Liddypod #27 From The Cavern to Ed Sullivan

On 9th February 1961, The Beatles made their debut at the Cavern Club at a lunchtime session in front of a couple of hundred people. Exactly 3 years later on 9th February 1964, The Beatles made their debut on the Ed Sullivan Show in front of 73 million people. How did that happen? Listen to… Read More Liddypod #27 From The Cavern to Ed Sullivan

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to Liddy Pod, Beatles Panter with Bedford and Beasley.

SPEAKER_02 0:14

Well Dave, here we are for another uh Liddy Pod. Um tell us where we are today.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Lost. No, no. As as ever, we have gone uh looking for another breakfast and just had a fantastic breakfast. Very continental as well. Brioche, didn't we?

SPEAKER_02 0:30

We were really, really posh, weren't we at brioche today? Uh and for those uh for the well no let's let's tell people where we are. Yeah, it's an important place.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

It's called Mersey Maid. Um it's not been open that long, right here, um just off Paradise Street in Liverpool City Centre, and they champion local people, local craftspeople, whatever. It's uh it's a wonderful place, but they've got a lovely cafe restaurant as well. So we thought, why not combine the two? Have a nice breakfast and promo for for Mersey made.

SPEAKER_02 1:01

It's a great place. Now check them out. It is a really good, it's a great concept, as you say, Dave, because they you know they've got the cafe here, it's called Scribble, and then all around upstairs and downstairs, they've got loads of things for sale which have been made by local artists, many of whom are in the building, so you can actually walk around and watch the artists at work and then go and then go and buy their products in the shop. It's a it's a it's a great concept.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Well, it is. Um, some my books uh gonna be sold here. Um, you will not be able to walk around and see me working while I'm writing um because I'd probably be half asleep. Um I love the idea of the place called Scribble because that that about sums up my handwriting. If you ever see my scribble when I'm working on a book or something like that, my handwriting is appalling, it's awful. But I sort of call it my own secret code, because I'm the only one who most of the time can be bothered.

SPEAKER_02 1:54

Yeah, the worrying thing is when you go back and you can't actually work out what you wrote yourself. So, yeah, Mersey May, check it out. And if you uh are listening in Liverpool or if you do visit Liverpool, come and come and check them out. It's uh fabulous food, fabulous drink, and great gifts as well. Really good stuff to buy. So, Dave, um, we're recording this on the 9th of February, Thursday, 9th of February, which is a key date in the Beatles story.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Yeah, two very important things happened on the 9th of February. First one was in 1961, as the Beatles make their debut at the Cavern Club, and of course, in the next two and a half years, they do bother just under 300 appearances in two and a half years, which is phenomenal. Um, so that's the first bit, but then exactly three years to the day later, 9th of February 1964. I think most of us know what happened then. 73 million tune into Ed Sullivan show. Look what they did in those three years.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

I mean, it is incredible, isn't it? Because if you take uh three years back from 1961, so 1958, and you look at you know how things had moved on then, it was like a massive, massive development in the space of only three years. Uh but before we look at that development, Dave, let's look at the the 9th of February 1961 and set the scene for what things would have been like in Liverpool in the cavern at that time.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Okay, so the the cavern only opened, as we know, in uh January 57. Quarrymen had played there. The Beatles themselves, because they'd only been a rock and roll band for less than 12 months at this stage, because they only become a rock and roll group, really. Uh 10th of May 1960, when they do that Larry Parnes audition, call themselves Silver Beatles. That's when they start going to all their drummers. So Johnny Hutch sits in for Tommy Moore, who then turns up. And of course, the big change for them is what happens August 1960, is Alan Williams gets them the gig to go to Hamburg. Now, by the time they're coming to 61, being in 61, they've almost split up. And of course, they have the nightmare of Hamburg, where they decide to turn their back on Bruno Coshmi to go to the top 10 club. The police get called, and of course they have the curfew police there. George is under 18, he's supposed to be in bed by 10 o'clock. They were hardly started by 10 o'clock. Um so George is warned you're gonna get done. So George goes home. Pete and Paul then clearing the stuff out of the Bambi Kino, and um as the story goes, they put a condom up on the wall, literally, so they've got a bit of light. Bruno Koshmeda then um arranges for them to be arrested for attempted arson. Um and he gets stuck in police cells, handcuffs, off to the airport, sent home. Stuart's fallen in love with Astrid, stays there, John makes his way home. So by the end of 1960, it's also the end of the group. Um George didn't even know the others had come back. And of course, this is where the moaner best. Pete's one steps in, it's got the Casbar Club, and says, no, come on play here. So they play two gigs there. Alan Williams gets some gig at the Grover Ballroom, and of course the big turning point was Little in the Town Hall, 27th of December 1960. This is when the curtain goes up, Paul launches into Long Tall Sally, which has newbies on bass guitar, and instead of dancing, everybody goes to the stage and things like who are these scruffs? Because they weren't really known in North Liverpool. Yeah, they are they're in jeans, cowboy boots, leather jackets, long hair, everything turned loud. That was their first taste of Beatlemania.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

