The Beatles’ Final Gig: Up on the Roof

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Watch The Beatles’ Surprise Rooftop Performance, Played On This Day In 1969
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Tuesday January 30th, 2018



On this day in 1969, The Beatles played their last ever live concert. Having not toured together for several years, nor played before a live audience since 1966, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr performed for the last time together 49 years ago today. This wasn’t your typical farewell concert, however, the group (joined by Billy Preston on keyboards), played an impromptu outdoor set on the roof of the Apple headquarters in London.

This concert experience came toward the end of recording what would be their final album Let It Be. The legendary 40+ minute set provided time for five songs to be played in perfection: “Get Back”, “Don’t Let Me Down”, “I’ve Got A Feeling”, “One After 909” and “Dig A Pony”. Some songs required multiple takes, though few noticed.



While no one was expecting it, this was the most appropriate way for the foursome to close the book. Without hyping up another room of screaming fans, they did what they did best – they played music. It didn’t matter who heard. In fact, the people who did hear the music were perplexed by what was even happening as they walked about their automatic existences, unknowing that these songs would be sung beyond generations to come. The most tangible memory of this happening lives on through this film footage. Enjoy:

bestclassicbands.com
The Beatles’ Final Gig: Up on the Roof
by Best Classic Bands Staff
January 30th, 2018

A bizarre, head-shaker moment of realization occurs less than two minutes into the 20-plus-minute film, during our first look at the passersby on the street, five stories below: Some of them are actually passing by.

Across the street from the curmudgeonly pedestrians, on the roof of The Beatles’ Apple Corps headquarters at 3 Savile Row in London, the band is performing what will turn out to be its final public concert. They could easily have filled any stadium—any space at all, really—in the world, but there they are, the four of them in the flesh, the one and only actual Beatles, on Jan. 30, 1969, playing for free for the benefit of anyone in the neighborhood who cares to stop and listen.

And yet some people are moving on. They take a brief look to see what the racket is, some make sour faces indicating mild annoyance, and then they continue on their way back to work. Can’t miss that marketing meeting! The Beatles performing an impromptu 42-minute live gig? New songs? John, Paul, George and Ringo right over there?

Eh, who cares?

From a historical standpoint, rock fans have cared very much since the day it happened. As we all now know, they’d been recording what’s come to be known as the Get Back sessions, the idea of which was to return them to their roots as a rocking little combo. With the aid of keyboardist Billy Preston, the Beatles had been rehearsing their less-encumbered new songs, filming it all for a documentary, to be called Let It Be. Someone—it was never quite definitively established who—suggested they play a concert, something they hadn’t done in nearly three years.

They could have done it anywhere but planning out a huge gig with tickets and all that would have involved too much effort. They just wanted to see what it was like to play live again. Being January, they weren’t about to announce a big show in Hyde Park or any such open space. How about the Apple roof? Sure, why not?

Apple engineer Alan Parsons set up two eight-track tape recorders in the basement of the Savile Row building and ran wires to the roof. Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg rolled film. With the cold wind blowing and a handful of spectators (including Yoko Ono) gathered, the four musicians, dressed for the weather, took to their instruments, facing the front of the building, and began to play.

They start with “Get Back,” one of Paul McCartney’s new tunes, then John Lennon’s “Don’t Let Me Down.” Paul’s “I’ve Got a Feeling,” an update of their early club favorite “One After 909” and, finally, John’s “Dig a Pony,” follow, as the confused and/or delighted Londoners on the street—considerably more of them as the show progressed—crane their necks to catch a glimpse or continue on their way, uninterested in the history that was taking place right in front of them.

Not surprisingly, the police show up before long. Ignoring them, the Beatles launch into a reprise of “Get Back,” Paul improvising a line about getting arrested for playing on a roof. There’s a smattering of applause as they wind things up, then Lennon steps back up to the microphone. “I’d like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we’ve passed the audition,” he says, one of rock’s most fondly recalled lines.

Later that year, the Beatles would record Abbey Road, their final album, but by the end of 1969 they were effectively finished. On Sept. 20, John informed the others he “wanted a divorce.” By the time the Let it Be album and film were released in 1970—the latter containing some of the rooftop concert—the Beatles were no longer a band.

