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Early Beatles - Blog Posts
" we sort of conned my way out of hospital so i didn't have to be there for my 15th birthday. we went down to romford, where my stepdad's family lived. his dad was great, and he knew london like the back of his hand. we went walking all over london and saw the sights, the british museum and the searchlight tattoo.
it was a great day out, but it was a bit long for someone who'd just come out of hospital. "
- ringo starr, PHOTOGRAPH (2013)
Rare photos
May 23, 1957. The Liverpool band Eric Clayton's Skiffle Band performs. This is the first shot of Ringo playing the drums (far left).
The photo on July 6, 1957 (the day John met Paul), where Lennon sings standing on an open truck, has become a textbook and is found in many books and websites. And this picture, taken a little later in the day, is not well known to many people.
The bassist and an important member of the early line-up of the band was Stuart Sutcliffe, who unfortunately passed away early. In all his short life, only one color shot of him was taken, this one, where he is captured with singer Tony Sheridan. Stewart is on the right.
Most likely, you don't know who it is. Meanwhile, this man turned the history of world music around. This is Kurt Raymond Jones, the same customer who came into the store and asked for the Beatles record My Bonnie, which is why Brian Epstein first heard about the band, began looking for them and eventually turned into a manager. For a long time it was believed that there was no Raymond Jones. Like, it's just a character invented for the convenience of telling a story. However, here he is!
The only shot where you can see drummer Pete Best, who will later be fired, and Ringo Starr, who will take his place, together.
The Beatles are on the verge of fame performing in Liverpool. As you can see, they have someone else's drum kit, left on stage after the previous band.
Have you ever seen John's mother-in-law? Here she is, the mother of his first wife, Cynthia, next to him.
The only picture where Brian Epstein holds a musical instrument in his hands and seems to extract sounds from it.
This is a giant shoe from the movie "Help!", which was needed to shoot a scene where the Floor shrank in size. As the photo shows, this piece of props later became a decoration in the garden near Lennon's house.
The Beatles in a hippie look ride in an ordinary subway car, and no one recognizes them? How can this be? This is 1967, the picture was taken in Greece, where a harsh political regime reigned at that time and the group was not so well known.
" we sort of conned my way out of hospital so i didn't have to be there for my 15th birthday. we went down to romford, where my stepdad's family lived. his dad was great, and he knew london like the back of his hand. we went walking all over london and saw the sights, the british museum and the searchlight tattoo.
it was a great day out, but it was a bit long for someone who'd just come out of hospital. "
- ringo starr, PHOTOGRAPH (2013)
A style selection, 1956-1969.
A continuation of sorts from this post.
“[George’s] idea, which he ordered [in Liverpool in the 1950s], was a four-button jacket with cloth-covered buttons. Two breast pockets which were slitted (jetted) and in the shape of a bird in flight, the two side pockets corresponded. The cuffs had to be folded back with a cloth-covered button. His trousers had no pleats in the front, not normal in those days, and he was by far the very first person to have two slits at the bottom side seam of the trouser and he wanted them folded back with cloth covered buttons to match the cuffs on his jacket. The workshop queried the order when they received thinking we had gone bonkers. George got his suit and was pleased with the outcome. Later lots of guys were walking about town with cut back cuffs and side seams on their trousers, but George was the first.” - Rollo Torpey, The Beatles and Me (2015)
“At Iris’s 14th birthday party, I remember George turned up in a brand-new, Italian-style stuff with covered buttons. He looked very grown-up.” - Violet Caldwell (mother of Iris, and Alan, a.k.a. Rory Storm), The Beatles Monthly September 1965
“[George’s mother Louise] took an unusually benign view of George’s luminous pink shirts, yellow waistcoat, and drainpipe trousers.” - Pete Shotton, The Beatles, Lennon, And Me (1984)
“Going in for flash clothes, or at least trying to be a bit different, as I hadn’t any money, was part of the rebelling. I never cared for authority. They can’t teach you experience; you’ve got to go through it, by trial and error.” - George Harrison, The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (1968)
“At the Institute, George was known from the beginning as a way-out dresser. Michael McCartney, Paul’s brother, was a year below him. He remembers George always having long hair — years before anybody else did. […] ‘George used to go to school with his school cap sitting high on top of his hair,‘ says Mrs. Harrison. ‘And very tight trousers. Unknown to me, he’d run them up on my machine to make them even tighter. I bought him a brand-new pair once and the first thing he did was tighten them. When his dad found out, he told him to unpick them at once. “I can’t, Dad,” he said. “I’ve cut the pieces off.”’” - The Beatles: The Authorized Biography (1968)
“I’d started to develop my own version of the school uniform. I had some cast-offs from my brother. One was a dog-toothed check-patterned sports coat, which I’d dyed black to use as my school blazer. The color hadn’t quite taken, so it still had a slight check design to it. I had a shirt I’d bought in Lime Street, that I thought was so cool. It was white with pleats down the front. and it had embroidery along the corners of the pleats. I had a waistcoat that John had given me, which he’d got from his ‘uncle’ Dykins (his mother’s boyfriend), Mr. Twitchy Dykins. It was like an evening-suit waistcoat — black, double-breasted, with lapels. The trousers John also gave me, soon after we first met — powder-blue drainpipes with turn-ups. I dyed them black as well. And I had black suede shoes from my brother. […] That outfit of mine was very risky, and it felt like all day, every day, for the last couple of years I was going to get busted. In those days we used Vaseline on our hair to get the rock n’ roll greased-back hairstyle. Also, you were supposed to wear a cap and a tie, and a badge on your blazer. I didn’t have my badge stitched on, I had it loose. It was held in place by a pen clipped over it in my top pocket, so I could remove it easily, and the tie.” - George Harrison, The Beatles Anthology (2000)
“He was always a pretty snappy dresser, and he did always like that waistcoat look. And he used to wear a V-neck Fair Isle jumper. Sometimes he’d be a little too outrageous, like purple trousers with bright green, but it was fine. Everything seemed to be fine then.” - Pattie Boyd, interview for the British Beatles Fan Club
“The boys are wearing all sorts of fantastic clothes for their film and introduce a very new, unusual gimmick. If they’re wearing corduroy, for example, then they have corduroy boots to match. If they’re seen in velveteen suits, then they’re coupled with velveteen boots. George first thought of the idea two years ago, but when he put the idea to a local bootmaker, he told him it couldn’t be done. Well, that’s one cobbler that’s been proved wrong.” - The Beatles Monthly, June 1965 (x)
The Beatles' first pet: George Harrison's vomit. ㅡ From the book "One, Two, Three, Four: The Beatles In Time" by Craig Brown.
Some mcharrison doodles! really missed drawing these guys.
If you don’t undertstand the B7 reference; there’s a story when they were kids in which they took a bus across Liverpool to learn the B7 chord from someone who knew how to play it. So i just drew them happily saying they learn the B7 chord, finally.
