Beatle Ringo went to the air

Beatle Ringo went to the air 

By Hans Skrinjar

I was one of the 200,000 hippies who took three days  at the Isle of Wight in the fog. Loaded with blankets pots and bags they came from almost all of the countries of the world. Beatle  Ringo Starr did not want to  miss this hustle and bustle.  Along with his wife, he participated in this unique event from afar part - namely, from a helicopter. When the machine on,  many flower children were ready to greet their star.   Ringo probably feared  he was going to be pulled by his fans from the helicopter. As a precaution, he was quickly carried away by the pilot in the safe skies. 

Right on

Thanks to Andrea at That Eventuality , I was able to order the DVD-rom of the Bravo magazines that have the Beatles in them!    Now I cannot read any of it since it is all in German, which is too bad because some of the articles look really interesting.  However, there are some amazing photos on the discs, such as these of John!  I am really digging John's look during this time.

Paul at 2 in the morning

Here is another story from Bravo magazine  (#43 from 1968) that Andrea from That Eventuality  sent to me to share on this blog.  She is so sweet because she sent me several of these and even translated them for me.   

Ringo in the crowd

Johann snapped this photo of Paul at the Beatles party.  He had to wait!

"Paul came at two in the morning

. When I was in London recently, I by chance got hold of a ticket for the party The Beatles were having hosting for the launch of their film "Yellow Submarine."

The party began at around 11 p.m. at the Royal Lancaster Hotel. In front of the entrance to the basement party room, a man dressed as a "Nowhere Man" stood and greeted people. He only allowed people with invitation cards to enter.

Among the guests were The Marmalade, Jane Asher and many models. There was as much of a cold buffet and champagne as you could eat and drink. At around 1 a.m., the first of the Beatles to appear was Ringo with his wife Maureen. He seemed to feel - at least that was how it appeared to me - a little lost among the many guests. Which is why he didn't hang around at the party for very long. At around 2 in the morning, Paul McCartney and John Lennon showed up. Paul was immediately surrounded by lots of people. He felt visibly more comfortable in the throng than Ringo had. Unfortunately, George Harrison did not attend the party. That was too bad, because I would have liked to have seen all of The Beatles "live." But even so, it was a great experience!"

Johann Diewock, Frankfurt; royalty: 60 D-Mark

Bravo for the crazy pants!

I know in my last post I was complaining about tumblr, but it also has a world of amazing Beatles information.   One of the best of the best is "that eventuality" blog.   This blog is very George-centered and has a lot of photos and stories and documents.     This is a story that came from Bravo magazine.   Andrea, who runs "that eventuality"  has translated it from German to English.   Much thanks to her!

A fan story and the accompanying photos, sent to the German magazine Bravo by Silvia Purbs of Berlin, and published in issue no. 5 1968.

Translated, it reads:

“George’s new motto: Live colorfully, friends!

I was so lucky! First I visited George Harrison with my English pen pal – and then I met Paul McCartney, too!

My visit with George was a total success. I hadn't expected him to be so friendly. He talked for a very long time to my friend and myself, partially in German as well. After we had taken several photos of him and his colorful house, we said goodbye and left with happy smiles on our faces.
Later, on the way to London’s Regents Park, I noticed a house that was being ‘besieged’ by several girls. An elderly woman was testily telling them to be patient and not ring the doorbell constantly, Paul McCartney would be home in a moment. Shortly thereafter, a taxi arrived with Paul! He rang the bell – and had to wait quite some time before the elderly woman opened the door for him. She was very dismayed when she saw that she had kept Paul waiting, and not the unwelcome guests…”

Silvia Purbs, Berlin
Royalty: 100 D-Mark

The captions:

George by his front door

George Harrison’s colorful house: this is where my friend and I visited the colorful Beatle

Copyright: BRAVO Archiv

Hyde Park in Color

Words cannot express how excited I am about these photos and this post.   If you are a friend of the blog on facebook, then you will know that I told you these were coming.   Here they are 1967 Hyde Park photos in color and there is a very interesting story behind them.

A fan named Konrad contacted me a couple weeks ago asking me about the last photo, which I had posted quite a while ago.  As usual with me and Beatles photos, I could not recall where I exactly had found this photo.   Well....come to find out Konrad owns the copyright to this photo and the others you see here.   Let me share with all of you what he shared with me.  

In 1967, Konrad had a classmate who visited London.   While he was in London he happened upon the Beatles in Hyde Park doing a photo shoot (Many of which were taken by Mal Evans and appeared in the Aug and Sept 1967 issues of Beatle Book Monthly.)  This friend was not a Beatles fan, but took a few photos of the Beatles because of their fancy clothing. When he returned home to Germany, he showed the colored photos to Konrad.   Being a Beatles fan, Konrad offered to buy them (and the rights to them) off his pal. 

He saw a chance to have them in the German fan magazine, Bravo.  They were interested in the photos and the story.  Although he told the magazine that he personally did not meet the Beatles, they wrote the article as if he did (this was a teen fan magazine in the 1960's after all.  It does make for a better story than the truth).  From there German fans saw the photos and started contacting him for copies and to be pen pals.  And like so many other fan-taken photos of the time, he began trading the selling the photos with people from around the world.   

He does question if this classmate of his really did take these photos himself as he claimed; however it is a fact that he was in London during this time.   And he had no interest in the Beatles or pop music, so why would he lie about it?  Regardless of all that, I do know that have no seen colored photos from this photo shoot in Hyde Park (besides the one of John) and they do look like "outtakes" from the official photos. 

Konrad graciously and kindly has allowed me to publish these on the blog.  I can't thank him enough.