I mean it is incredible when you think about it because often you think about the Beatles story, you think about you know, from 1957 and and and onwards from there, and you just think it was a continuous timeline, but there was that hiatus, wasn't there, when you know things did sort of you can I don't think you can even say break up, I think it just drifted apart. Uh and quite possibly it could have stayed that way.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Well, it did it could, because they'd had that same issue in 1959 when they were down to just John Paul and George, no drummer, all the other groups are going to rock and roll groups, um, and they stopped performing. So, you know, George joins Les Stuart Quartet, and for a few months the three of them aren't playing together. Then you have the again these amazing coincidences of the Les Stuart Quartet supposed to open the Casbar. Big argument, they don't. George and this man, Ken Brown go to Mona Best. She says, get me some more musicians. George reforms the quarrymen to open the Casbar 29th of August 59. So there's many occasions in the story before they become the Fab Forum famous, where it could have ended. So it happened in 59, but this was a big one. They're coming back from Hamburg, you know, they've been playing all these hours tonight, were a brilliant, brilliant group, but they felt like that was it, it it was all over, but thankfully it wasn't. And they they do these gigs, suddenly, every promoter wants them. And come back to Mona Vest, rings Raymond Fall at the Cavern and says, I know your audiences are struggling with jazz, and you're doing some beat music, you have to sign this this group, you've got to get them to play at the cavern. And uh, yeah, 9th of February 1961, there they are.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

And you know, nobody could have imagined what was going to follow on from that, not just in terms of the number of appearances they made there, but then the impact that they then had on that club, uh, an impact which is still being felt today.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Well, it is, and a lot of people see the cavern as the birthplace of the Beatles. I'd say the Casbar is more than than the Cavern is, but they needed to be in the city centre, and the cavern was perfect for it. Um, and of course, the the way the story goes on that first appearance, it's a lunchtime appearance, they don't play any evening until March, is that with about 10 minutes to go, the place is packed, and the Beatles are there in the dressing room, in the leathers and and stuff. Raymond Fall comes in and says, Okay, lads, you've got 10 minutes time to get changed. Because all the groups at the time wore suits and ties, and that's what he expected. And John, as we know, was never backwarding going forward, says, Um, what do you mean change? This is what we wear. He said, Not my club, you don't. Suits and ties, please. That's not what we're doing. Well, you can't go on. Bob Wooler, the legend, steps in and says, Ray, if you don't let them play here, you're gonna have a riot on your hands. So he reluctantly lets them play, and of course, they go down an absolute storm and comes back and says, Right, how many dates can you give me? And you can wear whatever you want.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

So that was where, you know, from the Caverns point of view, and obviously, as you said, they had paid there as the quarryman, but you know, from the Cavern's point of view, that was where it all started, and then followed with another, you know, 291 appearances over the next two and a half years. But you know, the next the next three years were just phenomenal because when you take them from, you know, appearing on the cavern for the first time, only on a lunchtime session, almost not appearing, if if Ray McFaul had had his way, but then within three years, they're doing what almost no other British bands had done and taking America by storm and going on a show and an event which people still talk about today, where they were when they watched that performance in the United States of uh of the Beatles.

