Paul Comes Home in Triumph (1975)

 

Paul Comes Home in Triumph

By Peter Trollope (Eric Critic)

Liverpool Echo

September 16, 1975

    There was one man missing when Paul McCartney made a triumphant return to Liverpool last night with his group Wings. That man was Mr. James McCartney --Paul's father. "He's got arthritis and couldn't make it," explained Paul, after his sell-out show at Liverpool's Empire Theater. "He had to stay at home and watch the telly instead," said Paul.

     But the rest of the McCartney clan could. There were 68 of them in the audience, so it was a real family affair. "I've never enjoyed a show so much", said a delighted Paul after Wings had received a 10-minute standing ovation and had been called back for two encores.

     His stepmother, Mrs. Angela McCartney, said after the show, "It was marvelous, just wonderful. I really enjoyed it."

     Paul's brother, Mike McGear, said, "I don't think that they have ever played so well. It was a gas."

     The crowd gave a hero's welcome to the former Beatle, who was back in Liverpool for the second time with his group. "The last time was unbelievable, but tonight was something special", said Paul, who spoke to me with his wife Linda, after the group's two-hour show.

     The show had to be stopped halfway through when hundreds of the 2,500 capacity crowd rushed towards the stage. But Paul stepped in to avert trouble. "I told them to take it easy, because things were getting a bit heavy out there," he said. 

    Paul revealed that he is a regular visitor to Merseyside. "We love to come back up here and see the folks and meet friends. It's nice because people never bother us, and we can all have a great time.

     "I don't like what they've done to the city with all their concrete buildings, though it's a bit like New York, but I suppose that's what some people would call progress. Still, the people haven't changed. They were wonderful tonight. We shall be back here as soon as possible."

     The group is traveling to Newcastle today.

McCartney Magic Holds the Fans Entranced (Liverpool 1975)

 McCartney Magic Holds the Fans Entranced

By Peter Trollope

Liverpool Echo

September 16, 1975

    The magic that is Paul McCartney was still echoing around the streets of Liverpool last night, long after he had made a triumphant return to his hometown with his group Wings. Fans, both young and old, went away singing from one of the best concerts ever at the Empire Theater. It was two hours of nonstop entertainment.

     Paul was there to enjoy himself, and so were the fans. "Hi, it's great to be back in town," he yelled as he bounced on stage, still as cherubic as ever. The band kicked off with "Venus and Mars" and then proceeded to belt out "Jet", "Lady Madonna", a splendid version of "Live and Let Die," and a very moving "Maybe I'm Amazed." Much of the material came from his latest album, Venus and Mars.

     The highlight of the evening came when Paul took to the stage alone with just an acoustic guitar. He did two numbers which had the crowd spellbound. They were "Bluebird," and the song which made him and the Beatles world famous, "Yesterday."

    As the strains of "Yesterday" finally faded away from his vocal cords, high up in the balcony could be heard the sound of a girl crying quietly, only to be drowned out by triumphant applause. 

    McCartney's multi-talents do not upstage the rest of the group for him.  For in Denny Laine and Jimmy McCullouch, he has two of the very best guitarists in the world. On drums, Joe English reigns supreme, his arms flailing and cymbals crashing. 

    Linda is perhaps the most surprising one in the group. Her keyboard playing has improved immensely, and she now plays a vital role in "Band on the Run" and tracks such as "Jet."

     The group finished with a show-stopping version of "Band on the Run", which had the crowd on their feet screaming for more.  They called them back for two encores, and finally, Paul had to come out himself and say thank you to a crowd who won't ever forget the music he and Wings have given them.

Girls Travel 7000 Miles On The Wings of a Prayer (1975)

 

Girls Travel 7000 Miles on The Wing of a Prayer

No Writer Listed

Liverpool Echo

September 13, 1975

    Pop Star Paul McCartney won't have too far to travel when he returns to Liverpool for his Empire Theater concert on Monday, just from Birmingham, where he and his group Wings are performing tonight.

     The distance, however, is just a stone's throw by comparison with the journey some girls are making to be at the Empire concert. Among the letters to the theater asking for tickets was one from Cindy Rosenthal, who lives in San Diego, California, over 7000 miles from Liverpool. 

    Cindy wrote that she and two friends were on their way and enclosed money for tickets, because "this concert means so much to us."

     Her request and others from girls on similar treks from Minnesota and New Jersey presented the theater with a problem. All tickets for the ex-Beatle's appearance, his first at the Empire since May 1973, had been sold within 24 hours.

     But their enthusiasm has been rewarded. The management has somehow contrived to squeeze the girls into the auditorium with more than 2500 others. Extra staff will be drafted in for a concert which approaches and scales those given at the Empire by the Osmonds and the Bay City Rollers, although assistant manager Mr. George Woodward doesn't anticipate any trouble. 

    Liverpool is the sixth concert in Wings' 13-date tour of the country, which is the first stage of a world tour encompassing Australia, Japan, and the United States. Paul McCartney and his band, wife, Linda Denny Laine, and new faces Jimmy McCullouch and Joe English will play a two-hour set without a support group.

McCartney's Orchestra (1996)

 

McCartney's Orchestra in the Dark

By Joe Riley

Liverpool Echo

August 23, 1996

    Paul McCartney is in a wistful mood.  "I'm not afraid to shed a tear watching a sad film", he admits.

     Is this, at last, the soft underbelly of historic Cavern man? Not really. It's just that these things take time to surface. "When I was younger, I would try to hide my emotions," he tells me. "I used to have a problem with it, but these days, I'm more than happy to show them. I remember being in Africa, hearing 30 musicians play music in a style I'd never heard before. The power and emotion of it made me weep. And I mean, really cry. I was gushing tears. It was such a good feeling for me. It was a release."

     As a world audience converges on Liverpool for Beatle Week, Macca talks about the feelings behind the other music, the classical stuff. Paul McCartney's Liverpool Oratorio is coming home for its 100th performance next month. 

    The subject matter ranges from birth, marriage and death to sagging off from school and complaining about a late evening meal!  And Paul will be in the audience at the Philharmonic Hall -- a place he first knew for school speech days -- on September 21.

     Despite everything else that has filled Paul James McCartney's  [sic] eventful 53 years, he still finds that particular prospect amazing: "I've never got over the shock that people will actually sing my work," he confided. 

    "I wrote the oratorio because I was asked to for the Phil's 150th anniversary. I'm not sure I would have dared to otherwise, so I'm pretty encouraged that it's been performed in more than 50 cities around the world. I'm delighted that, by sheer accident, I'm in this incredible position that people will listen to what I do without me having passed any exam."

     That said, he ended up with a Fellowship of the Royal College of Music handed over by Prince Charles, a certificate worth sticking on any wall.

 To Paul. It's as if classical music is something grown-ups do, and not having a grown-up musical training, it still fills them with wonder. "I've not come to this style of composing in the accepted way. I'm not academic, and I don't have any academic training. I didn't pass any music exams at school, but then I couldn't have done because there wasn't actually a lesson.

     "For us, studying music was just being a bunch of boys in a room for 45 minutes listening to a classical record. The teacher would put on the record and leave the room being lads, that was fatal, because we just turned the music down and talked among ourselves."

     Consequently, when Paul composed this oratorio, he would hum or play whatever came into his head, and the conductor, Carl Davis -- now director of Liverpool's classical summer pop session at the King's Dock --would write it down. 

    It was a brave new world. And as Paul readily admits, he didn't know what an oratorio was until he read the definition in Newsweek. "That's true", he said with a grin, "and when I wrote it, I just ad-libbed my way through making up tunes. Not that tunes have ever been a problem. I've always loved melody, and I've always had an easy time writing it. It may well be that a lot of modern British composers aren't writing melody, and that may be my role if I want to get out of rock and roll. 

