The Beatles in Bournemouth: Background of author Jon Kremer from the New Haven Publishing website in the UK:
TeaFlix Interview with Jon Kremer – YouTube
TeaFlix Tuesday with Jon Kremer (Beatles Author) | McCartney Times
“Born in London, Jon Kremer has lived in the Bournemouth area since his teenage years began, coinciding with the start of the Sixties. Owner of Bournemouth’s original vintage vinyl shop Bus Stop Records, he experienced many aspects of the UK music industry through a long-standing friendship with “Year of the Cat” singer-songwriter Al Stewart.
A Sixties music highlight was meeting the Beatles at the height of Beatlemania. The backstory to Jon and Al finding themselves in the backstage company of John Lennon, moments after the Fabs had first performed “She Loves You” live for an audience, days before the record’s release, became known as ‘The Men from Rickenbacker’. The tale of two teenagers pretending to be representatives of Rickenbacker guitars and needing to talk with the Beatles, eventually was retold many times in books, magazines, newspapers, and tour programmes, plus TV and radio.
One publication revisited the story in depth: Jon Kremer’s first book, the now out-of-print Bournemouth A Go! Go! – A Sixties Memoir. A look back to that exciting decade of pop culture, with the early 1960s Bournemouth music scene featuring Andy Summers, Robert Fripp, Zoot Money, Greg Lake, Tony Blackburn, and Al Stewart.
A long-time fascination with the, often obscure, or overlooked, key history making moments, creating and energising, the story of pop ‘n’ rock led to Jon Kremer writing Chain Reaction. Jon is married to artist Abi Kremer, who, with their son Daniel, shares his love of Sixties music.”
Jon Kremer – New Haven Publishing
The best way that I can summarize Jon’s two books is that they remind me of a pleasant dream that you have and then you awake and the next time you go off to dreamland, another wonderful episode of the story is illustrated in the subsequent dream! That may sound very melodramatic to you but it is an honest genuine sentiment of an exciting historical time whose memories needed to be preserved for posterity! Jon has done a great job with that task! You can genuinely feel the emotions of what Al and Jon must have felt going through their experiences and the advantage that we as readers have in knowing what was about to happen in the musical world.
Paperback – 21 May 2025-
New Haven Publishing Ltd
The new revised and updated edition of Jon Kremer’s excellent set of books:
Back cover of the new book:
Jon’s gracious signature and inscription from his new book: Thanks for the warm message, Jon (without an h)! It is much appreciated:
The AMAZON UK Description of the book:
Amazon UK:
A Go! Go! Revisited – Beatles, Bournemouth and Beyond updates and extends Jon Kremer’s Sixties memoir Bournemouth A Go! Go!
Amazon US:
A Go! Go! Revisited: Kremer, Jon: 9781915975133: Amazon.com: Books
Not a Beatles book per se! However it does highlight the tremendous impact that the lads from Liverpool not only had on the world but their fellow countrymen as well. I refer to Jon Kremer and musician Al Stewart. When I saw this title advertised on Amazon UK, I was immediately intrigued. I have always been a fan of Al Stewart and when I became aware that author Jon Kremer had created not one, but two books detailing the story of two young friends playing John Lennon’s Rickenbacker guitar in a Bournemouth theater in the UK prior to the release of She Loves You and Jon’s wonderful story of his involvement with accompanying his musician friend Al Stewart on his successful journey to stardom, I knew I needed to acquire and read this title!
The book will hold and captivate your interest especially if you are a fan of sixties music. Additionally the book serves as a great reminder of how great an impact the Beatles had on people that wanted a career or destiny in the creation of fine music. Al Stewart, though he had several pop hit singles, was far more impressed with the folk idiom of the 60s rather than rock. The stories in this book by Jon Kremer are fascinating to say the least. Al Stewart was more of a Bob Dylan fan than a Beatles fan. When you listen to Al’s lyrics, you will understand how important the words are in a song that tell tales of the human condition that have an emotional impact.
Yoko Ono
Paul Simon and Bob Dylan both play significant roles in the Al Stewart narrative as depicted by Jon Kremer.
Wait until you read the story about AL Stewart’s involvement in Yoko Ono’s Bottoms film and the fascinating transition Al made from the beat group idiom to more of a folky approach to the creation of his music. Jon also tells the story of how many British geographic regions like Bournemouth, during the musical explosion of 1963, had their own special clubs somewhat akin to Liverpool’s Cavern as a breeding ground for excellent music!
Paul and Linda McCartney
So happy that Jon was able to preserve so many of these great memories in print. For example I loved reading his accounts of meeting Paul and Linda McCartney in 1973 at the Bournemouth Winter Gardens and his photos to illustrate that meeting! So many surprises on virtually every page of this work.
The purpose of this post is to introduce you to both the out of print edition by Jon Kremer of his earlier work entitled Bournemouth A Go! Go! A Sixties Memoir, released in 2012 and the title recently released – the updated and expanded/revised edition, issued in May of 2025, entitled A Go! Go! Revisited: Beatles – Bournemouth – And Beyond.