SPEAKER_01 9:44

I'm sure you get this when we get Americans who come on uh the Beatles tours around Liverpool, and he mounted those first generation American fans, and the first thing they will say is I remember watching them on the Ed Sullivan show as a kid, and I've always been intrigued as to how do 73 million people know to tune in to the Ed Sullivan show? You know, what led up to it? Um now we know there were a few media appearances, um, there was one that the CBS News had done a big feature on Beatlemania, which was due to air on the evening of the 22nd of November 1963. Of course that date is rather famous because that's the day that Kennedy got assassinated. So that clip was never shown. Um there are there's a feature on um NBC radio talking a bit about them. The CBS thing then shows in uh in December of '63. So that's a there's a few bits of media appearances happening. Um one little story I was intrigued with is um a young girl called Marcia Albert, and she'd watched the um the CBS News feature, and that's where they performed I Wanna Hold Your Hand. She then bombards a local radio station and says, You've got to play this record. So they actually brought her into the radio station, and she introduces um the song, all the radio stations then. What the hell's this? This is brilliant. So then the record gets released straight after Christmas, and that's how they sell a million copies and get to number one. So there's all these little things, and then the first primetime show is the Jack Parr show, which I think was the 3rd of January 64, and he he'd seen all the stuff with the Beatles when he was in London, and he was intrigued, and he showed a little bit of um the Mersey sound, which the BBC documentary he shot in August 63, which I don't think he was supposed to have done, which was the Beatles singing She Loves You. Um, so that was their first appearance on Primetime. So suddenly there's this media build-up, momentum was building. Um then the week before Ed Sullivan as a British photographer called um Terry Spencer, he did a big feature in Life magazine. The Beatles are coming with their mop haircut haircuts and everything. Um so suddenly you've got all this lead-up, and it's a perfect storm. Because we know first thing Ed Sullivan had seen was when he bumped into them in the airport at the end of October 63. Beatles came back from Sweden for the first time, and Ed Sullivan's walking through Heathrow and think, Who are all these girls screaming for? And he said, That's the Beatles, who are they? Yeah, this big pop group. So, of course, with the show that he's got, he's interested. So all these little seeds build up to it, and it's just you can still see, you know, when the people come on the tours and they talk about it, their face lights up, and it's like they're a kid again watching that television show, and it it's seismic change.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Yeah, I mean I I I got the same thing, Dave, as exactly what you've just said. I had a woman on a tour who told me she was um she was uh in her early teens and she was in within the first three rows of the Ed Sullivan show because her friend's dad worked on the show. So she she her and her friend got got tickets to to watch it and watched it from like really, really close up, really remembers it very, very distinctly. But you're right, I mean, you know, people people still today talk about you know where they were, how they watched it, how their parents commented detrimentally against what they were watching, you know, who are the you can't even understand them and all this sort of thing. Um and it you know, it's one of those sort of seismic moments in in well, it's certainly in people's history, but I think in American culture as well, you know, people still talk, you know, very affectionately about that Ed Sullivan show.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah. And it's amazing how much it affected those young people. Because the Ed Sullivan show was the family show. You know, everybody watched it. And like you say, you know, some of the parents would have been looking over the top of their newspaper thinking, what is this? And it's funny with if you go and watch some of those um those news clips, and they refer to the haircuts. Well, yes, it was um they introduced the sheepdog haircut they cut it. They of course know it as the mop choppers, um, or the bowl, the bowl cut. Um but it's one of those things, it's hard for us looking back and realising musically what a seismic change it was. And that's one of those things that have talking to like the guys from the quarrymen, for example, saying you know, up until that point they've been jazz and everything else, and then suddenly within a space of a few months, you've got Rock Island Line, Heartbreak Hotel, and Long Tor Sally, and you think that must have been absolutely mind-blowing to listen to. But then you've got this TV event of 73 million people, and you think who does that? And we are now looking, I think, at social and cultural history. You know, it's not just people's history, is it?

