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Wednesday, December 10, 2025
Tuesday, December 9, 2025
Backstage With the Beatles (Birmingham 1965)
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| Pictures by Leslie Stonehouse |
Backstage with the Beatles
No Writer Listed
Birmingham Weekly Mercury
December 12, 1965
The other night in Birmingham, a bouncing ball of sound and fury burst out of a darkened stage and shot the tingling senses of 5,000 teenagers through a timeless hour.
The Beatles came to the city's Odeon Cinema at a little after eight o'clock. They buttoned up their drab, superbly cut military style jackets, filed down a corridor, and spilled onto the stage. Ringo fiddled with the screws holding down his bass drum. John made faces and pulled his black cap down a notch. Paul grinned and tapped his toe on the boards. George, hollow-cheeked and angular, squinted into a spotlight and scratched his fluffy head.
One of them said "Lizzie", and they were off, bathed in a coat of bluey-purple light, ducking the flying jelly babies and doing their best to cut through the screams with that famous, compelling nasal drone. They looked as if they were enjoying it, and I think they probably were.
When it was all over, they went back to watch their favorite program, "The Man from UNCLE," and drank coffee.
Up in the manager's office, the phone rang, and a girl's voice said, "Can I speak to George Harrison, please?" They told her that George was tired.
Calm Queues For The Beatles (Birmingham 1965)
Calm Queues For The Beatles Police Surprised
No Writer Listed
The Scotsman
December 10, 1965
The police in Birmingham were taken by surprise last night when the Beatles arrived for a one-night stand in the city. The queues were so orderly outside the cinema where the group was appearing that one police inspector said, "If they are like this, next time, we will take the barricades down and let them walk in."
Monday, December 8, 2025
Surviving Beatles shocked by Former Mate's Death (1980)
Surviving Beatles Shocked by Former Mate's Death
By Jeff Bradly
Associated Press
December 9, 1980
The three surviving Beatles were in deep shock and mourning today over the slaying of their former partner, John Lennon. "I can't take it in at the moment," said Paul McCartney, the man who, with Lennon, formed one of popular music's greatest songwriting teams. He was visibly upset as he drove away from his Sussex farmhouse in southern England.
"Ringo Starr broke off a vacation to fly to the United States", said a spokesman for his record company. "He's extremely shocked. He doesn't want to say any more."
George Harrison, the fourth of the Fab Four who revolutionized pop music in the 1960s, was reported to be deeply upset and was said to have canceled a recording session scheduled for today.
McCartney, looking pale and dressed in a dark jacket, told reporters, "John was a great guy. He's going to be missed by the whole world." McCartney left his rural home with his wife, Linda, and one of their children. He reportedly was headed for London, where he had a recording session scheduled for today. "Because of Lennon's death, McCartney's plans were now uncertain," according to a spokesman in McCartney Productions Ltd.
In his native Liverpool, Lennon's death caused dismay and anger. "It's bloody terrible, bloody terrible," said John Chambers, head of the local Beatles fan club.
Like the music he wrote and sang, words of Lennon's slaying flashed around the world, stunning a generation of fans raised on the Beatlemania explosion.
Hundreds gathered outside the stately apartment building on New York's Upper West Side, where Lennon was felled by an assassin's bullet Monday night. Some wept, others softly sang the lyrics of Lennon's songs or played tapes of the legendary rock group.
The brother of Lennon's widow, Yoko Ono, said in Japan today that he was prepared to leave for the United States in an effort to persuade his sister to return to her native country, where she "doesn't have to worry about gunshots anymore." Keisuke Ono said he was deeply shocked and saddened by his brother-in-law's death. "He was a really good man, a good father, a good husband, and a good friend." Ono said other members of the Ono family were in mourning at the residence in Fujisawa, 30 miles southwest of Tokyo, he added.
The London New Standard newspaper lashed out at American gun laws in an editorial tribute to the slain superstar. "His meaningless murder is increasingly typical of New York and of the United States in general, where the freedom to carry guns has brought forth monsters." The paper said Lennon's reputation and achievement will remain secure in the memory of "all those to whom the music of the Beatles came as a delight and revelation."
