Original subtitles

Believe me, no one had ever seen anything like them before.

The best story ever. And there's something about them that I think speaks

everybody.

Okay, I made that bit up.

I want to know as much as possible.

The more you learn, the more interested you get.

The information is so entertaining.

That's his gift.

Thank you.

to a podcast from the Word.

Our special guest is old friend of the pod, world Beatles expert, Mark Lewis.

Mark, delightful to see you. Thank you, David. Thank you, Mark. Hi, both of you.

So tell us about these shows that you're doing in October.

What I've done is curate a show with short stories all about the year 1962.

You know, I've researched all this stuff. For 40 years, I've been gathering

of the Beatles.

And I've looked in places that no one else has ever been. And I have a

amazing haul of stuff that needs to be seen and needs to be enjoyed by people.

It's my pleasure to put it all into a show and take it around theatres and

it to people. Let people see them, let people enjoy them, and let me tell the

story of The Beatles through the things that I've found.

Fantastic. I want to know, The Beatles' story is so kind of familiar.

As soon as somebody dangles a little bit that's unfamiliar, you go, oh, my

goodness. This changes my perception of this.

What my job is to find as much information and accurate information

happened as possible and I'm surrounded by the fruit of more than 40 years of

that kind of gathering.

I mean I wasn't present at the events but my job is to set down what happened

if I was there just by using the information that was actually set down

time to illuminate.

in the reader's mind exactly what happened and to entertain them and to

them into the heart of the action.

There are very few things in life that can actually give you a proper emotional

lift and I think the Beatles are number one on that list. The sheer joy of the

way they did things, the humour of it, the intelligence of it, the wit of it.

It's just something that still resonates through the decades.

And I can think of nothing better than the Beatles to actually make mankind

a bit better about itself. And we really do need that at the moment. We need the

Beatles. We need the Beatles. We really need the Beatles.

On the hour, every hour.

Exactly.

For me to immerse myself in the Beatles on a daily basis is fantastic.

I've got the best job in the world.

Absolutely. Well, look, we look forward to it, Mark. I'm sure many people look

forward to it.

Thank you very much, David. Thank you very much, Mark. I will see you at the

show. Absolutely.

We'll be there.

Thank you.

We're here to talk about these guys.

The thing is, people tend to think of the Beatles with beards and moustaches,

the kind of post -revolver Beatles, as being the hip Beatles, the Beatles who

really had their act together.

But what I'm here to show you tonight is that they were always like that. You

don't just suddenly become interesting in 1966, 67.

They were always interesting.

They were always different. They were always original. They were always

to stick to what they wanted to do and not be guided by the rules that anybody

else was setting down.

Here they are, John Lennon, Paul McCartney. George Harrison, Pete Best,

Epstein, their manager, and Ringo, who is the beetle in the wings.

Not yet a beetle, but he's going to become one during the year I'm talking

about. How young they are.

John started all this. He's now 21.

Paul is 19. George, 18, always the youngest.

Pete, 20.

Brian, who seems so old compared to the beetles, 27.

And Ringo, 21 years old, about the same age as John.

They live in Liverpool.

Pete lives in the north end. The others all lived in the south end of Liverpool.

And at the beginning of the year, the 1st of January 1962, Ringo is not there.

He's gone off to Hamburg to play in the house band at the Top Ten Club.

And the others are down in London. No expense spared in the animation of this

show, ladies and gentlemen.

Now, why the heck are they down in London? Well, they're down in London to

test for Decca Records. Christmas 1961, the Beatles' new manager, Brian Epstein,

doesn't yet have a contract, but he's utterly devoted to making them

gives each of them this alarm clock with a little card, my little bit, to get

you all on in time because they had a very poor reputation for punctuality.

So he's saying to them, you're going to be more punctual from now on like he

was. But also it's a travel alarm clock because his intent for the Beatles is to

get them beyond the glass ceiling of Liverpool where they're already at the

and make them national stars and maybe even international stars as well. He's

already told them that he thinks they can be bigger than Elvis Presley. And

would have been an extremely unlikely thing to be possible at that time.

So my little bit to get you all on in time, says Brian, and gives them the

clock. And the very first time they use the clock is here at the Royal Hotel on

Woburn Place, just around the corner from here. They spend New Year's Eve

and wake up on New Year's Day 1962 here to this sound.

And I've got to tell you, such are the lengths I've gone to for this show. That

is the actual clock.

Recorded with my phone.

Thank you.

There are no photos of the Beatles at their Decca test, but here they are just

two weeks before. So they look like this in their leathers, which they love to

wear. They've been wearing these for about six months.

George, Pete, Paul, and John in a photo session in Liverpool that Brian Epstein

organized in December 61.

And they come to Decca full of hope, A, because they've already been seen by

Mike Smith, the A &R man. He's seen them in the cavern, likes them, and says, I

just want you to test in the studio to see how you are in those kind of

conditions. And Decca has a talent drive at this very time. They are looking to

sign new British talent. So you'd think, well, there's a gimme. They're going to

sign the Beatles, right? Because the Beatles are clearly very, very good and

original and interesting.

So this is where they are on New Year's Day 1962 when the year begins.

This was the recording studio of the Decca Record Company.

So they parked the van here.

and began to load the gear in, and the uniformed commissionaires were, whoa,

whoa, whoa, lads, round the back.

Paul McCartney told me once what the terrible ignominy of being sent round to

the tradesman's entrance around the back. He never forgot it.

So this is the back entrance of Decca. The Beatles brought their stuff in here,

and they did quite a long test. Fifteen songs were committed to tape, and what

it tells us is that the Beatles were a white -hot band in Liverpool, but for

reason or another, they didn't test particularly well that day. They were

to be not really worthy of being signed.

The story always went down that Decca turned the Beatles down.

And Dick Rowe went to his grave as the man who turned down the Beatles, which

wasn't that untrue in as much as he hadn't wanted to sign them. In fact,

was doing the research for my book, I was stunned to find that they actually

been offered a contract, but on the wrong terms, on terms that Brian Epstein

didn't want to accept. They would have to pay for their own recordings and pay

for pressing, and Brian wanted them to be signed as pucker -decker artists.

So the Decker thing came to nothing and after that there was a lot of head

scratching because, you know, where else are they going to go?

EMI had already turned down the Beatles on the basis of a record that they had

made and so things looked a bit bleak for them.

So the next item is the Mersey Beat newspaper had a poll. Now, Liverpool has

thriving rock and roll scene. It's the only place in the world where groups can

turn professional because there's enough places for them to play to earn a

proper living and they don't need day jobs. And the Beatles are professional.

And it has its own newspaper, that scene, called Mersey Beat.

And it started in July 61. They've got a reader's poll. Who's the best actor

around? And, of course, the Beatles win it. I think they were nervous that they

might not win it, but they did win it because they... were easily the biggest

group in Liverpool in 1961.

And they've got a record out. Now, they're chasing a contract for

but what this is is the British release of a record they made in Germany in 61

with Tony Sheridan, my Bonnie.

And I do a lot of research in local newspapers when I'm writing my books.

the Liverpool Weekly News, which is the local paper for the south end of

Liverpool, I found an article about them at the time of the release of this

record. they are hoping for a hit record it says which is rather sweet for the

very first Beatles piece in a newspaper I think they did end up with a hit

record or two

This is the first management contract between Brian Epstein and the Beatles.

first sees them in November 61 in the cavern. He begins working on their

immediately, but he does need to have a contract with them. And that is his

handwriting on the front there, the date of the contract. And it's between Brian

Epstein, John Winston Lennon, George Harrison, James Paul McCartney, and

Randolph Best.

Alistair Taylor, Brian's assistant, has witnessed all those signatures.

including one that's missing. Brian Epstein never signed his own management

contract with the Beatles. Now, why on earth did he do that? The truth is he

didn't want to tie them down. He was going to give the Beatles his very best

shot, which was extremely impressive, but if he was unable to make them a

success, he was giving them a way out.

most managers will tie their artist their client down to a contract much

rigid in his favor than it is in theirs but brian is deliberately weakening his

own contract with the beatles and in fact he did it in another way as well

because i found this draft of the contract and quite correctly

Because Paul and George and Pete were all under 21, minors in the eyes of the

law, it has the accommodation for their fathers to sign the contract as well,

which was what you had to do.

But this is only the draft of the contract. If we go back...

For the finished contract, the parents have been taken out.

Against the solicitor's advice, Brian has deliberately removed the parents

the contract, making it completely invalid, still giving the Beatles the

impression that they've signed a valid contract, but weakening it so that it's

basically not worth the paper that it's printed on.

This is called needle time.

Probably most people in this room, because most people in life, it seems to

go around saying the BBC was rubbish about playing pop music.

They hardly ever played any pop. And if you wanted to hear it, you'd have to

listen to Radio Luxembourg and eventually from 1964 -65, the pirate

stations. Those people who have ever said that don't know about a thing

needle time.

Now, needle time was a restriction on the BBC allowing them to play a maximum

28 hours of recorded music per week.

which in a seven -day week, and most of them are seven days, is four hours a day

across the home service, the light program, and the classical network, the

program. And they couldn't play anymore because all professional musicians had

to be in the musicians' union.

And the MU said to the record companies, if you allow the BBC to play any more

than four hours of music per day, then we're not going to allow our musicians

to make any records for you. So the record companies had no choice but to

the BBC played only four hours of music a day. And that is why pop music was in

such short supply on the BBC in those days.

Now, the consequence of this was that the BBC did a lot... of live sessions.

They have musicians in the studios.

And so Brian Epstein typed an application for an audition to appear on

Radio. Such a stylish man. This is such an immaculate form with his flourish

signature at the end of it there. And the result was the Beatles had an

at the Playhouse Theatre in Hume, Manchester, and they passed the

So while they're still hoping to get a recording contract, they're broadcasting

on the radio, national radio.

And here they make their debut in a program from Manchester called Here We

with the NDO, the Northern Dance Orchestra.

That's the Beatles on the 8th of March 1962. They are now a broadcasting act.

In their first show, they do this song, among two others, Please, Mr. Postman by

the Marvelettes.

a record from tamla the record label from detroit also known as motown they

didn't know it was a tamla record in britain it was on the fontana label and

didn't mention tamla anywhere but when i was researching my book tune in i

thought i wonder if anybody else before the beatles had ever played a tamla

Motown song, or whether a Tamla record had ever been played on British radio.