    "But I don't know where that ability comes from. It seems to come from nowhere. In fact, my most successful song, 'Yesterday,' came to me in a dream. I woke up with a whole tune in my head. I remember thinking, 'let's see what key it's in'. And it was G. I didn't plan it that way."

     He immediately adds in a self-mocking way, "Perhaps I shouldn't have said that. Maybe I should have said that it took me four months to write it in Tibet or somewhere. The thing is that the best melodies are often from the simplest, and for a long time, I suffered from the belief that if something was simple, it was therefore naive, and naivety implies some sort of stupidity."

     Hardly. "Yesterday" happens to be the most played music track in the world. "I use the term orchestral to describe my work these days", says Paul. "I don't actually like to use the word classical or call it serious music. That infers that the whole Beatles repertoire was a complete joke." At last mention of the Beatles, and now he brought it up. "There were enough classical influences there to fill a book," says Paul. "With the Beatles, we had this ballad called 'For No One', and because I always loved the sound of the French horn, I asked George Martin (the recently knighted Beatles record producer), if he could get a French horn on the song. 

    "So there I was sitting in George's house, showing him the chords and I hummed the tune, but when we got to this one note, George said we'd gone off the range for the French horn, but that was the game. We stuck it in. And of course, the best players could reach that note. "

    There was also the ending of 'A Day in the Life' on the Sgt. Pepper album, when Paul and John Lennon set out to use an orchestra in such a way that it broke all the rules. Says Paul, "For me, it's interesting to see how musicians react to what you write for them. With 'A Day in the Life', John and I really got into the challenge of being very complex with that big swirling orchestra thing. We wanted to use a whole symphony orchestra, but George Martin was a little nervous about what we were asking them to do, to start playing the lowest note on their instrument and to reach the highest note in the space of 23 bars without any music written for it.

    " That taught me a lot about orchestras. The strings did not like the idea at all, so they all stuck together and went up their scale together. However, the brass section was very happy. They liked the avant-garde put together. It gave us this great crunch of sound, and that was what I wanted to do, what you shouldn't do."

     Well, Bach did the same, so did Mozart, so why not McCartney? "I do like to break the rules", said Paul, "but that's how I tend to do things. I just fall in love with an idea, whether it's right or wrong."

     The Liverpool Oratorio has led to other classical pieces. A study called Leaf for Piano and a commission to mark the century of EMI records next year. "I'm very excited about that", says Paul. "It will be about an hour long and for a big orchestra, and ultimately, for any orchestra and any conductor in the world. The word 'symphony' is intimidating for me, because I feel then that I am stacking up against all the real symphonies. 

    "So I think of it as writing a functional evening's music. I realized that what we would call classical music was always turned on its head throughout history. I was pleased to learn that Stravinsky was booed at first, which gives me some encouragement, because his work is so accepted now."

Life with the Beatles (part 7- final) What Lies Ahead? (1964)

 

Life with the Beatles

What Lies Ahead?

By George Harrison

Liverpool Echo

March 3, 1964 

    Under a US treaty between Britain and the United States, the £20,000 that the Beatles earned in television and concert fees while in America was not subject to US income tax. The agreement is one which covers anyone from this country who was actually employed by a British firm while working in the States, and is not over there for longer than six months. As the Beatles are officially employed by NEMS Enterprises Ltd of Liverpool and London, the firm of which their manager, Brian Epstein, is the director, they came into this category of employment and were exempt from American tax. 

    They do pay it, of course, on the royalties from the records in that country. But they were in a different position from Ingemar Johansson, the Swedish boxer who fought twice in America for the World Heavyweight title. He had been employed for the two fights by American promoters, so he was called upon to pay US tax on the money he received. An actual fact, the Beatles would have been better off financially if they had paid tax in America rather than in this country. For US income taxes is lower than ours. But those are points which affect their business accountants more than the boys themselves.

     As I've explained in an earlier article, they have a splendid contempt for money matters. This week, John, Paul, George, and Ringo are working with some excitement on their first film for United Artists in London. The contract was signed in New York, and I was informed that it called for three films, provided the first one clicks with world audiences, as it is confidently expected to do.

     Liverpool. Playwright Alun Owen is responsible for the story, such as it is. From what the boys told me, the script sounds rather like a part-fiction, part-documentary excuse for introducing half a dozen new songs by The Beatles. But maybe their comments don't do true justice to all in Owen favor for writing. Anyway, we shall know in August, which is the date slated for the first release of the film. Two of the songs that John Lennon and Paul McCartney have already completed for the movie will be issued this month as a single disc by the Beatles. It will automatically soar to the number one position in the hit charts by virtue of the 1,000,000 advanced sales, which the boys achieve these days without effort.

     Brian Epstein said to me when I asked him about future plans, "After they have finished shooting the film, they will make a short tour of Britain in one-night concert appearances. In the month of May, they will have a complete holiday, doing no engagements." Brian has booked the Prince of Wales Theater in London for a series of Sunday night pop shows starting in April. The Beatles will star in one of these, and so will those other darlings of the disc fans, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J Kramer, Cilla Black, and the rest of Britain's famous Merseybeat stable.

     After their May holiday, and goodness knows, they've earned one by their hard work the last few months, it will be another case of 'pack up and go' for the lads. They're heading down under for a concert tour of Australia, where their records have been enjoying just about the same kind of fantastic boom that they've had in America. Letters from Merseyside exiles in all the biggest Australian cities and towns have been bringing me the news for many weeks that The Beatles are the tops on every disc program. They'll probably receive a welcome there that will match up in intensity and fervor to anything they experienced in New York, Washington, and Miami. The date of their departure has not yet been fixed, but is expected to be in mid or late June and run into July.  August, or more likely, September, will probably see them back in the United States for a brief lineup of one-nighters in cities they have not yet visited, plus a Carnegie Hall encore. 

    Another film is due for shooting in early autumn, and will be followed by a long spell in this country for the boys. What hundreds of thousands of folks in this area would love to see is a 12-week winter season at the 2,500-seat Liverpool Empire featuring a lavish, spectacular review starring the Beatles. I made the suggestion to Mr. Leslie A. McDonald, chief of the Moss Empire's theater chain, which controls the Empire, and to the shrewd and charming Brian Epstein. A show such as that would unquestionably have the box office impact of a bomb. Furthermore, I'm quite certain that John, Ringo, George, and Paul would welcome the enthusiasm and the opportunity to come back home for a few weeks. It may be only a pipe dream, but one thing is sure: if it came true, every cash record that the Empire Theater has known would go on the board. On that ground alone, it is worthy of serious thought by the people concerned. Let's leave it at that for the present. 

    One of the questions which many of the critics in America and in this country are continually posing is "What will become of the Beatles when the current craze dies away?" At this stage of the proceedings, with not a sign of a cloud on their horizon, the boys can afford to shrug their slim shoulders as they do and say, "Who cares? Nobody goes on forever."

     Who can possibly foresee the future for them? Perhaps they had better give the job to an expert. One of the highest-paid and best-known showmen in the world is Ed Sullivan, who had the Beatles on three of his famous television programs in consecutive weeks and was the man responsible, more than anyone else, for introducing them to the American public. I think you will agree with me that Sullivan, with his vast knowledge of show business, has built a tremendous experience gained through nearly 18 years of top 10 is someone upon whose judgment we can rely. This is what he had to say to me when I questioned him on those familiar 'How long will they last?' lines in Miami.  "They're the best harmony combination I've ever heard. They're not rock and roll. Their style is essentially their own, and they seem to be improving all the time. Like Elvis Presley, they will stay at the top for years --long after Beatlemania runs its course. They have great talent. Just listen to the songs that John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote, for example. And my bet is they will use it wisely and well. What always impresses me most about them is that, despite their youth, the Beatles are real professionals." Sullivan went on, "That's the highest compliment anyone in show business can pay another, and I pay to them gladly. What's more," he added, they're polite, intelligent youngsters, real gentlemen." 

