Showing posts tagged as: The Beatles
The Fab Four (Minus One) Play the Princess and the Old Tin Shed
The Beatles flying from London to Hong Kong1964 was the year the Beatles made their first world tour. The year they transformed from a UK/West German phenomenon to a global sensation. It was, to obviously understate it, a very busy year for the band. Two of the very many international places the Liverpool lads performed at that hyper-hectic year were Hong Kong and Sydney. The venues in both locations played by the Four Moptops—as is the case with many of the venues they played—no longer exist.
The Beatles without drummer Ringo Starr⌧ touched down at Kai Tak Airport in Hong Kong in early June of ‘64 and booked into a suite recently vacated by the President of Indonesia in the President Hotel in Kowloon. The band only stayed in the British crown colony for a couple of days while they played two concerts at the Princess Theatre (130 Nathan Road, Tsim Sha Tsui) on the 9th June…long enough though for Beatle Paul and road manager Neil Aspinall get themselves bespoke tailored suits made up in 24 hours.
Note concert date, incorrectly printed as 10-06-64 (Source. ha.com)The Princess Theatre (above), built in the early Fifties, was better known for screening first-run flicks than teen-hysterics pop concerts. On the bill supporting the Beatles was a New Zealand group, the Māori Hi-Five. Instrumental backing for the headline performers was provided by Sounds Incorporated. The concerts were surprisingly not a sell-out, basically because tickets were priced exorbitantly high, the equivalence of a full week’s wage for the average Hong Kong worker (the best seats fetched HK$75).
The Beatles didn’t find the smallish, old-fashioned venue very vibe conducive and McCartney remarked that the band’s performance at the Princess was pretty flat accordingly. The full complement of Beatles came back to Hong Kong in 1966 on their Far East tour, but only for a stopover on route to the Philippines where the performers and their handlers ran into trouble with a capital T❈❈.
Ownership of the Princess Theatre changed hands in 1970 and the building with theatre seating for 1,722 was demolished in 1973 to make way for a new hotel.
Early boxing bout at the Old Tin Shed (Source: Nat. Lib. of Aust.)Next destination after Hong Kong for the Beatles was Sydney Airport for a three-week tour of Australia and New Zealand. Sydney’s allotment was six concerts over three nights (18–20 June) at Sydney Stadium in Rushcutters Bay, a venue affectionately known as the “Old Tin Shed”, and hitherto the arrival of Beatlemania probably better known as a boxing stadium. At that time the Stadium was the city’s only large-capacity concert venue. Again, as they did in Hong Kong, the Beatles bedded down close to the concert venue, at the Sheraton Hotel, Potts Point.
Supporting the Beatles on that tour were several local (trans-Tasman) artists including Johnny Chester, Johnny Devlin and The Phantoms, along with Sounds Incorporated who had made the trip from Hong Kong with the Beatles.
Jimmy N, all alone at Melbourne Airport, end of the fairytaleBy now Ringo sans tonsils had rejoined the quartet in time for Sydney and Jimmy (or Jimmie) Nichol was unceremoniously cast off and sent home, abruptly closing the door shut on his 15 minutes of fame…it was all downhill in the music caper from there for the Ringo stand-in, less than a year later poor Jimmy was forced to declare himself bankrupt.
Source: ha.comAfter some initial hesitancy from audiences the Sydney Stadium concerts were all massive sell-outs with frenzied young women the most conspicuously vocal of fan attendees. Seeing the band in Sydney seemed comparatively more affordable than in Hong Kong, Tickets started at 15s & 6d, ranging up to £1, 17s & 6d.
Boxing matches and rock ‘n roll concerts at Rushcutters Bay are long a thing of the past. In 1970 the six decades old-stadium on the corner of Nield Avenue and New South Head Road closed and was demolished in 1973 to make way for the construction of the Eastern Suburbs Railway.
Staid NZ says “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!” (Source: nzherald.co.nz)After Sydney the Beatles headed across the Tasman, taking most of their Australian support acts with them, to shake up the hitherto seemingly hebetudinous youth culture in New Zealand. Just like in Australia, mass turnouts of fans posed the same crowd control problems for Kiwi authorities and level of teen-generated frenzy at the concerts in the four main NZ cities made for deja vu.
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⌧ stuck back in a London hospital with tonsil trouble and substituted by previously unknown drummer Jimmy Nichol
❈❈ see earlier blog on this site ‘Beatles Not For Sale: Public Enemy # 1 in the Philippines’, March 2022
Bibliography ‘The Beatles arrive in Hong Kong’, The Beatles Bible, www.beatlesbible.com ‘Beatle Place: Hong Kong, Princess Theatre‘, FAB4tracks, www.fab4tracks.home.blog ‘Meet Jimmy Nicol, the forgotten Beatle, stand-in drummer for Ringo’, Craig Cook, The Advertiser, 11-Jun-2014, www.adelaide now.com.au
Beatles Not For Sale: Public Enemy # 1 in the Philippines
1966 was indeed a watershed year for the world’s most popular band the Beatles. It was the year that at its end the fabled foursome called it quits on overseas touring and live performances. This followed a demanding 12 months of touring, including Germany, Japan, the Philippines and America (the third visit but this time as reluctant tourers). The constant grind, the heavy work load, the culmination of five years of more or less nonstop touring, had left the group exhausted.
Nihonjin cultural lesson for Ringo & John (Source: nippon.com)This was only one factor in the ultimate decision to pull the plug…increasing dissatisfaction with sound quality at the various venues they played contributed as well as fears about their personal security and safety on tour1⃞ which escalated after John Lennon’s controversial comments about the Beatles being “more popular than Jesus Christ” and his stated prediction that Christianity will wither away.
