George on St. James Street Apple

 July 13, 1973

Beatle George in Row with Camera Man (1966)

 

Beatle George in Row with Cameramen

No Writer Listed

Daily Record

October 26, 1966

    Beatle George Harrison clashed with photographers at London Airport yesterday. The pressmen were waiting for Ravi Shanka, [sic] the Indian musician who has been giving Harrison lessons on the sitar, a four-foot-long string instrument. The  Beatles have included the sitar on some other songs

     The seven photographers did not recognize the Beatle at first. Harrison, wearing an unfamiliar mustache, approached them outside the customs exit. "Before you start flashing away," he began. It seems he was camera shy. "I suppose your stupid little editors have sent you out to take these pictures," he said. 

    After meeting with his teacher briefly, he went inside the no-entry customs hall to escape the photographers. Then, followed by them, he went out to his sports car. He pulled down the sun visor, then sped noisily away. 

    Mr. Shanka, a much more reserved figure, said, "George only started playing the sitar three months ago. He is getting on very well." He added, "The sitar is difficult to play."

     Asked what he thought of the Beatles' music, he said he had very little idea of what it was like. Mr. Shanka is in this country to play for the BBC.

Time Spent in India

Taken by Pattie Boyd 

 Taken by Pattie Boyd 

 

Photo by George Harrison 

Photo by George Harrison 

Photo by George Harrison 

Photos taken on or about October 18, 1966 

Happy Anniversary Paul and Nancy

 

October 9, 2011

Happy 15th anniversary to Paul and Nancy!  

Birthday Party for Stella

 September 13, 2011 

George wears his favorite coat

 

Cropped Beatle to Keep Fans (1966)

Cropped BEatle to Keep Fans

By Doris Wright

The News

September 7, 1966

    Unlike the Biblical hero named Samson, whose strength evaporated when his locks were shorn, it appears that Beatle John Lennon's popularity won't ebb in the least when his hair is snipped to conform to a movie role. 

    "No matter what John does, I'll still love him," said Donna Carroll, an Edison High sophomore, who was one of seven girls who went to Memphis August 19 to see the famed British quartet. "I'm upset and I'm mad in a way," Donna said of John's hair cutting next week, "but it's his business. This will prove whether John's talented by himself or if he needs the group. I just hope he's not planning on doing anything like this in the future," she added. 

    Leslie Pritchett, a MacArthur student who was also in the local Beatles fan club, said, "I'm disappointed in a way, but it really doesn't bother me. He won't lose me no matter what he does."

     Breaking away from the other Beatles, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, John is going to make a movie on his own, filling a role of a soldier with a short haircut. The movie How I Won the War will be filmed near Hanover, Germany. Producer-director Dick Lester, who directed the last two Beatles movies, will take the first snip of John's locks sometime next week.

     "He'll let it grow again," predicted Laura Pitt, a Lehigh student. "But if he doesn't, I'll like him just as well." "This isn't going to make any difference to his career or to me." Commented Carmen Salazar of Lehigh, a self-designated Beatlemaniac.

     "Bully for him," said KTSA disc jockey Peter Starr, himself a British subject. "I think this shows he's becoming an individual. If I wanted to get a reaction, I'd go on the air and say,  'Let's scrub his name,' but I won't say that, or I could say, 'Let's throw him out of the Beatles because he no longer has long hair.' I won't do that either. I'm looking forward to seeing the film,"  he added.

     Noting that the Beatles' contract calls for disbanding the group if one of the four goes out on his own, Donna said, "I want John to have fun making the movie, and I want him to have praise and acclaim for doing it, but I want them to stay together."

    Concerning the possibility that strands of John's hair might be available to fans, Donna sighed. "Oh, I'd love to get some. I'd treasure it forever, even a tiny little bit of it. I would write a million postcards or letters if that's what it would take to get even a tiny strand, but if it were Paul's hair, I'd send even more letters than that!"

     Laura said, "I'd rather have a strand of Ringo's hair, but I don't want any of the Beatles to cut their hair."