     So don't go worrying your heads about our lively Liverpool quartet having bread and water winters, when their golden summer fades away. With backroom genius Brian Epstein watching their interests, safeguarding their capital, jealously watching over their good name, and seeing that nobody takes liberties with it, they have nothing to fear. Their income this year from all sources will not be far short of one million pounds. The tax man cometh, of course, and taketh a mighty chunk of this, but there will still be enough left in the kitty to induce their bank manager to call each of them sir.

     John and Paul have an extra advantage in that they receive for themselves the hefty royalties that accrue from the hit songs they write, both from records and sheet music, as well as from performing rights all over the world. Those royalties can continue for years to come and add up to another fortune for each of them, on top of the one they are making as part of The Beatles. George Harrison is also blossoming into  the songwriting market. He wrote words and music for "Don't Bother Me", and it would not be a surprise to me to find the three of them composing together.

     John and Paul now turn out top sellers, almost to order, it would seem. But don't think it has come to them overnight. In the years before they became known, the two youngsters had written some 200 unpublished numbers. Paul put it like this to me, "If you reckon it out on different levels, George, we've been in just about the same position for years. John and I have been writing numbers, starting out by whistling them to each other and then trying them on guitars for almost as long as I can remember. We are still doing exactly the same thing. The only thing that changed is that now the folks go for the stuff we write, and in the old days, they didn't. Mark you, we've improved, or at least, I think we have, but it is still hard work. Don't get the idea it's easy for us to write. It isn't. We can't read music. We just play by ear. Sometimes we mess around with a tune or a lyric for days before it seems to get into gear. And now that our songs are selling, we try to make even surer that when they are recorded, they are as right as we can get them."

     John Lennon interposed, "We don't kid ourselves, we aren't perfectionists or anything like it. But the fans want songs from us that sound right, and we now feel a sense of responsibility to them, as well as to the Beatles. 

    "Perhaps we've got a song that seems right to me like but then Paul says, 'I don't go for that bit', and plays it back. Then, after a while, I see what he means. So we set about changing it until we can both say, 'Ah, that sounds better'. It might be Paul doesn't like it, or it might be me, but if a part doesn't sound right to either of us, we change it."

     How this remarkable couple has succeeded with their "make it sound right" technique of songwriting is one of the legends of show businesses these days. The best-selling gold disc-winning long player, Meet the Beatles, which sold half a million in America in a month, has twelve songs. Ten of them are by John and Paul, and one by George Harrison. The Lennon-McCartney partnership contribution includes their 4,000,000-plus number "I Want to Hold Your Hand."

     The fourth Beatle, drummer Ringo Starr, or to give him his school day's name, Dick Starkey, is as unworried as the others about what the future might hold. "I've got my plans made," he told me, empathetically. "I'm going into the ladies' hair dressing business one day with some nicely placed shops in Liverpool. It's been my ambition for a long time, and if the income tax people leave me enough dough, I'm going to do it after we break up, whenever that might be."

     And when will they break up? Let Paul McCartney answer that one for all of them. "Soon as we find that this game of being the Beatles isn't fun anymore, we shall pack it up and quit," he said.

Life with the Beatles (part 6) -- What Makes the Beatle Tick? (1964)

 

Life With the Beatles

What Makes the Beatles Tick?

By George Harrison

Liverpool Echo

March 2, 1964

    And so we come to the hour of our partying with fair Florida. Outside in the blazing sunshine as we packed, the girls were parading with banners and emblazoned "Come Back Soon, Beatles We Love You!" At the airport, hundreds more waved and screamed their farewells from the concourses and the rooftops everywhere. The cry was the same: 'Please come back to us.' 

    "And like the end of any marvelous holiday", said Ringo, "You don't want to go, but you've got to go."  John and Cynthia Lennon smiled together as they counted the hours to London for the reunion with their baby, which grandma from Hoylake had been looking after for them. Paul, with girlfriend Jane Asher, waiting eagerly in London for his return, and George, heading for a 21st birthday celebration, soon cheered up too.

     But the usual buoyant Ringo couldn't so easily get rid of the clouds. "This American tour has been the greatest time of my life," he said to me, "especially the last week in Miami. It's been out of this world, and I'm sorry to be leaving it. That's all."  I tried cheering him up by saying, "Don't forget, you've got an Australian trip coming up in June or July. That's going to be something to look forward to. And it's almost a certainty, I understand from Brian that you'll be returning for another American tour, probably in September," I added. And he started perceptually to brighten.

    Due to a change in schedule, we arrived in New York more than an hour late and had only about 15 minutes to transfer from the plane to our Pan American jet airliner bound for London. But in that quarter hour, 5000 at least of New York's adoring beat-chicks who'd been waiting nearly all day, gave the lads a send off they won't forget. 

    Scores of the girls were in tears as they cried out, "Don't leave us. Fly back soon, Beatles. Beatles, please come back!"

    Then the doors were closed. The engines roared and taxied along the runway, and we were away into the darkness. Six and a half hours after leaving New York, we were back in London to a reception that was even greater than anything the boys had ever received in the United States. "It's good to be back among the English", said John Lennon, waving happily with the others to that seething, cheering, yelling crowd at London Airport from the top of the gangway leading out of our Pan American clipper jet called "The Beatles."

     "Agreed," said George Harrison. "Nice people, the English." "Yes", followed up Paul McCartney, "So unforeign, uh so sort of healthy and well British, if you know what I mean."  And that was how the most entertaining and successful ambassadors for goodwill that England had ever sent to the United States, four chirpy young lads from Liverpool, returned.

     It was typical of their carefree approach to any situation, calling for a little mickey taking either of themselves or of other people, or perhaps to play down emotion. When interviewers at the reception in the VIP lounge at the airport asked them, How did you find New York? They got the answer, "Find it. How could anybody lose a place that size? It's enormous, tall as well."That kind of crack trips off their tongues at a rate of knots. They are never at a loss for a phrase or word to make you chuckle, yet it isn't rehearsed, just natural Scouser wit.

     Because I know the boys better than most, I was constantly being asked by Americans, particularly colleagues of the press, "Just what makes these Beatles tick?" Ringo Starr overheard that question being put to me in New York. Grinned as he said, "Tell 'em we aren't death -watch Beatles, we don't tick. Yet, it was a reasonable thing to ask. What really is the tremendous attraction that these four boys from Liverpool have for the youngsters of the English-speaking world?

     I tried to study the phenomenon as they moved around the United States, causing pandemonium and near riots wherever they appeared. Undoubtingly, the powerhouse drive, an incessant repetition of their Mersy beat, was the basic and original cause. But as the Americans often pointed out to me, they, too, have thousands of rock and roll groups producing somewhat similar sounds without ever getting a raised eyebrow from the fans. 

    The Beatles look different. Their hairstyle started through economic necessity, because they didn't want to waste their hard-earned pocket money on haircuts.  It has now become one of the finest publicity gimmicks anywhere in the world. On top of this, John, Paul, George, and Ringo are instantly identified by their Christian names these days. Surely the hallmark of true fame, plus they are only a little over teenage themselves, and extremely presentable. They have a charm of manner and a warm friendliness which appeals to people they meet, right from the word go, the additional point that three of them are bachelors and highly eligible bachelors too with a lot of money, is unquestionably another asset in the minds of the 10s of 1000s, say millions of girls on both sides of the Atlantic. 