Paloma Faith almost secured Sir Paul McCartney collaboration

www.gvnews.com
Paloma Faith almost secured Sir Paul McCartney collaboration
By Celebretainment 
Jan 30, 2018




Paloma Faith has claimed Sir Paul McCartney almost appeared on a track with her - but he dropped out of the studio session.

The 36-year-old singer has revealed the former Beatles rocker once asked her if the pair could "jam" together in the studio whilst she was working on her 2017 venture 'The Architect', but was disheartened when she failed to secure the iconic musician's talents on a track because he'd been left "snowed under".

Speaking to The Sun newspaper, Paloma said: "He came to rehearsals and said, 'I'd love to jam with you'. He didn't make it but sent a cake with a note that said, 'Sorry, snowed under. Let's jam another time.'"

There's still hope for a collaboration between Paloma and McCartney, 75, in the future, although the 'Only Love Can Hurt Like This' hitmaker hasn't confirmed their rescheduled "jam" date.

It comes after Paloma recently claimed she has become a "better" singer since welcoming her first child with her partner Leyman Lahcine in December 2016, as it has made her "lung capacity bigger".

She said: "I never really felt I was a proper singer. I always felt like I was a sort of impersonator of a singer for a long time. You can even listen to my first album and hear it, that I wasn't very good then. I've learned later in life and on the job.

"And this is going to sound mad, but I feel like I can sing better now I've had a baby, that something's changed in my body. My lung capacity is bigger and I feel more alive and stronger, more enduring, and that's affected my voice and opened something up in my brain that's saying 'you can'. Before there was a 'you can't', an almost physical inability."

Securing a collaboration with McCartney may put Paloma's mind at ease, as the 'Never Tear Us Apart' singer is always worried about whether or not her next album will mark the "ruination" of her career.

She said previously: "I always feel like the next one's the one that's going to be the ruination of my career. I start thinking, 'OK, what am I going to do if this doesn't work?'.

"I don't think it is irrational in this current music climate because look at some of the massive artists that came out at the same time as me - like Duffy, where's Duffy? I don't think anything's guaranteed, everything's changing. With this album, Spotify is the most powerful thing on the planet now, and I don't have a Spotify following, so I am literally trying to build it now."

Stella McCartney reveals how she relies on the A-list Transcendental Meditation guru who helped Oprah and Tom Hanks - as she follows in the footsteps of her father Sir Paul

www.dailymail.co.uk
Stella McCartney reveals how she relies on the A-list Transcendental Meditation guru who helped Oprah and Tom Hanks - as she follows in the footsteps of her father Sir Paul
° Fashion designer Stella McCartney practises Transcendental Meditation (TM)
° She adopted the practice following the death of her mother Linda in 1998
° The practice was popularised by father Sir Paul and The Beatles in the Sixties 
° Stella, 46, now relies on A-list TM teacher Bob Roth, who taught Oprah Winfrey
By Stephanie Linning For Mailonline
PUBLISHED: 29 January 2018

Stella McCartney has revealed how she relies on the help of an A-list meditation guru after turning to the practice following her mother's death. 

The fashion designer, 46, practises Transcendental Meditation with Californian teacher Bob Roth, who also counts Oprah Winfrey, Hugh Jackman and Tom Hanks among his glittering list of clients.

Transcendental Meditation, or TM, has been practised in India for thousands of years but was popularised by Stella's father Sir Paul McCartney and The Beatles in the 1960s.

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Stella McCartney, 46, turned to Transcendental Meditation to help her overcome the death of her mother Linda in 1998. Her father Sir Paul, pictured in 2014, has practised it since the 1960s

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The fashion designer practises Transcendental Meditation with Californian teacher Bob Roth, pictured, who also counts Oprah Winfrey, Hugh Jackman and Tom Hanks among his clients

At the time the group made headlines when they studied under controversial guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

Stella, who has four children with husband Alasdhair Willis, creative director of Hunter, grew up as the child of two TM practioners but only adopted the practice after losing her mother Linda to breast cancer in 1998. 

Speaking to The Times, Stella said: 'I had quite a reaction that I didn't feel in control of. I possibly suppressed my emotions and I started having panic attacks, physical reactions to the loss... [TM] really did help me at a time when I really needed some help.' 

Following Linda's death, Sir Paul took Stella and her brother James to visit the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the controversial guru whom The Beatles travelled to India to study under in the Sixties. The Maharishi later faced accusations of being a fraud and of creating a cult. 