     Donna added, sighing again. "No matter what John does, I'll still love him." Thinking of the cost such a lock of hair might command, Leslie said, "We'll probably pull our money and buy it, no matter what it costs."

Arriving at the press conference

 

September 5, 1966 -- Arriving to talk about How I Won the War 

Armor-Plated Beatles Brave Shea (1966 New York City)

 

Armor Plated Beatles Brave Shea

By Edward Benes & Richard Henry

The Daily News

August 24, 1966

    Beatlemania hit New York again yesterday. It was like war games, especially the evening's climax. The Beatles invaded Shea Stadium in an armored car, and then all hullabaloo broke loose. As in almost all war games, there was lousy weather, hot and humid when it wasn't raining. Nevertheless, armies of young people surged bravely to and fro all over town, sinking their quarry, the mop-top quartet of rock and rollers. 

    Innocent citizens lost their dignity in shoving throngs, or had their eardrums dented by volleys of shrieks. Battalions of cops and teams of medics were on alert at Shea for bulging bedlam. There was flag waving by youngsters in the stadium who flaunted banners proclaiming their adoration of Ringo, or Paul, or John, or George (the beloved Mets were forgotten last night.)

     There was resort to a decoy unit and a sneak sortie to get the Beatles safely out of their midtown hotel when it came time to go to Shea. The ruse worked like this: At H hour, 5:40 p.m. two limousines pulled in front of the Hotel Warwick's main entrance on 54th Street near Sixth Avenue, and the hundreds of fans behind barricades riveted their eyes hungrily on the hotel door, but around the corner on Sixth, a motorcade of four limousines, one police prow car, and one unmarked cop car pulled up to another hotel entrance. The Beatles dashed out with their entourage and grinned to sharp-eyed fans across the street before ducking into the cars. Only two young girls managed to break free from the barricades and get close enough to snap pictures.

     A group of construction men, seated on the back of a truck, were more interested in the girls than the Beatles. Some customers inside a drugstore looked curiously out the window, and then the Beatles took off. But at the Queen's Safety District Police Station and the Old World's Fairgrounds, they shifted from their limousines to Wells Fargo red armored cars. A squad of sweating cops clung to the armor-plated vehicles like blue-clad leeches. The time was 7:30 p.m.

    Before the Beatles went on stage, four recording acts- the Ronettes, the Cyrkles [sic], the Remains, and Bobby Hebb thumped and chanted to amuse approximately 45,000 music lovers, who filled all but Shea's upper tiers. As 200 city cops and 250 private police patrolled, as three first aid stations were manned on each balcony as a doctor stood nervously at an Elmhurst City Hospital ambulance. The noise and the tension swelled, but there was no reports of injury. 

    And then.....and then ......at 9 p.m. Liverpool's contribution to modern culture emerged on stage. The Beatles themselves! GAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! The concert shrieked from 45,000 throats was deafening. 1000s of girls and boys and little kids and young mothers and fathers stood to get a look and stayed standing for an hour while the Beatles performed before taking off for Los Angeles. 

    Neither the standing nor the presence of young parents was surprising. Hundreds, including housewives escorting their children, had been standing for hours yesterday afternoon outside the Warwick. 500 stood hoping to see the Beatles. Outside Shea, 2000 hopefuls waited. 

    Two housewives from Astoria, Queens, Mrs. Betty Kristen Noble and Mrs. Elsie Robbins, showed up each with a young daughter at 10 a.m. They explained that they did not want the girls to go alone. Two other housewives from Saddle River, New Jersey, showed up with five girls. The housewives, Mrs. Ralph Berry and Mrs. Timothy Tamblin, arrived at 4 p.m. to beat the traffic. Mrs. Berry and Mrs. Tamblin both said they were not dragged there by the girls. "We love the Beatles ourselves", they said.

     The youngsters who waited outside the hotel got no glimpse of the mop tops during the day. The quartet remained in its 28th-floor suite, resting up for the big doings last night. 