Fateful words of the leader
John’s spontaneous act of hubris had profound ramifications as the year unfolded. On the “reunion” visit back to Hamburg, Germany, the Beatles received a death threat. In Japan though fans at concerts were rapturous, Japanese traditionalists voiced opposition to them, and were incensed that the Beatles’ gigs were held at the Nippon Budekan, a Japanese shrine for the war dead. But this was all mere turbulence compared to the tsunami greeting them in Manila, the Philippines’ capital. Moments after the boys stepped foot on the tarmac they were separated from manager Epstein and abruptly whisked away by military types to visit some local plutocrat VIP they didn’t know. The two concerts scheduled for the Rizal Memorial Football Stadium for that day (before a Beatle record combined audience of 80,000) though went exceedingly well.
The Marcoses in 1966 (with an American “friend”) (Photo: Yoichi Yokamoto/National Archives)“Enemies of the state” snubbing the First Family What brought the tour undone and turned it into a nightmare for the Beatles was Epstein’s declining an invitation for the boys to attend a brunch reception at the presidential palace organised by “First Lady” Imelda Marcos 2⃞. After the no-show by the Fab Four things turned ugly. The Philippine media castigated the Beatles for their grievous insult to the Marcos family, whipping up an instant public frenzy of Beatlephobia in the country.
Manhandling the teen iconsBeatles Alis Dayan!3⃞ All the chickens came home to roost the next day when the Beatles and their entourage tried to leave the country. First, the local promoter refused to pay the group for their performances, then they weren’t allowed to leave the hotel until Epstein coughed up nearly 75,000 pesos in taxes on the performance fees they were never paid! Meanwhile bomb and death threats against the Beatles were phoned in. But it was when they got to the airport that Filipino vengeance displayed its real venom. The Beatles found their protection had disappeared and the airport refused to handle their baggage and gear, forcing them to carry their own luggage (and their roadies to lug all the equipment themselves) to the plane. As they struggling to make their way to the plane, guns were brandished and the entourage was jostled and attacked by thugs (Mal Evans copped a beating, Epstein was hit, even Ringo got clocked with an flailing uppercut!). They were seen off into the aircraft with an equally hostile reception from hundreds of irate Filipinos wishing them good riddance!
But that wasn’t the end of the ordeal for the Beatles and their minders. The authorities suddenly discovered that some of the group’s flight paperwork was awry and roadie Mal and press officer Tony Barrow were forced to leave the safety of the Beatles’ KLM plane and return to the terminal to make amends. So the Beatles’ jet sat idly on the tarmac for another 40 minutes before it was finally allowed to depart. When they arrived back in London (via a stopover in India) the Beatles vowed never to return to the Philippines – an oath that all four musicians kept.
Talking it down…or up? (Photo credit: AP)Footnote: The Religious Right’s war on the Beatles The last tour, which Epstein had long pre-committed John, Paul, George and Ringo to was back to the USA. Lennon’s perceived slight on Jesus and Christianity–although he tried to walk the comments back once he arrived in the US—plagued the entire tour4⃞. Southern fundamentalists and the Ku Klux Klan demonstrated against the “degenerate and blasphemous” Liverpool band. More death threats, some radio stations in the South banned Beatle records from the air, some even organised bonfires, inviting listeners to burn the group’s discs and merchandise. Security became a more pressing issue the longer the tour proceeded, crowds of fans broke down barriers on several occasions. The four band members harboured a genuine fear that they may be the victim of an assassin’s bullet while performing on stage. By the tour’s end all four had hardened their resolve to draw a curtain on touring (‘The Beatles’ 1966 US tour’, Wikipedia, http://en.m.wikipedia.org).
Postscript: Hello/Goodbye! The Beatle’s final ever concert (leaving aside the impromptu rooftop jam in London in 1969) at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, didn’t play to a full house, resulting in a loss for the local company organising the event.
𒆜 𒆜 𒆜 𒆜 𒆜 𒆜 𒆜 𒆜 𒆜
1⃞ for which the four performers to some extent blamed Brian Epstein resulting in a loss of confidence by them in his managerial skills 2⃞ “Go Home Beatles!” 3⃞ a disastrous PR move as Epstein had been advised by the British ambassador to accept the invitation as the band’s security while in the country was in the hands of President Marcos (‘A Hard Day’s Night in Manila’, www.beatlesnumber9.com) 4⃞ John in fact proceeded to pour petrol on the fire by criticising the American military intervention in Vietnam which added to the backlash (at that time 90% of Americans still backed the US’ war in Indochina)
Red-Light Reeperbahn 1960-1962: Prep School for the Baby Beatles
When the Beatles at the top of their fame reflected back on their climb to the summit of pop/rock music, they didn’t understate the early contribution to their success of exceedingly long periods of time spent playing in seedy, red-light night spots in Hamburg, West Germany. John Lennon summed up the immeasurable value of the Hamburg gigs phase to the early Beatles’ development, quipping to a journalist that though he was “born in Liverpool, (he) grew up in Hamburg”. George Harrison echoed John’s sentiments, saying that the band “didn’t have a clue” before the German experience, “Hamburg was really like our apprenticeship, learning how to play in front of people”. Paul McCartney concurred that playing to inebriated and often hostile German sailors “galvanised the band into a musical form”. The boys’ repertoire expanded by necessity, forced to learn countless new songs so as to fill in the marathon eight-hours sets in the Reeperbahn precinct clubs (“George Harrison Said The Beatles ‘Didn’t Have a Clue’ Before They Went to Hamburg, Germany”, Hannah Wigandt, Showbiz CheatSheet, 08-Dec-2021, www.cheatsheet.com ).
