John got his wish as 1964 turned this British success story into an international pop phenomenon. And it happened quite quickly. When the Beatles went to Paris in January, they were greeted by a handful of French Press at Le Bourget airport but no fans. The journalists had been sent because their bosses had heard reports of a lot of fuss across the Channel and wanted to know if the latest British craze was worth writing about. Brian was concerned at the lack of interest in France and not all the tickets at the Olympia Theatre had been sold. But by the end of three weeks of Beatles performances, there were wailing, chanting mobs of Beatles fans laying nightly seige to the theatre and hundreds of baton-waving gendarmes were stretched to the limit to stay in control. Paris fell to the Beatle invasion and so did Copenhagen and Amsterdam.
Perhaps Brian’s greatest achievement was breaking the Beatles in America. Lots of British artists had been across the Atlantic and died a death. Cliff Richard invaded the United States and nobody noticed. But Brian was determined that the Beatles would be different and he knew that timing was the absolute key.
I remember meeting him at Heathrow after one of his many early trips just after the Royal Variety Show. We took the car back to his house and I politely asked how it had gone.
‘Oh, quite well,’ said Brian quietly. ‘I turned down an Ed Sullivan Show.’
‘Brian,’ I gulped, ‘surely you know that The Ed Sullivan Show is the biggest show in America? It would be fantastic to get the boys on that.’
Brian was very cool. He said, ‘Yes, I know. But we’re not ready yet.’
My amazement was clearly still showing.
Brian continued, more pointedly, ‘Alistair, we don’t have the right record.’
He was not prepared to go over to America, use the fabulous platform of the coast-to-coast Ed Sullivan Show, without having the right record to back it up. I recall some time later I went into his office and he said casually, ‘Oh, while you’re here, listen to this,’ and he had this white acetate of ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’. I thought it was a knockout and said so.
Brian smiled and sat back in his big black leather chair and said, ‘Now we assault America.’ That is what he wanted – a record strong enough to back it up. He was a genius of a manager, he really was. They’d had several number ones by then but he was not prepared to go to America without what he thought was the right record. He kept saying he did not want the Beatles to be another British failure in America. Brian just had this remarkable nose for knowing the right song for the right moment.
Capitol Records, the American side of EMI, could have given us a lot more encouragement to go over there a lot sooner. They didn’t do us any favours. But Brian wanted to control everything – he always did. One of those myths has come up that Ed Sullivan saw the British reaction and decided to bring them over. That is not how it happened.
And, to be fair, Brian didn’t always get it right. Later, he took Cilla Black over to sing in the Rainbow Room, one of the top cabaret spots in New York and she died a death. But on that occasion he didn’t have a record lined up to back her up. Brian knew that ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ was the one that was going to make America sit up and listen.
* * *
So far, the Beatles hits which had been so richly appreciated in Britain had passed unnoticed in America. Traditionally, British pop stars struggled to survive the Atlantic crossing, but Brian Epstein was determined to prove that the Beatles were different. He had turned down one appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show but now he was ready to take on the programme that he knew could make the Beatles in the States. Sullivan, once famous for insisting that Elvis Presley be filmed only from the waist upwards, was keen to have the Beatles.
Sullivan had been on a talent-spotting trip to Europe and found first-hand evidence of the Beatles’ appeal when his flight from Heathrow was delayed by fans rioting, as the Beatles flew back in from Sweden. Sullivan wanted the Beatles as a minor novelty act but Brian insisted they were to be taken seriously. He showed how serious he was by offering the Beatles at Sullivan’s lowest fee so long as they received top billing. The Americans were delighted with the bargain but Brian knew what he was doing. It would have been worth mortgaging his house to pay Sullivan to let them appear. The show really was that powerful.
Thanks to a crash publicity programme which had New Yorkers waking up to ‘Beatle-time on their radios’, and the growing interest from kids on the streets for a chance to see and hear this group that Europe was going crazy for, the Beatles’ visit to the Ed Sullivan Show became a major event before it even happened.
The boys were totally knocked out by the reception they got immediately on their arrival in America. Of the four of them, only George had ever even been there before to visit his sister and in those days British acts simply did not seem to work across the Atlantic. The Beatles changed all that, thanks to Brian’s brilliant timing which saw the boys arrive to follow up a number-one single. What better introduction could there be than a chart-topper?
John was particularly wary. He knew that even Cliff Richard had died a death in the States and he did not want to see the Beatles embarrassed. Right up until just before departure, John was saying they were just going over to buy some LPs and take a look at the place as tourists. But the hit status of ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’ changed all that.
