When They Were Boys (26 page)

“Richard was really good, but by the time the boys came back from Hamburg, a crescendo was building for something new,” Ron Ellis remembers.
“The old jazz groups were dying out. Hundreds of bands were doing rock all over Merseyside. When they showed up at Litherland, it was simple—they were just better than anyone else around. They were so much more professional. Combine that with John's acerbic wit coming out more and more, and it was an amazing unfolding of a new sound, a new look. The legend of Litherland spread.”

But how quickly, and is the focus appropriate? I fully accept Litherland as an important moment, mainly for the spirit of the boys. But there is a question: When do legends become legends? Rarely do legends become legends in real time; it usually evolves years later.

Freda Kelly, who would work with Epstein and the boys for many years, and the woman I call “Freda the Believer,” did not see the boys in their first appearance at Litherland, but she attended later gigs at the town hall.

“Interestingly, word spread about that first event, but it wasn't like a tidal wave, just whispers among some of the kids. Was I excited? There is no way to explain just how excited I was.”

Liverpool Hope University's respected Beatles and pop scholar Dr. Michael Brocken sees Litherland as a mythological moment—not really seminal, but rather just a step.

I
SUPPOSE ONE MIGHT SAY THAT IT WAS IMPORTANT FOR THOSE WHO ATTENDED, AND ALSO FOR THE GROUPS [THE
S
EARCHERS, THE
D
EL
R
ENAS, AND THE
D
ELTONES] WHO HAD TO PLAY ALONGSIDE THE
B
EATLES
. . . . S
O, WHILE WE MUST NOT CALL PEOPLE LIARS WE SHOULD ACCEPT THAT THIS WAS VERY SMALL BEER AT THE TIME [AND] HAS BEEN MYTHOLOGIZED, BUT STILL HOLD HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE, OF COURSE
. E
VEN IF WE ACCEPT THAT A WHISPER WENT OUT AFTER THE GIG . . . ONE WOULD HAVE TO SAY THAT EARLY 1960S
L
IVERPOOL WAS FULL OF PREGNANT SILENCES ABOUT POPULAR MUSIC AT THE BEST OF TIMES BECAUSE OF ITS PAROCHIAL NATURE
.

Brocken refers to the jazz and skiffle ideals of the city, and the general antipathy toward the ascent of rock.

Always on target in his historical analysis, Brocken seems to put things in perspective. The Litherland appearance became well known, in the beginning, to
a small group of Merseyside people. But it was, to the
smallest
group, the direct-from-Hamburg Beatles, much more than just a show that created “buzz.”

Whenever, and however, the lore of Litherland made its way into the Beatles' history, there was and remains a very good reason for it: the boys themselves.

Three years and seven months later, in a dressing room at the famed Montreal Forum, I asked John Lennon what the real turning point was in their evolution from unknown to fame, from boys traveling on a snowy night on the number 81 bus to budding celebrities in their hometown and beyond.

W
ELL . . . YOU COULD LOOK AT MANY EVENTS . . . OUR PERFORMANCE BEFORE THE
Q
UEEN MUCH LATER . . . THOSE
MARVELOUS
H
AMBURG NIGHTS [HE SAID WITH SARCASM], THE
C
AVERN
. . . . B
UT TO BE TRUTHFUL, IT ALMOST ENDED AROUND
C
HRISTMASTIME IN 1960
. . . . W
E WERE DOWN AND OUT . . . AND WE PLAYED AT THIS PLACE
. . . L
ITHERLAND
T
OWN
H
ALL . . . AND ALL OF A SUDDEN WE GRABBED IT BY THE HORNS . . . AS YOU
A
MERICANS WOULD SAY, WHATEVER THAT MEANS . . . AND WE STARTED TO MOVE FORWARD . . . GOT MORE DEALS . . . BEFORE
E
PPY
[E
PSTEIN
] . . .
AND ON THE BACKS OF SEVERAL HUNDRED KIDS, JUST LIKE US, WHO THOUGHT WE WERE GOOD . . . AND LET ME TELL YOU
, L
ARRY
[
HIS GESTURES SUDDENLY CHANGED FROM HUMILITY TO HUBRIS
] . . .
LET ME TELL YOU,
WE WERE GOOD
. . . . W
E JUST WEREN'T SURE WE WERE GOOD ENOUGH
. D
ID WE KNOW THAT IT WOULD CHANGE EVERYTHING
? N
O
, L
ARRY, WE REALLY DIDN'T, BUT WE FELT A BIT BETTER AFTER OUR SO SAD AND PAINFUL RETURN FROM
H
AMBURG
. A
ND
L
ARRY, IT WAS VERY, VERY PAINFUL,” HE CONCLUDED, CHUCKLING WITH FOND REMEMBRANCE
.

