Kinks' drummer Mick Avory on Beatles 'row'

Mick Avory in action with the Kast Off Kinks

Thanks to a lengthy and somewhat bitter account in Ray Davies' otherwise excellent autobiography X-Ray there has always been an air of mystery surrounding The Kinks' appearance with The Beatles at Bournemouth Gaumont on bank holiday Sunday 2 August 1964.
Scheduled to open the second half of the show, playing immediately before The Beatles, according to Ray as the band tuned up behind the curtain he and John Lennon exchanged unpleasantries as the fans screamed for The Beatles. Just as the curtain raised Ray Davies changed the set list and The Kinks opened with their new single, You Really Got Me, ahead of its release on Tuesday.

The fans' screams turned to 'We want The Kinks' and apparently to avoid a repeat performance in the second house, the irked Fab Four insisted The Kinks be moved to a close the first half of the show.
There were no other eye witness accounts to support or contest Ray Davies' account. Fans that were present recall The Kinks making an impression on the crowd, but not to the extent that they 'converted' Beatles fans to scream for them over their mop topped idols.
Indeed, Kinks drummer Mick Avory has no recollection at all of anything untoward before their set.
In a recent email he told me: "I remember us going on before The Beatles and had a great reception from the crowd, with Paul McCartney coming up to us when we came off saying: 'You didn't have to warm them up that much!'."
:: Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth is available from Natula Publications.

Beatles out and about in Bournemouth

Of all the photos taken of The Beatles in Bournemouth and published in Beatles Monthly, this is among the most intriguing.
It's not easy to pinpoint the location, but the chain link fence and wooden posts suggest it is somewhere on the cliffs overlooking the sea to the east or west of the town centre. The Palace Court Hotel, where The Beatles were billeted for their six-day summer season next door at the Gaumont on Westover Road in August 1963 is just a short walk from East Overcliff Drive, past the Russell-Cotes Museum, behind the Royal Bath Hotel.
But would The Beatles have been able to walk out of the Palace Court and up the hill to the East Cliff without being pursued by fans? Probably not, although there are photos of Paul signing autographs in the street that week, so maybe they did manage to stretch their legs.
More likely is they took a short drive along the cliff top road, stopped near the deck chair stand and posed for the photo.
The accompanying feature in Beatles Monthly doesn't offer any explanation, nor does it explain where Ringo is or who's leaning on Paul's deckchair. It's a bit of a stab in the dark, but could it be Paul's brother Mike? Their dad Jim is thought to have been with The Beatles in Bournemouth. It could also be Michael Cox, possibly a relative of Maureen, Ringo's girlfriend, and introduced to Swedish radio interviewer Klas Burling that week.
Perhaps you know...? If so, please don't hesitate to shine a light.
Photo © Beatles Book Photo Library 2011

George writing Don't Bother Me in Bournemouth

This tape recording of George Harrison composing his first song for The Beatles was one of the most popular entries on this blog when first posted a couple of years ago.
The earlier clip has long since been withdrawn but now it's back!
Confined to his room at the Palace Court Hotel in Bournemouth during their week-long summer season at the Odeon next door from 19 to 24 August 1963, George coughs and splutters his way through the makings of what would become Don't Bother Me, his first Beatles song and featured on the With the Beatles album, the cover of which was photographed downstairs in the Palace Court restaurant that same week.
The tape was made by Beatles' driver Alf Bicknell on the reel-to-reel recorder given to him by John Lennon and surfaces from time to time as a bootleg.
Bill Harry, founder-editor of the Merseybeat newspaper, who was with The Beatles in Bournemouth that week, says he had been on at George for ages to get him to write a song for the group. George, who later dismissed the song as 'not very good' in his autobiography, finally gave in and used it to pass the time after Brian Epstein had sent him to his room for the day to keep his fresh for the shows that night.
(In fact, George had previously co-written In Spite Of All The Danger with Paul McCartney in 1958 when they were in The Quarrymen and recorded it as a demo with Buddy Holly's That'll Be The Day.)
The 2009 stereo remastering  of Don't Bother Me can be seen and heard below.

 

Table tennis serves up Beatles encounter

A lucky fan meets The Beatles backstage at the Gaumont 

Barely a day passes without a Beatles golden anniversary of some kind - 50 years ago today for instance they were on a train headed for Newton Abbot filming sequences for A Hard Day's Night.