So I spent a day peering into microfilm, excruciating work, really hard on the

eyes, going back from March 62, going back through the daily program logs at

BBC archive out in Berkshire, hoping that I wouldn't find it, and indeed I

didn't find any prior example.

So maybe I missed one, but I think it's more likely that the very first exposure

of a Tamla song on British radio British radio was by the Beatles, who wouldn't

have known that at the time, but it's a lovely thing to discover now.

Here are the British A &R men in 1962, the kind of guys who are turning down

Beatles.

The man on the right is the guy who gets all the stick, Dick Rowe.

Also in this picture, third left, the youngest A &R man in London, George

Martin. He's running Parlophone Records.

But these are the guys who are signing acts for teenagers to dance to at youth

clubs and dances and whatever in ballrooms. They clearly have no real

what a teenager wants. Their own personal tastes are rooted decades

They all served in the war. They're old men.

But these are the guys who are setting the... trends if you like or signing

for teenagers to listen to and it just isn't going to work decker did sign

pool and the tremolos instead of the beatles that's brian pool at the front

pair of heavy glasses and he was signed by this man mike smith at decker and

they met in the optician shop and mike smith also signed at this time buddy

britain

Buddy Britton wasn't his real name. He was named after this man, Buddy Holly,

who was dead three years, but still a very popular act in Britain. This is the

cover of Hit Parade magazine from February 1962, so it's right in the

frame. And, of course, everybody knew and liked Hank Marvin, the lead

in The Shadows. So my thinking is that had John Lennon worn his glasses...

At the Beatles' Decca test, then maybe the Beatles would have been offered a

proper contract by Decca.

Though the Beatles didn't sign for Decca, Brian Epstein ended up with the

and he's starting to hawk this around the other record labels in London in the

hope that one of them will sign the Beatles. They can't keep coming down to

tests. This tape is okay.

It's enough with the pictures he's showing them and evidence of how popular

are. And he takes it around the record companies. And what he actually does is

goes and gets an acetate disc struck of the tape or some of the songs on the

tape at his master's voice.

great record shop on Oxford Street here in London.

And here is one of the discs. It's a two -sided record. This surfaced about 10

years ago.

Fantastic artifact.

Hello Little Girl on one side and Till There Was You on the other. And that is

Brian Epstein's handwriting that you see on the labels.

And he's using these and the other songs to try and get them a contract.

In the same building was a music publishing company called Ardmore and

Beachwood, which was owned by EMI, as indeed was the shop. HMV was EMI

And he goes up there and he meets these two people.

Sid Coleman on the left, he runs Ardmore and Beachwood. And the record plugger,

or song plugger, I should say, Kim Bennett on the right. Now, they really

the original songs of Lennon and McCartney that were on that tape. There

three of them.

But Brian said, it's all very well. I mean, I'd like these songs published as

well, but what I really am looking for is a recording contract for my group.

Well, Ardmore and Beachwood didn't have the ability to give them a recording

contract, but they would try and see what they could do, and they began to

agitate within EMI for the Beatles to be given a recording contract so that they

could get the publishing on the songs.

I'm going to come back to these gentlemen later, particularly Kim

this time, Brian Epstein meets George Martin.

He is head of A &R at the EMI. my record label Parlophone but George Martin

doesn't like what he hears of the Beatles on their Decca test he passes on

and he drops out of the story now for about three months later on he's going

re -enter the story in dramatic circumstances but for now he's not

and that seems to be the end of that Now, we've been talking about all the

others. What about Ringo? Haven't really talked about him yet. As we saw at the

beginning, he went off to play at the Top Ten Club in Hamburg, and he's got

himself a German phrasebook and written his name on the inside.

Handy for chatting up girls, no doubt. I'm ordering a drink at the bar.

It's a good life as a musician in Hamburg, and there he is, behind Tony

Sheridan, Colin Melander, and Roy Young, proper pro musicians.

The thing about Ringo that was consistent from 1957 on, onwards was

best musicians always wanted him as their drummer he was always in the

one group that was around these guys have been on television they've made

records and they want ringo and he's there for the duration he's there it's

open -ended engagement he's not planning to come back anytime soon he's an

adventurer he's just going to stay out there and see where the next opportunity

might arise but then suddenly he comes back to liverpool now why is that

Two reasons.

One,

his beloved grandmother Annie Starkey died suddenly in February 1962.

She had been a key part of his upbringing, Ringo. In particular, he

the voodoo queen of Liverpool because, amongst other things, she had cured him

of his natural left -handedness. He was born left -handed, but she said that

anyone left -handed had been possessed by the devil.

and forced him into being right -handed.

But though right -handed, he always led with his left and played on a right

-handed kit, which gave him a particularly unusual style. He called it

lope. It meant he always started in a very unusual place when he was drumming.

So that was one of the key parts of why Ringo was such an interesting drummer.

So she has died, and Ringo is in Hamburg and is very upset.

And also at the very same time, there was a catastrophic flood in northern

Germany which killed 343 people in Hamburg alone.

And there were power cuts.

They didn't know where they would be resuming work.

So Ringo just said, I think I'll go back to Liverpool.

So when the Beatles come looking for him, he's not in Hamburg. He's back in

Liverpool. Arguably, had those events not occurred, he would have still been

Hamburg and not available to the Beatles.

So we're outside what was a tailoring shop called Ben O'Dawn in Grange Road

in Birkenhead, and the Beatles came here to get their first suits.

So one of the myths of the Beatles' story, which perpetuates to this day,

though I'm trying to prevent it, is that Brian Epstein, their new manager, took

these rough -and -ready young guys in their leathers and sanitised them by

putting them into smart suits.

In reality, he was much smarter than that. What he said to them was...

Dressed as you are, I can get you these bookings, but if you really want to get

a recording contract, if you really want to get on television, if you really

want to get on the radio and if you really want to play better places, you

to look smarter.

So the consequence was they decided that they had better smartened themselves

up. And with his recommendation, they came here in Birkenhead to Ben O'Dawn.

This was the famous man. He was actually quite a local celebrity, Ben O'Dawn,

the master tailor.

And they had a gentleman's suit handmade and these were the suits that he made.

And in fact, the Beatles designed them. That's how much of a myth it is that

Brian tidied them up.

Because given the opportunity to create something to wear, they actually

designed these suits themselves.

And these lovely pictures resulted.

That's what...

The suits look like on the inside with the label.

And I like this picture. This is about March 1962 and this is, I think, July.

Paul and George at the microphone.

This is them in leathers and this is them in suits. They still look

It's like they haven't lost anything.

And no fan of the Beatles who was a fan then quit because they were wearing

something smarter.

It's all been turned into a bigger story than it needs to be.

But the number one thing is that they wanted these clothes.

Now I'm going to talk about the very famous musician Paul James.

You know Paul James who wrote the song Yesterday, rumoured to be dead for a

while, released the albums James, James 2 and James 3, and that best -selling

book last year of Paul James, The Lyrics.

Why am I talking about Paul James? The thing is, in 1962, Paul McCartney

considered changing his name from McCartney.

to james he thought about it for a while and it's never been mentioned since i

you don't read about this anywhere paul never talks about it nobody ever asks

him about it but i was doing an interview with him in 1991 and i'm going

you a little bit of it in which he revealed that actually in 1962 he very

changed his name so here is paul telling us about it when it came to the beatles

i remember being in the back of Brian Epstein Zodiac, his big posh car, Ford,

and talking about whether Paul McCartney was the sort of right name.

And he sort of felt it was a bit of a mouthful.

And I did too. I sort of thought, well, you know, how's anyone ever going to

remember that? People didn't remember it particularly at school ever.

And so I was going to become Paul James.

That was the next thing. I thought, James, Paul, Paul James.

That's kind of good.

But then, I don't know, we then just sort of thought, nah, you know what?

And luckily we said, nah, you know, let them remember our names.

Which is good now because McCartney is a sort of standout name now that adds

with Lennon, you know.

There's no two Lennons.

You don't get confused with all McCartney.

Extraordinary to think that he might have been Paul James.

And very good that he didn't because what a wise decision he made in the end

there to stick to McCartney. Even though, as he said, when he was at

wasn't a name that was remembered much. How about that?

because apart from when they get Ringo, he's got a stage name, Ringo, sorry, not

his real name. They kept their names, and when they eventually make their

breakthrough, that makes them so much more identifiable with, because they're

just like, genuinely, they're like boys next door. They've got real names, and

that was a crucial thing. That was a moment when popular music tilted right

there, when Paul McCartney decided to keep McCartney and not be Paul James.

This is one of the rarest beetles artefacts in the world.

A unique item.

It's an advance against wages to a Margaret Ann Reid who worked for Sid and

Simpsons, the shoe company in Southport. Now, why am I saying that that is one

of the rarest beetles items in the world? The reason is that on the reverse

side...

is a set of Beatles autographs that she obtained at the Kingsway Club in

Southport on, and she's dated it, March 26th, 1962.

What makes this set of autographs so special?

It's the first ever set of John Paul George and Ringo.

Now, Ringo wasn't yet a Beatle. Well, he was between gigs. He was soon to rejoin

Rory Storm, but at the moment he's just kind of hanging around Liverpool.

And this was an occasion, the 26th of March, when...

Pete Best couldn't play and they reached out to Ringo and said, will you sit in?

And so later in the evening when this Margaret Ann Reid fished this piece of

paper out of her handbag and said, will you sign this?

They all signed it and that includes Ringo.

And I particularly like Ringo's signature actually because I think it

2008 he decided that he'd had enough of signing. He'd been signing for like

nearly 50 years and I don't want to do any more signing.

But at this time, he was only too keen to sign.

And you can see there was quite an elaborate autograph.

Lots of luck.

Ringo Starr.

Then he's underlined his name and put VCL for vocal and drums and underlined

that. And then a star because he's Ringo Starr. And then a little kiss as well.

And I rather fancy that the other Beatles are standing there watching him

this, thinking, how long are you going to take over this autograph? But he was

very particular.

over making sure that he got it right. So this is a really special piece of

paper, because over the years they would sign tens of thousands of autographs,

but there had to be a first, and this is the one.