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Oh, absolutely isn't, no, absolutely isn't. And and you know, when you think you you you touched on it on it there, Dave, you know, about how people got to know that that was happening. And you know, we today with social media and you know, stories being spread across the world within seconds, you know, just none of that existed. You know, none of that existed at all. And yet, you know, 73 million people switched on their telly, crime rates went down, you know, uh because people were watching this phenomenal event, which people still talk about today, and and and we'll continue to talk about that. Will be in the I was about to say in the textbooks, but it will be in the in in curricular of of schools and colleges and universities going forward as a as a as an event in in media history as well as musical history.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Yeah, and and I think it's nice to to use that context like we have done say you know, debut at the cavern, and within three years, that's where they've got to. And that it's almost like in the early days of the Beatles, that their dream was to do what Rory Storm, the Hurricans, did was to get a summer season at Brooklyn's. You know, that was making it. Um it's one of the stories Ringo always told us you know his auntie saying, you know, if you get yourself on at the palladium in London, that was the ultimate, because that was that was the realistic goal. Um and we know that by the time Brian Epstein comes onto the scene at the end of 61, again, it's one of those moments where the Beatles were getting fed up and could have ended it because they conquered Hamburg, they conquered Liverpool, but they had no way really of getting out of Liverpool, which is what Brian brought to them. Um so it's it was amazing that little bit of history that connects those two events. They could not have imagined anything like that. Um I know we mentioned the Mersey sound before, but I love watching that one because it's August 63 and they've made it in the UK, number one singles, number one album, etc. And they're saying how long is it gonna last, which is the question everybody asks them. And said, I don't know, you know, hopefully for a few years. So then maybe once the group's over, you know, John and Paul saying that they'll write songs together, but they can't see themselves age 30 or 40 singing twist and shout. You think there's Paul still touring, still touring the world stuff. Um and it's just it's lovely just for the context of seeing that's how they felt in August 63 of conquering the UK. You had no idea what was about to happen to him.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

And it is incredible when you compare it to the modern day, and you look at you know, massive marketing machines that go behind uh bands and singers, all the social media, everything else, and none of that existed, you know, very, very limited marketing, quite unsophisticated marketing as well, even what did exist, obviously, no social media or anything like that, and yet, you know, these four lads from Liverpool went from playing in a basement club uh in the heart of the city centre to three years later conquering the world.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah, and that's it, because the dream for any British artist was to conquer America because that was the big market, and nobody had really done it, and that's why I think it took a lot of people by surprise. And I I think there's the lovely irony is that the music the Beatles were playing was inspired by the American artists, and they'd sort of got imported into Liverpool, and we put the Liverpool twist on it and sold it back to America. You know, it's a perfect import export business, really.

SPEAKER_02 18:55

Um yeah, you're absolutely right. So, yeah, uh uh you know, obviously people will be listening to this after the date, but you know, sitting here uh in Merzy Maid, um only five minutes walk away from the Cavern Club uh on a very historic day, uh the 9th of February uh 1961, 1964, Dave.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Yeah, and of course, um, well, that's the 64 is the year before I was born, so I just thought I'd mention that. What year were you born, Paul?

SPEAKER_02 19:22

I I was born in uh well actually yeah, thinking about it, I was born in uh 61, so I was born only about three weeks before the Beatles made that that well it wasn't a debut, but debut as the Beatles at the Cameron Club. So yeah, it was literally three weeks or so.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

So really that first appearance was the celebration, was it was that your christening or something that that was the the party afterwards? That's exactly what it was, Dave.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Yeah, that's exactly what it was. Well done. Well, listen, um, we're gonna be getting together soon. It's slightly shorter Liddy Pod today. We've got such a busy schedule, the two of us at the moment, uh, but uh we're we're gonna get together soon for another Liddypod. But we thought today's an important day in uh in musical and in television history in the case of the Ed Sullivan show. So we thought we'd do this uh this little liddypod today from Mersey Maid here in the heart of the city. Uh Dave, we'll see you soon. See you very soon indeed. Birthday boy.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

You've been listening to Liddy Pod, Beatles Banter with Bedford and Beasley.