Fan's Dad as the Luck

Patricia Donovan, 16, a Beatle-loving Brooklynite, probably got all upset with her dad, Howard, for not taking her to work with him last night instead of letting her go with her mother to the Beatles' concert. Donovan had bought concert tickets for his daughter and wife and himself, and gave his own ticket to his father-in-law when he suddenly was called into work. But it turned out that on the job he drove the Beatles to Shea Stadium in an armored car.

McCartney Tight Lipped About His New Quartet (1971)

 McCartney Tight-Lipped About his New Quartet

By Drew Johnstone

London Express

August 20, 1971

(Campbeltown, Scotland) Beatle Paul McCartney remained tight-lipped this week about the group that he and his wife Linda plan to launch on the pop scene later this year. Paul, who is staying with his wife at their Scottish farmhouse near here, revealed this won't be a media group like the Beatles. "We're out to provide good music, and we're not caring whether the public likes it as big a way as they did the music of the Beatles."

     In a three-minute interview, while he paused with his seven-month pregnant wife as they walked to a stream in a field alongside their hillside hideaway, Paul said, "I'm still keeping the wraps on the group for the time being. I will say that the group, which I hope will make its appearance in the winter, will be out to provide nothing else but good music. It's not a planned thing. It's just a case of good musicians getting together for their own personal kicks; the Beatles are finished, and I'm not planning to revive their type of music with this group."

 McCartney refused to be drawn when asked about two American musicians, Dennis Siewell and Hugh McCracken, both from New York, who arrived in Campbelltown less than two months ago and bought a cottage near his farmhouse. Siewell, who plays the drums, and McCracken, a guitarist, arrived in the town with their wives and stayed for a month at the Argyle Arms Hotel.

     Later, they were seen on numerous occasions with McCartney and his wife. McCartney refused to reveal whether they had been rehearsing together, at either his farmhouse or the American's cottage, less than a half mile away; all McCartney would say was, "There will be four of us in the group. Linda and I will be responsible for the vocals. That's all I want to say about the group at this moment."

Beatles Colossal Brush Off Disappoints Fans (Cincinnati 1966)

Photo by Gordon Baer

 

Beatles Colossal Brush Off Disappoints Fans

By Dale Stevens

The Cincinnati Post and Times Star

August 20, 1966

Idols fly in, snub crowd, and vanish in 18 seconds

    Well, John, Paul, Ringo, and George-they say you're nice guys, but as far as I'm concerned, you're not. Even Frank Sinatra, at his saltiest, doesn't treat people the way you do. The Beatles, the English rock and roll group that has become the biggest hit in the history of show business, rolled into Lunkin Airport at 2:45 a.m. today. They preferred to stay over here overnight rather than in Memphis, where last night they did two concerts. From the door of the plane, past the waiting reporters and photographers, it took the Beatles a snappy 18 seconds to get into a limousine and away. 

    Their management, which apparently is more concerned with secrecy than courtesy, condescended to let the Beatles' car drive within the fenced-off area, so the 150 fans beyond the fence could wave, but standing within the fence were five young girls from Lexington, Kentucky, who had spent $367 on four floral horseshoes and wanted to hand them to Lennon, McCartney, Starr, and Harrison. 

    The limousine didn't stop, but Jan Greer, an 18-year-old Lexington student, got a grip on the window and tried to hand her carnation horseshoe to Paul McCartney. The 60 flower horseshoe split in two. Jan fell to the ground, bumping her head and rumpling her clothes, and away sped the Beatles, whose sole tribute to their followers and press was a collection of sincere, rehearsed smiles. 

    Afterward, the Kentucky girls insisted they didn't blame the Beatles. They still hoped to be able to present their flowers to the boys. They even vowed to buy another bouquet to replace the one lost in the motorcade. Jan, distraught, embarrassed, and sad because the Beatle car hadn't slowed down to less than 25 miles an hour, said she had said something stupid like "I love you" to Paul McCartney through the limousine window before falling. 