The reception at the airport was astonishing. There were thousands of kids in Beatles wigs all screaming their heads off. Brian visibly relaxed as he saw it was going to work and the boys just had an absolute ball. The show received more than 50,000 applications for the 700 available seats to watch the filming in the studio. Even Elvis and his famously gyrating body had not generated this much interest.
The reception at the airport was sensational and the Beatles humour went down well at the introductory press conference. The boys’ refusal to answer any questions seriously astonished many of the straight-faced American reporters. But when you heard the banality of the questions you could understand the boys’ reactions. One ace columnist asked brightly, ‘What do you do when you’re cooped up in your rooms between shows?’
‘We ice skate,’ George deadpanned back.
John was even better. He was asked, ‘Was your family in show business?’ And he could not resist replying, ‘Well, my dad used to say my mother was a great performer.’
Brian brought the press conference to a halt as gales of laughter started to ring round the airport. The American reporters were busy trying to describe the Beatles as the new Marx Brothers as the boys were ushered into waiting limos to be escorted by two motorcycle cops and no fewer than four New York City police cars to the unsuspecting Plaza Hotel. They had no idea who the Beatles were when they took the booking and the staff there were collectively astonished to be already besieged by fans. And this was even before they had appeared on television. Next day, 37 sacks of fanmail arrived at the Plaza.
Not everything went perfectly. George was suffering from tonsillitis and Neil Aspinall stood in for him during rehearsals for the Ed Sullivan Show. But George recovered after taking a variety of drugs – many of them prescribed by a doctor who was called in to get him back on his feet.
Ed Sullivan was a cynical old showbusiness pro but even he was amazed at the reaction the boys inspired. Brian decided he needed to know how the veteran host was going to present his precious stars to the American public and asked him just before recording started, ‘I would like to know the exact wording of your introduction.’ Sullivan did not miss a beat as he responded, ‘I would like you to get lost.’
Brian was concerned, but he need not have worried. Sullivan began by reading a telegram of welcome from Elvis Presley which delighted the boys waiting to go on. They did learn much later that Elvis had no knowledge of the good luck note but by then it hardly mattered. Sullivan reported the Beatles’ astonishing success in Britain to date and waved them into action with the words, ‘America, judge for yourself.’
The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964 was watched by an estimated 73 million people – more than half of America’s viewers. The reviews were mixed, to say the least. The New York Herald-Tribune called the Beatles, ‘75 per cent publicity, 20 per cent haircut and 5 per cent lilting lament,’ while the Washington Post called them, ‘Asexual and homely’.
But the fans loved it. In their millions. Brian’s brilliant deal to go on for a cut-price performance must have repaid itself hundreds of thousands of times over in promotional impact. It’s obviously a good idea with hindsight, but in those pioneering days, no other manager would have allowed his act to go on for such a low fee. Even Billy Graham watched the Beatles, breaking a lifetime’s rule not to watch TV on the Sabbath, and America’s crime rate that night was the lowest in half a century.
Two days later, the Beatles gave their first live concert performance in the United States at the Washington Coliseum to scenes of extreme Beatlemania. America had fallen in love with the Beatles just as fervently as Britain. Brian told me afterwards that this was the finest single moment of his time with the Beatles. Once he knew that fans in the United States felt the same as their British counterparts he knew that we could conquer the whole world. They played a second concert on that first American trip at Carnegie Hall, the first time the famous venue had played host to a rock group, and hysteria broke out all over again.
Ringo was particularly delighted because the Americans really seemed to take to him. There was something about that laconic, hang-dog face that seemed to appeal to the Americans and suddenly he found himself headline news and in demand, even above John and Paul. ‘It was a shock for me, America,’ he told me. ‘I loved the radio stations and the pace and energy of the place, but most of all I loved it because I wasn’t just the guy at the back, the drummer.’
But it wasn’t all good news conquering America. After the Washington concert, the Beatles were invited to a reception at the British Embassy and Brian decided they should go. It was a snooty affair full of the most undiplomatic diplomats imaginable. One chinless twit laughed out loud at John signing an autograph and announced loudly, ‘Oh, look. He can actually write.’ Surprisingly, John did not deck him, which seemed a pity to me. But he did take offence when a woman produced some scissors from her evening bag and snipped off a chunk of Ringo’s hair as a souvenir for her daughter. Brian led the boys out of the party in a cold fury. He was angry that supposedly upper-class people could behave so loutishly and in the car back to the hotel he apologised to the boys and promised that they would never ever be humiliated like that again. In future, official functions were definitely not on the schedule.
