by Eddie Deezen
It
was the autumn of 1960 in Hamburg, Germany. The young, fledgling group
who had recently changed their name, officially, to The Beatles were
playing at a local club called the Kaiserkeller.
Hamburg was a
vice-ridden city, a 24-hour-a-day unofficial red light district in
itself. Hookers, pimps, thugs, gangsters, drug dealers, and other
various and sundry "characters" and habitués roamed the streets during
the day, and came to the clubs to hear the raucous music and bands a
night. At the time, the Beatles consisted of five members: John Lennon,
Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, plus their then-drummer Pete Best
and their pretty mediocre bass player, Stu Sutcliffe.
During this
time, the Beatles were playing 8-hour shifts at the club, alternating
with another band that had come over from Liverpool called "Rory Storm
and the Hurricanes." Each band would play five or six 90-minute sets
every night, shifting back and forth. Although the Beatles had arrived
in Hamburg first, the Hurricanes were the higher paid of the two groups,
being the bigger name band at this point in time.
Rory
Storm, the Hurricanes' front man and lead singer, was a very colorful
fellow who stuttered in real life, but was able to sing clearly and
plainly. Rory's stutter was so bad that his friends never let him order
in restaurants or introduce songs during the act because it took too
long. The two bands got to be good friends during their time playing
together.
They all lived at the Seaman's Mission and would join
together to go out for breakfast at Harold's Cafe next door after the
long nights, devouring corn flakes and milk (pretty much the only real
nourishment they got, after drinking bottles of beer and taking pills
called Preludin or "prellys" to stay awake through the night). The
boys also all indulged in the prevalence of both local girls
(groupies) and prostitutes, as one could imagine red-blooded young
musicians in their late teen years would.
The Hurricanes'
drummer was a bearded, sad-faced but pleasant chap named Richard
Starkey, who went by the nickname Ringo Starr. He loved jewelry,
especially his beloved rings. During these 8-hour shifts, the Beatles
would play for a stretch, take a break (a "powzer") and Rory and his
boys would take over.
The stage of the Kaiserkeller was a cheap
bunch of wooden planks, balanced on beer crates. The Beatles and the
Hurricanes once made a bet to see which group could break through the
Kaiserkeller stage. After several failed attempts to crash through, the
Hurricanes finally won the bet, stomping and jumping as hard as they
could, before smashing through and laughing in the rubble. Bruno
Koschmider, the owner of the club, was furious at the two groups (as the
stage was broken up, he had to use a juke box to play music for his
customers while it was being repaired). When the two bands went out to
breakfast the next morning at Harold's Cafe, he sent a group of his
henchmen over to beat them with blackjacks.
The
Beatles were to have many wild and crazy times in Hamburg, but more
importantly, it was in Hamburg that they really started to "come
together" and gel as a band.
One day, unknowingly at the time,
musical history was made. On October 18, 1960, one of the Hurricanes
named Lu Walters was scheduled to record a few songs at a local studio.
John, Paul, and George were hired, for a modest fee, to accompany him
and provide instrumental backing. As luck would have it, Pete Best, the
Beatles' drummer, was off that day, buying new drumsticks. And so, Ringo
Starr was taken on to play drums for this seminal session.
(Fate?
Kismet? Or was it just poor Pete's first stroke of the "bad luck" that
was to plague him so many times in the next few years?)
The
session took place in a small booth on the fifth floor of the Acoustik
Studio. Three songs were recorded that day: "Fever," "Summertime," and
"September Song." This session was to be the first time John, Paul,
George, and Ringo ever played music together.
One wonders what
went through the minds of John, Paul, George and Ringo on that historic
day. Did the four hit it off? Did they feel a natural kinship? A
rapport? Did any of the three have any sort of premonition about their
collective future?
The session ended and the three
Beatles and Ringo went their separate ways. But on several occasions
over the next year and a half, when Pete Best was ill, indisposed, or
otherwise unavailable, Ringo would climb aboard his drum kit and sit in
for him.
