This was the very first colour photo published of John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, taken in those early days, but when was it taken?
When working on my book, “The Fab One Hundred and four: The Evolution of The Beatles” way back in 2011, there was no date to be found. Memories were hazy and all we knew was that it was taken at Paul McCartney’s cousin Ian Harris’ wedding reception, most probably during 1958.
John, Paul, George and Denis
I managed to track down the guy on the right of the photo having a drink, Denis Littler, who was one of Ian Harris’s best friends, remembered the day, jamming with John, Paul and George, but not the date of the wedding.
Find out how I dated the photo in this video:
Get your copy of my book below too:
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.
£49.00Original price was: £49.00.£20.00Current price is: £20.00.
Join David Bedford, one if the authors of The Beatles Fab Four Cities book, as he uses his book to take a walking tour of the famous Beatles locations.
This was the last song recorded for the Revolver album, a John Lennon song with some help from George, and harked back to a strange incident in a rented home in Los Angeles while the Beatles were doing several concerts on the West coast.
LSD and The Byrds
Roger McGuinn and David Crosby of the Byrds were among a bunch of people in the home that day for an LSD party with the Beatles (all except Paul, who abstained). At one point, George Harrison said he was afraid he was dying, and actor Peter Fonda, also present and tripping, did what he could to reassure George that he would be OK. But he also went on at some length about how he had almost died when he was a young boy, and then said, “I know what it’s like to be dead.”
When I Was A Boy
John Lennon heard him and went ballistic; he didn’t want anyone to be talking to his friend about being dead, let alone some guy in sunglasses who he didn’t know. But Fonda’s one-liner proved to be very generative – it stuck with Lennon, who changed “he” to “she” and softened his rage so that early iterations of the lyrics also were more even, more accessible. By the time that George stopped by John’s house one day the next year, John had fragments of more than one song he was working with, including one about childhood innocence (“When I was a boy everything was right”) that George helped him combine into what would that be the final version of “She Said She Said.”
McCartney Opted Out
It may be no coincidence that, as at the party in California, McCartney opted out of this song as well, one of the only Beatles tracks on which he does not appear at all. The song is officially attributed to Lennon/McCartney, but it would have been more accurate to describe it as a Lennon/Harrison piece. McCartney recalled in Many Years from Now,
I think we’d had a barney [a noisy quarrel]…and they [John, George, and Ringo] said, “Well, we’ll do it.” I think George played bass.
George Played Bass
And they did. John sang lead, played rhythm guitar, and added a track on a Hammond organ; George did the harmonies, played a raspy, sitar-like lead guitar, and played the bass guitar track; and Ringo’s drumming was described by Rolling Stone as “spirited.”
No LSD
It would not be much of a stretch, I think, to say that we have been living in a surreal time in 2020 and 2021. No LSD is necessary for us. And we – the collective WE – need to persevere and do something about our major national challenges before (how many more?) people know, quite literally, what it’s like to be dead.
Leslie Cavendish, hairdresser to the Beatles, recalls one of his favourite Paul McCartney stories.
My Grandmother who lived with us said to me when I got home in her thick eastern European accent that “a Paul McCartney” phoned for you. Really? What did you say to him?
“We had a nice little chat and told him that I would pass on the message.”
She wasn’t quite sure who he was so I said to her that he was a member of The Beatles, and she replied, “Oh, when you speak to him tell him he needs a haircut.”
Grandma, you do know that I cut his hair?
Really!
Discover more great stories in Leslie’s fascinating book:
The Cutting Edge (Paperback)
The Beatles’ hair changed the world. As their increasingly wild, untamed manes grew, to the horror of parents everywhere, they set off a cultural revolution as the most tangible symbol of the Sixties’ psychedelic dream of peace, love and playful rebellion. In the midst of this epochal change was Leslie Cavendish, hairdresser to the Beatles and some of the greatest stars of the music and entertainment industry.
The iconic character in the movie Almost Famous notwithstanding, Penny Lane is a place, not a person. Paul wrote this loving tribute to a street in his hometown of Liverpool. In the Barry Miles biography Many Years from Now, McCartney talked about the song and Penny Lane itself:
Childhood Reminiscences
“It was childhood reminiscences: there is a bus stop called Penny Lane. There was a barber shop called Bioletti’s with head shots of the haircuts you can have in the window and I just took it all and arted it up a little bit to make it sound like he was having a picture exhibition in his window. It was all based on real things; there was a bank on the corner so I imagined the banker, it was not a real person, and his slightly dubious habits and the little children laughing at him, and the pouring rain.
“The fire station was a bit of poetic license; there’s a fire station about half a mile down the road, not actually in Penny Lane, but we needed a third verse so we took that and I was very pleased with the line “It’s a clean machine.” I still like that phrase, you occasionally hit a lucky little phrase and it becomes more than a phrase. So the banker helped me with the third verse, as often was the case. We were writing childhood memories: recently faded memories from eight or ten years before, so it was a recent nostalgia, pleasant memories for both of us. All the places were still there, and because we remembered it so clearly we could have gone on.“
Lennon and McCartney
This song and the flip side of the double-A-sided single – “Strawberry Fields Forever” – are an object lesson of Lennon and McCartney at the peak of their creative collaborative powers. And if you would like a true visual and auditory treat to go with today’s Beatles song, scroll 31 minutes into this special show in the East Room of the Barack Obama White House:
Play Elvis Costello’s rendition of “Penny Lane.” And I’ll defy you not to get goosebumps when Master Sergeant Matthew Harding of the Marine Corps Band absolutely nails the piccolo trumpet solo. The entire hour and a half show is all-star performances of some of Paul McCartney’ songs, capped by McCartney himself and his band.
Think of Penny Lane
I’d invite all of you to think of “Penny Lane” as an invitation to pay attention to what is going on in your community. Notice what is happening, what is not happening, who is in need, what you’re willing to do to be involved. These would be important goals for any community, and especially during any challenging time.
Find out more about the songs the Beatles wrote in Tim Hatfield’s great book:
Paul is the rare musical talent, which only comes by once so often. Of course, all Beatles had great musical talents: John’s contribution to contemporary music cannot be overestimated, George wrote beautiful songs, and Ringo was an excellent drummer and even he wrote some nice songs. But even among those musical talents Paul did stand out.
The Day John Met Paul
Already on July 6, 1957, the day when Paul met John, Paul’s musical talent became obvious. That day, the Quarry Men played at a church party at St. Peter’s church in Woolton Liverpool. Paul McCartney was invited by a mutual friend, Ivan Vaughan, to see and meet them. Paul was impressed with John, the singer, who had great presence and clearly was the leader of the band. After some time, he noticed that John was playing banjo chords on his guitar, using only four of the six strings.
Twenty Flight Rock
After the show John and Paul met and started talking music. After a while Paul, being only fifteen years of age, asked whether he could have a go on John’s guitar. He corrected the banjo tuning, turned the guitar upside down, being left-handed, and played Twenty Flight Rock by Eddie Cochran, from the beginning to the end, knowing all the words. None of the Quarry Men could do anything like this.
Throughout The Beatles Years and after that, there are many illustrations of Paul’s special talent. You can find them in …