This is the original out of print edition of the book with the Amazon description:
Bournemouth A Go! Go!: A Sixties Memoir Paperback – 8 Nov. 2012
by Jon Kremer (Author)
Back cover of the first edition of the book:
Jon Kremer’s signature in the out-of-print edition of the book:
Amazon description:
The year is 1963. The year of Beatlemania and the Beatles are appearing in Bournemouth for a 6 day run of shows at the Gaumont theatre. In Bournemouth A Go! Go! Jon Kremer recalls those days when he and long-time friend Al Stewart, then teenagers, talked their way into the Beatles company that week in August. Jon’s memoir tells of his role in Al’s journey from beat groups to worldwide success with Year of the Cat and includes the story The Men from Rickenbacker, when they each played John Lennon’s guitar, and the etiquette involved in offering a Beatle a cigarette.
The full text and images contained within the original edition are annotated with substantial footnotes, complemented with additional photos.
As Beatlemania swept across Britain in 1963 two teenagers, Jon Kremer and Al Stewart, in a story that came to be known as The Men from Rickenbacker, took turns in playing John Lennon’s guitar, backstage with the Beatles in Bournemouth, the week “She Loves You” was released.
A Go! Go! Revisited details the event and Jon’s role in Al Stewart’s journey from ‘60s beat groups to worldwide success with “Year of the Cat”. Also, the South Coast town’s music scene of the early sixties, including, Robert Fripp, Andy Summers, Greg Lake, Zoot Money, and Tony Blackburn, is recalled, while exploring that exciting decade of pop-culture with warm nostalgia.
Al Stewart – Year of the Cat (Official Audio) – YouTube
You Don’t Even Know Me – YouTube
Al Stewart talks Year of the Cat – YouTube
BOTTOMS UP
An excellent interview by Steve Houk with Al Stewart
Al Stewart on Living on Music– Learn how Al Stewart helped to finance Yoko Ono’s Bottoms (#4 film) and how his advice to John Lennon made the 2nd Beatles show at the Gaumont in 63 a big audio disappointment to the audience…
A REMINDER TO SAVOR THE GOOD MOMENTS & CONCLUDING REMARKS:
When you get the opportunity, I highly recommend the 2 books explored in this post. They are both packed with information that explores the British breeding ground for so much talent that was to invade the world with a vengeance during the time frame of the 60s.
In closing, one of the most poignant and riveting quotes/lines that Jon wrote about in his book was when he was describing his opinions of a special screening of the How I Won the War Dick Lester film that he attended when it originally came out. John Lennon was of course featured in the film as Private Gripweed! Though not impressed with the film itself, a Lennon line from the How I Won The War stood out for Jon when he was writing this book.
The statement Kremer makes on page 181 of his book really got to me personally as well as a reader reminding me of the fragile nature of life, a subtle urging to savor the happy memories and events as they can disappear in a flash! Jon Kremer marveled at the irony of remembering and viewing the man on film that also had allowed two young men to play that famous John Lennon Rickenbacker guitar back in 1963 when She Loves You was breaking into the songbook of our lives. Lennon was acting in a film that was a satire on war. The line that got to Kremer while writing the book and remembering the film featuring John Lennon, would be a quote from the script of the movie that would seemingly foreshadow the sad and violent ending of that same man thirteen years later!
What is the cliche? Art Imitates Life?
Thank you Jon, for taking us on this wonderful journey of the sixties and beyond. Highly recommend that you seek out these books, though finding the first edition will be a far more difficult task as it is currently out-of-print! Jon’s wonderful stories make me want to visit Bournemouth one of these days!
Be healthy and be happy!
Buzz
OUR BOOK OF THE WEEK – THE FAB ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR
The Fab One Hundred and Four: The Evolution of The Beatles
The Fab one hundred and Four: The Evolution of The Beatles tells how the four Quarrymen became the Fab Four of John, Paul, George and Ringo.
I didn’t see “How I Won The War” until after John was killed. His line after being shot, “I knew this would happen. You knew this would happen, didn’t you?” was so chilling. There’s also a line in “A Hard Day’s Night” where Norm threatens John with “I’ll murder you!” and there’s something in “Help!” too, in the scene where Foot & Algernon are in their apartment and Foot tries to shoot John with a gun and it misfires. He says “British, you know. Useless. Give me a good German Luger.” (or words to that effect) Art also imitates life in one photo taken July 28, 1968 on their “Mad Day Out” where John is “playing dead” and his glasses are off.
Nancy:
There were many reports that in 1980, John had a sense of foreboding that the end of his life was perceived as being near. “Living on Borrowed Time”
Jack Douglas has never disclosed what John told him towards the end. It upset Jack so much that he supposedly destroyed the tape that John’s comments were on. Listen to the opening line of John’s song “Help Me To Help Myself” and the lyrics to his song “Gone From This Place.”
Wow! Really eerie, those lyrics! I had also read that John had a sense of foreboding. Hadn’t heard about Jack Douglas destroying a tape of John’s comments – must have been really something for him to be upset enough to do that! 🙁