Beatles International (1964)

 Beatles International

By Peter Ingrams

Rave Magazine

March 1964

     Twice around the world -- more than 50,000 miles. That's what the Beatles are committed to logging this year. What happens when half the world is screaming for you?

     50,000 miles of strain through long airplane journeys that can leave you tired and empty. 50,000 miles of tension, having to prove yourself to foreign audiences. 

    Already this year, they've clocked up 8000 miles, including their US tour, where they went all out to conquer a TV audience of 70 million and triumph in America's greatest concert halls, amid all the ballyhoo and frenzy of a shattering American welcome. No wonder John Lennon confessed to me in the middle of it all, "Sure, we feel the strain, but it's no good moaning."

     How will the Beatles face up to these nerve-wracking pressures in year two of Beatle mania? The past 12 months, I've spent days on end with John, George, Ringo, and Paul. I've marveled at how they've stood up to it all. They still have time for their old mates, but now they have to guard their privacy jealously.

     I know some of their nearest friends are worried. Worried when they hear some people whisper, "Remember Jet Harris? Remember Terry Dene? Remember how even the Springfields broke up because they got on each other's nerves?"\

    Worried when they heard George Harrison snap during a particularly hectic press conference, "We're fed up with all the questions!" He didn't really mean it, of course. They all realized that such things go with the job. That lack of privacy in the constant spotlight are trappings of international fame. Tt's very natural that their friends worry, and very natural that the Beatles' patience should occasionally snap under the strain.

     Look what they faced in Britain. They broke all the chart records. Then came to Sweden, then the conquest of France and yet the toughest yet --America. Each a massive hurdle, which took its toll of mental and physical grit and concentration, playing before strange audiences, meeting foreign VIPs and newsmen, dashing from one place to another, in all sorts of climates and conditions, and having to smile, smile, smile all the way.

     But I know these boys, and I can tell you why the cynics are wrong when they sneer about failure. It's because John, Paul, George, and Ringo are not just a bunch of professionals working together. It's because they have long been really close friends. When the going gets tough, they can take refuge in their own togetherness and their own Northern style of comedy-- in their good old-fashioned Liverpudlian common sense. 

    Their friendship has stood many tests. It should stand them in good stead during this year of international stardom, and what a year it's going to be!  After their American trip, there's their film back here. That means some early nights, plus, mind you, getting up at five or six am every workday. 

    Then they'll probably do some more concerts. In May, they'll undertake a European tour with a series of TV and radio dates all over the continent, including Holland, Germany, and Belgium. During the summer, they're lined up for their world tour-- a fortnight in Australia, then Israel, with South Africa to follow. After that, probably America again, and there's talk of a trip behind the Iron Curtain!

     Across the world, the fans are getting ready to give the Beatles a real wonderful welcome. From Australia, Club Secretary Suzette Belle reported to me, "Here, Beatle parties are all the craze. They go on into the night with the same few Beatles records that we've had over here spinning over and over again. We don't know yet at which airport the Beatles will be landing for their tour, but we're already organizing a really great reception for them.

     From Holland, club Secretary Har van Flupen told me, "We are vowing that The Beatles will have a bigger following in Holland than they had even in Sweden and France."

     From Germany, Axel Weiss reported, "When they come here, they will find very enthusiastic audiences, no mania. Mind you, the German girls will not scream or collapse.  We think the Beatles are the best composers we have ever known. This is not including Bach, Beethoven and Mozart."

     From Canada, Trudy Metcalf, a disc jockey on station CHUM in Ontario, told me, "Beatlemania is going full force here now. If the Beatles come to Canada, I'm afraid they might be torn apart!"

     How do the Beatles cope with international fame? I was with them on the night of that first unforgettable show in Paris. It seemed that every photographer in Western Europe wanted a picture and was willing to lash out fists to get one.

     Patiently, The Beatles struggled to find new answers to the same old questions. Now, jostling French reporters.  Now it was quiet in their tiny dressing room back in the Olympia. Out front, a diamond and mink audience of sophisticates were waiting to put them to the test. When you're the biggest, you can't afford a slip, and the Beatles had that very much on their minds as they waited in that tiny room. Tiny? There was barely room to swing a bass guitar. Me, I got claustrophobia.

     George Harrison fiddled incessantly with his guitar, checking and rechecking. "We're worried they don't know us", he told me. Ringo's fingers beat a nervous tattoo on the wall. John tried to crack a gag, but got stuck in mid-sentence. 

    Curtain up, but no screams from the sophisticates beyond the footlights. I saw a look of near fear shadowing Paul's cherubic face. Then, disaster three times over, the amplification failed again and again on stage, Ringo couldn't resist a shout of despair, "It's not us!"

     And after the show, George confessed to me, "I think we would have laid down and died when that happened." Later, past midnight, back in their suite at the plush George V hotel, I saw the boys look as they seldom look-plain knocked out, and as they lay exhausted on couches and chairs, they talked wistfully of the old days back in Germany.

     Said Paul, "When we relaxed, we really relaxed, Nobody to bother us, nothing to bother about. We hardly earned enough to buy our grub and ciggies, but we had a ball!  Like the time John was photographed clinging to a TV aerial over the club, loaded down with good old German beer inside him."

     "Yes," said John, "it was great just being a bunch of unknown Liverpudlians." That's what the boys missed most of all -- being free.  Free to have a natter about music or religion or clothes without finding their views splashed in the paper the next day. Free to go out with a girl without a photographer snatching pictures, which will start the rumors flying. This happened when Paul went dancing with his friend Jane Asher. Free to pop around the corner for a meal. While even in a hugely expensive restaurant in Paris, the Beatles found their 3am supper interrupted by requests for autographs from beautifully dressed women. It was often easier to eat in their hotel suite. Free to enjoy the occasional Coke and sandwich. Although the Beatles can afford the best abroad, they can't really enjoy it. 