Litherland was, as Professor Brocken describes, “small beer” in the big Liverpool scene. But to the boys, it was a jolt, a shot of hope in the midst of a dark period of despair. They survived December 1960. There were new bookings ahead, and they would earn pocket change. But not far away, before the young music retailer walked into their lives, before Bill Harry exploded on the scene with tabloid music genius, and despite internal feuding, their pockets would be a little less empty.

After genuine depression, the humiliation of being booted from Hamburg, and internal debate about whether they should split, the Litherland Town Hall experience transformed the young men from gloom to optimism. That in itself, the transfusion of hope, makes the Litherland concert a meaningful event in saving the boys from possible destruction at their own hands.

All this came on the heels of the first trip to what appeared to be a forbidden city. They had barely escaped Hamburg. Despite their ambivalence, there would be more trips to the city of the night, but along the way, a personal tragedy, one that left a lifelong imprint on the founder of the band.

CHAPTER NINE

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF STUART SUTCLIFFE

“It may be something John Lennon regretted for the rest of his life, not that he struck the blows that killed, but that he thought he might have, a bit like everyone comes to a crime scene and every witness is unreliable.”

—Ron Ellis

“Most mothers believe their children are the most brilliant and the most beautiful—but it happened to be true about Stuart.”

—Martha Sutcliffe (aka “Millie”), mother of Stuart Sutcliffe

T
HE STORY OF THE STRIKINGLY BEAUTIFUL BOY IS THE CENTERPIECE OF THE
B
EATLES' FIRST MOMENTS IN
H
AMBURG
.
It is also a story of deep love—man to man, and man to woman—portrayed as a romance for the ages, yet one that lasted so briefly.

If Hamburg was on the cutting edge of art and pop culture in 1960 and 1961, then the most forgotten Beatle, Stuart Sutcliffe, was in the right place at the right time. An inspiration to his best friend, John Lennon, and a startling sex symbol on stage, Stuart, in the Hamburg days and nights, arrived at the confluence of three driving forces: music, art on canvas, and love. Mostly love.

Yoko Ono talks of Stuart's friendship and its impact on John, and then wistfully, she remembers her talks with John about Hamburg.

“He told me
everything
. He loved to talk about Hamburg. There were no secrets. It was the kind of life I never knew. . . . It meant total freedom. At his side always was Stuart, sweet Stuart. There wasn't a time in John's life when he didn't think about Stuart. He spoke always of his love and respect for Stuart.”

Stuart joined the group because of John. All those meetings at Ye Cracke, all the soul-searching between them, had created a bond that few men have in a lifetime. Was Stuart the brother John never had? Maybe. But mostly the boy Paul McCartney once described as a “typical pimple-faced art student”
was just a wide-open conduit for John's innermost feelings.

John worshipped Stu as a confidante, a brother almost, a best friend in a life of seeking real and genuine friends. Their journey to Hamburg, that fateful first trip in 1960 during which they lived in near-poverty conditions, ended badly. But in life, living in a certain moment and trying to understand what that moment means, can be a mystery that, in time, can unlock abilities never before considered. What the young Beatles accomplished in Hamburg in 1960 seemed irrelevant in the moment, but became strong and durable when the moment was over. Stuart played a powerful role in that moment. With Astrid Kirchherr by his side, his talent for fine art and her extraordinary view through the lens of a camera not only strengthened his bond with John, but also led to the creation of a revolutionary look and style that would define the early Beatles—with the dark suits, thin ties, and mop-top haircuts. They would later embrace their acid and spiritual period in 1968 with longer hair, freakier clothing, and a new look that was more compatible with their contemporaries who were in the same funk of drugs, protest, war, and revolution. But it was the original look that will always endure, and the beautiful son of Millie Sutcliffe was a certifiable originator of it.