This is the Punch and Judy Cafe at Lime Street Station in Liverpool.

Brian Edgstein is...

hawking the Beatles tape around the London record companies, going down to

London on the train and coming back late evenings. And Brian returns time after

time with a long face and no contract. And they're waiting for him in the Punch

and Judy cafe.

And he always comes back, sorry boys, I'm afraid I couldn't find anyone to be

interested in you.

Now let's have a reminder.

The Beatles are topping the poll in a newspaper.

that is published in a scene in Liverpool that is so thriving. It's got

publication. They've got their own fan club. Sometimes they play up to 5 ,000

people a night, especially when they're playing over in New Brighton at the huge

Tower Ballroom.

They've got something going here, and yet Brian Epstein can't get anybody

interested in London to take them.

So let's have a look at the labels who turned down the Beatles and who else

signed. Top left corner, Phillips.

record label, did not sign the Beatles, but did sign the Canadian wrestler

Frankie Townsend.

They also signed a middle -aged London housewife called Mary May.

Aureole didn't sign the Beatles, but did sign a builder's labourer and renamed

him Brett Ansell.

Decker didn't sign the Beatles but signed a house decorator, Vern Brandon.

EMI's Columbia label didn't sign the Beatles but did sign Welsh council

draftsman, Peter Harvey, and a 15 -year -old schoolboy called Ian Vince.

And EMI's HMV label didn't sign the Beatles but did sign a 10 -year -old

schoolboy called Stephen Sinclair. What on earth?

are these A &R men at British record companies doing? Why are they signing

people and not the Beatles?

These people, they're not even professional singers.

They've all got other jobs. You notice they're draftsmen and engineers and

decorators and a wrestler, for goodness sake.

But they're not signing a group that's got a fan club and is winning polls and

is playing every night and they look smart and they're very engaging, they're

very charismatic and they write their own music.

The Beatles have got the whole lot and these guys are signing wrestlers and

house decorators.

It is really quite extraordinary and a real insight into the way the business

was structured and what the Beatles were fighting against and what eventually

they swept away completely once they became successful.

And the other thing they're saying to Brian Eckstein is, you'll never make it

from Liverpool.

You'll have to come down to London first because no one is ever made in

Liverpool. You have to go to London and change the name Beatles because Beatles

is a horrible word. No one's going to like it. No one will sign you if you're

called Beatles.

So Brian is coming back to Liverpool and he's telling John Paul and George and

they're going, we're not changing our name and we're not going to leave

Liverpool. We're going to make it from Liverpool.

They dug their heels in. They knew who they were. They knew what they wanted.

They weren't going to conform to other people's stupid rules they were always

going to do things their way or they weren't going to do them at all which is

key part of who they were well the place the Beatles played more than any other

in 1962 in 1961 as well was the Cavern Club in Liverpool it's now

a tourist mecca This, however, is the setting as it originally was. This is

Matthew Street in Liverpool.

Much quieter. It's full of fruit warehouses and the fruit exchange market

itself. So just basically full of crates and the smell there is of fruit and

vegetables. The Beatles played the cavern about 300 times.

But there were some standouts in those 300.

And this is certainly one of the standout nights. This is the 5th of

The cavern was closed on a Thursday night.

So Brian rented it as a private let in order to host an evening of the Beatles

for their fans.

I really like this handbill because Brian Epstein was a very stylish man.

And the Beatles were a very stylish group.

And the combination...

set them head and shoulders above everybody else. What a beautiful piece

artwork this is. Very modern then. I think it still looks modern today.

He was organising this event in order to make a special unveiling and also to

recruit new members of the fan club. So everyone who came into the cavern that

night automatically received free membership of the fan club.

And that meant that they had to be processed at the door.

with their particulars taken so they could become enrolled as members.

And it was a matter of all hands to the pump to try and get everybody in as

quickly as possible.

And this card here is actually Brian Epstein's own handwriting.

So he's down on the door as well, helping to get people into the club.

Now, in the first half of the show, the Beatles played as they always had done,

in the leather clothes.

And they looked like this. And this is how the fans knew them and loved them.

But an announcement was made that after the interval, the Beatles would be

coming out in something different.

And indeed they did, because they came out in Father Christmas costumes.

Of course, I mean, it was April, after all.

But then they went back in and changed yet again, and this time they came out

their suits.

The suits that they had made at Ben O'Dawn's, the tailoring shop in

And Pete Best came to the front, which he did very seldom, and sang Peppermint

Twist.

And Paul McCartney went on drums and a girl called Lou Steen took these

incredible photographs that night.

Paul McCartney on drums there.

Look at the joy on Paul McCartney's face. This has to be, I would think, one

the great nights of his life to this point.

What is he? He's not yet 20 years old and he's on drums. They've got their fan

club. They've got their manager. Things are really on the up for them. And it's

captured in Lou Steen's evocative photographs of that night.

And now they're in suits.

And this is how they're going to look from now on. And that was it. They had

made that transformation.

The man on the right is Stuart Sutcliffe, who had been a Beatle until

previous June, June 1961.

This picture was taken in February 1962 at a Hamburg art school party.

He's with his girlfriend Astrid Kircher and her friend, her former boyfriend,

Klaus Vorman.

You can tell it's an art school event because they're dressed in some kind of

fancy way. Klaus didn't usually go around with ruffles.

But look how cool Stuart is. A young man in 1962. This was really adventurous.

He looks more like he's in the new romantic movement down Billy's nightclub

Soho in 1979 -80 than a young man in Hamburg from Liverpool in

1962. And he and Astrid are very devoted to one another. He wrote this lovely

note to her. He stayed in Hamburg to be with her. And everything is going well.

His painting is going brilliantly, except that he's beginning to suffer.

some very violent headaches.

And in April 1962, with the Beatles just about to arrive for their season at the

Star Club, Stuart dies of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 21.

This is the grave of Stuart Sutcliffe together with both his parents, Charles

and Millie.

and his sister Pauline, and there's one sister left now.

And he had left the Beatles in 1961. He was no longer in the band.

But nonetheless, they were close to him, and he was close to them.

But for him to die at the age of 21 in Hamburg, just before they got there for

their third visit, the first at the Star Club, was really an appalling event.

Within ten months of his death, they were number one on the charts.

and on their way to becoming the phenomenon that they were and still are,

missed it all.

And, you know, he probably would have been part of it in some way.

His picture's on the cover of the Sgt Pepper album, and his influence was with

them always, but he missed it.

Very sad thing.

Astrid took this photograph of John Lennon.

standing in the exact place where his close friend Stuart was standing only a

few weeks earlier. And she also took this picture of George with John in the

same spot.

And as Astrid said to me, though George is two and a half years younger than

John, John is so broken by Stuart's death that it's like George is the older

brother going to be taking care of him. The half -shadow look.

And you see it again in these pictures, taken that same visit that same day.

What a compellingly honest photograph of John Lennon that is.

How he's allowed himself to be seen by the camera grieving for his friend.

And George, the character packed into his face. He's 19 years old, but just

at George. He's old before his time.

What fantastic photos Astrid took. And it made them enamored of the half

look. And that's why they wanted Robert Freeman to take the half -shadow

pictures for the With the Beatles album cover.

This is a tube of preludin, which were slimming pills for women made in

They were known as preludes by the musicians who played the nightclubs and

bars in Hamburg, the Beatles included, because it was realised that they're

an amphetamine.

And with the very long hours that the Beatles and the other groups had to play

there, they would be offered these little pills just to make sure they

fall asleep on stage.

And this, actually, you can see the tube matches a photograph of the Beatles.

This is a Prellis photo.

Probably the only picture that overtly ties the Beatles to drugs, if you can

call a slimming pure drugs. But it is an amphetamine of a kind.

Pete Best in the picture.

fully engaged with it, but actually he didn't take the drugs. He was a beer

drinker only.

Paul, he's well engaged in it too, but he would only take them occasionally.

The biggest drug takers in the Beatles were usually George and John, and I

you can see they probably had some prelis, John especially.

So this is a great photograph of the Beatles at the Star Club in Hamburg in

spring of 1962 with the prelis that they were taking.

Now, you know about Bob Dylan turning the Beatles onto marijuana in New York

August 1964, that famous story, which is completely true, but actually a couple

of them had smoked a joint before, not in New York, in Southport.

Instead, the drummer in another group on the bill in February 62 had a joint and

they shared it in the dressing room before they went on. Two of them, George

and, and very likely John, I would say, but we don't know for absolute sure. So

here is where they first smoked pot, not with Bob Dylan in New York, but there

on the wintry, windswept, wet promenade in Southport, Lancashire.

In May 1962, Brian Epstein gets a phone call, come down to EMI because there's

going to be some good news. So he writes to Neil Aspinall. He's the Beatles'

indispensable road manager and says, you'll be interested to hear I'm going

London this week to see EMI and very sincerely hope that when I see you on

Friday, I'll have good news, which means he knows something good is going to

happen. He doesn't know why they're suddenly being offered a contract, but

not going to argue it. Thank you very much. We've been looking for a contract.

track will take it and it is with emi who are the greatest recording

organization in the world and this letter typed on the

very day the 9th of may i'm writing this note to you a few minutes before going

for the london train i've typed this note in mr brian's absence which is why

hasn't signed it so the letter was typed while brian was heading for lime street

station got the train to London, came here to EMI Studios, and George Martin

said, I want to sign your boys, the Beatles.

And Brian left this building on the 9th of May, absolutely thrilled to bits that

they had finally landed what they'd been waiting for.

Having left the studios that day, having met George Martin, Brian Epstein needed

to get the good news for the Beatles as soon as possible. So they were in

Hamburg at the time, playing at the Star Club, and Brian came to a post office

that was here.

No longer a post office, now a cafe, but here he came the 9th of May 1962 to

transmit the great news to the Beatles.

They now had a Parlophone recording contract.

And he sent a second telegram here that afternoon to Mersey Beat newspaper in

Liverpool. And I have a facsimile of that here.

Have secured contract for Beatles to recorded for EMI on Parlophone label.

First recording date set for June 6th. Brian Epstein.

An historic document.

Because the Beatles now had a recording contract. In Hamburg, they had one that

said, please rehearse new material.

So there they were in Hamburg knowing that finally they were going to be

the chance to make their first record.

