Crane recalls the excitement: “We thought we were the first group with more than one lead singer. Then we went to the Cavern. We saw the Beatles, and we realized . . . we were not the first. They were.”

  Like Crane, Kinsley was in a state of wonderment, first watching, then knowing the boys. Like a wide-eyed kid, which he was, he visually absorbed the style of John and friends, and then systematically watched every step, every movement.

  “Frankly, no one had ever heard of two lead singers, and then I saw John and Paul,” Kinsley recalls.

  NO ONE HAD EVER SEEN THREE LEAD SINGERS, BECAUSE GEORGE ALWAYS GOT HIS TURN, AND GEORGE WAS REALLY GOOD. THEY REALLY RUBBED OFF ON US—THE HARMONY, THE SOLOS AND THE DRUMMING. REMEMBER, PETE BEST WAS A DAMN GOOD DRUMMER, AND IS STILL TODAY A GREAT DRUMMER. BUT THE BIGGEST EFFECT ON US WAS WHAT YOU DIDN’T SEE ON STAGE. THEY WERE SO KIND AND SUPPORTIVE, ESPECIALLY JOHN AND PAUL, ALTHOUGH GEORGE WAS ALWAYS SO CHARMING AND WARM, BUT A BIT SHY. I THINK SHY WAS PUTTING IT MILDLY—AS YOU KNOW, LARRY, BECAUSE YOU WERE WITH THEM IN THOSE EARLY DAYS BEFORE EVERYTHING BLOSSOMED.

 
; What was also impressive to the young Kinsley was how noticeable the three-or four-year age difference was: “You remember high school, don’t you . . . just one grade difference between you and others was a big deal. We looked at these guys like they had a lot of experiences to share, and they did. Stories of stage presence, tuning the instruments, dealing with rowdy crowds, which was a favorite topic, and of course, just the nod of acceptance, of approval, was so important.”

  It’s hard to imagine being so young, so green, and as Kinsley admits, “so scared,” but the Beatles helped soothe the young group’s anxieties.

  Kinsley’s life, detailed in one of the best books ever written about Merseyside, Spencer Leigh’s It’s Love that Really Counts, was a difficult one. The Kinsley family faced its tragedies, and one night the future was in serious doubt.

  “It is a night I will never forget,” Kinsley tells me.

  Kinsley was a frequent visitor to a boys’ club as he approached the age of thirteen for five-night-a-week workouts. Coming home one night, he was attacked by about fifteen young men, one of whom slashed him with an open razor. The left side of his face would be scarred for life, but the scars of the moment—the bleeding, the helplessness, his family’s suffering—would stay with him for a while and then make him even more determined to make it.

  “It was horrible,” Kinsley recalls, “and what made me more vulnerable was when, as a victim, I had to testify under duress, with at first the police not believing me, even suggesting that I was a member of the gangs, which they learned was not true. It was horrifying.”

  When things started to settle down, the charismatic youngster, dealt an early life of economic disparity and violence, started his trek to greatness, first as a paper boy and, barely a year later, the cofounder of a skiffle group. As mentioned earlier, age was never an obstacle in his mind.