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| Ken Brown |
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| George, Paul, Ken, and John at the Casbah |
The Beatle Who Lost Out
By George Tremlett (with Ken Brown)
Rave Magazine
December 1964
"Sometimes I could kick myself--- hard. I could still be one of the Beatles, earning 1000s of pounds a week instead of living in a caravan. I was with John, Paul, and George the first time they played together at the Casbah. I knew John's wife, Cynthia. In fact, I saw their romance blossom. I knew George's first girlfriend, Ruth Morrison.
"We shared everything: our music and the £3 a night we used to earn in those far-off days in August 1958.
"Now my 10-watt amplifier lies a little tattered after six years in a corner of my caravan. The Hofner guitar I played hangs on the wall, and I still play it for my wife, Marcia. These are my only souvenirs. If it hadn't been for a row over a paltry 15 bob, I might still be with them. The memories flood back.
` "I was with the Beatles the day they were formed, quite by accident. It happened like this: In the summer of 1958, the skiffle craze had finished, and George Harrison and I were playing in the Les Stewart Quartet with a chap called Skinner. We spent hours practicing in the Lowlands Club, Heyman's Green, but the most we ever earned was £2 for a wedding.
"We would probably have gone on playing at clubs, but for George's girlfriend, Ruth Morrison. George had never really been keen on girls. He was still only 16, and at the Liverpool Institute with Paul McCartney. He suddenly seemed to go head over heels for Ruth, a lovely girl with long auburn hair who later moved to Birmingham to become a nurse. She was the first girlfriend George had, and they went everywhere together.
"One evening, the three of us were sitting in the Lowlands drinking coffee, moaning about the fact that we had nowhere regular to play. Ruth sat twiddling a spoon as we talked, and then she said, 'Why don't you ask Mrs. Best?' 'Who's that?' asked George. And Ruth explained that this woman at 8 Hayman's Green was planning to open a coffee bar club. 'You go and see her,' said George.
"Mona Best lived in this great Victorian house and wanted to convert the basement into a club to be called the Casbah. I offered to help, and for five months, worked on the conversion with two pals. Often, we worked past midnight. Then there was a three-mile walk home. But I didn't mind. Mrs. Best promised that the Les Stewart Quartet would play at the club when it opened.
"On the Saturday we were due to open, I went around to Les Stewart's house. George Harrison was sitting in the lounge. His Hofner guitar across his lap, idly plucking at its strings. The atmosphere seemed a bit tense. 'What's up?' I asked. George looked down at his guitar and said nothing. So I turned to Les, who is now with a Decca group. The long and the short, he looked daggers. 'You've been missing practice,' he said. 'I know,' I replied, 'but only so we can have somewhere to play. I spent hours working on the club.'
'You've been getting paid for it,' challenged Les.
'No, I haven't.'
'Well, I'm not going to play there,' said Les. As our argument got steadily more heated, I turned to George, 'Look,' I said, 'the club opens tonight. We spent months waiting for this. You're not backing out, too?'
"George thought for a moment, then he told me that he would go on with me. So we left Les at his house. As we were walking down the road, I turned to George and said, 'We can't let Mrs. Best down now. Let's try to get a group together ourselves. Do you know anyone?'
'There are two mates I sometimes play with out at Speke', ventured George. 'Okay, let's ask them,' I said, and George went off on the bus, joining me two hours later at the Casbah with his two mates, John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
"That was the first time I had met them. Paul was 15, still at school, and had a schoolboyish haircut. But John was a bit of a beatnik, with his hair hanging over his collar, dressed in a check shirt and old jeans. I told them we would each be paid 15 bob a night. They seemed glad about that; most groups played just for experience.
We talked over various names to call ourselves, and finally settled on the Quarry Men, a name John had used once or twice before for skiffle groups he had formed since leaving Quarry Bank Grammar School. So that night, the Beatles were born, and the Casbah opened. After all, we went down great, particularly when Paul sang 'Long Tall Sally.'