They were exciting times to be young and in love with music. With the screams of the previous year's Beatles' shows still ringing in the rafters, Bournemouth's Winter Gardens played host to concerts by The Rolling Stones on 22 February 1964 and the Gaumont had Cliff and the Shadows to look forward to on 29 March.

Not to mention the return of The Beatles of course on 2 August and 30 October.

In a story that has come to light since the publication of Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, Geoff Purkiss from Parkstone remembers seeing The Beatles' final show in Bournemouth, at the Gaumont on Friday 30 October 1964. They shared the bill with R&B star Mary Wells - the first Motown artist to tour the UK - as well as The Remo Four, The Rustiks, Sounds Incorporated, Michael Haslam, Lorne Gibson (replacing Tommy Quickly) and compere Bob Bain. 

Geoff recalls: "It was the Mary Wells concert, and it was just by good luck that I was there. I

was playing table tennis with a rather pretty new member at St Peter's Church youth club in Parkstone and a friend asked for a quick word. He had bought two tickets for the Beatles with the intention of persuading a girl he rather liked to go with him. Unfortunately she declined his offer, so he just wanted to get rid of the tickets!

"I said: 'Hang on a minute,' and asked my table tennis partner if she fancied going to see The Beatles with me at the weekend. Of course she agreed! And we were together for the next five years or so... until she fell for someone in a uniform!"

The Beatles' set: Twist and Shout, Money, Can't Buy Me Love, Things We said Today, I'm Happy Just To Dance With You, I Should Have Known Better, If I Fell, I Wanne Be Your Man, A Hard Day's Night, Long Tall Sally.

:: Visit www.natula.co.uk/BournemouthBeatles.html to order copies of Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth at a special price.

With The Beatles: Freeman's prototype cover shot

Happy New Year one and all ... as the man said, let's hope it's a good one!
The story of how Robert Freeman came to take the iconic cover shot for The Beatles' second album, With The Beatles, in the Palace Court Hotel in Bournemouth has been occupying life-long Beatles fan Ken Orth, from Savannah, Georgia, USA, for some time.
Ken's excellent article on the subject graced the pages of Beatlefan magazine late last year in which he offered a some new insights into the session that produced one of the most evocative images of the 1960s.
Chief among them was the background story of Freeman's first attempt at using natural light to produce a half-shadow effect in a group portrait.
According to Ken: 'Freeman decided to reprise a pose he had used a year earlier in photographing the principals of the prominent London-based graphic design firm Fletcher Forbes Gill (later the Pentagram design studio) for Vogue magazine. During that session he arranged his subjects in an overlapping tightly staggered pose and framed them in head shots from about shoulder height upwards. He also positioned a light source on their left, leaving the right sides of their faces inshadow. Freeman later called the resulting black and white photo his "prototype composition for With The Beatles." Looking back at this photo it's easy to see and understand his thinking.'
This is the photo:

There's more on how Robert Freeman came to photograph The Beatles in Bournemouth in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, which is available to order here.

Bacon, eggs and The Beatles in Bournemouth

Photo courtesy of the Bournemouth Daily Echo

The Beatles’ return to Bournemouth to play the Winter Gardens on 16 November 1963 was a pivotal moment in their eventual conquest of America, with film crews from the three major US TV networks on hand to film them. 

It also provided an expected highlight in the life of Bournemouth socialite Javier Revuelta Pineiro... even though he had no idea who they were!

Freelance journalist Roger Guttridge uncovered the story following the publication of Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth.

Following the madness of the two shows at the Winter Gardens that night, The Beatles were spirited away in a Black Maria to Madeira Road police station. But before they went back to the Branksome Towers Hotel at Branksome Chine they decided to go for  a bite to eat and returned to a late night restaurant in Exeter Road they had frequented during their summer season in August.

The Beatles on stage at the Winter Gardens

The doorman turned them away initially as that night it was closed for a private party hosted by Mr Pineiro, known as Rev to his friends, and his new wife Joan who were celebrating with friends and family who had been unable to attend their wedding on 26 October.

Being more of a jazz fan than pop, Rev didn't know who they were but let them in on the recommendation of his best man.

He recalled: “Ringo came over and said, ‘We’ve eaten here before after the show. Can we join the party?’"

Rev offered to cook for them himself and asked what they would like.

“Ringo said they’d like eggs, bacon, sausage and chips and I cooked them their meal. They were smashing lads and one of them asked how they could repay us. I said I didn’t want anything so they offered to go out and get their stuff and play for my guests.