⌂ ʰᵃᵐᵇᵘʳᵍ ¹⁹⁶¹ ⁽ᵖʰᵒᵗᵒ﹕ ᵍᵉᵗᵗʸ ⁱᵐᵃᵍᵉˢ⁾
Just before departing for their first stint in Hamburg in 1960, the Beatles (still calling themselves the Silver Beatles) needing a regular drummer to fulfil their contractural obligations took on ex-Blackjacks drummer Pete Best (hired by the band’s manager of sorts Allan Williams). Williams’ business associate Harold Adolphus Phillips (who promoted the band during its Silver Beetles days and occasionally performed himself as “Lord Woodbine”) drove the now five-piece group to Germany.
⌂ ˢᵉᶜᵒⁿᵈ ᶠᶦᵈᵈˡᵉ ᵗᵒ ᴿᵒʳʸ ˢᵗᵒʳᵐ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵗʰᵉ ᴴᵘʳʳᶦᶜᵃⁿᵉˢ ⁽ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ: ᵇᵉᵃᵗˡᵉˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ.ᶜᵒᵐ⁾
The band first played at the Indra Club in August 1960 (while sleeping rough in “pigsty” accommodation behind the screen of the nearby Bambi Kino). Later in the year they moved from the Indra down the street to the larger Kaiserkeller, performing late-night to sailors and sex workers, and the more appreciative art students. Both nightclubs were owned by Bruno Koschmider who was paying each of the five Beatles the princely sum of £2.50 a night to perform (although they did score an accommodation upgrade to actual hotels)🏴.
⌂ ᴷˡᵃᵘˢ, ᴬˢᵗʳᶦᵈ & ˢᵗᵘ, ¹⁹⁶¹ ⁽ᴾʰᵒᵗᵒ: ᴳᵉᵗᵗʸ ᴵᵐᵃᵍᵉˢ⁾While they were doing their night sets at the Kaiserkeller, John, Paul and George met Ringo (Starr), also working the club with the (then) more highly regarded Hurricanes band. The Kaiserkeller was also where the boys met Astrid Kirchherr, a Hamburg local who was to have a profound influence on the band’s look …from Astrid they got their signature “mop-top” style haircut. In Hamburg the Beatles wore black leather jackets and cowboy boots, but Astrid’s influence has an effect here too with the rounded collarless jacket she made for Stu Sutcliffe🏴 which became a prototype of the famous 1963 collarless suits worn by the Beatles🇮🇹. Astrid’s Hamburg art college student friends Klaus Voorman and Jürgen Vollmer also formed lasting associations with the Beatles from the Kaiserkeller days (especially artist and session musician Voorman who designed art covers for Beatles’ albums and played bass on post-breakup Beatles’ individual records).
⌂ ᵀᵒᵖ ᵀᵉⁿ ᶜˡᵘᵇ . ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ: ᴷ & ᴷ ᴴᵃᵐᵇᵘʳᵍThe following year, while still contracted to Koschmider, the boys were enticed by Peter Eckhorn (Koschmider’s Reeperbahn rival) into defecting to the Top Ten Club on the offer of better money and conditions. Koschmider found out and it’s likely that it was he who turned the underage Harrison in to the police, leading to George’s deportation. When Paul and Pete went back to the Kaiserkeller to get their equipment a fire lit by them caused minor damage to the club. The seriously “pissed-off” Koschmider had McCartney and Best arrested for arson and they too were deported back to England…Lennon eventually followed them back to Liverpool, bringing the Beatles’ engagement at the Top Ten Club in 1961 to an abrupt close.
The Beatles’ residency at the Top Ten did result in a breakthrough of sorts in their career thus far, albeit a low-key one at the time…the boys managed to cut their very first record – backing singer Tony Sheridan (who was also on the Hamburg club circuit at the same time) on a German 45 for the Polydor label. The recording “My Bonnie” at Ernst-Merck-Halle listed the Beatles on the label as the “Beat Brothers”🇦🇺 (‘Tony Sheridan’, The Beatles Bible, Upd. 15-May-2017, www.beatlesbible.com).
⌂ ˢᵗᵃʳ⁻ᶜˡᵘᵇ
The following year they were back however, this time performing at the Star-Club, operated by Manfred Weissleder and Horst Fascher🇩🇪. By now the band members’ nightly fee had been upped to £67 each. They did three stints at the Star in 1962—the last two with Ringo in the drummer’s seat for the first time—undertaken reluctantly as the band had already released their first UK single on Parlophone and were champing at the bit to get on with consolidating their burgeoning recording career in the UK. The last live performance by the soon-to-be “Fab Four” in Germany was on New Years Eve 1962.
⌂ ᴷᵃᶦˢᵉʳᵏᵉˡˡᵉʳ. ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ: ᴮᵉᵃᵗˡᵉˢ ᴮᶦᵇˡᵉ!
⌂ ᴴᵃᵐᵇᵘʳᵍ ᴮᵉᵃᵗˡᵉˢ ʷᶦᵗʰ ᴳᵉⁿᵉ ⱽᶦⁿᶜᵉⁿᵗ ⁽ˢᵒᵘʳᶜᵉ: ᴾᶦⁿᵗᵉʳᵉˢᵗ⁾The tyro Liverpudlian band’s musical education in the north coast German city got a terrific leg-up from getting up close and personal with legendary US rock ‘n roll performers—such as Little Richard, Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis—also working the same St Pauli clubs at the time…Little Richard later recounted helping to hone Paul’s vocal style backstage while the Beatles were opening for the pioneering American rock performer at the Star.