George Martin and his secretary complete this form. It's an application for a

contract to be drafted. And the name on the contract is Beatles.

Beatles with two Ts.

And it was a four -year contract, renewable by EMI, by Parlophone, if they

wanted to. They had to record a minimum of six songs in the first year, and they

would be paid a penny per double -sided record on 90 % of the records. A

standard contract in those days.

People who like to be wise after the event say the Beatles' record contract

a feeble one. Well, it was fairly feeble, but it was standard.

And there was no way that Brian Epstein had any strength in this negotiation to

say, I demand that we hold out for Tuppence's record.

Because it was just a complete stroke of luck that they were being signed at

all. But that's how fate is.

So the contract arrives, Brian Epstein's office, he takes a fountain pen and

crosses out the T and makes it Beatles again and signs the last page and at

now the Beatles have a proper recording contract with George Martin and

Parlophone Records.

So this is a little collection of records that I put together over the

that are just some of the records made by George Martin before he met the

Beatles.

And it's a measure of how prolific he was as a producer, how much experience

had, that when he met the Beatles and they were beginning to find their feet

the studio, he was the perfect producer because he had so much experience under

his belt.

This is George Martin's first number one hit, You're Driving Me Crazy by the

Temperance Seven, during 1961.

kind of 1920s style jazz, where the lead singer Paul McDowell sang through a

megaphone. This one here,

Time Beat by Ray Cathode, obviously a pseudonym. Ray Cathode is actually

Martin, and Time Beat was made with the cooperation of the BBC Radiophonic

Workshop. And it's kind of like an early version of electronic music. In fact,

the headline in the New Musical Express to describe it was Electronic Sounds.

which ended up being a George Harrison album title some years later.

Many of these records are innovative.

He was still young, which was to his advantage.

A lot of the A &R men in London were older, but he was a rebel. He was a

renegade. If he had an interesting, quirky talent in the studio, he would

his own talents to the table, and together they could make great music.

And therefore, he was the perfect man to work with the Beatles.

Here's another example of how incredibly fortunate we are to have Ringo as a

Beatle and how fortunate Ringo was to become a Beatle. This is a telegram to

him.

from Roy Young, who was with him in the house band at the Top Ten Club. Now, the

Star Club has opened in Hamburg. It's immediately taken over as the go -to

This often happens.

And there's now a house band in the Star Club. Again, Tony Sheridan. Again, Roy

Young. And they want Ringo back.

We'll pay you 400 German marks, which was about £34 a week, from 1 June 1962

13 April 1963.

Please come by aeroplane.

we pay the fare.

I'm sure Ringo would have grabbed this with both hands had he had the

opportunity, but it arrived in late May, and Ringo was committed to spending the

summer with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, the Liverpool group who had

playing at Butlin's holiday camp in Skegness.

So had this arrived a few days earlier, Ringo might have said yes, but instead

he replies, signed contract, sorry, Ringo.

Contract misspelled because Ringo had missed so much education.

Had a very sick childhood.

Not a stupid man by any means, but he had missed a lot of school.

But that again, how lucky he was to have missed this. Because if he had gone, he

would have been in Hamburg until April 1963.

The Beatles come and get him in August of 62.

He wouldn't have been in England.

So his own life pattern was shaped by the fact that Roy Young...

didn't send the telegram until the end of May, and it was too late. He couldn't

do it.

Instead, he's at Butlins in Skeggy with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes.

And if you think he looks bored and miserable in this picture,

then you're probably right because he was. Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, they

were a good -time show band, kicking their legs up in the air, as you can

Good fun, good laughs, but they're never really going to make it. They're no

challenge for Ringo, and he's going to leave them again when he can.

He doesn't yet know when, but he's going to.

This is the famous Abbey Road zebra crossing, and for more than half a

now people have come here from all over the world to have their pictures taken.

But in June 1962, when the Beatles first came to the recording studios over

there, they were absolutely unknown.

They drove their van into the parking lot at the front there, unloaded, and

a fairly substandard session.

They hadn't done well at Decca, and now again here at EMI they weren't doing a

particularly good session.

In particular...

George Martin, the producer, was unhappy with the performance of their drummer.

And I have this letter from the archives of 1965, so three years later, in which

George Martin set down his thoughts.

I told Mr Epstein at this time that I was not satisfied with the performance

their drummer, Mr Peter Best, and as far as my recordings were concerned, I

would prefer not to use him on the actual record, but that I would use a

drummer.

I do remember that at this time, Peter Best did seem to be an odd man out.

And while the other three were very unified in their performance and

he did not seem to be a true part of the group.

Well, the Beatles hadn't been that satisfied with Pete for a long time, but

George Martin's opinion there really did set the seal on his time with the

Beatles. And within a couple of months of their visit here to EMI, Pete was

This is Paul McCartney's first car and it's parked outside his house, a council

house in Forthland Road, Liverpool.

Only the second car parked on that road at that time.

So the neighbours would have been looking out of the window and thinking,

car is that? It belongs to that 20 -year -old boy in that house. And that's a

measure of how well the Beatles were doing under Brian Epstein's management.

Even before they were nationally famous, they had the money to buy cars.

in a street where pretty much nobody else had one and he buys it from a

in liverpool called blake's on hardman street and it had a delicious moment as

he was reversing it off the forecourt to drive it home he and george had both

been students at the liverpool institute high school where the headmaster who

was known by all the boys as the baz probably short for something

He was the kind of headmaster, really stern British school headmaster of the

school. Many of you will know what that means. I do.

And he decried any boy a failure who didn't...

graduate the school with A -levels and go on to university.

Well, Paul had done quite well at school. George had been a complete

But at the very moment when Paul is reversing his car off the forecourt,

bought it, there is the badge standing right there.

And Paul, like, winds down the window and says, do you like my car?

So in the late spring, early summer of 1962, George Harrison, though only 19,

had a car.

And one day he came to this place, Allerton Golf Course, with Paul

Paul's brother Mike and John Lennon.

And he parked his car, give or take a yard or two, about here.

Mike McCartney took this picture.

This advert appeared in Mersey Beat newspaper. It only ran in the one issue.

Like George Harrison of the Beatles, you can become the proud owner of a first

-class car.

Contact Hawthorne Engineering Company of Warrington. It must have been a deal.

You must have got some kind of discount on the price.

So George ended up with a Ferrari and Mercedes and ultimately even a McLaren.

But began with this rather sweet, humble Ford Anglia. That even comes with four

months guarantee.

Yeah, four months written guarantee. I like the fact that it's a written

guarantee.

Now we've seen all the reasons why Pete is going to have to go.

People told me when I was writing Tune In that common for Pete to keep his head

down.

and didn't look up very much. And that's really annoying if you're in a band.

John Paul and George on the front line, they turn around, they want to make eye

contact with their drummer to say one more verse or whatever it might be, and

they can't do it because he's not looking at them. Really frustrating.

He's going to have to go.

And Brian is given the job of getting rid of him.

The problem is they've got their Parlophone contract, the EMI one with

Martin. So it's going to be a bit problematic. How will they ease him out

without actually being in default of the contract?

And so Brian discussed it with his solicitor, David Harris, at whose house

found these documents.

And they don't want to refer to Pete by name because it might get out that

they're going to make this change. So they call Pete the undesirable member.

And the solicitor says, basically, you've got no power under the agreement

get rid of him. And then he adds, however, if the other members were

that he should go, then there will be nothing to stop them dissolving the

as it were expelling him and thereafter entering into a new agreement with you

as their manager. So what he's advocating is that you could split the

up, get rid of Pete, take on somebody else, Ringo it's going to be, and then

reform the group.

He doesn't want to get into it like this, but he's now, as their manager,

to do this tricky thing and taking advice.

How is he going to do it? But it's definitely going to happen.

What?

What a crazy week that the Beatles have now, beginning on the 16th of August,

the Thursday when Pete Best is finally removed from the Beatles.

Now, he said that it was never told to him why he was being sacked, but it was

actually. I found this file note of a conversation between Brian and his

solicitor in which it says quite specifically, he said the best fully

appreciated why he was asked to leave and told that he was not up to the

required standards.

Pete, to this day, still says he doesn't know why he was fired. They told me I

wasn't a good enough drummer, but I don't know why I was fired.

But that is actually the reason.

And I don't say that with any disrespect to Pete, and it's perfectly okay that

he wasn't good enough as they saw it, John Paul and George. They got the right

to want another drummer in their group, and actually that's really all it is.

But Brian is the one who has to do the deed, and it's really a very difficult

situation for Brian. He didn't expect to be doing anything like this when he

offered to become their manager.

But there it is. And that afternoon, he dictates a letter to his solicitor

setting out the terms for a new contract that must be drawn up with Richard

Starkey as the Beatles' new member. And this time, we're going to do it

properly. We're going to make sure that the parents of the miners, that's Paul

and George, both still under 21, that they're actually accounted for in the

contract. A slightly shaky...

Pictures, I'm afraid to say. This was one of my espionage moments as a

researcher.

I had about five seconds to take these pictures before I was caught, so I

quite get them in focus. But it needed to be done. A very important and a very

valuable letter.

Now, Brian, when he was the Beatles' manager, not only gave the Beatles the

benefit of his expertise, but also his staff.

And he ran a very efficient office, but they weren't 100 % efficient. And

unfortunately, that afternoon, Brian's assistant, Olive, sent Pete Best a list

of the Beatles' coming engagements for the next two months.

So that would have been an unfortunate moment when he opened that letter.

The one good thing about Pete best sacking is that Neil Aspinall stayed.

only knew Neil through Pete.

He was Pete's friend. They hoped very much that while sacking Pete, they could

keep Neil, and that is exactly what happened.

Neil stayed with them. He was unhappy with what they had done to his mate

though he did actually understand it.

And he said to Pete, you know what, I'm actually going to stay with these guys.

And stay he did. He became the Beatles' indispensable right -hand man, running

their lives until 2007.

I got to know him very well and liked him a lot.

Neil was a great guy. So that was a happy outcome of Pete's dismissal that

stayed.

Port Sunlight, over the water from Liverpool, over the River Mersey. It's

the workers of the Lever Brothers soap factory could live and work.

