Fair play for Twitchy

[cripes]

This thread will be for discussion of the new Lewisohn fab bio.

I'm enjoying it so far, but I can't help but feel bad for John (Bobby) Dykin's legacy. I reckon he was a fairly decent chap as far as young John was concerned. He'd give him pocket money and stuff.

Now Lewisohn has him being culpable in Julia's death via a DUI arrest that left him without a driver's license.

It's bad enough that he's now remembered by John's cruel nickname 'Twitchy', but that genie is out of the bottle so 'Twitchy' it is.

I'm hoping that the expanded edition has more on the Twitch--at least a photo or something.

In my mind's eye he looks kind of like this:

[manho]

the first thing the book does is put an end to the debate about the social class of lennon. both sides of his family were 100% working class (based on their jobs you could even say lower working class). the first person to do a bit of social climbing was mimi who married a guy with a little business and a bit of money (but not enough to prevent him having to take menial jobs like cleaning trams late in his life to make ends meet). what lewisohn doesn't explain is why the stanley family considered itself superior to the lennons. it comes down to protestant and catholic. the stanleys were protestant and the lennons catholic. at that time in liverpool hatred of catholics by working class protestants was very strong. mimi sounds very much like a snob and a bigot. she imagined herself middle class but it was all superficial. lennon, of course went to a very good grammar school where he mingled with middle class kids and probably picked up his accent there. but he won his place at the school on merit, passing the state exam at the age of 11.

[manho]

point of possible interest. in the section on the english monetary system lewisohn gives two possible pronunciations of the word for the three pence coin: threepence or thruppence. actually, in liverpool the pronunciation would be thrippence. or if your accent was really strong thri'mce, with a glottal stop in place of the pp, an m in place of the n and the second e left out.

[manho]

don't know how far you can trust lewihson. he's talking about 1956 here:

"The date was on or soon after April 17, and
Quarry Bank friend Michael Hill had just returned
from an Easter school exchange visit
to the Netherlands, during which he’d gone
into an Amsterdam record store and bought
a Belgian 78 by Little Richard, “Long Tall
Sally” c/w “Slippin’ and Slidin’.” Little
Richard wasn’t known in Britain, so when
Hill said to his mate “I’ve got a record by a
singer who’s better than Elvis,” John—who’d
clearly fallen head-over-heels for
Presley—insisted (probably in two short
words) that this simply wasn’t possible“


wiki have little richard in the uk charts in 1955 (no. 29) with tutti frutti. long tall sally was released in march (in america) and ended up at no. 3 in england. to say richard was unknown in britain is sloppy research.

i get the feeling lewisohn knows everything about the beatles but not much about anybody else.

[manho]

ignore that last post. update tomorrow.

[manho]

maybe i've maligned the man (or maybe not). a few pages after the extract above lewisohn goes into great detail about the release of little richard's records in england. he says the first single (long tall sally/tutti frutti) was released in late 1956. wiki however say this about tutti frutti, released in november 1955:

"'Tutti Frutti' became an instant hit, reaching No. 2 on Billboard's Rhythm and Blues Best-Sellers chart and crossing over to the pop charts in both the United States and overseas in the United Kingdom. It reached No. 17 on the Billboard Top 100 in America and No. 29 on the British singles chart, eventually selling a million copies"

[manho]

"One day Paul was in the
playground with Keith Ritson (“Ritter”)—a
boy his own age but now in the Lower
Sixth—when George wandered along and
Paul introduced them. For no reason, or a
reason Paul never knew, George suddenly
head-butted Ritter. “Young George was a bit
of a terror—him and his quiff,” says Paul.
“We were all talking and this guy must have
said something to annoy him, so bouff, he
nutted him.”"

sort of fits in with all those surly, whinging songs he wrote.

[cripes]

One point Lewisohn keeps making is that Paulie was a cheap cnut and usually the last Beatle to do things.

[manho]

are you saying that paul should have butted the guy before george?

[manho]

"During
his get-togethers with Paul they learned a
piece called “Bourrée” from the 1957 Chet
Atkins LP Hi-Fi in Focus. Actually a Bach
composition for the lute, Atkins did it as a
guitar two-hander, melody and bass simultaneous"


www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdXn3HzmhZs

[manho]

Paul Beattie, who played the Cavern
and other clubs with his own backing group,
the Beats. His first Parlophone single, “I’m
Comin’ Home,” was a big brassy number
with a honking sax break and heavy echo on
Beattie’s deep baritone Elvis-like voice.
Though derivative (and actually quite
strange), it was arguably the best British rock
and roll record made to date. This was virgin
territory for George Martin—a genuine rock singer,
from the north, with a name that didn’t need
changing, and he’d managed to produce
something unusual.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPF7n7JTQJI


this was 1957. bit of a joe meek sound there.

[digit]

well the point about tutti frutti is that it wouldnt have got any airplay so unless you had the record or knew someone who had it you wouldnt have heard it

good to be back . i had a bug invasion on my part of the island.

[digit]

Bill Harry, of course, has discredited all the bits referring to him and mersey beat , why ML didnt go to the source remains a mystery. we might have to wait for his biography to find out why.

sorry auto-biography

[manho]

“My Bonnie”—it took that
abbreviated title—bristles with energy and
deserves to be considered nothing less than
one of the best British rock and roll records
of the first era, in the ranks with “Brand New
Cadillac,” “Move It!” and “Shakin’ All Over.”


hahahaha!

[manho]

Klaus was so emotional at the thought of the
Beatles leaving that he asked to return with
them to Liverpool and join the group.
The sun was shining and we were sitting on some
wooden planks on Talstrasse, close to the Top Ten. We
were stoned and I asked John if I could become the
Beatles’ bass player. He said, “Oh Klaus, Paul already
bought the bass, it’s going to be him.”

well, he did get to play on working class hero, isolation. imagine, jealous guy, cold turkey, instant karma…

[digit]

Nov 23, 2013 17:14:25 GMT -5 manho said:

“My Bonnie”—it took that
abbreviated title—bristles with energy and
deserves to be considered nothing less than
one of the best British rock and roll records
of the first era, in the ranks with “Brand New
Cadillac,” “Move It!” and “Shakin’ All Over.”


hahahaha!

i dont think even tony or anybody involved with it would agree with that.......

[cripes]

Boy that Klaus was sure a right place/right time guy.


By the way, I'm gonna say it--I think the Revolver cover is ugly.

[manho]

stuart sutcliffe… excruciating headaches for 6 months? hundreds of visits to different doctors and specialists? nobody knew what the problem was?

hel…LO? like, brain scan, anybody?

[manho]

lenny bruce had a routine about how mothers are always deluded about their beloved sons: she doesn't recognize that her son is gay… "he's such a generous boy, always bringing sailors home for the night when they have nowhere to stay and letting them sleep on the sofa…"

pete best's mother on pete getting sacked:

"It’s jealousy... jealousy all the
way, because Peter is the one who has the terrific
following, he has built up the following in Liverpool
for the Beatles. I think it was for that reason that Peter had to be got
rid of, at that stage, because if it wasn’t, and they went
national and international, Peter would have become
the main Beatle with the others just the props."

[cripes]