    Jan's friends are Linda Simmons, 19; Carol Lester, 18; Bonnie Sharp, 16; and Brenda Snowden, 16. Linda and Carol are secretaries in Lexington. For weeks, they had taken a few dollars from their salaries to pay for the flowers. The other girls, still students, had to save from their allowances for the $367, which included $20 to get the flowers here by refrigerated truck so they wouldn't wilt. Each horseshoe held five dozen carnations, one natural red, the other sprayed purple, blue, and green. Each horseshoe was three feet high, about half the size of a regular one used to crown winning horses, according to the florist who delivered them. And though the girls were permitted inside the runway fence, there was no guarantee they would be able to get their flowers to the Beatles. 

    They still had only words of love for the Britons after their brush-off. The newsmen had no such praise. All were miffed at the idea that the Beatles didn't even pause for a decent photo or as much as one question; the rush was put on by their management, of course, but it seemed a gross show of disrespect for the professional press to show up at the inconvenient middle-of-the-night arrival. 

    The medium-sized contingent of police, who were to guard the Beatles from possible overzealous fans, didn't have much to do at either Lumpkin or Vernon Manor Hotel because of the bewitching hour schedule. Barely 35 fans were at the Vernon Manor, evenly divided between teenage girls and fellows with hair as long as the Beatles' trusses. The Beatles and their group of about 65 people, managers, booking agents, international press, and supporting acts are housed on the sixth floor at the suburban hotel. Vernon Manor was sold out for the occasion. Some of the people staying there are believed simply to be in the same building with the Beatles. 

    Three cars were supplied by Stillpass Mercury for the motorcade, but owner Joe Stillpass laughingly denied he might later take one of the cars apart to sell it piece by piece. In the past, such items as bed sheets have been sold by the square inch once they had accommodated the Beatles. This scene this time was nothing like the 1964 Beatles' arrival, but the frenzy then was aided by their daylight landing. It doesn't signify any shift in sentiment by their followers. In 1964, almost 13,000 attended the Cincinnati Garden Show.

    Tonight, about 18,000 are expected at Crosley Field, and last night the best advance planning probably belonged to the two girls who showed up at the baseball park after the stage had been installed near second base. They chipped away part of the stage timbers for souvenirs, then kissed the infield dirt by the handful, replacing it near the stage steps in hopes the Beatles might walk on their kisses.

     That was precisely the atmosphere expected by Tom Dixon, Cincinnati police captain who headed the squad at Lunkin and Vernon Manor this morning. He said his men were prepared for anything, even the remote possibility someone might want to harm the Beatles. But his main job, he said, was to protect them from their followers. Kisses, he indicated, are more of a threat than killers. It must be true, for the limousine parked behind the Vernon Manor at 3:30 a.m. bore the script written on the dusky trunk, "Hi Ringo," and "I love you, Paul, and the dirty fingers belonged to Charlene Drescher of 1621 Pelham and Pam Kruger of 5832 Kennell, unlike the press, their adoration knows no bounds, and they do not insist upon professional conduct, and that, as I say, is show business.

Beatles Send Their Love to Groovy Worchester Fans (Boston 1966)

 

Beatles Send Their Love to Groovy Worchester Fans

By Thomas McCabe

The Evening Gazette

August 19, 1966

    Suffolk's Down was originally designed for horse racing, but last night fans saw race after race between police and teenagers trying to get to the Beatles. This reporter did get to them, the only one of the reporters covering their concert before nearly 20,000 to do so.

     Wandering behind the tote boards near the press section, I almost tripped over Paul McCartney and George Harrison, who were standing with the bodyguard talking. "Hi, Paul," I said. "Hey, Sport," said he. Then along came John.

     The foursome, much shorter than they appear on stage, stood before me, looking very much like four teenagers. They squinted through tinted welfare glasses and brushed dust off their assortment of brightly colored bell bottoms and mod type attire.