A self -contained village with the factory at one end and all the houses

workers dotted throughout the village. It had this great, still has a great

place called Hume Hall, where they had dancers and things. And the Beatles

played there four times.

on saturday the 18th of august 1962 the beatles played at hume hall their first

gig with ringo as a permanent member of the band for the horticultural society

dance the horticultural show so the room was full of flowers in bloom it was an

early flower power beatles show

Flowers and cigarettes would have been the smell in the Hume Hall that night.

And this is the night when really John, Paul, George and Ringo are the Beatles

and it all happens in Port Sunlight. And none other than Neil Aspinall himself,

Pete's friend.

said to me they had a succession of drummers through the years and finally

they found one who integrated someone who fitted until this point it was

John Paul George and a drummer and now it was John Paul George and Ringo and

that's Pete's mate saying it so I think you've got the truth of it there one

more thing about Saturday 18th of August 1962 Liverpool are back in the top

flight of British football for the first time in several years they've got a new

manager called Bill Shankly

And the period of their domination is starting. So what a date in Liverpool's

history, the 18th of August, 1962, Liverpool back in the top flight of

and John Paul, George and Ringo now established as the Beatles' line -up.

Now, on the Sunday, the Beatles are playing the Cavern. Now, the Beatles

told anybody why they got rid of Pete Best, because they felt...

that it would be unfair on him. He was a drummer. He was hoping to drum with

another group, I'm sure.

And therefore, if they go around saying that we thought he was crap, then that

wouldn't be very good for him. But because they don't say anything, that

a vacuum for all the fans, particularly those in the cavern, to wonder why they

had fired him. And this is when the nonsense rumors begin.

This is the kind of thing that they were saying.

It was pure jealousy.

It was because he didn't fit in and never went around with them. I heard it

because Pete never smiled.

It was because he wouldn't change his hairstyle into the beautiful fringe.

It was because John had a row with him. It was because they wanted to be free of

Pete's mom. It was Brian Epstein interfering.

Paul was jealous because Pete was so good looking.

Pete was so good looking.

But all this is nonsense. But these rumors are around to the present day.

are still people in Liverpool who say they should never have sacked Pete

Paul was jealous of him because he got all the girls and all that nonsense.

It was just nothing more than the front line of a band wanted to change their

drama and it happens all the time. But because they did Pete the favor of not

bad -mouthing him, all these rumors started and they still linger to this

And there was also this campaign, Pete forever, Ringo never.

It didn't last very long. You read in books about riots in Liverpool.

I really don't think that was the case.

But nonetheless, it was a vociferous few who didn't want change, who liked Pete.

But it was a bit like with the suits.

Nobody left. Nobody walked out on the Beatles because they had changed their

drummer. They just stayed with them and accepted the new one.

That same week, on the 22nd, which was a Wednesday, the lunchtime session, a TV

crew came into the cavern for the very first time, advertising the Liverpool

Echo. Granada TV cameras will be filming the Beatles. Now, this film wasn't seen

at the time, but thank goodness Granada came in and did it. Leslie Woodhead and

his crew came in and got the Beatles, the only bit of film of them in the

cavern. The song that they did was Some Other Guy, and what a great piece of

film that is.

Someone's a guy now, taking my love away from me, oh now, someone's a guy now.

Taking away my secret bottle now, someone's a guy now, just don't wanna

my heart no more.

I'm alone, alone, alone.

God, how lucky were the fans in the cavern. They would have that at

and two or three evenings a week. Imagine coming out of your office or the

where you're working and going down, paying a shilling to go and see the

Beatles, do that at lunchtime.

And how different they are to Cliff Richard and Adam Faith and Billy Fury

all that lot.

They are so tame by comparison. You can see why, when we all get to see and hear

the Beatles, why we all want them and want more of them, because they are so

dynamic, so extraordinary on stage, so powerful as well.

So that was the 22nd. On the 23rd of August, John gets married. This is all

week.

So I'm at 64 Mount Pleasant in the centre of Liverpool.

On August 23rd, 1962, John Lennon came here to be married.

He was marrying his art school girlfriend, Cynthia Powell, who was a

months pregnant by this point, in the club, as they used to say.

And he did what men did in those days, which was make an honest womb of her, to

quote his own writing. But they tried to keep it as discreet as possible

because... the beaters were building a fan following and the the mentality of

that era was that you shouldn't be married if you were trying to become

as a pop star there was someone out here with a pneumatic drill digging up the

pavement so they could barely hear a word the registrar was saying paul

mccartney was one of the witnesses to the wedding and brian epstein was the

man came out of here Walked down the hill into town for a quiet wedding

John had a gig with the Beatles that night, but he was now a married man.

And Paul, George and Brian give John this wedding present.

Unusually for a wedding present, it's a kind of travel kit.

So here's what you do when you're going to leave your wife and come out on the

road with us.

But this was given very good service by John through the years. And in fact, the

shaving bowl that you see in the bottom right there was taken on tour.

All the Beatles tours, including America, they used that as an ashtray.

So many a joint was stubbed out in that in later years.

And finally, in this eventful week, George is nutted in the cavern on the

by a local lad called Denny Flynn.

But George believed, and Ringo did too, that actually he got that black eye from

someone who was upset about Pete Best being fired and Ringo joining the

And that gave George and Ringo yet another bond in their very close

that they had, that they've already had.

As Ringo said to George, you took a black eye for me. Thank you very much.

So that's George's black eye. What a week that was.

Every week, Brian Epstein would give the Beatles two sets of papers. One was a

pay slip for the money that they had received, that they had earned, and also

give them instructions for where they needed to go in the week to come.

This is a remittance advice for the week ending September 7th, 1962.

Each of the Beatles received one of these.

It showed the group income, it showed the group expenses, and then any

expenses incurred by that member of the Beatles.

And it would all be calculated down to the last penny.

And at the bottom was the net sum, £26 .07 .11.

In this instance, given to Paul McCartney in cash.

At this time...

Someone would go up to the office on a Friday and collect these pieces of paper

and the money, which would be in a little seal -easy envelope as if they

being paid by the factory or wherever they might be working.

But as their earnings increased, Brian encouraged them each to open a bank

account and would deposit most of the money in the bank account and just give

them some spending cash.

So Brian Epstein really was a scrupulously fair man. They could see

accounted for.

the other document he would give them would be something like this this is for

the week beginning september the 23rd 1962 where they would be playing in the

week to come and any instructions pertinent to those engagements so

this you're doing two 45 minute sets The people here work really hard to make a

good impression on them, whatever it might be that would be useful knowledge

them when they went to play the gig.

Brian came along and put it all down on paper and they knew they could actually

see the road ahead.

and Brian also promised the Beatles that he would break them out of Liverpool

and get them elsewhere and in the year of 1962 he got the Beatles playing in

these places as well so they're no longer in Liverpool seven nights a week

they're now driving all over England and what they're doing is lighting fires

everywhere they go and in 1963 all these fires join up into one huge

conflagration

And that is the breaking of the Beatles. But they're dropping into all these

towns all over the country now and taking everybody by complete surprise

because, believe me, no one had ever seen anything like them before.

So incredible breath of fresh air that they were.

And Brian also registered the name Beatles under the Business Names

Act of 1916.

And he registered the name for them, not for himself. So this now is registered

to John, Paul, George and Ringo. And it means that nobody else can use their

name. It belongs solely to them.

This is Liverpool Airport.

The new Liverpool Airport is over there that opened in the late 1980s. Liverpool

John Lennon International Airport.

But back in 1962, it was Liverpool Airport.

And the reason I wanted to come here is because of this picture, which was taken

on the 4th of September 1962.

The Beatles are on the tarmac about to board the plane behind them that's going

to bump them down to London on a little propeller plane, something like this.

This was an important moment because they were going down for their first

recording session at EMI.

They were dreading an aspect of it, which was they were going down to do a

they really don't want to do, which is How Do You Do It.

They'd been forced to record it for their first recording.

And Brian Epstein, the Beatles manager, said to them, this is an important

moment, I feel it should be captured on camera.

And so this is not a proper press picture, it's just a little snap that he

But it's caught them on a fresh autumnal morning.

They really don't look very happy here.

I particularly like the fact that you can still see George Harrison's black

Where we are is pretty much unchanged.

In 1964, famously, the Beatles returned to Liverpool for their civic reception

at the Town Hall.

and the northern premiere of their film, The Hard Day's Night. So they flew back

to a tumultuous reception, this place absolutely full of people, and then they

had this incredible drive to the centre of Liverpool with crowds lining the

route the entire way.

Having endured their bumpy flight down from Liverpool Airport to London, the

Beatles came here to EMI Recording Studios.

September 4th, 1962, to record their first single. It was their second visit,

the first one with Pete.

Now they had their new drummer, Ringo Starr.

This is the context, however. This is the issue of Record Mirror that was

current that week.

And it just goes to show how nothing was about groups or bands.

The Beatles were really quite revolutionary. It's been forgotten now.

time, the three guitars and drums and three guys singing at the front hadn't

really been done by anybody else.

it was all about solo singers and in this case Cliff or Elvis so that was the

world the Beatles were entering and hoping to change I've got this picture

the session what I like about this one is that Ringo had this mad moment during

the session where he was unsure whether to use the toms or whether to use a

tambourine or the maracas

So he ended up hitting the tom -toms with the maracas and hitting them with

tambourine to try and make sure that all bases were covered. And the people

behind the glass, the EMI people, were going, what on earth is that man doing?

But Ringo was nervous. He'd never been in the studio.

And the session went OK. It wasn't brilliant.

This is the tape log from EMI that day.

The tape library log at EMI Studios has the beat less recording.

How do you do and love me do?

Another useful reminder of just what a strange name Beatles was. We're so

familiar with it. We know how brilliant that name was. But at the time, after

all, people were saying, you'll never make it with a name like that. George

Martin had called them the Beatles, and now they're the Beatles.

No one seems to be able to get it right at this time.

In September 1962, on the 7th, there's now a plaque to mark the moment, the

Beatles came to this fairly rural part of the Wirral, across the water from

Liverpool, and they played a show here, and they were offered a £35 fee, which

was deemed to be acceptable. It was about the going rate at that time.

And so they played for an evening, and then the woman who organised it found

that she couldn't raise the £35, needed...

a few extra pounds to cover the shortfall, and arranged for there to be

sale here a few days later to raise the extra funds.