    Ringo summed it up this way: "I reckon those chicks look at us and say to themselves, 'let's pretend I'm married to one of them'. And they sort of imagine themselves as Mrs. Paul McCartney or Mrs. George Harrison, or even as my missus. Then they get to thinking, 'wouldn't it be wonderful to be like Cynthia Lennon, and to be able to point to John and say he's mine? Nobody else can have him because he's my husband?' From then on, they get into a dream. They scream at us by name in the hope that whichever one of us they're yelling at will hear their cries and somehow acknowledge it to them only. They forget that when you're the target of squeals of 1000s of girls, all at the one time, you don't hear a thing except noise. "

    Many times, I asked teenage girls, "Why do you scream at the boys?" The answer confirmed Ringo's view. Most of them said, "I scream so they'll look at me", or occasionally, "I scream because they're the Beatles, and you just have to scream at them. Everybody does."

     In the lift of our New York hotel one afternoon, I met two girls who had come down from Toronto in Canada, where they had just formed a Beatles fan club. They told me, with stars in their eyes, that they had enrolled 15,000 members in one week, and because of that, they were being given the honor of a personal meeting with the boys. And I saw the same girls half an hour later in the Plaza foyer carrying autographed pictures of their idols. They could scarcely talk, so breathless with excitement, they were. "I can't believe it," one eventually whispered, "can't believe it. I've actually seen them and been talking to them. Oh, I could die."

     Her 16-year-old pal was sitting pale-faced on a chair. "They're glorious, wonderful, beautiful, please, please, Beatles, come to Canada," she moaned softly, as if saying a prayer. What kind of hypnosis can bring about reactions such as this into sensible, well bred high school girls? I just don't know.  For the lads had merely been their customary polite, friendly selves, nothing more.

     When they had recovered their powers of speech and were talking normally to me over tea and cake in the lounge, the girls told me how dreadfully disappointed all the youngsters of Canada were that the Beatles tour did not make a visit to their country. "You just wait until they do come to Canada", said Jean, the younger one. "We'll set them up with such a welcome for them that they'll never want to go back to England again. No, not even John and his wife," she added firmly. "We sure will!" confirmed her friend. "You tell them that when you're with them, Mr. Harrison. We would have told them ourselves, but they're in their room, and we didn't seem able to talk much. You know, being so close to them and all, Oh, it was heaven!"

     At the fantastic concert in Washington Coliseum, before 8,092 shrieking fans, when the boys gave their finest performance of the entire tour, I talked to a group of girls who were sitting two rows from the ring stage where the Beatles were playing.  They seemed to me to scream throughout the entire show. "Did you hear any of the words to the songs?" I queried afterwards. "We don't want to," they said, limply. "We've got their records, so we know the songs. We just came here to see them and to scream."

     Why did they do it? "Because it makes me feel all warm inside," one replied. "Because they're way out with their music and they make me want to go way out too", said another. "I don't know, confessed another. It's just that it makes me happy."

     I guess the Beatles could not have done what they did in America without doing it here in Britain first. But having become a phenomenon in the beat market in this country, with 1,000,000 copies of each of their records being sold automatically, even before they reached the shops. Their invasion of America was made easy. The American youngsters, by means of newspaper articles, radio, magazines, newsreels, and television, were made fully aware of the static rapture and wild scenes of enthusiasm which greeted the Beatles wherever they appeared in Britain. In their own minds, I'm quite convinced the kids over there vowed, "When the Beatles come here, we will outdo the English in our welcome to them. It was a case of international rivalry with national prestige at stake. Anything they can do, we can do better.

     And when the boys landed on American soil for the first time in New York, those 1000s of girls, plus a few 100 boys who had waited many long hours for that moment, put their vow to good effort. Meanwhile, of course, the Beatles' records have been released throughout the United States and have immediately scored into sales of millions of albums and singles to ensure an enormous following for them everywhere, and remember too, that before they left England, the boys had scored an immense personal success at the Royal Variety Performance in London. Pictures showing them being congratulated by the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, coupled with reports of their Palladium triumph, hit every newspaper and radio station in the States. The whole country laughed at the story of them saying to the royal show audience, 'Those at the back, clap your hands. Those in the front, just rattle your jewelry'. It was a gag that America loved, and it helped their reputation as carefree kids who laughed at anything, savoring the pompous. So all was set fair for them to bring off as big a success in America as they had done in their homeland.

Life With the Beatles (Part 4) How the West was Won (1964)

 

Life with the Beatles

How the West was Won

By George Harrison

Liverpool Echo

February 28, 1964

    Before our cheerful troubadours, The Beatles, left New York by plane on the 1,000 mile hop to Miami Beach on the Sunshine State of Florida, 1,000s of pictures had already been published of them and millions of words written or spoken about them from one end of the United States to the other. Out of all this publicity, there emerged one interesting fact: the scoffing and sneering came without exception from commentators and columnists who had never actually met the Beatles, those who had frankly confessed, "You start off expecting to hate their guts, and you finish up loving them."

     One word used more than any other by the American teenagers to describe the boys was "different". The newsmen and women frequently used it too. They seemed unable to grasp that John, Paul, Ringo and George are just four darn nice Liverpool lads with a wonderful sense of native wit and a complete disregard for pomp and circumstances. Their appeal was by no means limited to the young of America. Under a big heading, "Adults like them too," The New York Journal -American published a long section of Reader's letters from all men and women praising the boys like these:  a grandmother living in the Bronx. "I don't blame teenagers for acting the way they do. The Beatles have done a wonderful thing for people of all ages. They have made us feel like laughing again."  A woman from Rosedale, New Jersey: "I don't think it's fair for adults to be so critical of the Beatles. After all, we had our stars who sent us off the beam years ago. Let's let the Beatles entertain us all. And I might add that there's a lot of adults who think these fellows are okay."

     You couldn't turn on a radio or television without hearing Beatles records or seeing newsreel shots of the boys. Practically every standard explanation in the book was offered by psychologists and psychiatrists for Beatlemania. They seriously told us in newspaper articles and interviews that the effect the boys had on American youth were symbols of adolescent revolt against parental authority status that comes from belonging to a group, in this case, of other Beatlemaniacs.

     Sex-- both from the driving nature of the Beatles music and the way they perform it, and from their choirboy like appeal to the mother instinct. Success -- by persons who are seen as fellow teenagers and as underdogs from the wrong side of the tracks who have made good and the frenetically felt urgency for having a good time and living life fast in an uncertain world.

     "How,"asked the New York Times could four mop head Neo-Edwardian attired Liverpudlian accented guitar playing, drum beating little boys come  from across the ocean, come here and attract the immense amount of attention?  They did it by stomping and hollering at songs and a musical idiom that is distinctly American. As the typical Beatles fan is female in early teens," said the Times "And she will say this because they're so cute and so different", but cute or not, the Beatles certainly pose some mighty tough questions for the police forces in the places they visited. 

    Miami was no exception, although it had the examples of chaos in New York and Washington in which it could have patterned its defense measures against the invasions of teenagers, two Miami radio stations with disc jockeys programmed aimed solely at the youngsters, kept up a constant barrage of plugging for Beatle records day before our arrival and for the 48 hours immediately beforehand, the kids were urged by the jockeys to get to the airport and give the Beatles a real Florida welcome. 

    With schools finishing at 3pm and the Beatles plane not due until an hour or so later, there was time for some 8000 girls,  and a few 100 boys, to get there on their own or found parents car. In Florida, by the way, driving licenses can be obtained at the ripe old age of 14, and many of the school kids have automobiles. Something like 2,000 cars more than normal were jammed on the airport parking lots as the young folks poured in. And when those 2,000 extra cars all started trying to get out together two hours later, Miami became bogged down in the biggest traffic jam in its history.