The crowds were always biggest at Heathrow when we flew off on tour or returned from abroad. The worst time for me was when the Beatles returned from their first trip to America. Four of us were each assigned a Beatle to take care of and I was there to ensure John and Cynthia got through Heathrow safely. The press conference went on for so long that the fans had time to break out of the enclosure on the roof of the Queen’s Building and were pushing the police cordon back at a frightening speed. They were only kids but the force of them was amazing. I saw barriers buckling under pressure as the crowd swarmed towards us. The Beatles looked really scared as the crowd got closer and we could see policemen’s helmets being knocked off as the coppers started to lose control. John, Cynthia and I dived into the back of the faithful old Austin Princess. John was shaking with fear as we slammed the doors behind us and he yelled, ‘For fuck’s sake, get us out of here. Let’s drive.’ The driver sped out of Heathrow as fast as he could and we gradually started to relax. We had been told to drive along the perimeter road alongside the runway and we were followed by a frantic horde of fans. Some were running and we soon lost them but others were on motorcycles and scooters. We seemed to have the biggest tail of any of the Beatle cars, probably because the Austin Princess was pretty famous by then.
‘Put your foot down and lose them,’ I yelled at the driver. Well, I always did enjoy Z-Cars. And we accelerated away from most of them. We started to relax but after a few minutes the driver said, ‘There is a motorcyclist following us. He has been behind from the airport.’ We looked back to see this sinister lone figure all in black leathers, carefully keeping a safe distance behind. I didn’t like the look of this guy at all and I ordered our driver to shake him off. The Princess lurched into a sequence of dramatic manoeuvres which succeeded only in making us all feel sick. The motorcycle was powerful and it was still on our tail.
I was concerned and I was even more worried when John said, ‘Oh fuck it. Stop the car and let’s see what the guy wants.’ I was still trying to work out if I had the authority to countermand John’s order when the car drew to a halt and he opened the door.
‘Come on, mate,’ he said. ‘Why are you following us? Hop in the car and let’s have a chat.’
The stranger took off his helmet, put his bike on its stand and stepped into the car. He had a look of amazement on his face as if he was stepping into a flying saucer. He was a bit scared but he wasn’t going to miss this for the world. John pulled down the occasional seat which faced the back seats and asked him to sit down. Then they had a conversation that ranged across the Beatles, the tour, the bike, and a host of other things for several minutes. John signed his autograph and the stranger shook hands, his day made, and drove off on his bike.
John was jet-lagged from the flight, pissed off from the press conference and still shocked from the scare at the airport but he still had the ability to sit and be charming to a mysterious motorcyclist. I was horrified at the risk he had taken but John Lennon was his own man and I think he admired the bottle of the guy on the motorbike and felt he had earned himself a special one-to-one chat. For me, it was a nightmare. I was supposed to protect the guy, which is hard when he invites complete strangers into the car.
Later, we got a huge bill from Heathrow for the damage at the airport. Evidently, nine cars were badly damaged by being flattened by marauding fans. But in the end we paid nothing for the damage as it was decided we could not be held financially responsible for every fan’s reaction to the Beatles.
And if we thought the pace of life with the Beatles had been lively before, it now accelerated into a blur of endless hyper-activity. Back from America, we had offers from all over the world for Beatles tours. Brian was deluged with demands to meet people, have lunch, have dinner, take holidays.
In the new headquarters next to the Palladium, Brian and I studied huge offers from Australia, South Africa, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Israel, Hong Kong, Japan and Sweden. Arthur Howes was pressing for another British tour. The boys had just nine days off before they had to start filming their first movie, which became known as A Hard Day’s Night once Ringo had come up with the quirky phrase. The demands on the boys to do TV and radio appearances, Press interviews, while still keeping up their output of song-writing was unbelievable and unprecedented. With the luxury of hindsight, I still marvel that they managed to maintain the quality of their work under such sustained pressure.
By the end of March, EMI announced that they had received orders of over one million copies for the new Beatles single ‘Can’t Buy Me Love’ in Britain alone. In America, the advance orders were more than double that figure. This meant number one hits on both sides of the Atlantic. In fact, as the American fans caught up with their British counterparts in filling their record collections with Beatles songs, the sales in the United States were extraordinary. In the Billboard Hot 100 listing for 4 April 1964, the Beatles had records at numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 31, 41, 46, 58, 65, 68 and 79. And the word had spread down under as well. In Australia, the Beatles occupied the top six positions.