The Beatles’ gig venues in Hamburg, 1960-62 Indra Club, Große Freiheit 64, St Pauli. 48 nights, August—October 1960 (37-hr week) Kaiserkeller, Große Freiheit 36, St Pauli. 56 nights, October—November 1960 Top Ten Club, Reeperbahn 136, St Pauli. 92 nights,April—July 1961 (51-hr week) Star-Club, Große Freiheit 39, St Pauli. April—May, November, December, 1962
The intense schedule imposed by the Hamburg club management, forcing the Beatles to play live for hours on end (with the aid of copious amounts of booze and a regular diet of ‘uppers’)🏁 formed the band into a tight musical outfit. This and the band’s increasingly fetzig (“wild”) and unpredictable stage antics and the decibel-shattering volume and raw energy of their playing earned them a loyal following in Hamburg (‘Breaking the Illusion: Hamburg and The Beatles’ Gritty Roots’, Riley Fitzgerald, Happy, 13-Oct-2021, www.happy mag.tv). And when they came back to Merseyside at the very beginning of 1963, the Beatles (–Pete/ +Ringo) didn’t come back as nobodies, Hamburg gave them an international reputation to trade on in the future.
Postscript: Return to their roots The Beatles returned to Hamburg one more time, this time as the hottest musical act on the planet. In 1966 at ‘Beatlemania’s” high-water mark, the group played two nights in Hamburg, not at any of the old haunts they had played as young scruffs but at the more respectable Ernst-Merck-Halle. This was part of the German leg (tagged the “Bravo-Beatles-Blitztournee“) of the band’s ‘66 world tour, which also included concerts in Munich and Essen.
↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝ ↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝↜↝
🏴 their booking agent Allan Williams was getting three times what the musicians were!
🏴 Sutcliffe left the group and became engaged to Kirchherr in 1961 before his premature death the following year
🇮🇹 based partly on Pierre Cardin’s design
🇦🇺 it was a customer request in the Liverpool NEMS music store for ‘My Bonnie’ that first alerted Brian Epstein to the existence of the Beatles
🇩🇪 Fascher, a West German amateur boxing champion, doubled as the Beatles’ bodyguard
🏁 “800 hours in the rehearsal room” McCartney called it
A Who’s Who of the Early Beatles Ensemble
There have been untold zillions of words written or spoken about the Beatles—in books, in music mags, in newsprint, on the web, in doco films and videos—over the last six decades. Anyone vaguely following the Liverpudlian Foursome’s stellar musical journey would be familiar with the major secondary personalities that feature prominently in the Beatles’ narrative (manager Epstein, producer Martin, the various wives and girlfriends, a few of the band’s musical peers like Jagger and Clapton, the so-called “Fifth Beatles” and so on), but after wading through weighty Beatles biographies by Hunter Davies and Phillip Norman and others, I’m more curious about the lesser dramatis personae who feature peripherally in the Beatles saga. As the Beatles journey on their irresistible path from provincial obscurity to global mega-celebrity, these less well-known names pop in and out of the various accounts of John, Paul, George and Ringo’s formative days on the nascent Liverpool rock scene…so let’s shift the spotlight away from the quartet of pop music icons momentarily on to some of the background players to note their particular part in the Beatles’ back story — most were fleeting and insignificant, others flitted in and out of the Beatles’ orbit without impact and a few were important participants out of the limelight.
⥉ Lennon & Shotton (Source: forums.stevehoffman.tv)The bulk of the minor figures getting a mention in the early Beatles story tend to connect directly with John Lennon, not surprisingly as he was the band’s founder and driving force in the rise of the Beatles phenomena. John’s best friend in childhood was Pete Shotton, who attended the same schools as the future ‘First’ Beatle (Dovedale Infants School and Quarry Bank Grammar). Shotton was there at Lennon’s earliest foray into musical bands, initially in John’s mid-1950s skiffle boy band which became the “The Quarrymen”. Other friends of John joined them in the band including Nigel Whalley, Rod Davis Ivan Vaughan, Len Garry, Eric Griffiths, Ken Brown, Colin Hanton, Chas Newby, Bill Smith, John Duff Lowe…and a little later of course Paul McCartney and his baby-faced pal George Harrison and Stu Sutcliffe (Quarrymen membership history was very fluid). Vaughan’s not insignificant claim to fame resides in his being the member/friend who introduced Paul to John at that famous 1957 church fete. Shotton, Vaughan and Whalley had the further distinction of forming the nucleus of John’s “Woolton Gang”…a mischievous, juvenile ”gang of four” imitating and paying homage to Lennon’s all-time favourite hero of children’s fiction, ’William’ from Richmal Cromwell’s Just William books. Of his many childhood friends and associates, John’s connexion with Pete Shotton lasted the longest. When the Beatles achieved fame and fortune Shotton was a beneficiary, managing first a supermarket owned by the Beatles and then the Apple Boutique. Eventually Shotton severed his business nexus with the band and founded his own chain of restaurants, Fatty Arbuckle’s.
⥉ The Quarrymen performing in 1957 (pre-Paul & George)
In 1958 Lennon, having abjectly failed his ‘O’ Level exams at Quarry Bank High, shuffled off to Liverpool Art School. Lennox’s art school period was a key phase in the formation of the scruffy “Teddy boy’s” relationships, meeting his first girlfriend Thelma Pickles, his first wife Cynthia (née Powell) and close friend and early Beatle Stu Sutcliffe whose gifted artistic merit influenced him greatly. John formed other friendships at the art school including with Jeff Mohammed who took on a older brother sort of role in helping John try to cope with the trauma of his mother Julia’s sudden death; and with Bill Harry who went on to create Mersey Beat , a local music publication which helped the band gain early traction in Liverpool music circles. Harry also published Lennon’s poems and drawings in the newspaper.