Once Stella started practising TM she found the 'severe' panic attacks subsided. 

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TM has been practised in India for thousands of years but was widely popularised in the West following its adoption by The Beatles in the Sixties. Pictured, John Lennon, left, Paul McCartney, background centre, Ringo Starr and George Harrison with TM guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Bangor, Wales, in 1967. The Maharishi was later accused of being a frau

 The fashion designer now sets aside 20 minutes every day to practise. Rather than focusing on breathing, TM practitioners use a mantra to focus and calm the mind.  

Roth, author of a new book called Strength in Stillness, is chief executive of the David Lynch Foundation - founded by the Mulholland Drive director, a long-time TM devotee - which aims to make TM available and accessible to the public. 

Roth has introduced the practice to Katy Perry, Michael J Fox and Ellen Degeneres, as well as members of Congress, military commanders and business leaders.

Despite his spiritual line of work, Roth presents himself as a corporate professional, arriving at his clients' houses in suits. 

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Stella revealed how she suffered from  'severe' panic attacks following her mother's death. Pictured, Linda and Paul McCartney with children James, left, Stella, centre, and Mary in 1981

When he turned up at actor Tom Hanks' house two years ago the actor said: 'Woah, I expected you to come wearing yoga pants.'   

Stella, her husband and children have all been taught by Roth. She even offers a meditation programme to staff at her fashion brand. 

Roth also focuses on teaching TM to criminals, homeless people and inner-city schoolkids, pointing the the positive impact it has on their mental well-being.   

She added: 'I just see it as something that has helped me, that's really easy... You don't have to do it religiously. It's something that everyone should know about or have access to.' 

What is Transcendental Meditation?

Unlike other forms of meditation, Transcendental Meditation (or TM) doesn't focus on breathing.

Instead, you are given a sound, known as a mantra, a Sanskrit word you repeat in your head. 

You're not supposed to tell anyone your mantra, which is different for everyone. Repeating the sound over and over lulls the brain into a trance.  

Practices vary but many people just sit quietly for 20 minutes twice a day - you don't have to cross your legs or make 'Om' sounds. 

After a couple of deep breaths, you close your eyes and focus on your Sanskrit word. You don't know the meaning of the word, it just sounds nice as you repeat it, silently, over and over.

The upfront cost to learn the practice varies. A four-day course with A-list teacher Bob Roth, who counts Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks and Katy Perry among his pupils, costs around $950 (£660). 

However there is a sliding scale for lessons based on ability to pay. The David Lynch Foundation, set up by the director who is a TM devotee, also subsidises costs for some lower-income pupils.

TM has been practised in India for thousands of years but was widely popularised in the West following its adoption by The Beatles in the Sixties. 

Paul, Stella and Linda

Forgotten photos of bands including the Beatles sold

www.itv.com
Forgotten photos of bands including the Beatles sold
ITV News
26 January 2018


One of the forgotten photos Credit: Paul Berriff

Forgotten photos of bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones have been auctioned in Cambridge.

Paul Berriff took the snaps when he started out as a press photographer.

And 50 years later found the negatives stored in his loft. It is the first time they have been sold at auction and went for as much as £850 each.





www.yorkpress.co.uk
How Paul Berriff spent his teenage days with John, Paul, George and Ringo
Charles Hutchinson
17th August 2017


Kicking Back: The Beatles in Yorkshire. Picture: Paul Berriff

IT all started for Paul Berriff when he had two paper rounds, one in the morning, one after school, when he was 12/13.

"It was in 1959/60, when there were these two news feature publications, Picture Post and Life Magazine, which were very heavy and I had to carry them both on the same paper round," recalls Paul, now 70. "Both would have amazing pictures with the big stories and the photographers would go beyond the normal press photographers in what they did.

"I thought, one day I want to be a photographer for Picture Post or Life Magazine. It didn't happen, but I ended up at the Yorkshire Evening Post in Leeds."

Frozen In Time: Paul Berriff's portrait of Ringo Starr

The year was 1963, when the teenage Yorkshireman signed up as a trainee editorial assistant, step one on the ladder to becoming either a reporter or press photographer.

To further his chances, the forward-thinking young snapper photographed the pop stars of the day as they toured the northern cinema circuit of Leeds, Wakefield, Doncaster and the rest. This brought him into contact with The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Hollies, The Searchers, Marianne Faithfull and Sandie Shaw, all now featured in Berriff's wonderful retrospective of 70 photographs at Pocklington Arts Centre.

