Love for Beatles at the airport

 

A Friendly welcome in Toronto

 September 7, 1964 - Toronto

Jumping in the canal

 

Lots of love for Paul

 

Nighttime at the airport

 

The concert in the cage

 

December 14, 1963

Katie Segal loves George

 

We all know the story about how on  August 24, 1964, the Beatles sat on stools at a garden party in the Bel Aire part of Los Angeles, California and shook hands with countless famous people and their children.  

We also know that there were just regular fans that had found out about this and went to the house where the party was held and stood outside and tried to see a glimpse of The Beatles and wished they had a famous relative so that they could get inside themselves. 

One thing you might not know is that one of those fans standing outside was a 12-year-old Katey Sagal.   I am sure you have seen Katey Sagal on television over the past 30+ years.  She played the part of Peg Bundy on "Married with Children,"  was the voice of Leela on "Futureramia"  and most recently she has played Dan's love interest on "The Conners."    

Before all of that, she was just Katey, who loved the Beatles, especially George Harrison.   She and her best friend heard about the party on the radio and decided to find the house and see if they can see the Beatles.   They stood there in a row with other Beatlemaniacs and screamed.   There is video footage of this and you can read Katey's lips yelling out "George!  George!"     

Katey got so hysterical about George that she could not calm down.  She did not get to see The Beatles on that day, but she did get a policeman to escort her back home because she was so hysterical. 

I love these stories with photo/video evidence of now-famous people at Beatles events in the 1960s.  How many have been discovered so far?

Paul stopped the show

 My heart goes out to all of the victims and their families of those that lost their lives, are in critical condition in the hospital, were injured, and/or have PTSD due to the terror that happened at the concert in Houston this past weekend.   A concert should always be a place to have fun, and not a place where tragedy happens.   

A lot of people have been sharing videos of various artists stopping the show due to emergency situations in the audience.   This all made me think about The Beatles.    We know that things got really wild at Beatles concerts.   Fans rushed the stage, passed out, screamed, stood on unstable chairs, threw things, and pushed and shoved to get closer to John, Paul, George, and Ringo.    I am sure there were moments during these concerts that fans felt like their lives might be in danger.  Thankfully no one died during a Beatles concert, but there were a few scary moments.   I think one of the scariest concerts were the two at San Francisco in 1965.   We don't have a video of what happened, but I do have this letter that shows us that Paul did notice what happened and took charge of the situation. 

This letter was written to Bob Bonis from Joan Reyolds.

Monday, September 13, 1965

Hello Bob:

Hopefully, you remember me.  I met you ......I have a son, his name is Joshua.........he has a Lego Building Block set, we let you play with it.  Oh, you remember Joshua???  Well, I'm his mother.  My name is Joan.  I liked you.  Did you like me?

Read in Ralph Gleason's column your name.  You were with the Beatles on their tour.  Yes, Bob, this is a letter regarding the Beatles.  (Does anyone ever write you any more about anything else?)

To continue on...... we went to the evening Beatles concert in San Francisco.  We had front-row center seats.  We were happy.  I went with my husband Nick, Julie Stewart (her husband works with my husband in the Kingston Trio), and a male friend called simply Mayhall.

Anyway, when the show started we were comfortable.  Then, the Beatles came on, the mob surged, we were trapped, Julie, who is five months pregnant, was getting badly kicked, etc.  We were scared for her.  We almost died protecting her.  All the girls were screaming various Beatle names.  We were screaming Paul's name.  We sounded like those girls.  We just wanted help to get Julie out of there. 

Nick made some kind of contact with Paul, who sensed that our screaming was of a different nature.  How this happened amazed us, and we are totally grateful that Paul stopped the show.  We would like to thank him most sincerely and wonder if you can tell us who we should write to, hoping it will get to him.  Or, should we forget it?