⥉ Allan Williams (Source: Meet the Beatles for Real)Before Brian Epstein stumbled upon the Beatles the lads had another manager of sorts, Allan Williams. Williams owned The Jacaranda club in Liverpool which the young John and Paul frequented. Williams‘s role as booking agent and manager for the early Beatles (known variously as “The Quarrymen”, “Johnny and the Moondogs” and “The Silver Beetles” before settling on “The Beatles”) was a somewhat informal relationship, coming to an abrupt end in 1961 over a fee dispute, leaving the way clear for Epstein to assume the grid position and steer the Beatles’s career trajectory⦑1⦒. Williams did make an important contribution to the band’s early development as a musical force, he was the one who arranged for the band to undertake the first of a series of nightclub performances in Hamburg, West Germany, where the Beatles over three visits between 1960 and 1962 really honed their musical skills.
The Cavern Club in Liverpool was synonymous with the early Beatles who debuted in its damp, dingy warehouse cellar as the Quarrymen in 1957⦑2⦒. Ringo Starr then in another skiffle band had already made his first appearance in the club a week earlier (Ringo went on to join Liverpool’s top ‘beat’ band prior to the Beatles’ ascendancy – “Rory Storm and the Hurricanes”). A key Cavern figure was its longtime emcee/DJ Bob Wooler, instrumental along with Bill Harry in helping arrange Brian Epstein‘s first visit to the Cavern to see John, Paul, George and Pete play.
⥉ Pete & Mona (Photo: John Smart/Associated Newspapers/Shutterstock)Another regular Liverpool venue for the Beatles in their various early incarnations was the Casbah Coffee Club, owned by the mother of the band’s drummer pre-Ringo (Pete), Mona Best. Not only were the Beatles able to perform there on dozens of occasions (tallies differ as to the exact number), Mrs Best allowed the fledgling band use of the Casbah’s basement to practice in.
After Epstein and his NEMS Company⦑3⦒ took over managing the four Liverpudlian ‘Moptops’ he recruited Tony Barrow from Decca to handle publicity for the group. In the full flush of Beatlemania fame Barrow found the task easier with the press now scurrying after him, but he was still there to extinguish any Beatles crises that might occur, such as John’s incendiary “more popular than Jesus” claim. Barrow wrote liner notes for the Beatles’ EPs and albums and was also the one who came up with the “Fab Four” tag.
⥉ Neil Aspinall filling in for George in the “Fab Four” lineup (Source: independent.ie)When the Beatles started getting bookings outside of Liverpool they got themselves a road manager, Neil Aspinall, who had gone to high school with Paul and George at the Liverpool Institute. An accountant by training, Neil’s main attribute for the ‘roadie’ job—which he scored by being ‘besties’ with Pete Best at the time—was that he owned a battered old Commer van which was used to ferry round the boys and their amps to venues, and to London for their famous Decca audition on New Year’s Day 1962. After Epstein’s death Aspinall became CEO of the flagship Apple Corps and ran the Beatles’ business empire for 40 years⦑4⦒.
Another Beatle backgrounder Epstein put on the payroll was Tony Bramwell. During their Liverpool school years Bramwell was “besties'” with George Harrison and also a friend of Paul McCartney. From roadie in the Beatlemania days Bramwell rose to become CEO of Apple Films. Today, Bramwell is one of the very few surviving Beatles’ insiders.
⥉ Paul & Bodyguard Mal return from safari in KenyaWhen Aspinall got promoted to Beatles’ PA in 1963, the doorman at the Cavern, the 1.98m-tall Mal Evans got the ‘roadie’ gig. As well as being ‘roadie’ for the Beatles’ 1964 and 1965 US tours, Mal copped the brunt of the violent backlash by enraged Filipinos against the “Fab Four” during the notorious 1966 tour of that country. Evans also served as the band’s bodyguard and in-attendance ‘gofer’ for any personal items required by any of the four musicians.
⥉ Derek Taylor (Source: Pinterest.co.uk)While Mal Evans took care of most of the Beatles’ simple day-to-day needs, NEMS employee Derek Taylor was tasked with organising holiday trips for the boys as well as taking care of more complicated matters like copyright issues and acquiring personal properties on behalf of the four members, plus acting as “spin doctor” for the Beatles, for all of which he earned the sobriquet “Mr Fixit”.
Someone else behind the scenes who did very well from his connexion with the Beatles was music publisher Dick James. Just as the Beatles’ juggernaut was starting its ascent in 1963 James brokered a deal with Lennon and McCartney through their manager Epstein which enriched the publisher and his business partner but more crucially resulted in the two principal Beatles songwriters losing control of their own songs for ever!
⥉ George Martin (Source: USA Today)Footnote: The Fifth Beatle Beatles watchers have long speculated on particular individuals whose contribution/ role in the band’s story warrant, justified or not, the appellation fifth Beatle…the “would-be” candidates for the title are so manifold that it invites comparison with the list of numerous contenders regularly thrown up for “eighth wonder of the world“. Those ascribed the Fifth Beatle label over the years include George Martin, Brian Epstein, Neil Aspinall, Stuart Sutcliffe, Peter Best, Chas Newby, Jimmy Nichol, Tony Sheridan and Billy Preston.
