backbeat film: hamburg beatles & inside stories

8/10/2019 Backbeat Film: Hamburg Beatles & Inside Stories

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BACKBEATFILM & INSIDE STORIES: BEATLES IN HAMBURG

By Alan L. Chrisman

BACKBEAT is a film that tells the story of The Beatles first playing in Hamburg

Germany, in the early 60s, before they were well-known. But until the film came

out in 1993, the general public didnt know that much about this crucial period in

their development. George Harrison said Hamburg was where they learned to

become a band.

The Beatles were first sent there by Allan Williams, owner of what was basically a

strip club, where the early Beatles first played in Liverpool, before they became

regulars at the Cavern and met manager, Brian Epstein. The Beatles, at that time,

consisted of besides John, Paul, and George, drummer Pete Best(whose mother,

Mona, also owned one of the first places they played, The Casbahin the

basement of her house), and Johns close friend, Stu Sutcliffe, on bass.

While in Hamburg The Beatles performed in seedy bars in the sinpart of

Hamburg, with prostitutes and drugs all around them. They lived in squalid


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conditions, once even in a tiny room behind a movie screen. They played for

hours and hours a night, with few breaks, speeded-up on pep pills, to keep up the

grueling schedule.

Thus, this is a far cry from the later image of The Beatles as the clean-cut popgroup in tailored suits which Brian Epstein would present to the world and

Beatlemania.

And this is the story that BACKBEAT, the film, reveals. But it is also a love story.

Because The Beatles were to meet in one of those sleazy bars one night, some

German arts students, especially Astrid Kirchherr. Astrid and her friends were in

a group of art students who called themselves Exis (existentialists). They

dressed in black and copied the then unusual French swept-forward hair style.

These German arts students were to have a profound effect on the still quite-

young and impressionable Beatles. Astrid took thefirst artistic, black and white

photos of the Beatles. And it was her that first convinced Stu and then the others

to try out this new hairstyle, which would later be called the distinctive Beatles

haircut.

Stu, a talented, promising painter and big artistic influence on John, fell in love

with Astrid, and decided to leave the band. He wasnt very good on bass anyway

and would often attempt to play, with his back to the audience; his main asset to

the band being his cool James Dean look, with his dark sunglasses.

The film, BackBeat, tells these two stories then, the creative beginnings of The

Beatles and the poignant love story between Stu and Astrid. Poignant even more

because their romance was tragically short-lived because Stu was to die shortly

after, of a brain hemorrhage, at the age of only 21 in 1960. When Stu left the

band it also necessitated McCartney moving over to bass, which would have a

deep effect on The Beatles music with his melodic basslines. The Beatles would

soon after be discovered by Brian Epstein at the Cavern and the rest is history

But Ive always thought this is the real story of The Beatlesand BACKBEAT does

a pretty good job of telling it. Its a bit stereotypedwith John as the angry,

sarcastic one and Paul the more people-pleasing pop singer (McCartney disputed


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that he wasnt shown much as an also-rocker). But Paul said he was astonished

by the portrayal of Stu by actor Stephen Dorff. The actress, Sheryl Lee, who

portrays Astrid, looks like and captures the artistic photographer perfectly. The

director, Ian Softley, spent ten years interviewing Astrid and several others (Astrid

was a consultant on the film), before he finally got it made. Interestingly, real

Beatles recordings werentused on the soundtrack, but instead several well-

respected musicians, Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters, etc., from

alternative bands were used to re-create Beatle songs and it works. The movie

captures the hyped-up energy and stamina required the forming Beatles learned

in those trying circumstances, which would come in handy later for their

screaming Beatlemania touring days.

As I said, Ive always been most fascinated especially, with this early period of The

Beatles. And I was to fortunately later meet several who were there at their

beginnings. For example I was with George Harrisons sister, Louise, when she

actually saw BACKBEAT film, for the first time. She was a guest at the 2nd

Ottawa,

Canada BeatlesConvention I organized in 96. I remember her saying as she sat

next to me at the screening, George would never have cussed like that. But of

course,The Beatles did a lot more than cuss in Hamburg. They were even

adopted by some of the prostitutes and protected by some of the tough

bouncers in the bars, where often thugs in the drunken audiences carried

weapons. As I say, a far cry from the cuddy Beatles-image later created.

I mentioned before in my recent blog (Little-known Last Lennon and McCartney

Recording Session in 74)which May Pang,Lennons girlfriend in L.A.,recently

revealed, that I met May and Cynthia Lennonas well as Paul McCartneys step-

momat the Conn. Beatles Convention in 94.