I rather love the fact that the cakes were sold in order to pay for the

to appear in a hall. And also the fact that they were playing places like this

just about, what, four or five months before they had their first number one

hit. They were a local group and they were playing local halls.

And it was only, what?

three years from here to Shea Stadium in New York. And that arc, that span of

the Beatles' trajectory, if you like, is an extraordinary one, that they went

from these kind of humble halls to great baseball stadiums in such a short space

of time.

It's one of those other occasions for which we have a set list, and the really

interesting thing about this is if you look eight songs down, they're doing How

Do You Do, How Do You Do It.

Believing it's going to be their new record, through gritted teeth, they're

playing it on stage live.

So this is the set list, and you can see the kind of artists that they're

covering. Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Elvis, The Shirelles, Arthur Alexander.

It's almost all American, two Goffin and King songs.

Also on here, worthy of note, Forgot to Remember to Forget.

That's an Elvis Presley song for Mal. Mal Evans, who didn't yet work for the

Beatles, but whenever he turned up, they would do an Elvis number for Mal

because he was such a big Elvis Presley fan.

And I've put the vocalist down the left -hand side.

And the key thing to notice is that George Harrison in those days sung as

songs on stage as John and Paul. In fact, there was usually a pattern of

Paul, John, George, Paul, John. That changed in 1963 when the Beatles' sets

naturally shrunk. They were playing less time on stage and they were having to

do their hits, which typically were sung by John or Paul or both of them. And so

George then got marginalised.

What happens next, and they don't even understand or ever explain the reasons

why, is that George Martin is told that Love Me Do must be the A -side, and How

Do You Do It can't be on the record at all. And even though he's in charge, the

people who are really pulling the strings are Ardmore and Beachwood, who

made the Beatles get signed in the first place. They're going to get the

publishing on the songs, and they say, we're not going to be fobbed off with a

-side to a song that we don't even publish.

And so George Martin relapses. he doesn't even like Love Me Do, has to

that it's going to be the A -side.

So this is our living room?

Yeah, very nice.

The use of this place was a wedding gift to John and Cynthia from Brian Epstein,

the Beatles' manager.

They really had nowhere to live.

So Brian very kindly said that you should have this place. Right.

Which would have been a godsend for them, I think.

It's great to be here. I always wanted to come into this place.

Yes, to live here is just such a huge honour because the Beatles are my

favourite band.

I'd known about this property for a while until I actually moved in here. It

unbelievable, really.

Yeah. This wouldn't have changed, really, would it? I mean, that big

the view out.

Is that a church there? I think it's a Greek Orthodox church they had a view

Oh, yeah, I know the one it is.

Cynthia Lennon tells a story, doesn't she, about feeding Ringo.

I think she used to make Vesta curry, a dreadful early British curry mix that

you could buy in a supermarket.

And he was probably pushing it around the plate, wondering what the heck it

So this picture here, this very early picture of John and Cynthia, was very

likely taken in this flat.

I don't know who took it, though.

Maybe it was Paul or Brian.

It could have been Brian.

So I feel that you should have it.

Really? Yeah.

Whether you want it or not, you're having it here. That's going up on the

I'll tell you now. And they've got a cat just like we do.

Yeah, the Siamese cat is the star of that picture, really.

Looking dead into the camera. Yeah, yeah.

But it's some significance, this place, because of the timing of it. The fact

that it was that period of like August, September 62 through the end of the

year, you know, I mean, that's when the first record comes out. They make the

charts, you know, they're becoming stars, you know.

Paul McCartney has always had a very specific memory of being here when they

made that crucial decision to have everything in both names.

So whether Lennon wrote the whole song or Paul or McCartney wrote the whole

song, it would go down as joint names.

Brian Epstein brought this document here to the flat and signed it on behalf of

Lennon and McCartney for the first two songs, Love Me Do and P .S. I Love You,

the two sides of their first record.

There's a signature like that. That's Brian's signature, yeah. In fact, Brian

actually does specify in his handwriting that it should be McCartney -Lennon.

There it is.

And it ended up being Lennon -McCartney by mistake.

Liverpool's Beatles history is well mapped out and it's a big part of the

tourism industry here. Do you experience much of that?

Yeah, like every week there's a crowd of people outside the house all tearing in

through the window.

But it's still incredibly cool.

Yeah, yeah, it is very special to be living here. But I think John probably

would have approved of the fact that a working musician is here writing songs

and recording as well.

Yeah, well, I'd like to think so. It's just a really cool thought to think that

I'm sat here writing music in the very same space where one of the legends of

art that you might have been.

Yeah, that's right.

With Love Me Do about to come out, the Beatles need new publicity pictures, and

the emphasis is, we're from Liverpool, we're from the north, and what is that

associated with?

Industry. We're standing on Dublin Street in Liverpool, and the next

Saltney Street, these two are like a pair, and in between them was...

In 1962, a patch of land just like that. Something had been here, been cleared

away, and the Beatles came for a publicity photo session and stood there

patch of land with this extraordinary bonded warehouse in the background.

And it was kind of derelict then. It's even more so now, 60 -odd years on. The

idea is it essays that they're from a northern working -class area.

When I was researching my book Tune In, I did deep... Deep genealogical research

into all the beetles and found that when the Lennon family arrived in Liverpool

from Ireland in the 1840s, they actually lived right here for several years in

the most appalling conditions.

They were called courthouses.

Open sewerage, no running water, children with bare feet.

children dying of the most elementary conditions, and lots of pubs around

which is where all the money that should have been spent on families and food

got spent behind the bar.

So it's a real bit of Liverpool history, this street.

Lennon is standing exactly where his family had lived, and I'm certain had no

knowledge of that.

It's about 120 years on, say, from when the Lennons arrived, and he's here

hoping to become a star, but his forefathers were here just...

scratching to put food on the plate love me do is coming out

these are the two sides of the record love me do and ps i love you on the

parlophone label both down as lennon mccartney songs by mistake but that's

another story and brian epstein decides he's not gonna miss any opportunity to

try and get the Beatles promoted.

He commissions the production of an independent press release, five pages I

think it is, introducing the Beatles. And the pictures he wants to use of John

and George are half -shadow pictures taken back in April by Astrid. We looked

that earlier.

But Paul wasn't there that day and Ringo, being a Beatle, hadn't met Astrid

So he couldn't ask Astrid to do it. So he had to go to Liverpool photographers

to try and match the pictures taken. of John and George back in April.

So they had solo photo sessions.

First Ringo, there's that one.

This, which has to be the worst ever picture of Ringo. What an appalling

photograph that is. Sorry, Ringo, for bringing that back up.

This one here, this one has got attitude.

I quite like that. I think that would make a good record cover to this day.

And Paul, this one, this is completely wrong. It's meant to have half your face

in shadow, not just half the face.

I don't know what happened there.

They're trying to look serious, obviously, because John and George did.

The worst ever photograph of such a lovely photogenic man as Paul McCartney.

Look at that. Really terrible picture. Sorry, Paul.

And this one, which doesn't really work either, but it's okay, I suppose. And

eventually they end up with these four pictures.

Brian had them printed as cards. John and George properly printed.

Paul and Ringo printed badly in a rush at the end because it was all taking so

long to organize.

But if you went into Brian's record shop, NEMS, you could pick these cards

free on the counter when Love Me Do came out.

They need a new contract now, and this is the Beatles' proper management

contract with Brian.

1st of October 1962, and everybody signs it this time, including Brian and

including Paul's dad, Jim McCartney, and George's father, Harold Hargreaves

Harrison. A mere six -page contract with double -line spacing.

There's not a lot. You don't need to fill out a book with the clauses of a

contract. You can get it down briefly, and this contract will be robust and

them all the way through the tours.

films shea stadium revolver sergeant pepper and it goes all the way up to the

end of september 1967 by which time brian epstein is dead so here he's not

for any more than five years from this point but this is the contract that will

hold them all the way through the peak years of the beatles

Why am I showing you a picture of a broken bus? Because there's a story

this. The Beatles go to London on John Lennon's birthday, October the 9th,

to promote themselves to the London -based newspapers and magazines.

And they are shunned absolutely everywhere they go but one place.

You'll never make it from Liverpool. Change your name Beatles. It's stupid.

Look at your hair. Look at the way you're dressed.

You know, you're never going to make it like that. One of their appointments is

at Pop Week. a really arcane magazine published from an office on the Edgware

Road by the impresario Robert Stigwood, the Australian impresario trying to make

his name in Britain.

Now, he was a manager of young lad, young boy actors who could also

sing. John Layton, Mike Sarn, Mike Berry.

and Billy Boyle. Robert Thigwood used to have plaster cast busts made of his

young lads, which he would give out to newspapers and magazines for promotion.

very strange thing to do. And one of them was sitting on the table when

doing this interview.

And the Beatles go there for an interview, hoping for some coverage in

Weekly. And it's one of those interviews where the man is being really

supercilious with them, the journalist interviewing them, and they've had

enough. And John Lennon was leading a walkout of the Beatles. They weren't

to put up with this nonsense anymore.

And as he gets up, he does that thing where you deliberately kind of extend

stomach and put it up the table as he gets up. And one of the bus falls over

breaks.

And it is a completely symbolic moment that the old is now very old and what

there is is the shock of the new.

And they storm out of there leaving this plaster cast bust behind them and they

have arrived in London.

And the only place they get any joy that day is in Bermondsey in Southwark

Street at the newspaper Dance News.

They're interviewed there by a man called Derek Runciman and he likes the

Beatles. He remarks on their different un - English -style clothes, which was

sharp of him.

And then he ends by saying, I know it's an easy thing for critics to say, oh

yes, they're going to make it big, and then later say, well, you can't always

right, but I shall hear with forecast that the Beatles are going to be very

and in time become one of the country's top -starring attractions.

So someone in London is actually a bit tuned in to who they are.

And there's one more thing I want to show you here.

This is a quote of John Lennon's. Remember that they're down in London to

promote their first record, Love Me Do, which has been out for four days.

John says, we weren't expecting big things with Love Me Do. In fact, we

so fond of it now.

We've already recorded our follow -up and we think it's great.

What an extraordinary thing to say.

But what a revealing comment that he makes right there. The first quoted

of a beetle in a London newspaper is typical of how they're going to be

the whole of the rest of the 60s, of moving on fast.