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⦑1⦒ securing for Williams the unenviable epithet, “the man who gave the Beatles away”
⦑2⦒ the band didn’t actually play the Cavern as the Beatles until February 1961, but within two-and-a-half years had racked up close to 300 appearances at the venue
⦑3⦒ North End Music Stores
⦑4⦒ after the band broke up Neil became the closest confidant of each of the ex-Beatles
Sydney’s Long-vanished Iconic Boxing Stadiums
𝔉𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱 𝔭𝔬𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯 ~ 𝔭𝔯𝔢𝔰𝔞𝔤𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔞 𝔰𝔶𝔪𝔟𝔬𝔩𝔦𝔠 𝔭𝔬𝔴𝔢𝔯 𝔰𝔥𝔦𝔣𝔱Any Sydneysiders born in or prior to the 1890s would have been aware of the opening of Sydney Stadium. 1908 was the year this iconic boxing arena on the eastern outskirts of the city’s CBD first saw the light of day…literally saw the light of day as it was originally built as an open air stadium. The brainchild of promoter Hugh D McIntosh who constructed a ‘temporary’ outdoor boxing ring on the site of a former Chinese market garden in Rushcutters Bay to hold the world heavyweight boxing contest featuring Canadian title-holder Tommy Burns and Australian challenger “Boshter Bill” Squires. The fight was however just a warm-up for a legendary pugilistic bout in the same arena four months later between Burns and African-American fighter Jack Johnson. The fight garnered a lot of attention in Australia and internationally as Johnson was the first black boxer to contest (and win) a world title… and the heavyweight title at that!
⚔️ 𝒮𝒸𝓇𝑒𝑒𝓃 𝓈𝒽𝑜𝓉 𝒻𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝒻𝒾𝓁𝓂 𝑜𝒻 𝐵𝓊𝓇𝓃𝓈 𝓋 𝒥𝑜𝒽𝓃𝓈𝑜𝓃 𝒷𝑜𝓊𝓉 (𝒩𝐹𝒮𝒜/𝒜𝒮𝒪 𝑀𝑜𝒷𝒾𝓁𝑒) ⚔️The Australian press of the day predictably invoked the race card in the lead-up to the fight, racist descriptions of Johnson abounded, “coloured pugilist” was one of the few politer characterisations of Johnson (Bush Advocate, 28th December 1908). Burns’s thrashing at the hands of his much bigger black opponent—physically it was a real “David and Goliath” mismatch—prompted a backlash from white supremacists. Writer Jack London (ringside at the fight) put out the call for a “Great White Hope” to restore the white man to his ‘rightful’ place atop the professional boxing tree. The decisiveness of Jack Johnson’s triumph tapped into the prevailing currents of eugenic belief of the day, doing nothing to soothe anxieties about the “moral decay and decline” of the white race.
𝔖𝔶𝔡𝔫𝔢𝔶 𝔖𝔱𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔲𝔪 (𝔓𝔥𝔬𝔱𝔬: 𝔑𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫𝔞𝔩 𝔏𝔦𝔟𝔯𝔞𝔯𝔶 𝔬𝔣 𝔄𝔲𝔰𝔱𝔯𝔞𝔩𝔦𝔞)Stadiums Ltd For almost its entire lifespan (from 1915 to its closure) Sydney Stadium was owned by Melbourne entrepreneur and gambling identity John Wren’s Stadiums Ltd…during that epoch the company enticed most of the top Australian professional boxers including Vic Patrick, Fred Henneberry, Dave Sands, Jimmy Carruthers and Tommy Burns (not the Canadian heavyweight champion) as well as renowned international prize-fighters such as Emile Griffith, Freddie Dawson and ‘Fighting’ Harada, to Sydney Stadium (‘The Wild Ones: Sydney Stadium 1908-1970’, Sydney Living Museums, www.sydneylivingmuseums.com).
𝔍𝔬𝔥𝔫𝔫𝔶 ℜ𝔞𝔶 𝔠𝔬𝔫𝔠𝔢𝔯𝔱 𝔞𝔱 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔖𝔱𝔞𝔡𝔦𝔲𝔪, 1957 (𝔓𝔥𝔬𝔱𝔬: 𝔉𝔞𝔦𝔯𝔣𝔞𝔵 𝔄𝔯𝔠𝔥𝔦𝔳𝔢𝔰)“The old tin shed” In 1912 the stadium was given a lid, an octagonal shaped roof of corrugated iron, and equiped for a capacity of 12,000 seated patrons. As the decades passed, hosting countless boxing and wrestling matches (in operation several nights a week at one point), it acquired the affectionate sobriquet “the old tin shed”❈. From the 1950s while boxing was still its core entertainment, the Sydney Stadium became a venue for popular music entertainers and television stars (eg, Frank Sinatra, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Walt Disney’s Mouseketeers, and so on⚘. This continued into the Sixties with “The Samurai” star Koichi Ose, and perhaps its pinnacle, the Beatles performing there on their 1964 Australian tour (‘Sydney Stadium’, Milesago – Venues, www.milesago.com; ‘World Heavyweight Boxing Championship Title Fight 1908’, Woollahra Municipal Council), www.woollahra.nsw.gov.au).
𓂀 𝓣𝓱𝓮 “𝓕𝓪𝓫 𝓕𝓸𝓾𝓻” 𝓪𝓽 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓸𝓵𝓭 𝓽𝓲𝓷 𝓼𝓱𝓮𝓭 1964 
Leichhardt Stadium in Sydney’s inner west never managed to capture the limelight of Rushcutters Bay but was still very popular in its time, it’s Thursday night boxing events regularly ”packed to capacity” (‘Packing a punch’, James Cockington, 01-Jul-2009, SMH, www.smh.com.au). Leichhardt was Sydney pro boxing’s ‘Medina’ to Sydney Stadiums’ ‘Mecca’, together, this brace of stadiums was the home of professional pugilism in Sydney in the early to middle part of the 20th century. The suburban stadium on Balmain Road, Leichhardt, first opened its doors in 1922. The two Sydney stadiums featured many of the popular active Aboriginal fighters, typically stepping up from the touring boxing tents to try to earn their livelihoods inside their square rings, including Ron Richards, Jack Hassen, George Bracken, the Sands brothers and many more. Other names regularly featuring on Leichhardt Stadium’s draw cards included Jack Carroll, Jimmy Kelso, ‘Kid’ Rooney and Hockey Bennell.