Well shortly after I returned from there, I received a call from Pauline Sutcliffe,

sister of Stuart Sutcliffe, original Hamburg Beatle and painter and Johns friend,

described in the Backbeat film. Im not sure how she got my number,but suspect

that it was given to her by Cynthia Lennon, whom I had just met at the

Convention in 94. For there, I had presented Cynthia with what was then only a

school fantasy-project for a proposal to put on a possibly more-artistic Beatles


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Convention. Cynthia, an artist herself, evidently liked the idea and perhaps

mentioned it to her friend, Pauline. Anyway, I had hoped to bring some of Stus

paintings over to Canada as part of our now hoped for 1st Ottawa Beatles

Convention but alas, wasnt able to because of insurance reasons. But afew

months later I found out, there would be an exhibition of Stus paintings at a

gallery in Toronto. I arrived at the exhibit early and no one was there yet, when a

woman came over and offered me a tea. This turned out to be Pauline Sutcliffe,

the English woman I had talked to on the phone a few months earlier. She was

kind and showed me some of Stus magnificent mainly-abstract paintings. I also

discovered some rare Beatlesphotos tucked away around the corner.

We did do our first Ottawa Beatles Convention in 1995, although I had hoped to

have Cynthia as a guest, she couldnt come, and we got original Beatlesdrummer, Pete Best. He had been with them for two years in Hamburg and

Liverpool, before being replaced by Ringo,who was also playing in Hamburg as

part of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes. In fact, in keeping with Pete Best and his

Liverpool band, as guests, we called our first Beatles Convention, Cavern Days.

Our poster for it featured a collage of images from photographer, Astrid Kirchherr

of the original Hamburg Beatles, with Pete, and Stu Sutcliffe and even of Astrid. I

later wrote to Astrid in Germany and received a special signed postcard from her

agent.

And in 1996, I was to meet some more from this period and the Beatles

beginnings. I attended a Beatlesdealers get-together in southern Ontario. The

guests there included Allan Williams, the Beatles first manager, who had first

booked them into Hamburg. Williams had written one of the best books on the

early Beatles books in 1975, The Man Who Gave Away the Beatles, called that

because The Beatles, once in Germany, stiffed Williams of his booking fees and he

dropped them. Williams had advised future manager, Brian Epstein, not totouch them with a Fin 10 foot barge pole!

Williams was a real character, full of raunchy stories of the Beatles. In fact, he

held up Paul McCartneys actual leather pants (he said he had gotten from one

of the other Liverpool groups supposedly Paul had just left them at the Cavern)


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whichEpstein had gotten them to change out of into the suits. He said he wanted

to sell to McCartney for $10,000! Thats the kind of character he was: I liked him

and he signed my copy of his book. With Williams was Beryl Wooler, Epsteins

assistantat his Liverpool record store, Nems, and later married to Bob Wooler,

the Cavern D.J. who was one of their early supporters. At that same get-together

was a member of Lennons early Liverpool teenaged band, The Quarrymen, Len

Garry. He was very friendly and told of the story of the fated day John Lennon

met Paul McCartneyat a Liverpool church, July 6, 1957. Garry knows because he

was there.

He also described both Lennon and McCartneys characters, when he said,

Lennon didnt want to share band leadership with Paul, but knew heneeded him

because Paul knew more chords and songs, but Lennon didnt want to admit it.

Later, he had his childhood friend, Pete Shotten, approach McCartney. And the

way, Garry told it, the next time Shotten ran into Paul, he asked him to join the

fledgling band, and Paul just nonchalantly replied, OK. Also a part of the early

Lennon McCartney connection was that they had both lost their mothers as teen-

agers. Lennon wrote about it for years after in several of his songs, but

McCartney rarely did, except shes the Mother Mary in Let It Be, again

revealing of their different characters. Shotten, by the way, also wrote one of the

best Beatlesbooks, The Beatles, John Lennon and Me in 84. Pauline Sutcliffe

with Alan Clayson, wrote Backbeat, Stuart Sutcliffe: The Lost Beatlein 94.

Pauline and Astrid both approved of the Backbeat film and I also recommend you

seeing it and read the above books and I was able to meet some of them first

hand, and listen to their personal stories about The Beatles.


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Above: Pauline Sutcliffes signed card from

Stus painting exhibit & Astrids postcard: Astrid & Stu-self-photo; Ottawa Beatles

Convention collage of Astrids images


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See below HAMBURG BEATLES AND STU MEETS ASTRID, BACKBEAT FILM,

1993:

http://youtu.be/JhJBk9YNhwo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhJBk9YNhwo
http://youtu.be/JhJBk9YNhwohttp://youtu.be/JhJBk9YNhwohttp://youtu.be/JhJBk9YNhwo

backbeat film: hamburg beatles & inside stories

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