“They played and mucked about for an hour. Twenty or 30 girls also turned up and the party went on till 2 o’clock in the morning. John Lennon gave me his personal number and the Cavern Club number and said they would repay me.”

:: Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth is available at a special price in time for Christmas. Order here.

It was 50 years to the day that America first saw The Beatles play

Fifty years ago to the day The Beatles played the Winter Gardens in Bournemouth, the town’s newest dining experience opened its doors.

The Bournemouth Rock Café is home to a unique collection of rock and pop memorabilia associated with nearly 60 years of music history in the town. The Beatles Room is dedicated to the many connections that link the Fab Four to the resort, including the Winter Gardens shows on 16 November 1963 that were filmed by American TV news crews and resulted in the first footage of The Beatles to be shown on US television – three months before the famous Ed Sullivan Show on February 1964.

Cutting the ribbon, the Mayor of Bournemouth Cllr Dr Rodney Cooper (pictured above with Bournemouth Rock Cafe owner Dave Robinson to the left and Nick Churchill, author of Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth on the right) said: “I can’t wait to come back here time and time again, there’s so much history on show and so many fascinating stories that relate to it.”

The music-themed menu at Bournemouth Rock Café - which can be found at the Beacon Hotel on Priory Road - showcases its specialist range of quality burgers made from locally-sourced ground beef and fresh ingredients.

Copies of Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth can be ordered in time for Christmas here.
The Daily Echo in Bournemouth also reported the event here.

On the Beatles beat in Bournemouth

Bournemouth must have felt like the centre of the universe on Saturday, 16 November 1963. Not only were The Beatles in town and riding the crest of the first wave of Beatlemania, but Father Christmas chose that day to arrive at his town centre Grotto and the mighty Cherries had a home tie in the FA Cup at Dean Court. Clive Garland was a 19-year-old police constable at the time and right in the thick of it, as he remembers here...

I joined Bournemouth Borough Police in 1961 as a cadet and was sent to the training school in Folkestone in autumn 1963, returning to Bournemouth as a Police Constable in early November 1963.
All police leave was cancelled on 16 November as not only were The Beatles back in Bournemouth, but there was the annual Father Christmas parade, Bournemouth had a home tie in the FA Cup at Dean Court and the RAC rally was due to finish in town as well.
I was just back from 13 weeks of training and wasn't on the duty roster so the sergeant in the parade room at Madeira Road [police station] asked me where I wanted to go and I told him I wanted to be with The Beatles. I'd had a taste of it back in August at the Gaumont when I was being escorted round by PCs as a cadet officer before my training.
So he sent me off to the traffic office with Sergeant Nick (Noddy) Carter and Inspector Young and The Beatles were already there playing with a Scalextric set that had been sent up by [the department store] Beales. They spent the time joking and gibbing with us lot - of course, Scouse was like a new language to us Southerners!
Then about 4 o'clock they brought the Black Maria van round as that was the only vehicle we had with blacked out windows, to take them over to the Winter Gardens. There was a bit of talk about how we were going to do it as they'd heard there were thousands of fans packed around the stage door.
So they got in the back of the van and there must have been 14 or 16 of us got in after them. The instructions were to get them to the front door of the Winter Gardens. So we pulled up in front then we all leapt out, linked arms and they ran in through the front doors and straight into the theatre.

Our job then was to sit in the rows of seats while the musicians and roadies went through the soundcheck. During the shows - the first house was at 6.30, the second at 8.30 - we were told to stand off to one side and if the crowd surged towards the stage to come and stand between the fans and the stage. Well, of course as soon asThe Beatles came on the girls stood up and we lined up in front of the stage. The fans went wild. The jelly babies poured down on us, it was mayhem - bloody hilarious in one way, absolutely terrifying in another.
There were girls fainting all around, St John's Ambulance worked hard that night! The girls were pushing up against us all evening - I was only 19 at the time and I'd definitely made the right choice of duties!
We'd never seen anything like it. Even at football - and you got 20,000 in Dean Court for a Bournemouth match back then - we only had eight officers on duty inside the ground in those days.
I never saw the going of them from the Winter Gardens. The Beatles were off stage and out the door before anyone knew it really. I think we got out of the Winter Gardens at about 11.30 that night and had to walk back to Madeira Road to clock off at midnight, after a 12 hour shift.
It was a hell of a day - great fun and I've been a Beatles fan ever since.
:: Both photos used courtesy of the Bournemouth Daily Echo and appear, with more than 200 others in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, which can be ordered at a special price from here.