Flash forward 50 years and Paul did fulfil one wish with Life Magazine. "The magazine's picture editor contacted me as they were doing a book for Time Life to mark Paul McCartney's 70th birthday, and they so loved my picture of Paul called Twist & Shout that they put it on the back cover, so after 50 years I'd finally made it into Life!"

Twist & Shout: Paul McCartney photographed in concert by Paul Berriff

His negatives lay dormant in a box in his Bedale attic for years, but when he searched for them he found them in pristine condition, as when he had taken his pop portraits with the same Rolleiflex camera he still uses today.

How did Paul manage to secure access to The Beatles and the Stones et al at such a tender age, filming Paul McCartney on no fewer than four occasions? “Using my press credentials, I made contacts with the managers of venues around the county and managed to gain unprecedented access backstage to take pictures of what were then up-and-coming stars,” he says.

“Only a few months later, the singers and bands would become national and international stars and would never again give such an opportunity to a teenager.”

Photographer Paul Berriff with his camera

Unwittingly, Berriff had found himself at the epicentre of the new pop scene, these photographs primarily being taken to help him refine his photographic skills. "I was just practising my photography," he says. "I was trying to see how far I could push exposures, rather than doing commercial work, so I was experimenting with my technique, rather than with my subject matter, when The Beatles were the bottom of the bill and Helen Shapiro was the top.

"The only light in the dressing room would be a 40 watt bulb, a very dim light that produced those pictures with a slow exposure that's now a very fashionable photographic style."

Paul recalls his encounters with Paul McCartney. "I said I was training to be a photographer, so he would pose for me as I was learning my trade, and he was learning his...though he did rather better than me," he says.

Playing At Trains: John Lennon as the driver, Paul McCartney as the guard, photographed by Paul Berriff

Berriff went on to embrace colour photography too, filming Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix, but his black and white works linger longer in the memory.

"I read somewhere that the eye tends to spend longer spanning an image if it's in black and white, rather than colour," says Paul. "I love black and white – I think it's still a great format – and I'm also an 'available light' man. I don't like flashguns; I prefer available light because it shows life in photos as we look at it."

Paul has one particular memory of being in the right place at the right time: the Huddersfield ABC in 1963, where The Beatles would be playing that night. "I arrived at about 3.30pm with my then girlfriend and we knew it was going to be an hour before they arrived, but then only ten minutes later, the stage lights suddenly came on and The Beatles were there, setting up to rehearse I Wanna Hold Your Hand.

Bad Boy Next Door: Paul McCartney. Picture: Paul Berriff

"For the next two hours they performed it to just the two of us, playing it over and over again as that night was going to be the first time they'd played it live," says Paul. "It went on to become their best-selling single in both Britain and America!"

Paul's picture of The Beatles at play, pretending to be on a train, sums up the freshness, the natural ease, of his photography. "By then The Beatles knew my face and knew what I wanted to do with my photographs, so John said, 'why don't we 'play at trains', as long as I can be the driver and Paul has to be the guard at the back'. They grabbed some chairs and I had my photo," he says. "I think this is how we best remember The Beatles, like this, not in their Sgt. Pepper days."

Paul Berriff's Rock Legends exhibition runs at Pocklington Arts Centre until August 29

‘Only Yesterday’: John Lennon and Paul McCartney to make Vermont debut

www.rutlandherald.com
‘Only Yesterday’: John Lennon and Paul McCartney to make Vermont debut
By JIM LOWE
STAFF WRITER
January 27, 2018

Jim Lowe / Staff photo
From left, Tommy Crawford is Paul McCartney and Christopher Sears, John Lennon, in rehearsal for Northern Stage’s “Born Yesterday,” premiering Jan. 31-Feb. 18 in White River Junction.

Television writer Bob Stevens has been an ardent Beatles fan since the Fab Four made its American debut on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 – joining some 73 million other viewers that night.

“Just a few years ago, I was driving around and heard an interview with Paul McCartney, and I thought that I had heard everything,” Stevens says. “He referred to this one particular night where, during the 1964 American tour, their second tour, there was a hurricane and they wound up being stranded in a motel room with nothing to do, all this time on their hands. They got really drunk and wound up crying.