The pace never dropped. The Beatles finished the Hard Day’s Night film and accompanying album and were then lined up for concerts in Denmark, Holland and Hong Kong on their way to invade Australia. They were scheduled to fly out to Copenhagen on 4 June but the day before that Ringo collapsed at a photographic session in Barnes with tonsillitis and pharyngitis.
He was whisked straight into University College Hospital and he had been in there for less that two hours when my phone rang with a harassed hospital administrator on the line begging for advice on how to handle the avalanche of telephone calls they were getting from anxious Beatles fans. The whole business of the hospital was being interrupted because the switchboard was jammed with calls. The street outside was blocked by fans but the police were handling that and the ambulances were getting through. But it was the switchboard that had gone into meltdown. The hospital rang Brian and he smoothly handed them over to me to deal with. What was I supposed to do? But I suggested they use their medical pull with the Post Office to put some extra lines in and that’s what they did.
It was a nightmare for Brian. It was much too late to cancel the tour so we somehow had to find a temporary replacement drummer. This didn’t go down too well with the Beatles. George in particular refused even to consider such an idea. I don’t think George’s heart was ever really in the touring and he announced that if Ringo was not well enough to go, then none of them should go. George was quickly convinced that the whole tour should be cancelled. Any excuse not to go was very welcome to George and he grasped it with both hands. Fortunately, Paul, and even John, were quickly convinced by Brian that it was essential that the tour went ahead and Brian used them to convince George to get his act together. It was time to bring on the substitute and Brian and George Martin came up with drum repairer-turned-drummer Jimmy Nichol, an anonymous session musician who had played with Georgie Fame’s Blue Flames. We organised a quick session that afternoon and Jimmy nervously went through six numbers with the three healthy Beatles to check him out.
Jimmy passed the audition, although I don’t see how he could have failed because we really had no alternative and he joined John, Paul and George in Denmark, Holland, Hong Kong and on to Australia. The welcome there was quite extraordinary. Brian couldn’t believe that there were more fans than ever and they followed every inch of the tour in their thousands. The Beatles’ joint feeling of being trapped in a succession of boxes as they called it was intensified with an endless sequence of hotel rooms and concerts interrupted only by increasingly meaningless social rounds of meeting mayors and the local dignitaries. The Beatles hated it. More than 300,000 people surrounded their hotel in Adelaide hoping for a wave from the balcony. And there were crowds of over 250,000 in Melbourne. The boys were unnerved by the level of the enthusiasm. John told me he felt these huge gatherings were like the Nazi rallies in wartime Germany, which was why he would react by ‘sieg heiling’ to the crowd and impersonating Hitler to try to show the lunacy of it all.
It was bad enough getting Ringo to the airport on 11 June. He had recovered enough to rejoin the boys and I had to get him safely on the plane. It was my job to organise all the transport and we relied on police help a great deal. I’d fixed up for Ringo to be brought to Hounslow Police Station where I could pick him up and take him to Heathrow. Ringo is not the most organised guy at the best of times but he had me speechless half-way through the obligatory press conference. As he was in the Queen’s Building fielding a sequence of mind-numbing enquiries from the ladies and gentlemen of the Press, I was asked by an official to have Ringo’s passport ready, just to avoid any possible delays. I crawled down behind the table and whispered up to Ringo, ‘Can I have your passport?’
He looked a bit blank and replied, ‘I haven’t got it, Al.’
I said, ‘Stop joking around, Ringo. We haven’t got much time.’
But he wasn’t joking. I started to feel very hot under the collar. Travel arrangements were my responsibility and that surely included making sure the only Beatle still in the wrong country to join a world tour arrived at the airport with his passport. Ringo said it was in his suit pocket at home. Only, helpfully, he didn’t know which suit. I rang Maureen and mercifully she was in. After an age she managed to find the passport but by then we were running out of time. Maureen managed to get a neighbour to rush over on his motorbike with the vital document but it still hadn’t arrived when the final call for the flight went out. I turned to my friend, Whip Waterhouse, of Pan-Am, who had helped me out in so many tight corners. He breezily told Ringo to get on the plane and said to me that they’d get the passport out to him on the next flight. But by then, the world’s press had sniffed out a real story in amongst the showbiz hype and they challenged Whip about Ringo’s missing passport. How could he travel without it? Whip smiled and said, ‘Gentlemen, a Beatle is a Beatle the world over.’ As the plane took off, the door of the lounge burst open and Maureen’s motorcycling neighbour rushed in, just in time to see the jet carrying Ringo and Brian take off on the first leg of its trip to Australia.