    Paul told me, "I really have lost a lot of weight. I used to be 11 stone, four pounds, but in six months, 10 pounds have gone. It's fantastic how I look so fat-faced on TV."  Cracked George, "I think I weighed more when I was born than I do now. "

    And while they coped with all this, John and Paul had to fulfill a heavy songwriting schedule:

•  a new number for their next single
• half a dozen songs for the upcoming film
•  a new number for Tommy Quickly
•  a song tailored to suit Billy J
•  a follow-up to the current Cilla Black success

     This had to be fitted into their Paris trip. So the boys had a piano moved into their suite. John finds he can compose faster on a piano. Normally, he and Paul compose on guitar. 

    The recording manager, George Martin of EMI Records, moved in to help. So great was the urgency that the boys ended up recording the new material at the Pathé Marconi Studios just before they left France.

     A typical day in Paris has the boys getting up around 3pm, and that was only under protest. "We could sleep for 48 hours", said Ringo. Then picture sessions for pressmen and those interviews. They went for a walk along the tree-lined boulevards near the hotel, through the Pigalle district, and down in Montmartre, where they met actress Sophie Hardy again. More pictures throughout their stay, they grinned and smiled to order, but sometimes the smiles faded for a moment, and the tiredness showed through. Stories of unpunctuality got out about Paris. Match, France's high-class glossy magazine, complained a picture session was delayed, simply because the boys were so tired. The Beatles generally tried to be helpful, but the demands were enormous.

     Slowly, Paris fell to the Beatles. The teenagers, mostly boys, warmed to them. Ques grew, interest rose, and finally, France fell to the British invaders. The enthusiasm and loyalty of their following helped the Beatles enormously to give night after night what their international audience expect from them before they hit the USA.

     The ballyhoo there was terrific. Radio networks ran Beatles clubs for weeks and enrolled at the rate of 1000s a day. Beetle wigs were snapped up at £2 each. Their records roared into the American charts, winning two gold discs. The telephone girls at the giant Capitol Records HQ answered every call with, "Hello -  Capitol --home of The Beatles."

     Understandably, The Beatles showed concern as they flew the 3000 miles from London to New York. On the plane, I heard Ringo anxiously asking US record tycoon Phil Spector, "Do you think our records are a patch on the American stuff?"

     Their welcome in New York was reassuring but exhausting. 

• Dozens of cars chased the Beatles' motorcade, one Cadillac per Beatle from the airport to the hotel.
•  Burley policemen assigned to guard them flinched as struggling girls screamed their adoration at the hotel entrance 
• Inside, dozens of reporters and photographers crowded around the Beatles as they conducted a wisecracking press conference
•      In their hotel rooms, the phones never stopped ringing as recording executives, disc jockeys and fans came on to welcome them 
•     When John and his wife Cynthia sneaked out to look around New York. ("I can't stay in this mad house," said John.) Their car was mobbed at traffic lights by yelling girls climbing on the bonnet .

    When a moment of rest had come ---wallop! George was hit by a sore throat and a high temperature and was ordered to bed for a couple of days. Even in bed, George found himself running a Beatles disc show by phone for a local radio station.

     But soon George was okay and fierce, relentless rehearsals began for their Ed Sullivan TV show. A Best Wishes wire from Elvis helped calm pre-show nerves. 

    Came the show, and coast-to-coast success. In the studio, as the audience went into ecstasy, Ed Sullivan (who had worn a Beatles wig) declared, "I don't know of any act on my show which has created this excitement."

     And even Frank Sinatra, who had forecast that the boys would "die in New York," had to admit he was wrong. Sinatra's own heyday as the first of the hysteria-attracting pop idols was 25 years ago, when teenagers and parents of today's Beatlemaniacs were called bobbysockers. But even though he originated a pop music era, Sinatra's own reception and following in those days were nothing like the Beatles experienced during their hectic 11 days in America.

    If New York's Plaza Hotel, usually a staid and formal place, breathed a sigh of relief when the Beatles moved out, think of the way Phil Spector almost landed himself in trouble with the Beatles' accommodation problems. Spector first met George Harrison at a party during his two-week London stay and invited the Beatles' entourage to use his luxurious £100-a-week New York flat. George declined because they had already reserved accommodations at the Plaza. "Perhaps we can see something of each other then," suggested Specter. 

    Phil explained to me later, "When I left New York, there was plenty of Beatle interest, but there were stories on page 36 of the pages rather than front page headlines, as some of the cabled reports had suggested. When we flew in, wow, I could hardly believe my eyes. In the short time I'd been away, Beatlemania had swamped America like nothing else. I hate to think what my neighbors would have thought of a hefty police guard all around the apartment building, perhaps handing out special passes to genuine key holders. I'm glad the Plaza had all that and not me."

     Specter's hope to see something of the Beatles was in vain. He found the hotel switchboard refusing to put him through to their suite. Even Presley's manager, Colonel Tom Parker, who telephoned with his good wishes, found he couldn't get through.

     But by now, there were calls coming in from all over the world, most of them for manager Brian Epstein. More people wanting them overseas. Still amid all the ballyhoo and the strain, The Beatles are very proud of one thing: they've only missed one show, which was in Portsmouth when Paul went sick with the flu. His illness was headlined across Britain, the continent, and even America. But the boys were back at work the next day. They made sure they returned to Portsmouth on the first available date afterward, and asked not to let down the fans, real troopers. 

    That's what the Beatles are, and never forget that they're surrounded by loyal friends, led by their manager, Brian Epstein, plus all the millions of people across the world who say, "The Beatles? They are the greatest!"