Interesting Little Pieces
Did you know that in January of 1964, Issue #6 of The Beatles (Monthly) Book exposed a hoax that claimed Ringo had been killed in a road accident? The article stated that “one nasty piece of work telephoned a national newspaper”1 with the horrible news. The more famous “Paul is Dead” rumors would not even begin to rumble until 1966, so that actually makes Ringo the first Beatle to face death rumors. Or does it? In actuality, the October 5, 1961 issue of Mersey Beat reported a rumor that Stuart Sutcliffe had been killed in an auto accident. But that’s a story for another day.
You very likely know the story of John being born during an air raid. It is the one of the most common examples of misinformation that made it into numerous books but was easily proven to be untrue. Were you aware that a 1984 book entitled, The Beatles, by John Tobler, made the same claim about Ringo? I have not found any other sources that share that information, but one slightly different claim is commonplace in early publications, such as Hunter Davies’ The Beatles, which reads, “Ringo’s mother remembers lying in bed, still recovering from the birth, when she heard the first sirens of the war. The bombing of Liverpool had begun.”2 According to Richard Whittington-Egan in his 1987 The Great Liverpool Blitz, the first three bombs to hit Liverpool arrived on July 28, 1940, three weeks after Ringo’s birth.
But What About Ringo Meeting the Other Beatles?
The earliest report I have found about when Ringo met the other Beatles comes from Issue #1 of The Beatles (Monthly) Book, in August of 1963. Ringo remembered meeting the others at The Jacaranda Club (owned by Allan Williams) and that they were sad because they recently found out that Stu had died. This would place the meeting sometime after April of 1962. Two months later, Issue #3 of the same magazine included a recollection from George that Ringo showed up at an informal gathering of musicians “in the cellar of a Liverpool club”3 sometime after The Beatles had accompanied Johnny Gentle on a Scottish tour. That would place the date sometime soon after May of 1960.
On the other hand, if you look at the books that were published in the first few years after Beatlemania began, you will see a narrative begin to take shape. There are differences in details, but the basic idea is the same: Ringo met The Beatles in Hamburg while the groups were sharing billing at a particular club. That particular club? Well, in some sources it’s The Star Club, but those sources also identify The Star Club as the first venue they played in Hamburg, which is incorrect (it was The Indra). But later books settle in on the location being The Kaiserkeller.
Amusingly, Ringo’s own telling of the story didn’t always stay exactly the same. Unlike the recollection that he had met the others at The Jacaranda in 1962, a quote appears in Barry Miles’ Beatles In Their Own Words that goes as follows: “I remember when I first met the boys in Hamburg…They were living in an empty cinema called The Bambi…I was living at a hotel because I was with a group called The Raving Texans.”4 And just for accuracy’s sake, by the time they played in Hamburg, The Raving Texans had long been known by a different name, somewhat better known to history: Rory Storm and the Hurricanes.
The Lewisohn Version
As you may expect, Mark Lewisohn’s All These Years Volume One, Tune In tells the story in a compelling fashion. First of all, he does believe that Ringo met the others at The Jacaranda, likely in the Spring of 1960, but that there was nothing particularly memorable about the meeting. Further, it was in October of 1960 that Rory Storm and The Hurricanes arrived in Hamburg and began splitting time as the house band with The Beatles at The Kaiserkeller. Lewisohn wrote, “the first Beatle Ringo spent any time with was Stuart…Stuart took him to Chug-Ou [a Chinese restaurant] for Pfannkuchen [pancakes].”5 There are far more stories to tell of the days when the two groups played together, but that will wait for another time.
One Last Funny Bit
Billy Shepherd’s 1964 The True Story of The Beatles contains the following quote from Ringo: “Through the summer of 1961, I’d been at Butlin’s. One night something went wrong and I figured out a crazy scheme. What I was going to do was have a few drinks, then go up to The Beatles and get them drunk and then tell them that I was going to join them. Then kind of throw the ball to them…it shows I was toying with the idea of one day joining up with them – if they’d have me.”6 I have no way of knowing how accurate that quote really is. But I sure do think it would be great if it were true!
As always, thanks for being here and reading. I really do appreciate it. Please leave comments to let me know what you think and to add any relevant information to the discussion. Please follow or subscribe to
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Next week the subject will be art school dances. Stay tuned. Looking forward to that!
- Adamson
Photo: The Jacaranda; Andrew Martin Adamson, 25th June, 2017
Quotes:
1) The Beatles (Monthly) Book No. 6, Jan. 1964 (Beat Publications, Ltd., London), p. 25.
2) The Beatles, by Hunter Davies (W.W. Norton, New York, 2009 ed.), p. 142.
3) The Beatles (Monthly) Book No. 3, October 1963 (Beat Publications Ltd., London), p. 9.
4) Beatles in Their Own Words, compiled by Miles (Omnibus, New York, 1978), p. 20.
5) All These Years, Volume One: Tune In, Special Extended Edition, by Mark Lewisohn (Little, Brown; London; 2013), p. 710.
6) The True Story of The Beatles, Billy Shepherd (Bantam, New York, June 1964), p. 91.