Beatles - Bournemouth to the USA

If anyone had been in any doubt after their summer season at the Gaumont in August, The Beatles' shows at the Winter Gardens in Bournemouth on 16 November 1963 at the height of what the Daily Mirror had dubbed Beatlemania just a fortnight before, confirmed their popularity as a cultural phenomenon the like of which Britain had never seen before.

Shortly before the autumn tour Brian Epstein had flown to the United States and secured a deal that would see The Beatles appear on the Ed Sullivan Show the following February. When the US news networks CBS, ABC and NBC got wind of it they dispatched reporters to find out what all the fuss was about - after all, The Beatles hadn't had even a hint of a hit Stateside at this point.

With the presence of camera crews from all three networks whose footage would introduce them to America, it was a high-pressure date for The Beatles who were further prevented from getting to the sanctuary of their dressing room ahead of the first show by five stowaway fans who had to be removed.

The actual concerts were standard Beatles’ shows of the era. The 13th date of their autumn tour of Britain and Ireland, they played the same ten-song set throughout. 

Opening with I Saw Her Standing There, the first track on their debut album; they followed with hit single From Me To You; All My Loving; versions of The Miracles’ You Really Got A Hold On Me and Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven, which were all to appear on With The Beatles, their second album which came out on 22 November. 

Two more covers – The Shirelles’ Boys with Ringo on lead vocals; and Meredith Wilson’s Til There Was You from the musical The Music Man – followed, before they played their smash hit She Loves You and ended with two classic R&B belters, Barrett Strong’s Money (That’s What I Want) and, of course, the Isley Brothers’ Twist and Shout.

Here's NBC host Jack Paar talking about The Beatles coverage he broadcast on 3 January 1964.

:: You can see the CBS morning show story broadcast on 7 December 1963 - the first time US television audiences ever saw The Beatles - at this earlier blog post. 

:: The full story of The Beatles' first appearance on American television can be read in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, available to order at a special price here.

Yellow Submarine docks in Dorset

The lovely folks at Purbeck Film Festival have asked me along to introduce a special charity screening of Yellow Submarine at the Rex cinema in Wareham on October 12.

They've invited me because of the continued local interest in Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth, particularly in the light of this year's 50th anniversaries and copies of the book will be on sale on the night, but the invite is particularly special as it means much more to me than a simple sales event.

The first films I saw as a kid were in the Rex – 40 years or more ago. My dad used to take my brother and me to see Saturday matinees – Treasure Island, various Disney films, Bond, a packet of Paynes Poppets, maybe a vanilla tub, grown ups smoking, us kids stamping our feet when the feature started and seeing the shadow of mint imperial missiles cutting a trail through the smoke as the big kids threw them from the seats up the back. I loved it.

It was about that time I first saw Yellow Submarine – sadly not on the big screen, but on the telly. I’d seen cartoons before of course, but not like that. I’d seen films with songs in as well, but nothing like that. Yellow Submarine was crackers. It wasn’t a kids’ film, but it spoke our language, or so I thought. Mum and dad definitely didn’t get it and there weren’t any older brothers or cousins around to ask. So, if it wasn’t for Them, our parents, it must have been for Us, right? Yes, but who was Us?

So anyway, I knew The Beatles were the good guys because their voices were pretty calm – good guys in the westerns always had calm voices – but there were these shouty, over-anxious blue baddies with horrible yellow teeth and a vacuum cleaner beast that the Numberjacks ripped off 40 years later and a Flying Glove and a Dog with four heads long and flowers that turned to brambles. It’s a wonder I ever slept again!

The Yellow Submarine itself was skippered by Old Fred, who reminded me of my Uncle Johnny who was in the Navy – a man who sailed to sea – and he had a beard. But I remember identifying most strongly with Jeremy, the Nowhere Man – he was a bit chubby and very serious, thought a lot about things and brooded, but Ringo liked him and took him along for the ride until he got kidnapped in the Sea of Holes, which really troubled me – holes everywhere – enough to fill the Albert Hall. Then poor Jeremy’s really in trouble, bad things happen and even as the colour comes back to Pepperland, poor Jeremy gets it again. 

Luckily though The Beatles are on hand to save the day with their music and love – well, it was the sixties!

Hope to see some of you in the stalls. The 6pm screening is in memory of Dr Moira Walker and in aid of the charity she founded, Dorset Action on Abuse and Marie Curie Cancer Care.

More about the excellent Purbeck Film Festival here.

Copies of Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Beatles & Bournemouth can be ordered here at the special price of £14.95.