     Again, I took the precaution of flying down an hour earlier than the plane carrying the boys. So again, I was able to get a fan's eye view of things. Every vantage point around the tarmac was packed with youngsters long before the Beatles arrival. Many of them  were carrying huge yellow and black banners proclaiming, "Beatles, we love you." They swarmed in droves all over the place. In every corridor and on every concourse, hundreds of them were lying in wait around the baggage room, where arriving passengers go to collect their luggage.

     A girl of 16 who seemed to be a cheerleader, confided to me, "We've got every exit covered, and whichever one the Beatles use the gang there will let out such a yell that we shall all get the message and get down there." One Deputy Sheriff told me, "We got 500 men on special Beatles duty today. We don't aim to have trouble like those New York cops. Everything's going on nice and quiet ." Hours later, with every road in and out of the airport block solid and an unbroken five mile line of crawling or stationary automobiles, I saw that Sheriff again. He was a worried man, and he shook his head sadly, as he said, "Never saw anything like this in my whole life. What's got into these kids of ours? What have the Beatles got that makes 1,000s of Florida youngsters act like crazies? I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself."

     What had happened was this: because of the possible danger of physical damage to the boys if they tried to get into the airport buildings in the usual way, arrangements had been made by the radio telephone with their aircraft to have them met outside on the tarmac by a limousine and whipped away through a distant exit, leaving their baggage and instruments to be picked up by other members of their party. But the teenage crowds were unaware of this ruse, so they began looking for them. In the mad rush that followed, something like £700 worth of damage was caused to furnishings, glass doors, chairs and windows. 

    Miami Beach Chief Jesse Barkett told me later, "It was fortunate for us that there weren't many troublemakers among the kids, or we would never have been able to contain them."

     This time of the year, Miami Beach is having its high season. Every hotel is crowded with wealthy refugees from the snows of the North who spend a vast sum, up to £1000 a week for a suite to soak up the Florida sun. And despite the obvious fact that the great majority of their quest for tickets for the Beatles appearance on TV had come from their young fans far and wide, the people responsible for  disturbing the precious briefs, took good care that most of them went to the guest staying at the one or others of the hotels. The result was that when the big night arrived, we had about 4,000 middle aged or elderly people in the audience, and only the odd 400 or so teenagers brought in to introduce the screams.

     I was inside, and I cannot say what the television show was really like to the 60,000,000, audience outside who watched it, although subsequent reports gave it very good remarks. But from on the spot, it lacked the fervorish excitement that youngsters always bring with them. On these occasions, they also switched off the amplifiers inside the room to prevent audience sounds coming over too loud and spoiling the sound quality for the television viewers. 

    The technician explains this meant that we could see the boys singing, but couldn't hear them at all. Well, Ringo Starr was upset about the setup when I spoke to him afterwards, "It was dismal, plain, dismal," he said. "Why did they fill the place with old fogies like that and keep out the chicks?" He fumed, "We never got through to them. They were dead, right, dead." And he was absolutely right. The only squeals came from a bunch of kids around me in the back rows of seats when they found out that I was English, from Liverpool, traveling with The Beatles, and that my name was George Harrison. They nearly mobbed me for my autograph. They flatly refused to believe that I could have so many tie ups with George Beatle Harrison and not be related. 

    Next day, the hotel and Miami Beach tourist authorities apologized for the ticket business. More than 1,000 ticket holders had been unable to get through the long queues inside and outside the Deauville before the doors were closed at the start of the transmission. There wasn't an empty seat in the Napoleon Room, so we must have had a lot of gate Crashers. 

    This was the last business engagement for The Beatles in America. From then on, they were free to enjoy the rest of the sunshine, provided the crowds, reporters and the cameraman could be dodged. It took some doing. By now, the boys were big news, and every move they made brought headlines. Thus we had Paul McCartney's four day friendship with film starlet Jim Jill Haworth become boosted into a romance, although those of us in the know were aware that a little lass named Jane Asher back in England, rated as Paul's real heartthrob. Even delightful platinum blonde Cynthia Lennon, the wife of John, came in for attention from fans and newspaper men, despite all her efforts to keep way out of the limelight. Their nightlife was subdued and circumspect, limited to occasional club visits with their friendly policemen Sergeant Buddy Dresner as guide. No breath of scandal touched them and that appeared to cause Miami great surprise.

Life With The Beatles (Part 3) - Bewitched, Bothered, Besieged (1964)

 

Life with the Beatles

Bewitched, Bothered, Besieged

By George Harrison

Liverpool Echo

February 27, 1964

    With the sound of that wonderful Washington Coliseum audience's fantastic reception still making their ears tingle, Ringo put it this way, "I wanted it to go on and on. I could feel the screams going right through me."

    

     The Beatles rushed back to the hotel and changed into more formal clothes for the so called charity ball at the British Embassy. It wasn't really a ball in the accepted sense. Two or three times each year the ambassador's wife, Lady Ormsby-Gore (She is now Lady Harlieh, as her husband, Sir David Ormsby- Gore has since succeeded to the family title.) has arranged dance parties for the Embassy staff and their friends, British and American.

     As usual on this occasion, she charged only $5 (about £1 15s) a ticket, which included buffet and drinks.  And she devoted the proceeds to one of her favorite good causes, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The 200 tickets she had optimistically printed were snapped up immediately as they became available. A veteran member of the staff told me, as he looked at the packed dance floor. "We've never had such a crowd in all the years I've been here, not even for Sir Winston."

     As the night wore on, things became more merry than one would normally associate with a staid Embassy party, and many of the younger guests let their hair down. The Beatles found themselves constantly being cornered by dinner jacketed men and their evening gown wives demanding, rather than requesting autographs. John Lennon in an aside to me commented, "This lot must have big families. I've signed hundreds of autographs, but everyone says, 'oh, it's not for me. Of course,  I couldn't care less, old boy, but my children asked me to get you to sign. You know?'"

     Hemmed in at every turn by jostling men and women to such an extent that sometimes they could scarcely raise glasses to their lips, John, Paul, Ringo, and George took it all in good part, although once or twice, I detected signs of anger in John when he thought they were being pushed around too much. On each occasion, it was Ringo who stepped in quickly to act as peacemaker. Then he too became somewhat annoyed as one of the laughing guests milling around him suddenly produced a small pair of nail scissors and clipped off a bit of his hair at the back of his neck. 

    Since we have been back to England, I have noted that the foreign secretary in a house of commons replied to questions, has denied that this incident occurred. You have my word for it, Mr. Butler, it most certainly did! Several of us saw it. If you need any confirmation, just ask Ringo. 

    The Embassy party followed the excitement of the Coliseum left the boys tired out, and they slipped on next morning until drug out of their beds to make a quick trip around Washington's historic places for photographs to be taken. They had decided to return by train to New York, although the snow had ceased and the aircrafts were able to use Washington airport in the normal way. But as I knew, that February 12 was Abraham Lincoln's birthday celebrated by all New York schools closing. I thought I'd do better to fly on ahead of them to see what was happening in the city, where the boys were to perform two concerts in the evening at the famous Carnegie Hall.

     I arrived in New York about noon and made for our venerable Plaza Hotel. It was in  a state of siege. The biggest mob of teenage girls we had so far encountered surrounded it. A sergeant told me, "The kids started arriving just after sun up, and they've been pouring in ever since. It's a school holiday, of course, and that explains it."

     Reinforced police barricades confided most of the fans to the square opposite the Plaza's main entrance. Every window overlooking the Plaza entrance was filled with onlookers for this was New York's strangest free spectacle for years, and nobody wanted to miss it. 

    Then the news was announced on the radio that The Beatles were returning by train due to Pennsylvania Station at 4pm. This was the starting signal for a rush by hundreds of girls aboard busses for Penn Station. They were soon joined by more than 1000 others who had flocked back to the station from LaGuardia Airport, where they had been awaiting the boys expected arrival by plane. Railway officials flashed an emergency call for help to the city police, and 100 men, including mounted officers, were transferred at once to the rail terminal to deal with the situation which threatened to get completely out of hand when the Beatles train drew in.