"Our most popular numbers were John and Paul's vocals. I was the rhythm guitarist. John's pet solo was 'Three Cool Cats', which he used to growl into the mic. John was always very quiet. He was a lonely youngster, seldom talking about his family, maybe because his father had deserted him at childhood and then his mother had been killed by a police car.
"John seemed in need of affection, and depending on Cynthia, the girl, he later married. Cyn, a lovely girl with long blonde hair, traveled nearly 30 miles a night from her home in Hoylake just to watch John play. She used to sit at the side of the stage, mostly dressed in skirts and sweaters, never saying much. She seemed very shy. Whenever we had a break for coffee and a sandwich, John would sit on the edge of the stage talking quietly to her. Sometimes when he was singing, he would turn to give her a little grin. George and Paul thought it was a bit daft, really, a couple going potty over each other like that.
"Paul never really bothered much about girlfriends, though they all went mad over him, especially when he sang romantic ballads like 'Around the World'. George was not too keen on girls either, apart from Ruth, but he was not really in love with her, though perhaps she was with him.
One evening, I went around the back of the Casbah for some fresh air. (It used to get very hot downstairs in the basement) and found Ruth sitting on a bench, sobbing. 'What's the matter?' I asked, putting my arm around her shoulders to console her.
'George won't go to the pictures with me,' she sobbed. 'He just doesn't seem to bother any more.'
"I went inside and told George, who was sitting down having coffee in the interval. He just shrugged and started playing again without going out to Ruth. That was the end of them, really. They still saw each other, but it was never the same after that.
For nine months, we played together at the Casbah until one night, just when we were due to start a Saturday session, I felt a crippling pain in my leg. I could barely stand, but insisted on doing something. So Mrs. Best asked me to take the money at the door instead, and for the first time, John, Paul and George played without me.
Just as everyone was going home, I was sitting in the club when Paul came back down the steps. 'Hey, Ken, what's all this?' he asked. 'What?' I asked him.
'Mrs. Best says she's paying you even though you didn't play with us tonight.'
'That's up to her,' I replied.
As Paul bounded back up the stairs, still arguing over it with Mrs. Best, they all came downstairs to me. 'We think your 15 bob should be divided between us because you didn't play tonight,' said Paul.
'That's up to Mrs. Best,' I said.
"As the argument continued, by this time, we were all shouting, and Mrs. Best insisted on paying me the 15s.
'Right. That's it then!' shouted Paul, and they stormed off down the drive, headed towards West Derby village, shouting they would never play at the Casbah again. But that wasn't the last time I saw them or the last time they played at the Casbah. Though they did play together again, we didn't play together again. I hadn't left the Beatles. The Beatles had left me."
The last time Ken Brown saw the Beatles was on March 16, 1963. They were temporarily broke and wanted to borrow £20. Ken had moved to London and married Marcia. Their telephone rang. It was Neil Aspinall, The Beatles' road manager. "He told me the boys were in a bit of a jam. They had run out of money. The next night, they were due to appear in Sheffield; unless someone had helped them out, they would have to sleep in their van. Neil wondered if I would lend them £20.
"Eventually, I agreed, and they all turned up at our flat. Neil came to the door, but the boys didn't even get out of the van, so Marcia and I went down to see them. I handed over the money, which they repaid me six weeks later.
"I told them we were moving into a caravan. 'Great,' said Paul, 'we'll all drop in to see you one night.' But they never did. Now, I only see the Beatles on the TV."
After splitting with Ken Brown, the Quarry Men barely hung together. By early 1959, dates were scarce, though John, Paul, and George still rehearsed together. All three of them felt their sound needed a little depth, which was how Stuart Sutcliffe came to join them. He could play no instruments, but was talented enough as an artist to sell his paintings and buy a bass guitar, and that was a good enough start.
They needed a drummer, too, but that was a problem. Drum equipment was expensive, so anybody with the gear was given a chance to join in, and there were many drummers, but few lasted long.
After a lot of disappointments, things took a turn for the better. Alan Williams, now owner of the Blue Angel Club, a late-night venue for Liverpool's best young musicians, became the Beatles' manager. He started booking them for many Mersey side beat shows, and through an arrangement with Larry Parnes, secured their first tour--- a fortnight in Scotland, backing Johnny Gentle for £15 a week each.
