BEATLE-BOOK-ON-CLEARANCE ALERT!!

by **theDingle** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 3:30 am

CHEAP, TOO! Last week I was in Media Play and they had clearance books on tables in the center aisle.

For only 99 cents, I picked up a paperbound THE BEATLES: An Oral History by David Pritchard and Alan Lysaght. It's a pleasant easy read, and is 300+ pages. No pictures, no frills, just great minutiae, stuff I never knew.

Whereas the Anthology book had quotes strictly from the Beatles and a few intimate insiders, this one has some great accounts by around 100 others also closely associated with them.

by **theDingle** » Sat Jun 21, 2003 3:30 am

CHEAP, TOO! Last week I was in Media Play and they had clearance books on tables in the center aisle.

For only 99 cents, I picked up a paperbound THE BEATLES: An Oral History by David Pritchard and Alan Lysaght. It's a pleasant easy read, and is 300+ pages. No pictures, no frills, just great minutiae, stuff I never knew.

Whereas the Anthology book had quotes strictly from the Beatles and a few intimate insiders, this one has some great accounts by around 100 others also closely associated with them.

by **theDingle** » Sat Sep 13, 2003 1:38 pm

Excerpt:
Carl Perkins talks about a '64 tour of Great Britain he did with Chuck Berry. At the end of the tour, he was requested to attend a tour's end party. When he got there, he discovered it was hosted by the Beatles as a surprise party for him and Chuck (who didn't go).

So he hung out with the Beatles and they asked him questions like, "How do you kick off the intro to Honey Don't?', etc. They jammed and rapped 'til like 3 in the a.m., and then they asked him to come to Abbey Road the next day for a Beatles For Sale session.

Quote:
"I didn't know they were going to cut 3 of my songs that night. I did play on some of the stuff that night with them, but none of the stuff I played on with them has ever come out."

by **Grillo** » Sun Sep 14, 2003 5:59 am

DO you mind quoting more? it was cool data, u know [;)]

by **theDingle** » Sun Sep 21, 2003 11:18 pm

EXCERPT:
Red Robinson, Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame disc jockey, talks about MC-ing an August 1964 Beatle concert in Vancouver:

"So the crowd was made up of 80% of kids from from 13 to 16 years, and it was the screaming, the crying, and the trying to rush the stage. The Beatles performed only about 19 or 20 minutes at Empire Stadium. I had assigned one of my disc jockeys to MC the show, but he got sick just before it, so I did the assignment myself.

As funny and odd as it sounds, some of the other disc jockeys wouldn't stand up on that stage in front of 25,000 people and do that. It was nerve-wracking and it scared the hell out of me, but I'd done it for Elvis Presley in 1957 in the same stadium. So I went and did and it really got out of control. In 1957 they did the same thing to Elvis. The kids pushed forward to the stage, and Elvis ended up only doing about 22 minutes.

With the Beatles it was even worse in 1964. The chief of police said, 'Look, you've got to get up there, interupt the show and tell them if they don't get back away from the stage, somebody is going to get hurt.' People who don't understand that concern must look at some of those soccer game riots in England. It was very similar.

They were going to crush each other. Not meaning to, but just the frenzy of the moment. So I said to the chief of police, 'Gee, y'know Chief, you don't interrupt an act while they're performing.' Then Brian Epstein said to me, 'Red, go up there at the end of this song and break in on The Beatles.' I said, 'Okay.' Can you imagine my position?

I went up and stood in the little area in back of the stage. When the song finished and the crowd was screaming, I walked out to the microphone. As I was going by John Lennon, who was on my left, he said,

'What the f*** are you doing on a Beatles stage?'

So I went over to him before I went to the mike, and said, 'John, I apologize for this, but your manager Brian Epstein, and the chief of police told me to make this announcement for their safety.' John said, 'Oh, that's okay.'

So I went and did it. You can see in one of the photographs taken that John has his hand on his forehead, like he was wiping the sweat away, and out of the corner of his mouth he's saying those words. Paul McCartney is saying, 'What the hell is going on here?'

They played another song and then McCartney said what I had said again, and you can hear it on the bootleg recording---'If you don't stop, we're going to have to leave.'

I guess I'm one of the few people in front of a crowd of 25,000 that ever had John Lennon say, 'Get the f*** off our stage.' True story.

by **Grillo** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 2:10 am

Thanx Dingle, was great...DO you mind quoting more? [;)]

by **Berkeleyan** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 8:30 am

Yes - a very informative, hard-to-put-down book. I got it as a gift from an ex-girlfriend. Although our parting was not smooth, I´ll always remember her through her gift...[:)]

by **theDingle** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 6:23 pm

quote:Originally posted by Grillo
Thanx Dingle, was great...DO you mind quoting more? [;)]
I'll do it as I can get to it, Grills. Quoting is HARD WORK, lol!

Yeahm Berky, the book is a little gem.

by **Grillo** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 9:09 pm

yeah, it´s ok, Dingle, i was joking [:)] thanx anyway