     Every gate was closed bearing access to the platform. Bewildered passengers off incoming trains were shepherded by police to other exits, and all the time, the girls kept up an air splitting, high pitched shriek, which numbed your senses. The four targets for all this commotion were in a special coach at the rear of the Washington train, waiting the word that it would be safe for them to get out. 

    Paul told me later, "We could hear the yelling before the train even stopped. What a row!" At last, officials decided they could probably smuggle the lads out by way of another platform. The coach was  shunted off but the girls were not easily fooled. They spotted the ruse and dashed around to the new exit. Hefty policemen went down under the mad rush by something like 2,000 screaming kids intent on getting near their idols. John, Paul, George, and Ringo started running and  following the railway officials in a dash for a mail bag service entrance.

     With the mob chasing full pelt after them, they got through the gate, which was slammed behind them and locked,stopping the girls in their tracks. Hastily, the boys piled into two taxis that made a rendezvous en route to the hotel with their own hired limousine in which they finished the journey to the Plaza. Their arrival fired off the excited waiting youngsters into a surge through the barricades to reach the car. The sweating, heaving police just managed to hold on long enough for the Beatles to get a few seconds of grace and escape into the hotel before the crowd reached the entrance doors, which were promptly bolted. Inside the Plaza, security guards hired by the management, patrolled every quarter, winkling out kids who had sneaked through the blockade somehow or another. 

    And so we moved across the to historic Carnegie Hall, opening its doors for the first time in 75 years to the beat from Mercyside. The Beatles were smuggled out of the Plaza via the kitchen and an underground employee entrance leading to a quiet street unwatched by fans. The taxi whipped them to the stage door, taking by surprise the 2,000 girls and boys without tickets who were waiting at both ends of the street ready to pounce, expecting them to arrive in their black limousine. The girls gave the battered taxi no more than a glance and the boys were out of it and inside the stage door before they were spotted.

     The towering height of Carnegie Hall's vast, 5,000 seat auditorium, seen from the stage with the balconies rising way up until folks sitting there look like midgets, is a pretty overpowering sight. I know for I was sitting on the stage behind the Beatles who kept turning around to shout quaint comments in my direction throughout the show. A couple of 100 customers who had paid top price of around two guineas for the privilege were also occupying the stage seats. You can also add half a dozen of those inevitable police and security men. They were presumably on the spot, in case we got up to mischief.

     Somehow, out in the packed, huge hall, the Beat-chicks really had a ball. They yelled, they yah- hooed, they squealed. They hardly ever seemed to sit down, and they hung along the plush balconies, hand painted signs reading, "We Love You" and "Beatles stay forever". 

    An elderly Carnegie Hall official said to me, "Do your audiences in England behave like this when the Beatles appear?" I assured him that they did, and he shook his head, sighing, "Extraordinary, truly extraordinary! Never seen anything like it."

     Afterward, the promoter of the show, Theater Three productions, announced that they would offer the Beatles a return engagement in a Carnegie Hall next September. In the audience and enjoying all the excitement were such interesting people as Mrs. Nelson Rockefeller, wife of New York's millionaire governor, with her two children, film actress Lauren Bacall, and Sybil Burton, ex wife of actor Richard Burton.  She admitted  to being a Beatle fan from way back.

     After the show, Mrs. Rockefeller enthused, "It was one of the most extraordinary things I've ever seen. I loved it. They were marvelous." But women newspaper comments Inez Robb, who has a very big following for her syndicated articles, wasn't so happy. She wrote, "This nation, hard pressed on all sides, cannot long endure the squealing syndrome that seizes U.S. adolescents and the presence of the Beatles. Beatlemania, rather than the Beatles, must be destroyed, root and branch if we are to survive. The glassy eyed adenoidal girls always on the verge of knee jerk hysteria, who compromised the Beatles camp followers and television audience could not possibly be interested in this British chamber quartet. They were only interested in an excuse for lapsing into the squealing syndrome with its accompanying spastic movements. I refuse to have anything to do with a 'Stamp out the Beatles' movement. What is imperative is a project to stamp out American adolescence", she fumed.

Life With the Beatles (Part 2) : Their Finest American Hour (1964)

 

Life With the Beatles

The Finest American Hour

By George Harrison

Liverpool Echo

February 26, 1964

    For days before the Beatles landed in New York, newspapers and radio commentators, particularly the disc jockeys, had been telling the city's breathlessly excited teenage population that the boys would be staying at the dignified, exclusive Plaza Hotel overlooking Central Park. So, hours before the touchdown of our jet plane at the John F Kennedy International Airport, youngsters, mostly schoolgirls, began arriving to stand behind the police barriers erected opposite the hotel's main entrance on swanky Fifth Avenue. 

    By the time the news of the tumultuous scenes which greeted the Beatles at the airport had been flashed by radio transmitters to the Central Police Department in Manhattan, the crowd of kids besieging the plaza was well over 1,000 strong. Suddenly, New York woke up to the fact that the earlier warnings given by disc jockeys and newspapers of a possible teenage invasion bringing chaos to the city were not merely idle forecasts to be ignored. 

    The police force of 50 already on duty by the Plaza was obviously not going to be sufficient to contain those enthusiastic girls once their idols showed up. Hastily mounted police were drafted to the scene, followed by more than 100 men called off their ordinary beats. A solid ring of New York's finest men in blue surrounded the Plaza, and it was as well as they did, for when eventually the Beatles battled their way through the milling masses of wildly screaming girls at the airport, and in a four-car cavalcade with police escorts, went racing along the 15-mile motorway to Manhattan, the excitement among the waiting crowds was already at a fever pitch. 

    Then the cars carrying the four mop-top head lads from Liverpool swung into the police encircled enclosure of the Plaza's front door, and the lid flew off all the pent-up emotion. The crowd pushed over the barriers and broke the chain of locked arm cops in one gigantic surge, which carried them right across the road to the cars. The Mounted Police horses were almost useless in such a crush; they could scarcely move. As each car pulled up, the boys inside had their doors already open and somehow, aided by hefty no-nonsense police, John, Paul, George, and Ringo managed to scramble out and up the hotel steps without the deliriously thrilled mob reaching them. But it was a near thing, and although they had a good laugh about it a few minutes later, as they stood in a front window and waved to the yelling youngsters packed in the square below them, they looked a bit shaken. 

    George Harrison was the palest of them all, but in his case, it wasn't just the aftermath of their narrow escape from what might have been some severe man, or rather, girl handling from the excited fans. On the plane, George had complained of a sore throat. No sooner were we settled in the hotel than he developed a high temperature, and there was an immediate SOS for the doctor.

    He arrived and promptly sent the feverish George to bed, diagnosing him with a very bad case of tonsillitis. The doctor told me, "I am giving him injections and keeping him in bed. It is most unlikely that he will be able to sing on Sunday night's television show, but I'm administering to him to him what I call my 'powerhouse treatment' of drugs. It has worked before in these cases, and it might work again."

     For safety's sake, the doctor refused permission for George to leave his bed and go with John, Paul, and Ringo to be photographed in snow-covered Central Park the next day. Neither did George accompany the other three when they went to the television studio that afternoon to rehearse for their Ed Sullivan Show. But astonishingly, by midday on Sunday, the boy was not only up and about again, but he was telling me, "I feel fine and I shall certainly be in the full dress rehearsal this afternoon and in the show tonight." The powerhouse treatment, whatever it was, had succeeded.

     Its history now how the show went on as arranged and scored for Sullivan, the biggest triumph in the 16 years of television. The program headed by the Beatles was watched by more than 80,000,000, people throughout the entire United States. This is the highest figure ever reached by the Sullivan Show and easily surpassed that for Elvis Presley's appearance at his peak. 