ᗝ 𝒱𝒶𝓊𝒹𝑒𝓋𝒾𝓁𝓁𝑒 + 𝒶 𝒮𝒾𝓃𝑜–𝐼𝓇𝒾𝓈𝒽 𝒹𝓇𝒶𝓌 𝒸𝒶𝓇𝒹? 
‘Blood’ sports and ”show biz” mash-up Like it’s older relative at Rushcutters Bay, Leichhardt Stadium’s “bread-and-butter” remained pro-boxing and wrestling. However, during the Depression, the suburban stadium, perhaps anticipating Lee Gordon, innovated by incorporating the prevailing popular form of stage entertainment…Saturday night featured a program of boxing contests intermixed with “Vaudeville entertainment” acts (‘Leichhardt Stadium. 1922.’, Sydney Morning Herald, 08-Dec-1930 (Trove); Milesago).
𝔖𝔬𝔲𝔯𝔠𝔢: 𝔉𝔞𝔠𝔢𝔟𝔬𝔬𝔨
By the mid to late 1960s Australian professional boxing was in the doldrums and the stadium itself at Rushcutters Bay closed in 1970. Three years later the complex was demolished to make way for the Eastern Suburbs Railway. Leichhardt Stadium’s demise as a boxing venue occurred not long after in 1975.
𝐹o𝓇𝓂𝑒𝓇 𝒷o𝓍𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓇𝓈 𝒷𝑒𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝒾𝓃𝓉𝓇o𝒹𝓊𝒸𝑒𝒹 o𝓃 𝒮𝓎𝒹𝓃𝑒𝓎 𝒮𝓉𝒶𝒹𝒾𝓊𝓂’𝓈 𝒻𝒾𝓃𝒶𝓁 𝒻𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉 𝓃𝒾𝑔𝒽𝓉, 𝟫th June 𝟣𝟫𝟩0 (𝒫𝒽o𝓉o: 𝒮𝑀𝐻) 
◥ 𝓦𝓱𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓒𝓲𝓽𝔂 𝓯𝓾𝓷 𝓹𝓪𝓻𝓴 (𝓢𝓸𝓾𝓻𝓬𝓮: 𝓦𝓸𝓸𝓵𝓵𝓪𝓱𝓻𝓪 𝓜𝓾𝓷. 𝓒𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓬𝓲𝓵)
Footnote: White City’s fleeting existence In 1913 another landmark was erected in Rushcutters Bay, a 9-iron’s distance from Sydney Stadium. The White City Amusement Park, also built on former Chinese market gardens, was a precursor of Sydney’s better known Luna Park. White City offered pleasure-seekers a smorgasbord of lakes, canals, river caves, “pleasure palaces”, “fun factories”, the city’s first roller coaster and it’s pièce de résistance, a gigantic (Pennsylvanian-constructed) carousel. White City lasted less than four years before being burnt to the ground after a lightning strike in 1917 (‘Lost Sydney : White City Amusement Park’, Pocket Oz, www.visitsydneyaustralia.com.au). In the early 1920’s the White City tennis complex was erected on the site.
𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬𓇬
❈ also known as ” the old barn”
⚘ expat American promoter Lee Gordon was the brains behind this move into pop music, bringing out big US bands, singers and duos for concerts at Rushcutters Bay, backed by Australian support acts
Liverpool’s Most (In)famous Phantom Resident
There’s nothing like unearthing a hitherto unsuspected and improbable sounding historical connexion to give a boost to a city’s tourist industry. In the case of Liverpool, UK—the city that the Beatles, the Mop-Top “Fab Four”, launched onto centre-stage on the world’s pop culture map—that nexus may not be an altogether welcome one if it connects it to the most reviled political figure of the 20th century.
(Image: www.lonelyplanet.com)
One story that has been quietly doing the rounds of England since the early 1970s is that Adolf Hitler—long before his elevation to German führer and his failed shot at world domination in the 1930s and 40s—visited Liverpool and spent several months in the city during his formative years. The myth of Hitler’s visit has sustained itself over the years and even found favour with some Liverpudlians despite the complete paucity of proof to support any such claim.
Alois Hitler ⇧
What we do know with some certainty Adolf’s elder half-brother Alois Hitler visits Dublin in the early 1900s where he meets a young Irish woman, Bridget Dowling. They elope to London, marry and move to the Merseyside city in search of work. Alois lives in Liverpool between 1911 and 1914. A son is born in Liverpool (William Patrick Hitler, 1911). The evidence for this primarily comes from the city census of 2011, Alois Hitler is listed on the residential register – although the register records his first name as ‘Anton’. The Hitlers live at 102 Upper Stanhope Street, Toxteth, L8 1UN (a suburb of Liverpool). One degree of separation to AH, definitely, but so far nothing that places the Nazi mass-murderer in person in the city of Liverpool.
(Source: www.dailymail.co.uk)
Adolf gets Merseyside? It is Hitler’s sister-in-law that draws the dots between Adolf in Upper Austria and the family in Liverpool. In the late Thirties, Bridget Hitler, long-parted from Alois and no longer domiciled in Liverpool, writes her (unpublished) memoirs which recounts a stay by young Aldolf with her family in the Upper Stanhope Street home⌖ (supposedly between November 1912 and April 1913). Bridget’s revelation was the first time anyone had an inkling that Hitler had ever been to Liverpool or England. There was nothing on the public record and no one else has ever corroborated Bridget’s claim [‘Adolf Hitler Liverpool links discussed again in new TV documentary’, Liverpool Echo, 08-May-2003. www.liverpoolecho.co.uk].