Yeah, we've made that, but it's the next one that's going to be really good.

This is the top 50 chart in record retailer. This was like a trade magazine

the record shops and record companies, not generally bought by the public. They

had a top 50 chart, and the Beatles enter in their first week of Love Me

sale at number 49, really on the basis of sales in Liverpool and the Northwest.

But their arrival on the chart in basically week one of release led to all

rumors in Liverpool that Brian Epstein had fabricated Fabricated the position.

He'd hyped the record into the chart by buying copies of it. One book says 10

,000 copies he bought.

Complete and utter nonsense.

He didn't do that at all. He was against chart fabrication.

But that's how the rumor started.

They got into the chart. It must be a fix.

And that rumor dogged Brian Epstein for the whole of the rest of his life. And

it's still around to this day. I was watching on YouTube the other day George

Martin in the 1990s saying, love me dude, got in the chart because Brian

hyped. That's complete nonsense.

He didn't do that. It was legitimate sales and it's only at 49, but it is in

first week and it's going to stay there.

Liverpool had its own chart at that time in the Liverpool Echo newspaper.

A phone around of the local shops produced this chart on a weekly basis

Beatles have gone straight in at number one.

Actually, there's a typo there because it says they were number one last week

well. It should really look like that.

Now, all the way through to this day, the Beatles go into charts at number

They've always done it, and it's a fantastic hallmark of their career. They

it even with their very first record. There is a chart where Love Me Do goes

straight in at number one.

Now, here's Love Me Do as released in America by the Capitol record label

by EMI, except nope.

That didn't happen. EMI owned Capitol Records, which was a big US record label

based in Los Angeles.

Capitol had right of first refusal on every piece of product that EMI London

out, and that was the good term, refusal, because they refused

They felt that no one in America was interested in hearing any English music,

they just kept saying, nope, nope, nope.

But the idea of making it in America was the aim of all British talent. And at

this very time, in late 1962, Cliff Richard was making his attempt to break

America. And he went to New York and Marty, another of those Weekly Girls

comics, did a photo feature on Cliff in New York.

Remarkable for how unmolested he is being.

There is no Cliff mania happening in New York. And in fact, rather amusingly, it

actually said in there, Cliff's biggest thrill during his fabulous stateside

tour, it was when he was told he'd have to return home again halfway through to

appear in the Royal Variety performance.

So Cliff, unfortunately, never did really break America.

But at this time...

Amazingly, by complete coincidence, independent of one another, a whole load

British talent was trying to make it big in America, all in New York. Cliff

Richard, Kenny Ball, Chris Barber, Acker Bilk, Frank Highfield, Shirley Bassey,

Helen Shapiro, Lonnie Donegan, The Shadows, who were there with Cliff, and

the Alberts, George Martin's bonzo -like madcap group, who were doing a season

of Cabaret there. What an extraordinary thing that they're all trying to break

America at the same time. time and they all flop miserably none of them actually

ever really makes it there towards the end of 62

a rare thing happened to the Beatles and that is that they had a couple of days

off very rare for them because they were working really hard all of that year

most years in fact so Paul had a new girlfriend at that time called Celia

Mortimer that's Celia she was a fashion student at the College of Art in

Liverpool

And Paul said to Celia, let's hitchhike down to London because my mate Ivan,

which is Ivan Vaughan, who introduced him to John in 57, Ivan Vaughan is

as a doorman at the Establishment Club.

And this was where they came to, the Establishment Club at 18 Greek Street,

which is where we are standing right now, opened by Peter Cook in 1961.

London's first satire club, first comedy club in essence.

And Ivan is standing in his... cumabund and his dinner jacket on the door and

they went into the club paul and celia it was quite late i think most of the

action had finished by the time they arrived but ivan signed them in and they

went downstairs to the basement to the live where the live band was playing and

as the song would say they danced through the night and held each other

the club eventually closed about 3 a .m And Ivan said, come on, you can go back

to my place and sleep on the floor.

Now, I said to Celia when I was interviewing her, where was that that

crashed on the floor that night? And she said somewhere in Great Portland

Street, I think. She knew London quite well, Great Portland Street. So I got in

touch with Ivan's widow, Jan, and said, where was Ivan's place in London?

Great Portland Street. Do you remember where? No.

So I checked out the electoral records and thankfully Ivan had registered to

vote. And he lived in Seaford Court up the top end of Great Portland Street

the Marylebone Road.

And I thought, aha, I know that address already because...

That was also where the Ashes had lived.

Paul is going to go and live with the Asher family when he's starting his

relationship with Jane in 63.

Goes and lives with them. He writes yesterday in their house on Wimpole

Before Wimpole Street, they lived here in Seaford Court. And Paul is there in

the very same building where Jane and Peter grew up. What an extraordinary

coincidence that is. And even more so because their mother, Margaret, taught

oboe.

and someone came for private tuition of the oboe, and that was George Martin.

So this one address in London where Paul happens to kit for the night in October

62 has all this Asher and George Martin history. How remarkable the Beatles

story is. And when I'm researching it and I'm in libraries and archives, I

the greatest joy, because every time you want something to connect, it always

connects in exactly the right way, as if you were making it up, but you're not,

because it's actually all true.

So the postscript for the night before is that having spent the night on Great

Portland Street, Paul and Celia, before hitchhiking back to Liverpool, came for

a short walk here to Fitzroy Square because they wanted to see the

of a new London landmark that was going up, the Post Office Tower. The rise of

this great London monument that symbolised all that was new and exciting

modern in the 1960s.

And Celia remembers that Paul was writing a song, which became I Saw Her

Standing There, referencing what had happened to them a few hours earlier of

dancing through the night and holding each other tight. So I Saw Her Standing

There was part written here in Fitzroy Square.

NME was the paper that the Beatles used to read. We had the Melody Maker, the

New Musical Express, Disc and Record Mirror, four weekly music papers. How

extraordinary is that? The New Musical Express was the chart that everyone

looked at, and the Beatles go in at number 27.

And this really was such a major moment for them that I found an interview with

Paul McCartney from, I think, 1987, in which he remembered this entry at number

27 more clearly than any other. of the number ones that eventually followed.

here he is talking about it. I had this car and I was coming up by this ballroom

called the Grafton.

It's two ballrooms, two famous ballrooms in Liverpool, the Grafton and the

Locarno. And I remember finding out, I'd just bought the NME, I think.

We'd come in the chart at 27.

Just wanted to wind the windows down and shout at everyone outside the Grafton,

we're number 27, we've made it.

I remember just wanting to tell everyone, you know, we really are in

chart. Those things we'd been reading for years, you know, and seeing all the

hits come and go up and down.

Finally, we actually had a little place on the ladder, you know.

So it's true for all our lives. There are certain moments that really make the

deepest impact.

A whole career of number ones, but he remembers going in at number 27 because

that was the moment when it really began to change for them.

We're in Port Sunlight and there's this glorious hall here called Hume Hall.

The Beatles played here four times in 1962 and the last of them was the

of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

And it also happened to be when a man called Monty Lister came along to Hume

Hall to record the Beatles for hospital radio programmes here on the Wirral.

So I always wondered where this photograph had been taken and it turns

this little cold room this storage room on the side of the hall and it was right

here where we're standing you can see the door frame is the same it no longer

says exit up there because I think it no longer leads to an exit but that's

where it would have been. It was the first ever Beatles interview they gave I

don't know how many thousands of interviews in the years that followed.

but there had to be a first and it was right here on this very spot and i've

an old tape machine here and i have the actual recording

here i bought it off monty uh who was late in life in 1985 and

this is the original spool of tape emmy tape made by emi

there it is The Beatles' first ever interview.

And I'm going to attempt to put it on the machine without mangling it.

Play.

It's a very great pleasure for us this evening to say hello to an up -and

-coming Merseyside group, The Beatles.

And I know their names and I'm going to try and put faces to them. Now, you're

John Lennon, aren't you? Yes, that's right. What do you do in the group,

I play harmonica, rhythm, guitar and vocal.

That's what they call it, isn't it?

Harmonica, rhythm, guitar and vocal. Then there's Paul McCartney, that's you.

Yeah, that's me, yeah. And what do you do?

Play bass guitar and sing, I think. Oh, that's quite apart from being vocal.

Well, yeah.

Then there's George Harrison.

How do you do?

How do you do? What's your job? Lead guitar and sort of singing.

By playing lead guitar, does that mean you're sort of leader of the group, or

are you... No, no. Well, you see, the other guitar is the rhythm.

Yeah. Ting -ting -ting, you see. This solo guitar, you see, John is in fact

leader of the group.

And over in the background, making a lot of noise, is Ringo Starr. Hello.

You're new to the group, aren't you? Yes, nine weeks now.

So it's a very special recording in so many ways.

I think it's incredible that more than 60 years have passed since the recording

was made and the photograph was taken. So much has changed in the world.

And the Beatles went on to have the most extraordinary time together and the

impact of what they did is still being felt.

But at this time they're just a local group having to introduce themselves by

name because the man doesn't necessarily know who they are.

So after 60 plus years, to bring the tape back to the place where it was

recorded, there's something magical about that.

Love me do.

It came out because Kim Bennett at Ardmore and Beachwood wanted to have the

publishing of The Beatles.

And here he is. We looked at him earlier. He is the great unsung hero of

Beatles story.

If it wasn't for Kim Bennett, they wouldn't have been signed by George

And he is now actively trying to justify his opinion by making Love Me Do a hit.

And he was a very dedicated and very committed man. I met him and I

it firsthand just how determined he was. is to make sure that he's heard and i

was fortunate to interview him because soon after i did so he died and if i

hadn't have done so that early period of the beatles would always be a bit

mysterious because it never quite added up so kim bennett is the hero

Now, he's trying to get Love Me Do played everywhere he can, and one of the

plug spots is in Saturday Club. This is the most listened -to pop radio show of

the week, 10 o 'clock till 12 on a Saturday morning on the BBC Light

Mostly sessions, and the Beatles ended up doing many, but also some records,

he tried to get Love Me Do placed by coercing the producer, Jimmy Grant.