Lennon's first wife, Cynthia, spoke today of the deepest affection she always retained for John. "His death was tragic", she said. Commenting in Ruthland, Wales, where she is remarried, and running a restaurant called Oliver's Bistro, she said the news was particularly hard on 17-year-old Julian Lennon, the son she had with the Beatle. Cynthia, now Mrs. John Twist, has had custody of Julian since her 1968 divorce from Lennon.
In London. Alan Williams, the Beatles' first manager, said Lennon was "a great musician" and urged the city of Liverpool, the group's hometown, to commemorate the group with a statue. The proposal has been made repeatedly by the quartet's fans, but municipal officials in the big port in western England have always turned it down. "Surely, the pop world owes something to the name of the Beatles and especially John, and there should be a statue in their hometown," Williams said. He said Lennon was "aggressive, a very strong character. He wouldn't suffer fools gladly."
John's haircut
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| Photos by Annie Lebowitz |
December 8, 1980
The day that ended the worst way possible started off really great. John got a haircut to look like a Teddy Boy/Rock n Roller from the 1950s. It sort of fit the "(Just Like) Starting Over song." So tragic that these were the only photos we got to see of his new hairstyle.
Mama Beatle Says Lives Threatened (1980)
'Mama Beatle' Says Lives Threatened
By Roger Kaye
Fort- Worth Star Telegram
December 9, 1980
"John Lennon and the Beatles lived in fear for their lives during their 1964 and '65 tours of North America, and especially, were fearful of making a 1964 stopover in Dallas", says Ruby Hickman. As an executive with the airline that provided the charter plane for those tours, Ms Hickman of Fort Worth accompanied Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Sara, and George Harrison on those tours, and she vividly recalls the concern the four Beatles had for their safety.
The slaying of Lennon in New York Monday night painfully reminded Ms. Hickman of those tumultuous mid-60s days when death threats, bomb scares, and other threats of harm seemingly awaited the Beatles wherever they went.
But never were the Beatles more concerned than when they went to Dallas to play a show at what was then known as Dallas Memorial Stadium. "We went to Dallas less than a year after President Kennedy had been killed. There, with all the threats they had gotten everywhere else, which made them literally live in fear of their own lives, they were frightened.
"They were frightened the whole tour about going into Dallas", Ms. Hickman said. The Texas trip wasn't without incident. Along with the usual bomb threat, one overzealous Beatle fan managed to jump on Ringo Starr in a hotel elevator, pulling out a big chunk of his hair and bloodying his scalp.
"But there were murders and bomb threats everywhere we went," Ms Hickman added. "It was particularly frightening in Houston in 1965 when we couldn't get out of the airplane on the runway. A mob overpowered the police and packed symmetrically around the plane, from which no one was able to exit." The Beatles finally managed to escape in a catering truck, but Ms. Hickman recalls that the truck was bombarded by rocks, bottles, and shoes. "The Beatles lay flat on the floor through the whole thing," She said. "What they went through is impossible to describe, but they aroused emotions ranging from adulation to murder."
As a result of what they witnessed a decade and a half ago, Ms Hickman, who was dubbed as the "Mama Beatle" by the media in 1964, wasn't that surprised to hear about Monday's tragedy in New York. "I'm still in a state of shock. I'm stunned, but it's almost something I expected and dreaded, although these years, because of the way I saw them live in fear," she said. "And it wasn't just the Beatles, it was everybody on those tours. We all feared something might happen because all of the crackpots in the world at the time."
"It was hard for me to understand why anybody would want to kill them, but professional security people emphasized to me over and over that there were people out there who would do in just do it, just to gain notoriety. And now it has happened."
The Beatles' final performance was at San Francisco's Candlestick Park on August 29, 1966. In retrospect, Ms Hickman wonders how the Beatles managed to tour as long as they did. "There were just 1000s and 1000s of people. Wherever they went, they were prisoners of their adulation, and the moms would become hysterical. Someone easily could have been hit by rocks and hurt seriously. We had to sneak them around in ambulances, armored trucks, and any other way we could in order to protect them. It was such an unreal life, and I really admire Lennon for stepping away from it all and breaking the group up in 1970."
Beatle Hit By Jelly Baby (Sheffield 1965)
Beatle Hit By Jelly Baby
No writer listed
Daily Express
December 9, 1965
The Beatle Paul McCartney was hit in the face last night by a Jelly Baby sweet thrown onto the stage of a cinema in Sheffield where the pop group were appearing. He rubbed an eye, then carried on playing.
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