Hitler’s alleged Liverpool holiday only comes to light and reaches a wider audience after historian Robert Payne discovers Bridget’s unfinished manuscript in the New York Public Library while researching his own book on Hitler in the early 1970s. The claim gets taken up by Liverpool’s daily papers…in particular editor Mike Unger runs the story hard, in 1979 he edits Bridget’s book and publishes it as The Memoirs of Bridget Hitler [‘Hitler, 23, fled to Liverpool to avoid service in Austrian army’, (JohnThomas Didymus), Digital Journal, 26-Nov-2011, www.digitaljournal.com]
Draft-dodger führer? In her memoirs Bridget explains Adolf’s reason for coming to Liverpool as an attempt to avoid being conscripted into the Austrian army (unsurprisingly Bridget’s portrayal of her brother-in-law is not a flattering one)◘. Another theory for the unexpected visit is that Hitler, a “wanna-be” artist, is on the rebound—having been rejected from art schools in Austria—and travels to Liverpool as its a city known for its artists and art schools [‘Hitler Living in Liverpool’, The History of Liverpool, www.historyofliverpool.com].
Hitler, Liverpool man-about-town Lots of wild and occasional wacky tales have been told about Hitler’s time in Liverpool. People come out of the woodwork with anecdotes about supposed Merseyside encounters their great-grandparents had with the future German reichkánzler. The myths abound, Hitler is ‘remembered’ drinking at Peter Kavanagh’s Egerton Street pub and barracking for “his team” Everton at Goodisall Park, or alternately some have depicted him as a ‘Kopite’ (a fan of rival Liverpool FC); he gets banned from the Walker Art Gallery; the Liverpool ice rink at Wavertree keeps a pair of his skating boots on display, etc [‘Did Hitler ever visit Liverpool, and if so, why?’ (Notes and Queries), The Guardian, www.theguardian.com]. As Prof Frank McDonough observes, for many Liverpudlians it seems “the fiction is much more interesting” (‘Hitler Liverpool links’).
(Source: www.irishcentral.com)
Fanciful rather than factual Though the Liverpool Echo is sympathetic to Frau Hitler’s account, most serious scholars reject the claims about her brother-in-law’s Liverpool sojourn as pure fabrication, flimsily-written and without foundation. Others attribute Bridget’s motives to an opportunist scheme by her and her son to cash in on the Hitler phenomenon (see also Endnote) [‘Brigid and Willy Hitler: The Nazi dictator’s Irish family who tried to make money off his rise to power, (Rachael O’Connor), The Irish Post, 05-Sep-2019, www.irishpost.com]. Refuting Bridget’s tenuous claims that Adolf spend 1912-13 (Hitler’s so-called “lost year”) in Liverpool, Third Reich historian Ian Kershaw places Hitler instead in a Viennese men’s hostel during the same time period [‘Your Story: Adolf Hitler – did he visit Liverpool during 1912-13?’, Legacies – Liverpool, (M W Royden), www.bbc.com].
⇩ Bridget and William
Endnote: Hitler’s scouser nephew Whether or not Hitler ever made it to Liverpool, we do know that he had significant interactions with his nephew (more precisely half-nephew) in Nazi Germany. William travelled there after Hitler’s acquisition of power hoping (as his mother did before him) to exploit the family name and his connexions to his advantage in the Third Reich. The relationship between führer and scouser nephew however is a tempestuous one. William is unhappy with the cushy job Hitler arranges for him and the latter in turn becomes disaffected with his “loathsome nephew”. In the late 1930s William returns to England where he does an about-face, denouncing uncle Adolf. Next William moves to the US where, accompanied by his mother, he tours the country giving ‘insider’ lectures about his “madman uncle”. When America enters the world war William enlists in the navy and serves in the fight against Nazism. After the war mother and son change tack once again… changing their name to “Stuart-Houston” they turn their back on a life of publicity-seeking and disappear without trace into Long Island (NY) suburbia [‘Hitler’s Irish Nephew’, Dublin City Council, 19-Jun-2020, www.dublincity.ie].
⇧ Hitler and his ‘renegade’ enemy nephew
PostScript: The fake Hitler jottings The “Hitler in Liverpool” saga is a little reminiscent of a later, much more famous deception also purporting to shed new light on Hitler, the Hitler Diaries controversy of the early 1980s. The ‘discovery’ of hitherto unknown diaries of the führer was ultimately exposed as a hoax (perpetrated by a small-time, recidivist “con man” from East Germany)⊠, but only after West Germany’s Stern magazine and Murdoch’s The Sunday Times both got badly burned in their avaricious haste to try to capitalise big-time on the story scoop. The diary forgeries claimed a further victim in Hitler expert Prof Hugh Trevor-Roper whose reputation gets irreparably impaired by him prematurely authenticating the diaries as being the genuine Hitler article before a proper analysis of the documents is carried out.
_____________________________________________ ⌖ ironically the Hitler house gets flattened in a German bombing raid during WWII
◘ Bridget takes the credit in her memoirs for suggesting to Hitler that he trim his moustache to the iconic style he is famous for, and for fostering his interest in astrology
◍ the circulation of fake photos showing Adolf Hitler standing in front of well-known Liverpool landmarks are part of the myth-making
⊠ described by handwriting expert Kenneth W Rendell as “bad forgeries but a great hoax”