Ringo joined the boys in Melbourne on 14 June, leaving Jimmy Nichol surplus to requirements. He never seemed very happy about his brief experience with the greatest group in the world, although the boys rated him highly as a drummer. Brian gave him £500 and a gold watch inscribed to him from the boys and thought that was that. But there were rumours later that Jimmy may have thought that Brian had somehow blacklisted him after that to prevent him from ever cashing in on his fortnight of fame. I’m sure that’s nonsense. Brian was not that sort of guy. He was grateful to Jimmy for getting him out of a hole.
The Australian tour was a huge success. The boys were seen by more than 200,000 people and smashed all earnings records. Even when they stopped unannounced to refuel at remote Darwin in the Northern Territory in the middle of the night, somehow several hundred fans found out about the secret stop-over and arrived to see their heroes. Remarkably, the Beatles never returned down under, but our other group on tour, Sounds Incorporated, became phenomenally popular over there and did tour after tour. They were strictly instrumental and became incredibly successful. They were pretty playful as well. I remember getting a middle of the night phone call from them accompanied by lots of squeals and giggles. They thought it would be fun to wake up Mr Fixit while actually in the act of making love to some co-operative groupies. I wasn’t that prudish, but that shocked me at the time.
When the Beatles returned in triumph to London, one of the first important dates was 6 July for the charity Royal première of A Hard Day’s Night at the London Pavilion in front of Princess Margaret. The streets around Piccadilly Circus were closed by the police in expectation of fan trouble and more than 12,000 turned up to see the boys. My memory of that occasion was of outrage when the Rolling Stones refused to stand for the National Anthem. I suppose they thought they were making a point but they were the guests of the Beatles that night and I believe they should have shown much more respect.
I was sitting next to John Lennon and in the row behind was Mick Jagger and the rest of the Stones. They were good friends of the boys. Of course, John is seen as the great rebel but he wasn’t really like that. In fact, he was first on his feet when the first bars of the National Anthem were played and all other the boys stood up. So did everyone else, except for the Rolling Stones. They sat sprawled out as an arrogant gesture of defiance. John was definitely not impressed.
The boys were much more heartened by the scale of the welcome they received back home four days later when they travelled to Liverpool for the northern première at the Odeon. It is estimated that one third of all Liverpudlians saw the Beatles that day. There were thousands of fans lining the route from Speke Airport to the civic reception at the town hall. The Beatles thoroughly enjoyed celebrating their extraordinary success with old friends.
A Hard Day’s Night was just brilliant. To think that John and Paul had created those fabulous songs while immersed in the whirlwind of success amazes me to this day. It topped the charts around the world as the film showed that pop movies don’t all have to be rubbish. The boys were unhappy about certain aspects but I thought it reflected some of the lunatic humour of those days. No wonder it’s been successful all over again.
No one today has any idea of the pressure Brian put on all his artists. He worked them all very, very hard. The Beatles made stage appearances around Britain, fitted in a trip to Sweden and then went off on their first nationwide tour of the United States. Brian and I plotted 32 shows at 26 concerts in 24 cities in 34 days. If you mentioned a workload like that to one of today’s bands, I reckon they would collapse with shock on the spot.
But the Beatles did it. They did not complain because this was what they had been working towards through all those long, badly-paid sessions in Hamburg. They had served their apprenticeship and earned their position at the very Toppermost of the Poppermost. But it was hard for them. Most of the time, the boys said they did not know which city they were in. Their lives became a long and bewildering sequence of aeroplanes, hotel rooms and concert halls. They started in San Francisco on 18 August and, from the moment the crowds besieged them at the airport, they almost never stopped.
At the airport they were herded into a fenced enclosure for photographs but manic pressure from fans smashed down the fences and the Beatles were whisked to safety just in time. Even worse at the Hilton Hotel, the Beatles were corralled up on the fifteenth floor, but even with the place crawling with police and security men, a middle-aged woman was beaten unconscious and robbed. Her cries went unheeded because the police thought she was just another hysterical fan.
