regarded school as a terrific inconvenience, had decided to sit for exams—and failed
every one
of them. Thrilled by performing, Pete Best had drifted away from plans to attend a teachers training college. Only Stuart Sutcliffe, who was an impassioned, proven artist, had any hope of success, and his bandmates knew he would eventually forsake music to pursue his destiny as a serious painter.
But Hamburg had thrown them all a powerful curve. Something strangely significant had happened there, something intangible opened a small window of hope and gave their dreams an unpredictable new lift. Their shows took on an excitement that bordered on anarchy. Frustrated by the feeble drone that English rock ’n roll bands had settled into, they exploited their notoriety as “ a gang of scruffs ” and pumped up the volume. They began retooling their show to reach the audience through antics gleaned from hell-raisers like Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis. In the process, they became not only rigorously proficient onstage but immensely popular with the German nightclub crawlers.
Then, just as mercurially, it all came crashing down.
The Hamburg gig had ended in tumultuous disarray, with the boys being deported in an unbecoming fashion and shipped north again in irregular, onerous shifts. For two weeks they bummed around Liverpool, sad and aimless, avoiding one another like animals forced to share a cage in a zoo. Evidence that their dream had ended loomed starkly, and the freight of one another’s company made it that much harder to bear.
It was in the midst of this deepening depression that John and Pete turned up together at the tiny Jacaranda coffee bar. They had come for acoffee and, by chance, encountered Bob Wooler, a nappy, courtly man of twenty-eight with no youth left to him aside from a passion for popular music. No one nurtured the Liverpool rock ’n roll community more ably than Wooler, a failed songwriter, until it was jerked sideways by the vise grip of Brian Epstein a few years later. He projected the dazzling eloquence of an actor and anchored his voice with a facile, flowery resonance that gave his young protégés a sense of confidence. All afternoon Lennon and Best sat sulking, ill at ease, at one of the tiny postage-stamp-size tables, surrounded by clusters of bearded university students, and whined to Wooler about their professional situation. They wanted to work again—badly. Anything would do: a show, a dance, a club date, even a party. He had to help them, he just
had
to, they insisted.
The only event of significance was the upcoming Christmas dance at Litherland Town Hall. Wooler called promoter Brian Kelly from the Jacaranda’s kitchen, while Lennon and Best stood nearby, hanging on his every word. On the other end of the line, Kelly’s stagy sigh leeched impatience. A cantankerous entrepreneur who was among the small band of missionaries spreading the gospel of rock ’n roll, he had heard it all before and was used to the gale force of Wooler’s rhetoric when it came to plugging musicians. As far as Kelly was concerned, Wooler was trying to pick his pocket. Besides, he had already booked three bands to entertain. But Wooler was persuasive.
“ They’re fantastic ,” he assured Kelly, who deflected the compliment with a discernible grunt. “Could you possibly put them on as an extra? Like I said, they’ve been to Hamburg.”
To punctuate this distinction, Wooler asked him for a fee of £8 for the band, an extraordinary amount for a local attraction. Kelly didn’t take more than a second to respond. “Ridiculous!” Determinedly, Wooler pursued another line of argument to help further his case. “Yes, but they’re professionals now,” he said. This made Kelly sputter in disgust. “
Professional!
I don’t give a sod about them being professional,” he said.
Wooler cast an uneasy eye over his shoulder at the vigilant boys, their faces slipping in and out of the late-afternoon shadows.
every one
of them. Thrilled by performing, Pete Best had drifted away from plans to attend a teachers training college. Only Stuart Sutcliffe, who was an impassioned, proven artist, had any hope of success, and his bandmates knew he would eventually forsake music to pursue his destiny as a serious painter.
But Hamburg had thrown them all a powerful curve. Something strangely significant had happened there, something intangible opened a small window of hope and gave their dreams an unpredictable new lift. Their shows took on an excitement that bordered on anarchy. Frustrated by the feeble drone that English rock ’n roll bands had settled into, they exploited their notoriety as “ a gang of scruffs ” and pumped up the volume. They began retooling their show to reach the audience through antics gleaned from hell-raisers like Gene Vincent and Jerry Lee Lewis. In the process, they became not only rigorously proficient onstage but immensely popular with the German nightclub crawlers.
Then, just as mercurially, it all came crashing down.
The Hamburg gig had ended in tumultuous disarray, with the boys being deported in an unbecoming fashion and shipped north again in irregular, onerous shifts. For two weeks they bummed around Liverpool, sad and aimless, avoiding one another like animals forced to share a cage in a zoo. Evidence that their dream had ended loomed starkly, and the freight of one another’s company made it that much harder to bear.
It was in the midst of this deepening depression that John and Pete turned up together at the tiny Jacaranda coffee bar. They had come for acoffee and, by chance, encountered Bob Wooler, a nappy, courtly man of twenty-eight with no youth left to him aside from a passion for popular music. No one nurtured the Liverpool rock ’n roll community more ably than Wooler, a failed songwriter, until it was jerked sideways by the vise grip of Brian Epstein a few years later. He projected the dazzling eloquence of an actor and anchored his voice with a facile, flowery resonance that gave his young protégés a sense of confidence. All afternoon Lennon and Best sat sulking, ill at ease, at one of the tiny postage-stamp-size tables, surrounded by clusters of bearded university students, and whined to Wooler about their professional situation. They wanted to work again—badly. Anything would do: a show, a dance, a club date, even a party. He had to help them, he just
had
to, they insisted.
The only event of significance was the upcoming Christmas dance at Litherland Town Hall. Wooler called promoter Brian Kelly from the Jacaranda’s kitchen, while Lennon and Best stood nearby, hanging on his every word. On the other end of the line, Kelly’s stagy sigh leeched impatience. A cantankerous entrepreneur who was among the small band of missionaries spreading the gospel of rock ’n roll, he had heard it all before and was used to the gale force of Wooler’s rhetoric when it came to plugging musicians. As far as Kelly was concerned, Wooler was trying to pick his pocket. Besides, he had already booked three bands to entertain. But Wooler was persuasive.
“ They’re fantastic ,” he assured Kelly, who deflected the compliment with a discernible grunt. “Could you possibly put them on as an extra? Like I said, they’ve been to Hamburg.”
To punctuate this distinction, Wooler asked him for a fee of £8 for the band, an extraordinary amount for a local attraction. Kelly didn’t take more than a second to respond. “Ridiculous!” Determinedly, Wooler pursued another line of argument to help further his case. “Yes, but they’re professionals now,” he said. This made Kelly sputter in disgust. “
Professional!
I don’t give a sod about them being professional,” he said.
Wooler cast an uneasy eye over his shoulder at the vigilant boys, their faces slipping in and out of the late-afternoon shadows.
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