“I just thought, ‘What?!’ What is that about?” Stevens says. “He went on to talk about what led to that. And I just thought, that sounds like a play, two guys in a motel room for an entire day and night – except they’re two of the most famous young men in the world.”

Northern Stage, the Upper Valley’s professional theater company, will present the premiere of Stevens’ “Only Yesterday” Jan. 31-Feb. 18, at the Barrette Center for the Arts in White River Junction.

“Bob has written a valentine to John Lennon and Paul McCartney,” says Carol Dunne, Northern Stage’s artistic director who is directing the play. “He opens the door for all of us to get to know the young boys behind the music. The journey of the play is hilariously funny and heartbreakingly real.”

Jim Lowe / Staff photo
Olivia Swayze is Shirley Knapp, a 13-year-old Beatles fan stuck in the motel’s air duct, in “Born Yesterday.”

Northern Stage cultivated this piece in its 2014 and 2017 New Works Now new play festivals. Stevens, who has written for “The Wonder Years,” “Murphy Brown” and “Malcolm in the Middle,” imagines that little-known night when John Lennon and McCartney were just becoming the most famous young men on earth.

“The more I researched, the more interesting stuff came out,” Stevens said in an interview between rehearsals. “It was kind of a labor of love.”

Stevens already had extensive experience writing for characters’ voices, whether it was Fred Savage on “The Wonder Years” or Candace Bergen on “Murphy Brown.”

“You hear the voice in your head, and of course, we can all hear John and Paul in our heads,” Stevens said. “They were so familiar that they came to me naturally, hearing them, and knowing their sense of humor, and the way they would react to things.

“And then it was just the notion of building to this emotional peak at the end that gave me an entire structure,” Stevens said. “We would have the fun of the Beatles we know and loved, and then build to what Paul referred to as an emotional landmark in his life.”

Stevens feels that this one event substantially changed the way they were writing their music.

“They went from kind of writing for teenyboppers to becoming artists, really,” he said. “And we can trace it back to an emotionally cathartic evening.”

Stevens aimed at making the dialogue, though imagined, feel authentic.

“That’s one of the things that I absolutely loved,” he said. “I actually immersed myself in my research, coming across all these British and Liverpool phrases. They were just so fun: ‘Throwing a wobbly’ is having a tantrum; their version of ‘it takes the cake’ is ‘it takes the biscuit.’ I just sort of absorbed these things and they just sort of naturally became integrated.”

Apparently he was successful.

“It was originally a one-act play and it went to Liverpool, and they thought I was British,” Stevens said.

For Stevens, this was an important moment in music history.

“We all know what’s coming, and it’s not good,” he said. But this is a moment when they loved each other, they were puppies – they were 23 years old. This was all new to them.”

Stevens also gives credit to Northern Stage for the play’s development.

“Over coffee, Carol suggested turning it into a full-length play and adding music,” Stevens said. “I had sort of secretly thought the same thing, so I found a kindred spirit here.”

A complimentary post-show reception with the cast follows the opening night performance Feb 3. Free post-show conversations with the cast and crew will follow Feb. 4-17 performances. And a free “Spot On” conversation with Stevens will be held from 3 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 4 (reservations through the box office are requested).



Northern Stage

Northern Stage presents the premiere of “Only Yesterday,” by Bob Stevens, Jan. 31-Feb. 18, at the Barrette Center for the Arts, 74 Gates St. in White River Junction. Tickets are $34-$59, $15 for students; for schedule, tickets or information, call 802-296-7000, or go online to www.northernstage.org.

Dear Paul McCartney, you still can visit the Surf Ballroom (just like Buddy Holly)

www.desmoinesregister.com
Dear Paul McCartney, you still can visit the Surf Ballroom (just like Buddy Holly)
Kyle Munson
Published  Jan. 26, 2018

CLEAR LAKE, Ia. — Don’t worry, Sir Paul McCartney. You still have time to make a pilgrimage to the Surf Ballroom, Iowa’s shrine to the early American rock ‘n’ roll that influenced you to pick up your first guitar and make a racket. 

A very nice racket, I might add, except for the occasional dud by Wings. 

You might have heard that the owner of the Surf died earlier this month. Dean Snyder, 87, had been battling cancer but refused to slow down until he had exhausted every last fiber of his being. 