Brian was cornered in San Francisco by a persistent American millionaire called Charles O Finlay, who was the owner of the Kansas City Athletics baseball team. Mr Finlay was miffed that the Beatles had not included Kansas in the coast-to-coast tour of the States. And he was about to put that right. He had even announced his mission to the people of Kansas City before he’d left. Mr Finlay offered Brian $50,000 to do a single gig. When that was turned down he offered $100,000. Brian turned that down as well. Brian knew the only possible day they could fit in a Kansas concert was 17 September. But that was a precious rest day for the boys and he was not about to change it. Mr Finlay promptly wrote out a cheque for $150,000 and Brian decided it was time he talked to the boys. Brian told me afterwards he had started to warm to Charles O Finlay. He admired his single-minded determination and he quite liked his money. The Beatles were in their suite in the hotel playing another pointless card game and when Brian put the offer to them John took the lead and said, ‘We’ll do whatever you want.’ The other three nodded in agreement. As it turned out, torrential rain helped to keep the crowd down in Kansas and Mr Finlay made a loss. It was only just over a year since the Beatles had played The Cavern.
That huge American tour was an amazing experience. The boys were constantly surprised by the excesses of America. After they had played Kansas, the hotel sold the bed linen to two Chicago businessmen who cut the sheets and pillow-cases used by the Beatles into three-inch squares and sold them on to delighted fans at $10 a time. In New York City, guys on the street were selling allegedly genuine cans of Beatle-breath and there were endless requests for used towels or even bathwater. The Beatles tried to laugh off the excesses but it wasn’t always so funny, especially when disabled people were wheeled in hoping a touch from a Beatle hand would have magical healing powers.
You got used to the strangest requests from the boys, but when I got a cable from the United States asking for some of their favourite Lark cigarettes to be sent urgently to their next venue, I had to laugh. They smoked Larks in Britain, all of them. It was another illustration of their togetherness, I suppose. But I knew that Larks were American and I rang Wendy Hanson, Brian’s PA, who was with them on tour, to point this out. But the answer puzzled me. Yes, they knew they were American, but the Beatles all thought that the Larks they bought in England were a lot better than the ones they got in America. So could I please send some English ones over quickly? I had learned from experience that sometimes it is better just to do as you’re told, so I sent the consignment. And as I was packing up the cigarettes, I noticed on the packets that these export Larks were blended and packed in Switzerland. So they probably did taste different. So the Beatles were not quite as daft as I thought. I should have known they’d be right in the end.
Sometimes, being the Beatles resident Mr Fixit didn’t seem such a great idea. Like the day George sent me a note from America. I’m not sure exactly where it was from, but then neither was he. The address was given as ‘Somewhere in America’ and the date as ‘Sunday the something’. George told me he had seen a great picture of him in the US papers taken in an unguarded moment when he was pulling an angry face and flashing a well-known two-fingered salute. George thought this was the most hilarious photo of him ever taken. He enclosed a scrap of a newspaper with this image on and my task was to track down the original. He wanted to buy the negative, have a lifesize print made of it, and have it mounted on hardboard and have it screwed on the outside of his front door. There are a lot of photographers in America and tracking down the one who had taken this particular snap took a great deal of time and effort. But eventually a friend in Fleet Street provided a vital contact and I managed it. George was delighted with the result, but the lifesize image was so alarming he did relent enough to switch it to his bathroom door. And he had them printed on the front of his Christmas card with the seasonal greeting ‘Why don’t you …?’ George always did have a rather individual sense of humour. George wrote, ‘To Al and Lesley, without whom it would not have been possible.’
Dealing with Beatles requests was always interesting. The least demanding of the boys was Ringo. But when he did make a demand for something, it could be difficult. He came back from America hooked on the game of pool at a time when it was pretty unknown in this country. Naturally, Ringo wanted his own table for his house in Hampstead. For the weekend! I eventually found some tables in bond in Dublin. The makers were happy to supply one but it would take at least a week – until I explained it was for Ringo Starr of the Beatles. The table arrived the next day with two fitters to install it. The popularity of the boys never failed to impress me.
This was the tour that was hit by death threats and bomb scares that did nothing for the peace of mind of all concerned. George was already jumpy and now he demanded to be regularly informed of all developments to do with security. Brian humoured him with a trickle of harmless information. It wouldn’t have done his paranoia any good at all to get the whole truth on what all the loonies out there were saying. Some batty astrologer predicted the Beatles’ plane, chartered specially by Brian for the whole tour at a cost of just under $38,000, was going to crash en route from Philadelphia to Indianapolis with no survivors.
Fortunately she was wrong, but by the time the Beatles got back to Britain they all pledged that they would never again undertake such a punishing marathon of a tour. Even Brian privately agreed with me that for once he had perhaps pushed the boys just a shade too hard. But he barely let up for the British tour that followed in the autumn with 54 shows planned at 27 concerts in 25 towns and cities in 33 days.