On February 5, 1962, Pete Best was ill and Ringo sat in
for him at a lunchtime gig at a local club, The Cavern. He played with
the boys again that same evening at another gig. Finally, in mid-August
of '62, Ringo was officially asked to become a Beatle and permanently
replace Pete Best.
At this same time, Ringo had been offered 20
pounds a week to play for another band called Kingsize Taylor and the
Dominoes. The Beatles offered him 25 pounds, so he took the Beatles'
offer.
Originally, it was suggested that the Beatles and the
Hurricanes just "swap drummers," with Pete Best moving over and joining
Rory Storm's band. Pete was, understandably, upset at being dropped from
the Beatles, and refused.
The
firing of Pete Best is a murky chapter in Beatles history to this day,
as Beatles fans continue to argue and dispute the exact reason or
reasons poor Pete got the axe. Rory Storm was also angry at first, but
being a very decent chap, he wished Ringo and his new band good luck. We
all know what was to become of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. They, of
course, went on to unimaginable riches, fame, and glory, revolutionizing
music and bringing joy into the lives of untold millions all over the
world.
The luckless Pete Best was to join a band called Lee
Curtis and the All-Stars, which met with little success. Finally, in
1968, Pete retired from show business, and got a job in a bakery.
Pete,
a kind and gentle soul, understandably, never really got over being
dropped from the most successful band in the history of rock music. Who
would? Fortunately, although it took a few decades, Pete was to get his
much-deserved millions when a few recordings he had played on were
released in
The Beatles Anthology in the mid-1990's. Pete
started performing again, had a happy marriage and managed to somehow
survive -happily- after the biggest screw job in the history of show
business.
The fates weren't so kind to poor Rory Storm. Rory and
his Hurricanes were to go through several drummers in the next few
years. But Ringo Starr was to prove irreplaceable.
After a few
failed records, Rory Storm returned to Liverpool and was still a local
star. But finally, after a band member died, his Hurricanes officially
disbanded in 1967. With the Beatles huge, unprecedented success, many
other groups were to also meet with success, riding their huge
coattails. Unfortunately, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were not to be
one of them.
Rory
soon took on a new career as a disc jockey. But the times had passed
Rory by, and a friend remembers poor Rory looking at him blankly (and
poignantly) one day and asking "What happened?"
Rory remained in
Liverpool and lived with his mother in a house he dubbed Stormsville. In
the early 1970's, he developed a severe chest infection that made it
difficult to sleep. He resorted to pills and booze to help the
condition, but overdosed in September 1972. (It is disputed by fans, to
this day, whether or not it was an accidental death or suicide.)
To compound his tragic end, Rory's mother found his dead body in the home they shared and committed suicide herself.
We
live in an unsympathetic universe on an unsympathetic planet. Let us
not forget, for all their glory and glitter, even the Beatles amazing
saga is littered with its own tragedies. The Beatles' original bass
player, Stu Sutcliffe, was to die at the age of 21 from a brain
hemorrhage resulting from an injury he incurred at a local concert.
The
lives of pretty much the entire world were to be affected by the
Beatles and their music, and the Beatles themselves each had their own
particular up-and-down journeys after the group's break-up in 1969. John
finally found the life he was always searching for in bizarre Japanese
artist Yoko Ono, who was to become his wife and close companion. George
found his salvation in Eastern religion and philosophy.
As all
know, both John and George were to experience untimely, unfortunate and
violent deaths (George died of of cancer, but his condition was
definitely exacerbated by a knife attack made on him by a home invasion
intruder a few months earlier.) Paul and Ringo have each been through
their own share of misfortune too, but are both still very active as
performers, as well as happy in their personal lives.
Who could
ever have imagined the repercussions and ramifications of a minor
recording session at a cheap, little-known studio called Kirchenalle
(the Klockmann house) -the day it all started- all those many years ago?