The restless businessman owned the north Iowa ballroom where on Feb. 2, 1959, rock stars Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. “the Big Bopper” Richardson played their final show before their plane took off from Mason City and at about 1 a.m. Feb. 3 plowed into a barren field north of Clear Lake. 

Elwin Musser's photo of the Buddy Holly plane crash site taken Feb. 3, 1959. (Photo: Elwin Musser/Mason City Globe Gazette)

But you already know this. That tragedy was immortalized as “The Day the Music Died” by Don McLean.

And your publishing company smartly holds the rights to Holly’s timeless songs. 

Sir Paul McCartney performs at Wells Fargo Arena Monday, July 10, 2017.  (Photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/Speical to the Register )

But you probably know much less, if anything, about Snyder. He already had started his construction company the year before the plane crash.

It grew to include his three sons and numerous other family members among its 200 employees and a second office in Ankeny. They build grocery stores for Fareway, or plants for Oscar Meyer (Missouri) and Velveeta (Minnesota). 

So Snyder’s death was the opposite of Holly’s: The rocker’s life, like that of Valens and the Bopper, was cut brutally short before he reached his prime or fulfilled his artistic promise.

But Snyder was able to look back on his influence and see how he literally had transformed the landscape of his community and industry. 

And now their legacies are intertwined. History can get weird like that. 

A giant pair of Buddy Holly eyeglasses marks the roadside spot that leads to the crash site north of Clear Lake. (Photo: Register file photo)

Snyder Construction is in the midst of plenty of succession-planning in the wake of its patriarch’s death.

Walk in the front door of the office in Clear Lake and you don’t see any signed guitars behind glass like you do at the Surf. But the centerpiece on the counter is an upside-down construction helmet that brims full of Snyder’s favorite candy, Bit-O-Honey.  

Dean Snyder, left, and his wife, Joanne, are shown in their booth at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake. Snyder, who died in January 2018, was the Surf's owner who bought the historic ballroom in 1994. (Photo: Special to The Register)

As long as this company thrives, and the family hands down a passion for the Surf as part of its heritage, then the imprint of Holly and early rock 'n' roll on north Iowa should remain secure. 

'That lease will outlive all of us'

When and why did Snyder buy the Surf? He was gently persuaded in 1994 by a friend who at that time was among the ownership group.

In a lake town that relies on resort traffic throughout the warm months, does any sort of mover and shaker really want to give up a crown jewel that draws flocks of tourists in the dead of winter? 

Not to mention the accumulated sentimental value of how the building spawned countless romances and marriages? A place where Snyder and his wife, Joanne, loved to dance?  

So Snyder and family became the Surf’s caretaker.

He liked to tell people: "If she liked to fish, I would have bought her a fishing pole. But she liked to dance, so I bought her the Surf." 

After juggling various lease and management models, it was a decade ago that Snyder and allies finally forged a nonprofit to operate the ballroom. That entity (the North Iowa Cultural Center and Museum) signed a 99-year lease. 

“That lease will outlive all of us that are involved at this point,” said Laurie Lietz, the executive director since the nonprofit launched. 

I caught her Wednesday in the Surf lounge, working with a Snyder employee to clear space to repaint walls and add a signed guitar from Brian Setzer.

Wayne Christgau shuffled by, pushing a cart full of plastic cups. He began working at the Surf at the start of the Snyder era and never quit.

If you’ve already made your clandestine visit to the Surf, Sir Paul, then you did a good job of keeping it quiet. I can't find a single person in Clear Lake who thinks you slipped in.

So, I assume you’ve never stood inside the ballroom, where fake palm trees flank the stage.

My favorite spot remains the backstage room with white walls covered floor to ceiling with the signatures of decades of performers. Every time I study the walls I spot something new, like on this visit: "Try Chuck Berry, jackass!"

My own life as an Iowa journalist has involved a lot of time at the Surf.

For instance, In 2005 I attended the first gig here by Waylon Jennings’ son, Shooter. Waylon Jennings toured with Holly, nearly boarded the deadly 1959 flight and remained haunted by it. 

A decade ago a bunch of my colleagues and I produced a project to commemorate the 50th anniversary of what we called "the Crash that Changed Rock 'n' Roll."

I tell everybody that I’ve never been colder than shortly after midnight Feb. 3, 2009, when I shivered at the frigid crash site, shooting shaky video as a throng of crazy fans sang “American Pie,” circled around a bonfire, passed a bottle and watched tourist planes soar overhead. 