Unbeknownst to Kim Bennett... having succeeded in persuading Jimmy to

put Love Me Do into the programme, Brian Epstein at the same time, yet another

document he was producing, this kind of newsletter for the Beatles fans in

Liverpool, he's saying quite legitimately that why don't fan club

the group tremendously by writing to the BBC and asking for their record to be

played, such as on Saturday Club, Easy Beat and Housewives Choice.

These were the big record request programmes of the day.

and so devoted were the Beatles fans in Liverpool that many of them did just

that and sent postcards down to the BBC. And the producer of Saturday Club

suddenly has got a table full of postcards and he sees...

as he believes it, hype.

It's like, this is fake. You know, there's a campaign going on here. This

real. So he phones Kim Bennett and says, Kim, I'm sorry, I'm taking your record

out of the program. And after all his labors, the record was dropped.

So he does an extraordinary thing.

He flies to Cologne in Germany, where Bill Crozier was the German side of a

weekly radio program called Two -Way Family Favorites. Maybe many of you will

remember that. Sunday lunchtime, when mom is cooking, King of the Joint for

Sunday lunch. She's going to have two -way family favorites on. It was a

program. He persuaded Bill Crozier to have Love Me Do as one of his records in

that program.

17 .8 million people heard that. What an audience for a radio show.

And because of Kim Bennett's efforts and the Beatles, who are still playing it

every night somewhere, Love Me Do is continuing to climb up the chart. Even

they're away in Germany, it's still going up. They're now at number 23. We

them at 49 earlier.

And this is Kim Bennett and what he did and how hard he worked.

But he's about to be chopped out of the picture.

because how the George Martin came to sign the Beatles is about to become

muddied, and Kim Bennett is a casualty of that, and so are Ardmore and

Beachwood.

I'm standing at 20 Manchester Square, which was once the head office of EMI.

This artist's impression showed what was then a new build, EMI House.

got knocked down around the turn of the century, and George Martin's office was

on the fourth floor. So the Beatles came here for a meeting with George Martin

on November 16th, 1962, which was the first indication we have of the harmony

their relationship. George Martin hadn't really wanted to sign the Beatles.

They'd kind of been...

foisted on him but having met them and enjoyed their characters and having seen

the promise of love me do going up the charts he decided that actually these

were guys he could do good work with many things were decided including the

that they were going to make an lp their first album which eventually became

please please me and at that point was going to be potentially a live album

recorded in the cavern so they came here for that And they also came here

famously in February 1963 for the photograph that became the cover of

first album, Please Please Me, where they were looking over the balcony of

stairwell as it then was.

But everything now, alas, is all gone. But a very important place and a very

nice part of London as well. And I think the Beatles enjoyed coming here.

So they come down on November the 26th for their next recording session to

record the follow -up. Love Me Do is still on the charts, still rising as

seen, but George Martin says we now need to record the next one.

And Please Please Me is waiting in the wings to be done.

They're going to have another crack at that, and they do.

At the end of the session, the Beatles were paid by the Musicians' Union £7

This was standard practice at sessions.

A little guy would come in and sit at a table and hand them cash, which they

would have to sign for. Their names written on this sheet of paper by Brian

Epstein. This is the result, Please Please Me. It's going to come out on the

11th of January, 1963.

And George Martin picks up that talkback microphone and famously says to them,

gentlemen, you've just made your first number one record.

And he was absolutely right. They had indeed made their first number one

George Martin was such a believer in the Beatles now that he tried to put this

record in America.

And these letters were written to the New York office of EMI.

We are certain this record will be in the top five in this country shortly

its release.

We have great faith both in the artist and the record because George Martin is

really anxious to establish the Beatles on your side of the Atlantic.

Well, Love Me Do, the Beatles' first record, Love Me Do, had not come out on

American record label. Though Love Me Do didn't come out, they were then offered

Please Please Me, and inevitably they rejected it. So I've mocked up a label

here to show the record that might have been, but never was, Please Please Me on

American Capitol.

And then EMI, through a New York agency, shopped Please Please Me around.

It went to Lorry Records.

which was a nice little independent record label in New York.

And Laurie didn't want to take the Beatles.

EMI offered the Beatles to Liberty Records, which came very close to

them, but they had a lot of success at that time and he didn't feel that they

needed to take on this English group.

And perhaps most interestingly of all...

The great record label based in New York, Atlantic, were offered the chance

sign the Beatles.

The A &R man there who turned down the Beatles was one of the great record men

of all time, Jerry Wexler, who was great at spotting talent and producing it in

the studios as well. And yet he heard Please Please Me and didn't think that

wanted to sign them.

At the beginning of 1962, Decca had turned down the Beatles on the basis of

not very good test that they did at Decca Studios on New Year's Day 1962.

You can understand to a degree why they didn't realise that the Beatles were

going to be a significant talent and therefore let them go.

But these guys, these American A &R men, are turning down Please Please Me.

So that house over there is 174 Macketts Lane, and it's the house that George

Harrison was living in when the Beatles became nationally and then

internationally famous.

Sue Houghton, who was a very devoted fan of George, wanted to do something for

him while the Beatles were away and said to Mr and Mrs Harrison, could I please

wash George's car while he's away in Hamburg?

So George's mother wrote him a letter saying, Sue has come round.

would like to wash your car, should she?

So George wrote this beautiful three -page letter to Sue Houghton, giving the

precise instructions of how his car should be washed.

Use plenty of soapy water, he writes. Have a cup of tea while the car is

off. Ask mother for dusters and apply the polish in a circular motion.

Don't forget the wheels.

Get the carpets looking like new.

Check the car over to see if you've missed anything.

And then the final instruction, proceed to Fourth Lynn Road with about six

buckets of dirty, muddy, greasy water and spread it all evenly over a Ford

Classic.

So it all ended up on Paul's car.

Penultimate item, the Christmas issue of Melody Maker, December the 22nd, 1962.

The first ever newspaper to mention within the pages of a single issue, the

Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Rolling Stones. The 60s are coming. The Beatles

there because they're in the charts. Still Rising, Love Me Do, is now 22.

been on the charts for two months.

In fact, two and a half months.

Quite incredible. It never rose higher than 17, which makes people think it

wasn't very successful. But it was the longevity that held it in such good

stead. And when eventually Please Please Me comes out in January, Love Me Do is

still on the charts and they had two records in the chart at the same time,

which is again a sign of things to come. So Love Me Do was a success.

Bob Dylan is there because he's in London to play the part of a hobo in a

for the BBC called The Madhouse on Castle Street.

So he's in London at the end of 1962.

And the Rolling Stones are in an advertisement for a show at the Low

coffee bar in Richmond. Twist, twist, it says, because everything was still

twisty. But really, they're an R &B band.

And they were formed in July 1962, the Rolling Stones. Their formation was

announced. in jazz news jazz just about tolerated rhythm and blues and R &B

groups basically got their start in London's jazz clubs Mick Jagger talking

about the group he says I hope they don't think we're a rock and roll outfit

seven years later they're the greatest rock and roll band in the world

Also named in the piece, Keith Richards, Elmo Lewis, that's Brian Jones, Ian

Stewart, that's Stu, Dick Taylor, who will be in The Pretty Things, Mick

Mike Avery, who become the drummer in The Kinks. So the 60s are coming. The

final piece.

At the end of 1962, Brian Epstein had been the Beatles manager for a year, and

he placed a whole page advertisement in Murphy Beat newspaper.

and it was called 1962, The Beatles' Year of Achievement. And it outlined the

progress that they had made in the course of the year, getting an EMI

making BBC broadcast, television appearances, Radio Luxembourg

going to Hamburg, getting into the charts, appearing with all sorts of big

acts. And appearing in cities and towns all across the country, not just in

Liverpool anymore.

And they've got a team of people. Brian has assembled a team of people around

them. So there's him as their manager now. There's George Martin as their

producer.

It says there Tony Calder as publicity, but in fact it's Tony Barrow, whose name

can't be given because he works for Decca, but he'll soon be with them full

-time. Neil Aspinall as the road manager. His address can't be printed

he lives with Pete Bess and his family, so we leave that bit out.

Bobby Brown, the fan club secretary.

On board just too late for this when this was drafted, now the music

Dick James. So all these people are a team now who are going to be pushing the

beat. It's their talent, it's their ability, it's their originality, but

got this team behind them.

Remember also it's only still seven, nearly eight months since Stuart

died. And these pictures of the Beatles taken in November 62 by Astrid and note

that John is sitting in Stuart's chair and that won't be a coincidence.

We look at that from history as well. He was a Beatle and then he died and then

they had hits. For them, he was one of them. He was in their band and they've

lost him at the age of 21.

So it's worth remembering that Stuart had died this year as well. In reality,

that advertisement, there was a little box that prefixed what might happen in

1963. Please, please miss coming out. And they've got tours, including

nationwide tours with Helen Shapiro, Tommy Rowe, and Chris Montez. And then

ends at the bottom with, and who knows?

They don't know what the future holds because nobody ever does.

But there is about to become the greatest cultural explosion that I

we've ever had. And we're still feeling it to this day.

And who knows? Thank you very much for listening to all of this.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

He really pulled together a wonderful show.

That kind of gave you more than you thought you needed to know. I love the

of the bud before the bloom.

This is what 1962 is for the Beatles.

I like the way that the Beatles kind of emerge from that cocoon and rock it off.

Mother's playing bingo.

Granddad's swearing at the telly, trying to make the bingo.

No one seems to notice me.

Isn't it a sin?

What a crazy world we're living in.

Now, the old man never talks to me, and when he does, it moans.

Watch your face, it looks a disgrace.

Oh, what an happy home.

He says I'm irresponsible,

not like when he was young.

Then he puts on his cap and coat to watch the grounds run.

Oh, Dad's gone down a dog track.

Mother's playing bingo.

Granny's boozing in the parlour. You'll see the jingo.

No one thinks they'll notice me.

Isn't it a sin?

What crazy world we're living in.

Mother says I look beyond me trousers are too tight. She says I ought to get a

job and not stay out all night.

She doesn't like me haircut.

She says me friends are lousy. And then she says it's getting late. Can't miss

me, lousy, lousy. Oh, Dad's gone down the dog trail.

Mother's playing bingo.

Sister's mooching on the sofa.

You ought to hear the spring go.

No one thinks they'll notice me.

Isn't it a sin?

What a crazy world we're in.