As 1964 drew to a close, the Beatles had conquered the world. Their new record ‘I Feel Fine’ was on top of the charts and the Christmas show at the Hammersmith Odeon was a total sell-out. The Beatles had succeeded everywhere from Sydney to Sunderland and from Los Angeles to London. Nobody talked about supergroups in the days as the daft description had yet to be invented. But if they had, then Beatles would surely have been the first internationally popular supergroup.
In the early days of touring the Odeons and the Granadas, because the fans were so numerous and so enthusiastic, to get them in anywhere I had to use the police. We would arrange a meeting at a nearby police station and we would often use a police van. I remember when we played a date in Leeds we had a meeting lined up with the police at Sowerby Bridge Police Station to do the swap over. We swapped from the limo and got into the van and headed for the theatre. Suddenly, the van stopped and because there were no windows we couldn’t see where we were but I didn’t think we’d reached the theatre because I had already timed the route and we hadn’t been driving for long enough. The doors opened and there, standing in the car park of the police station, were all the senior officers and their wives and kids waiting patiently for the Beatles to jump out and sign all their autographs and chat to their wives and kids. The Beatles were thunderstruck. Out of the side of his mouth, John said, ‘Right, Al, when we get rid of this lot, we’re going to sort you out.’ But he was smiling as he said it. They went through the motions of signing and chatting even though they were in danger of being late for the concert and they knew that the police were way out of order hijacking their transport just so they could get to meet the Beatles. They had to be pleasant until they could get away. That happened again and again, until I could see the change gradually taking hold of the Beatles. ‘I sometimes feel as if I’m public property,’ Paul said to me very early on. ‘I’m not a person, I’m like the Town Hall. I’m something to be stared at and it seems like I always have to be open.’ The boys resented the police abusing their position.
Little did I realise at the start of the ’60s just what an era was beginning. I believe the Beatles’ arrival heralded all sorts of changes, in the recording industry and in society at large. Entire lifestyles changed for ever in fashion and in attitudes and I believe the Beatles were an immense force for change.
In the beginning, there was an enormous furore over their hair. And yet if you look at the early pictures of the Beatles after Brian’s total makeover of suits and haircuts, they just look so smart. It’s incredible to think that they sparked a storm and were known as the ‘Moptops’ in those early days, because of their long hair. It was absolutely nothing. Brian used to have each set of sheet music framed and put up in the corridor on the way to his office and, as the years went by, we used to have great giggles because you could see that in those early days with ‘Please, Please Me’, their hair seemed positively short. It was only as they moved on towards Sergeant Pepper, their hair was down over their shoulders and you could see their history through the Beatle hair.
Before any gig, it became a habit for children in wheelchairs to be brought in and sort of presented to them. It was very sweet and at the start they meant it most sincerely. But the frightening thing was that parents began to believe that if one of the Beatles touched their child then he or she would be healed. This soon became quite a sick practice. It turned my stomach and I didn’t like it. They received a lot of credit for allowing disabled children into their dressing room. Neil Aspinall would line it all up. He would check up the corridor to see if they were all waiting then he would come inside the dressing room and, mimicking John’s humour and purely to get the Beatles’ attention he’d shout, ‘OK, guys, spastic time.’ They and Neil felt very uncomfortable about all this. They used their black humour to disguise their real feelings but Paul told me how much he hated the way people used to use crippled or handicapped children to get backstage.
‘It started out innocently enough,’ he said. ‘These kids have mostly had such a shit deal from life they deserve the best seats in the house. That’s fine, but it never stops there. They want to come into the dressing room, to meet us before the show, and they start to think we’ve got healing hands or something. We don’t want to do a damn thing to hurt any kid, sick or otherwise. That includes John. He might make some sicko jokes but when it comes down to it he’s about the softest guy I know about any sort of suffering. But if there’s any hint of us not co-operating, then we get threats of guys going to the papers. It’s just cruel to tell kids that touching a Beatle will make them better.’
The big time had arrived by now but we still seemed haunted by memories of the old days. We did an appearance for BBC Manchester and the payment was so pathetic it didn’t even cover the fares from Liverpool to Manchester. Brian ordered me to get on the telephone to the BBC and demand more money. We couldn’t possibly operate at a loss. I could see Brian’s point but it was still a hell of an embarrassing conversation.