     "I'm damn glad our American fans aren't taken in by some unscrupulous reporter who changed my words," said John in an answer to my question about his more "popular than Jesus" remark. "Americans are wonderful," said he. "Freedom of speech and the ability to understand."

     "Yeah, yeah, yeah," echoed Ringo, who stumbled up to the group. Ringo, who looks more like a rubber doll than a human being, kept most of his comments on the comic side. Are they tired? "No, man," said George. "We love what we're doing."

     Brian Epstein, Beatles' manager, wandered along at this point, dressed in blue madras bell bottoms, a pale yellow shirt, and black knit shoes with suede soles. His floppy hair and sideburns was only a shorter version of a Beatles top knot.

     "Why no press conference?" I asked Paul, referring to the cancellations of a 20-reporter press meet scheduled for earlier that day. "Are you a reporter?" asked Ringo. "I like reporters, don't I, Paul?" "Yes, you like reporters. I don't know about the press conference", said Paul. "We had a small one a little earlier at our hotel, the Hotel Somerset, Boston, but there were only a few reporter-type men there. I don't know what happened. We didn't think reporters around here liked us." "I like reporters," said Ringo. "Don't I, Paul?"

     "Stop it, Ringo," said Paul. ""Nobody tells us anything. Tom, Tom is your name, isn't it?"

     "That's a nice name," said Ringo. "I like Tom."

     A very large man tapped me on the shoulder and asked to see me privately for a minute. He introduced himself as Tony Barrow, the Beatles' press agent. "They can't talk to reporters," he said, apparently not aware that the group had just been talking to me until he interrupted. "Just one more question," I said, and I'll go back to the press bin. He hesitated. I turned and asked, "What have you got to say for your Worcester fans?"

     "They're groovy," said Paul. "Yes," said Ringo. "I send my love, said John. "And tell them they're wonderful, the best we have." George just smiled. 

    An hour later, they jumped on stage, gave the fans 11 songs in 21 minutes, and bounded for two limousines that sped from the field to the screams of sirens and fans.

     Earlier, as they arrived here, 350 state and local police, equipped with horses, motorcycles, and nightsticks, stood ready to receive the fans, mostly girls. Surprisingly enough, older teenage boys created most of the problems. A 200-pound six-footer in his late teens vaulted the fence shortly after the mop-top foursome scampered on stage. He gave police a lengthy battle before he was subdued, handcuffed, minus his shoes and socks. The unidentified teenager was dragged behind the stage by nine patrolmen. 

    Another teenage boy caused the only other major incident. With the guile of a Green Beret, he vaulted two chain-link fences, slipped past a cordon of police, and jumped onto the eight-foot stage with the Beatles. He danced from Beatle to Beatle, tagged George Harrison, John Lennon, and Paul McCartney. The Beatles didn't miss a beat. The intruder was headed for Ringo Starr when a Beatle bodyguard caught up with a flying tackle that brought them both off the stage into the waiting arms of police.

     Shortly before the end of the show, several teenage girls made vain attempts to reach their English idols, but police were quick to corner them on motorcycles and on horseback. The scene was reminiscent of an English fox hunt as the Boston patrolman jumped a fence with his horse and cut one blonde girl from the herd of intruders headed for the Beatles' dressing room. 

    The concert over, they left for the sanctuary of their hotel, awaiting a plane this morning for Memphis, Tennessee. For almost half an hour after the show ended, seven or 8000 teenagers, seven or 8000 teeners, stood near the fence, waving, throwing confetti, flash bulbs, and gumdrops, and screaming, "I love the Beatles!" Finally, their energies dissipated. Large crowds walked slowly, almost dejectedly, toward the parking lot. The Beatles were gone.

Last Day in the UK

July 12, 1971 
 

Brian cleans up the mess

 August 4, 1966

Smoking in the car

 

Wild Life Sessions

 July 24, 1971 -

It felt like old times for fans when Wings showed up at EMI in London to record Wings Wildlife.  You better believe they were standing outside the gate waiting to see him again. 

Goodnight Vienna

 July 17, 2011 - Vienna