Along with that enduring style, there was an energy between John and Stuart that outlived Stuart.

“They were like soul mates,” says Yoko, who adds that she wishes she could have met Stuart. In my earlier book,
Lennon Revealed
, Yoko emotionally recalled, “There was not a period in our lives, daily, weekly, or whenever, that John did not remember Stuart.”

What Stuart brought to the table—especially the wooden table at Ye Cracke in a post-beatnik environment of great social debate—was a vision of life that John might never have experienced. Stuart, unlike the young John Lennon, was spiritual—not in the religious sense, but in the curious and empathetic way he looked at people, the environment, and the joys of everyday life. Stuart, remembered fondly by Bill Harry as a member of the beatnik-like Dissenters, was often the conscience of the debating group. Although John would do most of the talking at the pub, he freely gave the platform to his close friend.

“We were plotting for a better society, and we thought we had all the answers for our generation,” Harry says. “The interesting thing was that, while we were wide-eyed with large hopes, Stuart, in general, had what I would say was a larger view of his canvas of the world. Unlike most rebellious teenagers, he had a worldview and was quite ready at seventeen or eighteen to make his point with art.”

Colin Fallows of Liverpool's John Moores University (formerly the Art Institute), and an expert on Stu's work, revels at the talent and the connection between art and the rock and pop revolutions of the fifties and sixties.

“Many people will point out that the art schools of England were the incubators of a generation of musicians, but in Stuart's case, the Art Institute was the incubator of his own brilliant career in art itself. He enhanced the Beatles' early life, but at the same time, in Hamburg, escalated his art to a higher level.”

Fallows shows me the interesting little courtyard through which Paul and George would sneak into the Art Institute from their own school, to jam with John and Stuart. There is probably no single expert more versed on Stuart's art work than Fallows.

“You have to understand that Stuart, so influential in John's life, is not a footnote able to bridge the interface of sound, music, and visual arts. He was a very serious student. His and Astrid's [art] should not be viewed as Beatles memorabilia, but rather interesting art on its own. It's also interesting that at the time Stuart and the Beatles came to Hamburg in 1960 and 1961, the world was turning to Hamburg not just for music, but its burgeoning art scene. The timing was fascinating.”

Unfortunately, Stuart is not around to crow about his influence. One would guess he probably wouldn't boast about his impact. He was much too busy painting his canvases and looking, along with his love-mate, Astrid, and his best friend, John, for the real meaning of life.

But there are many survivors still here to explain the magical being of Stuart Sutcliffe.

George Harrison, in his special comments in Derek Taylor's rambling and revealing autobiography,
Fifty Years Adrift
, offered his always-candid view: “Stuart Sutcliffe was like our art director. In a mysterious way, Stuart in
conjunction with the German crowd [not just Astrid] was really responsible for that certain look we had. . . . I had a lot of fist fights with Stuart, but I really liked him and we were very friendly before he died.”

Life model June Furlong still talks about how sweet Stu was, yet so serious about his work—much more serious than his friend John, also an artist but a great and funny mischief-maker in class.

“Now, there was a talent,” Furlong remembers. “He couldn't wait for their makeshift rehearsals, when Paul and George would sneak over from the Institute. But I always felt, you know, that for Stuart, the art was everything. He put his heart into it, with a passion.”

An artist he was. His paintings are the object of desire here in the twenty-first century. A “very good rock 'n' roll bass guitar player,” says Bill Harry. Certainly a physical presence, as well. But his sister Pauline wants people to know that Stuart was much more than eye candy.

He was, she says with endless love, “a man of supreme spirituality who was preoccupied and completely fascinated with the questions of life and death. He was a trusted friend with a solid moral base. Yes, he could be naughty and wild, but there was in Stuart a morality that few his age would ever understand. And also, more than anything, he was so interesting to be around.”

He was also a talented musician, although the fading truth of time, always the enemy of telling the real story, has distorted his talent. Witnesses from Klaus Voorman to Bill Harry and many others still remember Stuart's talent on the bass guitar, and his brief but alluring stardom and appeal to the crowds in Hamburg. Perhaps, though, his most significant contribution was his impact on the former milkman.