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame filmed that year’s ballroom concert, with footage of Graham Nash and a whole lineup of stars (including Peter Asher, older brother to your 1960s girlfriend Jane) that languishes somewhere in a vault.

Organizers also supposedly managed to slip a note into the guitar case of your American pal Bruce Springsteen during his halftime performance at that year’s Super Bowl.

A plane was waiting to fly him directly to the Surf to join the 50th anniversary if he so desired, but he didn't take them up on the offer. 

That week I remember accidentally elbowing a woman in the back of the head at the Surf as I walked through a row of chairs — only to realize during my apology that it was Maria Elena, Holly’s widow.

(L-R): Peter Asher, Phil Everly, Maria Elena Holly and Gary Busey attend the Buddy Holly Hollywood Walk Of Fame Induction Ceremony in Hollywood, California September 7, 2011. (Photo: AFP AFP/Getty Images)

Snyder was a constant presence at the Surf. His granddaughter Chelsy remembers helping him scrape garbage bins full of gum from beneath the booth tables. Or how he scrubbed the floor after concerts.  

And he showed up not only for the vintage dance bands. Snyder would insert earplugs to sample all kinds of “hard metal or acid rock stuff,” his son Dale said.  

My favorite detail is the family's story of Snyder’s reaction to an Alice Cooper show at the Surf. When asked what he thought of the prototypical shock rocker’s spectacle, Snyder remarked that, yes, it was loud and colorful. 

“But, boy,” he added, “was that woman ugly!”

Alice Cooper (Photo: Special to The Register)

So, here we are at another Winter Dance Party to commemorate Iowa's most famous chapter in rock lore that doesn’t involve Ozzy Osbourne’s taste for bat meat. 

Recent months have seen not only Snyder’s death but also that of Darryl “the Mad Hatter” Hensley, the DJ who in 1979 founded this annual tradition of reunion concerts. He died in September in a bicycle crash in Burlington. 

Last year, Holly bassist Tommy Allsup died just before the Winter Dance Party where he was scheduled to perform. 

In 2016 it was Jerry Dwyer, the owner of the plane that crashed. 

So, as the Surf looks back and inevitably loses more of the characters central to its story, it also remains a living, breathing venue.

Lietz knows that country music remains the big seller for her rural Iowa audience, forming the backbone of what last year was a lineup of 36 concerts.  

Snyder’s funeral reception was held here at the Surf with some 450 mourners. He will be honored again during the Winter Dance Party. 

Next year brings the 60th anniversary of the crash. 

The Snyders recently purchased the ranch house across the street that was home to Carl Fox, builder of the Surf. It had been vacant for decades.

Fox died in 1966, yet what was assumed to be his shaving razor and jar still sat inside the bathroom medicine cabinet. 

They also found gorgeous black and white photos of what had been the original Surf of the pre-Holly era. That wooden ballroom was built on the lake shore in 1933 and burned to the ground in 1947.

This recently discovered photo shows the original Surf Ballroom that was built in 1933 on the shore of Clear Lake but burned in 1947. (Photo: Surf Ballroom/Special to The Register)

The current Surf was built across the street in 1948. 

Now the ballroom's roof needs to be replaced. The original cast-iron plumbing will need relining. And Fox's former home will be fashioned into a companion museum. 

So the Surf's future, for now, seems secure.  

But the Snyder family’s No. 1 bucket-list item remains to somehow convince you, Sir Paul, to make a visit to a space that I imagine for the Beatles would be similar to country artists walking inside the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville. 

This recently discovered photo shows the original Surf Ballroom that was built in 1933 on the shore of Clear Lake but burned in 1947. (Photo: Surf Ballroom/Special to The Register)

I know you may want to celebrate Holly’s life, not his death. But let me emphasize that this dot on the Iowa map has become just that — a reaffirmation of all the strangers who have convened and become an extended family.

They responded to tragedy by nurturing a positive presence in one of the unlikeliest of places. 

And a visit by you, Sir Paul, is “still our dream,” Dale said. 

You still have time.

But to be fair, you probably have less time than the Surf. 

Bring Springsteen, if you want.

Musician Paul McCartney poses with a Buddy Holly Look-a-like at a Buddy tribute dinner in London.
January 01, 1990