I wish I had known you were here when you were here, could have said "Hello" maybe just as well ...........you were busy I imagine.  That is all, we're well.  How are you?  Goodbye.....if you get this note, let me know, if you don't get it, don't let me know.

Very truly yours truly,

Joan Reynolds

Beatles beauty rest

 

A fan is waiting overnight to buy tickets to see the Beatles concert in Las Vegas in 1964.   I have fallen asleep way too many times with a Beatles book in my hand. 

The Screamers

 

My Ticket To Ride - A Book Review

I just finished a really great book called My Ticket to Ride by Janice Mitchell.   This is the true story of a girl named Janice and her adventures in London in the autumn of 1964.

Janice had a pretty rough childhood in Cleveland, Ohio.  Her parents left her, and she lived with a difficult aunt.   Things in Janice's life got better in December 1963 when she first heard The Beatles on the radio.   Like so many other girls, the Beatles and their music made a huge impact on her, and she automatically became a fan.   Beatles became her life -- she listened to their music, read the magazines, and, of course, watched them on the Ed Sullivan Show. 

Janice talks her best Beatle buddy, Marti, into leaving their troublesome lives in Cleveland and traveling to London to start a new life.   A life where they could meet The Beatles, go to the clubs in Soho, and work for Brian Epstein.     So the day after they went to the Beatles concert in Cleveland, the two 16-year-olds left with their new passports and Marti's college fund money and flew to London without telling their guardians. 

The story of two Beatle-crazed American teenagers in 1964 London was so interesting!   Janice Mitchell is a very good writer and by reading about her adventure, you are transferred to a much more innocent time in what was the beginning days of "Swinging London."    The girls go to all of the top clubs in Soho, including the Marquee, the 2i's, the Flamingo, and others that you have heard about.  They hitchhike to Liverpool and meet some very kind boys along the way who helped their adventures. 

I really loved this story.   Janice and Marti actually did something that every teenage girl wanted to do in the 1960s.   Sadly, they did not get to meet the Beatles, but they sure had a fun time trying!  I was stuck at what an innocent time it was.   Janice had such little life experience, and yet no one took advantage of her naiveté, and the boys were such gentlemen.   

Beatle fans of all generations will enjoy this coming-of-age story.  It is one that was an easy read and was a lot of fun.  I highly recommend it! 

 https://amzn.to/48AyteS
 

The last concert in front of a paying audience

 August 29, 1966 - Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California

Time to grow out my hair....

https://colinpantall.blogspot.com/

 

Beatlemania hits Broadway

 May 26, 1977  -  Beatlemania is on Broadway.  did you see it?

International Women's Day

 

It is International Women's Day!   I was thinking about who the most important women in the story of the Beatles are and really there are a lot of them.    First the Beatles' mothers:  Julia, Mary, Louise, and Elsie are important for not only giving birth to our four guys but for the encouragement they each gave them when it came to music.  

Of course, there was John's Aunt Mimi and all of the Beatles' relationships up until 1968:  Cynthia, Maureen, Pattie, and Jane.    Then of course Yoko and Linda were HUGE influences.

But as far as I am concerned the most important females in the Beatles' story would be the fans!  The girls that bought the Beatles records, listened to them on their transistor radios, saw them in concert, joined the fan clubs, waited for them at the airport or hotels, made their own newsletters, scrapbooks, etc etc.   If it wasn't for the fans, who were 90% female in 1963-1964, The Beatles would not have gotten popular.   No matter how great of a band they were, if they didn't have fan buying their records and going to their concert, they would not have gotten popular.  

Because of the fans, we have some of the best first-hand historical information.   They kept amazing diaries and wrote letters that documented not only the correct dates of events but also what each Beatle was wearing.   While that might have looked "childish" at the time, it has been invaluable to Beatle historians today.  

So I want to wish all of the 1st generation female Beatles fans a wonderful International Women's Day and say a big thank you for all you did for The Beatles and ultimately the fans of today!  

The night that changed it all