Gentle, now one of the Viscounts, remembers the tour. "At first, I wondered what on earth Parnes had sent me. They arrived in jeans and sweaters --- the roughest bunch of lads I had seen in my life. John and Stu were both at art college, and looked it. Their hair fell over their collars and Stu sported a beard.
"George was then serving an apprenticeship, and looked neat as did. Paul who was still at school, studying for his A levels. John told me, excitedly, 'This is our big break. We've been waiting for this.' Every night we were booked in different dance halls in Scotland, though we stayed in Inverness. Some of the girls didn't like the Beatles much and complained to the promoter that they were no good. At the end of the week, he wanted to sack them and use a local group instead.
"John was downhearted. 'We thought it was really going to be our big break,' he said despondently. They all seemed so upset that I felt sorry for them, and we had a workout in the hotel bar at the Inverness, trying out all my numbers over and over again until we got the right sound.
That night, after we finished our show, a girl approached the boys and asked for their autographs. John couldn't believe it. The others were thrilled. 'It's the first time anyone has ever asked us for our autographs,' George told me. 'This is great,' said John. 'This is the life-- marvelous. Do you think we ought to chuck everything up and turn full time?'
"He was still talking about it when we were driving off to another show in our Dovermobile, when suddenly we crashed into a car at a crossroads at Banff. All the equipment jerked forward, and the boys tumbled over each other into the front seats. The van was almost a write-off, and the police had me for careless driving. Cost me £5. The last time we saw each other was at Dundee station. They were going back to Liverpool.
"John said, 'Ask Larry Parnes if he wants us again. We'd love to back you again, if we could.'"
The next big break was the Beatles' first trip to Hamburg. Their manager, Alan Williams, was auditioning groups for Germany, and suggested the Beatles. "But you'll have to get a drummer," he said. And that was where Pete Best came into the picture. With Ken Brown, he had formed the Black Jacks, who played regularly at his mother's club, the Casbah.
Ken remembers, "I was sitting in the kitchen with Mrs. Best and Pete having a cup of tea when the boys arrived, all excited and asked to have a word with Pete. We went outside with them. I sat there, not very bothered. After all, Pete and I had built up a good group. Then Mrs. Best came in and said, 'John, Paul, George, and Stu had asked Pete to go to Hamburg with them as their drummer.' She told me they had been offered this session at the Indra and said it was too good an opportunity for Pete to miss. I agreed.
The very next day, the Beatles left for Hamburg. The Indra was on the Reeperbahn, the Soho of Hamburg. Late at night, the clubs were packed, but the police had one strict rule: everyone under 18 had to be out by 10pm. After complaints that this rule was not being observed, the police closed the Indra, and the Beatles moved to the Kaiserkeller, just along the street.
The Beatles' Hamburg adventures ended when the police discovered that George was only 17 and John had no work permit. All four Beatles were sent home to England. Stu, who had fallen in love with a German girl, stayed behind.
Back home in Liverpool, the boys were dispirited. Without Stu, they felt the group could not continue. But for the encouragement of three people, Mrs. Best, Neil Aspinall, and Bob Wooler, the Beatles would have been no more.
When they were in Hamburg, the Casbah had gained in popularity here. Though Mrs. Best had their chance to regain their confidence. She booked them for December 23, 1960. While Neil trained to be a chartered accountant, he drew up posters billing the Beatles as direct from Hamburg. Their performance was sensational.
Ken Brown was in the Casbah that night. "The boys were tremendous!" Four nights later, Bob Wooler presented them at Litherland Town Hall. Neil was standing at the back of the hall as Pete set up his drums and Paul, George, and John tuned their guitars. Suddenly, Paul launched into "Long Tall Sally", and the audience went wild, storming the stage.
"None of us had ever seen anything like that before," said Neil. "It was as if they had happened overnight."
From that night on, the Beatles were Liverpool's top group, and they won their way to world conquest..