One of Brian’s finer qualities was that he never forgot the people who had helped him on the way up. Louis Buckley was an old promoter out at Southport who used to always book the Beatles for about £12 a time. And when they made it to the big time, Brian gave him at least three dates when they could have charged much more for that same £12. It was a thank-you for him supporting them when they needed it.
The Beatles worked incredibly hard on their music. They always seemed to prefer to work at night. And they used to go on long into the night. I remember that my eyelids would be drooping in the early hours at Studio Two at Abbey Road when they were still very hard at work. They would just keep on and on. That way, ideas seemed to keep coming. Of course, John and Paul emerged as the driving force but the part played by George and Ringo is too often forgotten or played down. Their contribution was highly significant as the boys insisted on putting layer on layer on layer to get exactly the sound they wanted. They seemed to draw energy from the actual music.
By 2.00am I would be exhausted and dying to go home and they would be trying something new. All four of them were totally into music and what they were creating. It wasn’t that they were the Beatles and this had to be great. The mood was more like ‘That’s a great song, let’s get it down.’ They were really turned on by their music.
Often, I remember one of the boys shouting up at George Martin and asking if they could do another version. You could see from the expression on George’s tired face that he thought they had already got it but he would say ‘Yes’ with all the enthusiasm he could muster. And even though there was nothing wrong with the last version, somehow they would manage to improve upon it. That happened time and time again. And George would smile in admiration. George was astonished at how it all worked out. In the beginning, he was ordered at least to give the Beatles a try. He never knew what he was taking on. If the potential of the Beatles had been recognised at the start, they would definitely have gone to one of the main pop music producers.
John and Paul, as well as being the driving force of the group in those exciting early days, were the firmest of friends. People who talk about early conflicts are mainly talking crap. Sure, they had their moments, but to me it looked like John and Paul leading George and Ringo against the rest of the world. And it’s Lennon who has become the most misunderstood. I’m not saying he was a saint but to me he was a hell of a nice guy. He has been signed off as being the hard man, and cruel to women, brutal to Brian. But he could be so gentle. He was a sardonic bastard. I think he was the biggest piss-taker the world has ever known.
But there was a gentle side to John. On one of the very rare occasions my wife Lesley came to see a concert, I remember we were in the dressing room at the Streatham Odeon before the show. The room was heaving with people and the boys were in a huddle in one corner having something approaching an argument about something musical. All of a sudden, Lennon’s powerful voice rose above the rest: ‘GET FUCKED.’ Then everything went quiet. And John’s head slowly emerged from the crowd.
‘Sorry, Lesley, I got a bit carried away.’ That was John Lennon, the wild man of rock, apologising for swearing, embarrassment showing on his red face.
John Lennon was a special guy and I suppose I always felt the most protective of him. Not that he needed anyone’s protection, of course, it was just that because he was so up-front and outspoken I always wanted to go after him explaining to people that he’d only been joking and that he was a really nice bloke underneath. Somehow he was more vulnerable than the others because he did wear his heart on his sleeve sometimes. He needed looking after.
John Lennon was in the office once and I was getting the documents together for their trip to the United States. I saw that John’s passport had had the photo ripped out of it. I started to tease him about it saying, ‘That’s a bit daft, Lennon. Even you have to have your photo in your passport.’
He said, ‘Well, I hated it. It was a horrible photograph. Get me a new one.’
I tried to explain you couldn’t just stick a new one in. ‘Oh you can do it, Mr Fixit,’ he laughed. I went down to Petty France in London and tried to explain my problem to an official. I told him the photo had fallen off. He explained that it could not do that because it was such strong glue. I had to admit John had ripped it out and threw myself on his mercy. He agreed, considering who it was, but he insisted I tell Mr Lennon not to be a stupid boy again.
Working for Brian was certainly never boring. One of my most bizarre tasks was to help organise a wedding for a German guitarist.
Klaus Voorman was a German guy the Beatles first met up with in the early days in Hamburg. He was a lovely guy, a good guitarist and a talented artist, and had drawn the Revolver cover. When I first met up with him, he was with a band called Paddy, Klaus and Gibson. Brian wanted to sign them up and work with them in this country which was a problem at the time because Klaus was German and the Home Office were being sticky about issuing him with a work permit.
But then he married Coronation Street actress Christine Hargreaves and Klaus Voorman. It was a very sudden wedding, and they are a great couple; it also meant that he could so that he could stay in this country and work as a musician. When I saw him years later, I was pleased that Klaus recognised me as I had worked to organize his wedding. Brian kept in touch with Christine, who sadly died young only a few years later.