    Men wise in the wilds of show business in New York told me afterwards that when Sullivan signed up the Beatles for three of his shows, he thought he was doing them a favor, but it's turned out they've done the favor to him. Yet the Beatles were dissatisfied with their own performance, despite the deluge of praise which came flooding over them from everywhere. "My microphone was only at half strength," complained  John Lennon to me. 

     What with the half-power mic and the "powerhouse" George also having to sing at half cock,, swallowing hard to ease his throat every few bars, they didn't sound as good as I knew they could be, but it was obvious that their audience of teenagers in the studio did not notice anything was wrong. They gave the boys the full treatment of near hysteria. They screamed, bounced in their seats, tore their hair, wept in ecstasy, and behaved pretty much like British teenagers do.

     Meanwhile, in the nation's capital, Washington, arrangements had been completed for the Beatles to make a one-performance appearance at the 8000-seater Coliseum, an ice hockey arena on the city's outskirts. "On Tuesday night, you can expect a darn sight hotter welcome here than the boys ever got in New York," said my English informant on the telephone. "The kids are going out in  their 1000s to the  the airport to meet the plane." That conversation took place on the morning of Monday, February 10, three days after the Beatles had descended on New York. A few hours later, I met Brian Epstein in the Plaza Hotel lobby. He looked worried, and I asked the reason.

     "I've just heard that a snow blizzard is sweeping across the country and that Washington is likely to get the worst of it," he said. "I've been on the phone to the concert organizers, and they say the blizzard is expected to strike there tomorrow morning. I've canceled our plane trip, and we should try to get through by train."

     I had been booked to go on the same plane with them, so I switched my booking too. Thank goodness we did. You never saw anything like the gale driven snow storm through which that train of ours had to plow through. The next morning, no planes took off from New York that day. 

    Three hours after leaving New York, the train pulled into Washington Union Station. John Lennon said to me as we slowed down, "There won't be anybody here, that's a certainty." And I agreed. Along the platform and way out toward the rear of the train, newsreel and press cameramen were strung out in a long line, unsure where their targets were situated. I scraped the snow off the train steps leading down the platform and got out ahead of the boys, stamping my way through the treacherous slush towards the exit gates. 

    Then I saw for the first time the kids. Police had closed and locked every iron grill gate across the station to keep them out, but there they were, thousands of them, with their hands extending through the bars like countless claws, presenting a fantastic display of imprisoned, impossible desire to reach out and touch. I asked the policeman, "Which is the way ou?", and as soon as the nearest youngster heard me speak, they shouted, "He's English! They're here!"  And the yell spread right across the station like a gigantic, ever-growing echo. It was unbelievable, maybe stupid, but oh so splendid.

     I heard later that more than 1000 girls and boys had defied the blizzard in the early morning to fight a way through to the airport where they were originally expected to arrive. When they learned of the changed plan, they headed back for Union Station just in time to join the others in a dependence chant of "London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down because we've got the Beatles!"

     That night in the vast Coliseum, our lads gave their finest performance of their lives and loved every minute of it. The stage was rather like a boxing ring set in the middle of the arena, but without any ropes. The audience sat all around. 8000 adorning youngsters, plus a lot of older folks too. The snow had stopped, but lay eight inches deep everywhere. Yet there wasn't an empty seat in the place. "They must be starkers," commented Ringo. "Fancy coming out here in this lot", kicking at a six foot snow drift as he walked into the hall. 

    Yet this was their finest American hour. They captured Washington for the British nearly 200 years after we had lost it. The police and duty were marvelous. On this occasion, they handled everything with magnificent tact, even though many of them were hit in the face and eyes by those confounded jelly babies, which American audience everywhere kept throwing at the Beatles because of some misguided publicity yarn about how much they like this particular kind of sweet (they don't).

     At the finish of a show that was truly memorable, a police sergeant standing alongside my seat leaned over and said, "Call off the Beatles. Washington surrenders, sir. " It was just about right too. Union Jacks were being waved all over the packed arena. The Beat-chicks were going through their jives of joy, squealing and crying. "We love you. Yeah, yeah, yeah."

     It took two hours to clear the auditorium after the show, and I had a two mile walk through the snow to my hotel, so I could change clothes to go to the British Embassy dance. There wasn't  a taxi to be had anywhere, so I had to hoof it.

Life with the Beatles Part 1 -- The Best Since Bob Hope! (1964)

 

In what could be included in my "strange but true" Beatles facts series -- there was a reporter for the Liverpool Echo who traveled to the United States with the Beatles and wrote articles for the newspaper about his experience, who just happened to be named George Harrison.   Now, what are the chances of that?  Sure, George is a common first name and Harrison is a common last name, but still -- what are the chances that a man named George Harrison who is from Liverpool was assigned to travel with and write about a band from Liverpool that has a lead guitarist with the exact same name!  

The reporter, George Harrison, wrote some excellent reports about his time with the Fab Four, and I will be sharing them over the next week.   I really love them because I am fascinated with the first U.S. visit, and any new nugget of information excites me. Mr. Harrison includes a few little items that were news to me.  

Life with the Beatles

The Best Since Bob Hope!

By George Harrison

Liverpool Echo

February 25, 1964

    Through the screams, squeals, and rhapsodies of adulation which greeted Liverpool's mop-haired ambassadors, those bouncing Beatles, wherever they appeared in the United States, there merged one quiet but so sincere welcome that to me is unforgettable. 

    It was a message from an American girl who wrote to the boys in Washington, the nation's capital. Because she had addressed it to Mr. George Harrison, Shoreham Hotel, Washington, DC, where I, too, was registered, the letter was placed among others in my rack, and I opened it. The girl had intended it for George Harrison of The Beatles, also staying that night at the Shoreham. And she wrote: "Thank you, Beatles, for bringing to this country of mine its first real happiness since November 22, when we went into mourning."

     It was on November 22 that President Kennedy had been assassinated. Somehow, that short, moving little note put a finger firmly upon one of the reasons for the fantastic success which the boys from Liverpool enjoyed in America for 10 weeks. Before their arrival, there had been that dark cloud of nationwide sadness, obliterating the sunshine.

     Restlessly, the youngsters of America waited for the cloud to lift or for some light to break through it. On December 26, after a whirlwind sales and publicity drive in New York, by Beatles manager Brian Epstein, 29, who coaxed Capitol Recording Company into launching the boys' British number one hit disc, "I Want to Hold Your Hand", that number was released in the United States. 

    It had been played here and there by American disc jockeys during the fortnight previous, for copies had been taken from England by Brian Epstein and given to the DJs for introduction purposes. Not until the day after Christmas, Boxing Day as we know it, is not a holiday in the States, did the recording reach the shops and stores. The moment it did, American youth, particularly the girls, welcomed it passionately as the relief for which they had been waiting so long, their first real happiness since November 22 .

    From then on, every news story from England about the Beatles was lapped up by the kids. Lapel badges exclaiming, "I love the Beatles" flooded the shops, and the girls bought them, and 10s of 1000s wearing them proudly.

     Within 48 hours of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" hitting the market, there wasn't a radio station in the country that was not firmly on the bandwagon of "Be with it. Be with The Beatles." Articles about the Liverpool quartet, how they began, what they were like, with pictures, appeared in every newspaper and magazine. In two weeks, "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had swept to number one in the United States record ratings. A week later, it topped 2,000,000 in sales. When I left New York with the Beatles last Friday night, it was on the way toward its fourth million, all in seven weeks. 

    Meanwhile, popular Ed Sullivan, shrewd American television showman and spotter of unusual acts likely to cause a fervor, had seen the light which was illuminating the faces of all the young folk of his country. He offered the Beatles a contract for three consecutive TV appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show. Brian Eptein agreed, provided the boys received top billing. It took Brian two days to get his way, but he did.

