Website about random meetings with The Beatles to become a book
A WEBSITE devoted to random meetings between the public and The Beatles over the years is set to become a book.
By Liam Murphy
31 Dec 2012
A WEBSITE devoted to random meetings between the public and The Beatles over the years is set to become a book.
The Facebook page, called The Beatles And Me, was set up “for a bit of a laugh” according to its creator Dean Johnson.
But in just a few months it has pictures and stories from hundreds of encounters with John, Paul, George and Ringo over the decades.
It has become so successful that Dean and Jennifer Smedley, the creative director of Liverpool-based Plantapress, now plan to turn the web page into a book.
Jennifer said the idea came up after she met Dean through a mutual friend.
She said: “Dean told me about it and how he thought it would make a good book – and I thought ‘yes, let’s do it’.”
The book will be Plantapress’ fourth title and they believe it will attract wide interest. Jennifer said: “I think it has real global interest and potential. It is so unusual and has such personal stories – I think there will be a massive market for it.”
The aim is to publish it in March to coincide with the first 50th anniversary of the first Beatles album, Please Please Me.
Dean, the curator of a museum devoted to the war poet Wilfred Owen, said the reaction on Facebook was unexpected but “fantastic”.
He said: “I was especially pleased with the response from the USA – people are so proud of their own piece of Beatles history. They are the people who made Beatlemania happen and the previously unseen pics are very exciting to see.
“We seem to have created a outlet for people to share these treasured memories.
“Everyone in Merseyside seems to have a Beatles story.
“We want to document the fans’ side of the Beatlemania phenomenon.
“We have already received some wonderful accounts and pictures from the public, including someone who loaned his entire collection of Gene Vincent records to original Beatle Stuart Sutcliffe.”
Jennifer added: “Perhaps the most touching story is when somebody was stopped outside The Cavern Club a few months before George [Harrison] died and some scruffy guy asked ‘where is a good place to eat? It has all changed around here’. It turned out it was George coming back home one last time.”
www.wirralglobe.co.uk
Wirral author's Beatles' book rocks US
By Geoff Barnes
Friday 23rd August 2013
A BEATLES-themed book, compiled by Wirral author Dean Johnson, has sent tremors of excitement rippling across America.
Dean's book The Beatles and Me - a selection of music fans’ chance brushes with the Fab Four – featured as lead story on America’s Fox News this week.
Within hours of him launching the venture on Face Book hundreds of photographs and reminiscences came flooding back from across the globe – the majority from America.
It prompted Dean to publish his book to coincide with the anniversary of the release of the Beatles’ Please Please Me album.
Among the snaps contributed was a series taken by John Taylor in New Orleans in 1975 featuring Paul and Linda McCartney.
The American was interviewed on the Fox news show about his meetings with Paul outside a local recording studio where his band Wings were making an album John said: "It was a once in a lifetime experience."
Musician Dean, who masterminded the book, said: "It's fantastic that as Liverpool celebrates Beatles Week out book is making the news in the US.
"Its success there shows that the popularity of the Beatles is as high as ever and that there are still new ways of looking at their amazing story."
Dean’s own brushes with the Beatles mainly involve Paul McCartney.
"He always seemed to be around in Heswall," he recalled. " He was into horse-riding with Linda and he was often seen out on the Dales."
Almost three-quarters of the Face Book responses came from America.
"Preoccupation with The Beatles is still massive over there," he said.
Beatles book rocks US
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