     Immediately, the booking was confirmed, and the newspapers had announced that "The Beatles are coming to America.!" That strange epidemic called Beatlemania crossed the Atlantic from England and hit the United States like a bomb. It was greater than the fever over Elvis Presley back in the 50s, and by comparison with it, Frank Sinatra's era of swooning fans resembled a Sunday afternoon picnic. 

    Britain had already experienced the force of this ecstatic affection for the cheerful Liverpool, foursome in a dozen cities. We weren't aware that cynical New York was still quite unprepared for it, despite the warning example of our country. 

    Yet before the plane carrying the Beatles party, including me, left London Airport on February 7 for New York we knew that Ed Sullivan had received more than 50,000 requests for seats for their first show on Sunday, February 9, although the television studio couldn't take more than 750.

    How did the boys react to the rather frightened prospects of taking on American audiences? Ringo Starr, whose dry humor enlivens in every situation -- somehow he comes out with a crack that can instantly lift any tension there may be among the lads-- said to me, "I can always go back to hairdressing if they kick us out."

     Then, looking across the aisle at Paul McCartney and George Harrison, he said with a grin, "What are you Tin Pan Alley merchants going to do?  Write operas?"

     They're a zany bunch to travel with, and you never know what's going to happen next with them. They take the mickey out of everybody and everything, but most of all, out of themselves and each other. There is a tremendous spirit of "All for one and one for all" among them.

     That's why the fearsome barrage of questions flung at them by American high-power pressmen never even singed their hair. What one couldn't answer, another one could. They take everything with a chuckle. Sure, they lose tempers once in a while, but never for long, I found.

     And so our great giant jet sailed serenely at 500 odd miles an hour across the ocean. Paul McCartney fell asleep. Ringo wandered around talking to other passengers. John Lennon and his enchanting young wife, Cynthia, sat together and dozed or talked quietly to themselves. They're obviously very much in love. 

    George Jr decided he felt scruffy as he hadn't shaved. He went to the toilet to freshen up. A few minutes later, the captain of the aircraft told us over the speakers, "We're going to run into slight turbulence. Will you please fasten your seat belts? " We did, and a good job too. For that slight turbulence, tossed the huge aircraft up and down like a yo-yo.  Out of the toilet emerged George, his face half covered with lather, a safety razor in hand.  "What the hell is happening?" He yelled, paler than usual. "I nearly cut my so and so head off in there!"  John Lennon said it wouldn't matter. "You could always use the other one you carry under your arm for haunting purposes."

     Brian Epstein sat quietly reading or talking with us during most of the six and a half hour flight. He was the only member of the entire party who had no doubts at all about the reception awaiting the Beatles in New York. He and I knew fully well that despite their quips and apparent ease, the boys were anxious deep down about their welcome. Even the hard-shelled Ringo had asked me in a quiet aside, "How do you think we'll go over there, George? They've got everything like, haven't they? Will they want us?"

     Brian Epstein had no such qualms. He told me with confidence, "You will see a welcome that will make your eyes pop. I bet the boys have never known anything like it. Just wait and judge for yourself." You could almost feel the tension mounting as the hostess on the plane announced that we would be landing in New York in 10 minutes. The other passengers in our first-class section, most of them American businessmen, had tried hard to set the Beatles at ease with the assurance that they would have a great time in the States. And I don't think one of them or the aircraft crew missed the opportunity of getting the autographs of the boys and their photographs, too.

     A millionaire from Philadelphia, returning from business in Paris, said to me, "These kids have no need to worry about the reception. They're the most natural bunch of born entertainers I've come across. They will go down big", then he chuckled. "I sure wish they were coming to Philly. My two teenage daughters would go like crazy. They will anyway, when I get home and tell them I've been with the Beatles. "

    The plane began to lose height over New York and started the long gliding descent to newly renamed John F Kennedy International Airport, which used to be called Idlewild. As it touched down and swung to taxi toward the airport center, Paul McCartney called out, "Fingers crossed, everybody those without fingers just wish." Then, from the window on my side of the aircraft, I could see them.  1000s of dark shadows outlined against the sky from the top airport concourse. The line, packed deep, ran right around the building. 

    John Lennon, sitting right behind me, saw them, too. "Wow!" He yelled, "Take a look at this lot. It looks like they want us here after all." He brought out his new camera and began shooting the waving, massed reception committee. We couldn't hear anything from outside, bar the noise of the motors, but we could see mouths open wide as the kids cheered and shouted their welcome.

 

    Below us, by the spot we were pulled into, there was a sea of cameramen from newsreels, television, and newspapers. The aircraft came to a standstill. Somebody said, "Please don't disembark until you have permission to do so." A door opened. Uniformed airport officials walked in, accompanied by police armed with guns and gloves. Paul said to me, "They look tough, don't they?" Before I could do more than nod, the cops produced bits of paper and were saying, "You boys, please give us your autographs". One of the policemen said, "yous," which is Brooklynese around New York. George Jr spotted it and cracked, but he's from the Pool.

     There was a jam of passengers inside as the folks outside tried to force their way in. Suddenly, the plane seemed full of cameramen. The police started hustling them off, saying, "Let the passengers out first, plenty of time for pictures." Howls of protest went up from the lens hawks who had managed to get a foothold, but somehow they were cleared. Then we waited until the rest of the passengers had got away.

    The Beatles had lost their nervousness when they saw the crowd awaiting them. Paul said to me, "Go on, George, get out first and pave the way. If they don't shoot you, we know we'll be okay." So I picked up my grip and emerged on top of the companion-way leading down the steps to the enclosure where the cameramen were standing. As I hit the sunlight, so the stupendous, ear-splitting, high-pitched scream of the youngsters hit me. It was like a great wave of sound crashing in from all directions. The kids knew the Beatles were coming, and they went to town with a yell that was heard by residents a mile away, I learned afterwards.

     Cynthia Lennon, the wife of John, slipped unnoticed down behind me. The lads came down the steps, and it was not really until that moment that New York realized just what it was going to face up to in the next week. While Liverpool's long-haired Beatles were guests at its most staid, luxurious, exclusive Plaza Hotel, where Fifth Avenue ends at Central Park and handsome cabs still ply for hire, a milling mass of 1000s hemmmed-back back behind wire and steel barricades by revolver-armed police screaming their heads off.

     While airport officials shepherded us through customs into a VIP lounge where 200 people had been waiting. Sweating policemen told me, "This is the worst, even worse than when Khruschev came or even Fidel Castro. They were bad enough for us, But this, -- this we never expected."

     Tears poured from the girls' eyes as they pleaded, "Let's just get near them enough to see them. We waited here for 10 hours." Two kids that I smuggled past a barrier with me reached a window and watched with glistening eyes as the Beatles got on to the floodlit stage to face their first American press and television conference. Just what the Americans expected to happen at that chaotic conference, I don't know.

     I stood at one side of the stage as the boys laughed their way through the series of questions, which they refused to take seriously. "Why don't you get your hair cut?"  "We just had it specially cut yesterday. You should have seen it before."  "Do you like what you've seen of America?"  "Yes, do you?"  "Do you think it's right that 1000s of children should play hooky from school just to be here to welcome you?"  "You mean they haven't been given a holiday today?"  So it went on with the newsmen and women who had obviously started off intending to give the Beatles their own particular taste of hell, slowly coming around to an admiration for them. 

    And when it was all over and we were safely in the plush luxury of the Plaza Hotel, John Lennon said to me, "Those press folks were marvelous. It was like playing to an audience who appreciated you, I reckon we'll do all right here."

     The comment of one of the New York newspaper writers was. "They're the best act we've had to interview since Bob Hope."