Rare Beatles photographs pulled from sale at 11th hour

www.amateurphotographer.co.uk
Rare Beatles photographs pulled from sale at 11th hour
By Chris Cheesman   
Wednesday, 7 August 2013

 Rare photos of The Beatles, including precious images discovered on a film found inside a camera belonging to the band’s official photographer after he died, have been pulled from sale.
Auctioneers were poised to sell a collection of more than 40 Beatles images at Cuttlestones in Wolverhampton on 16 August.
The upcoming sale had attracted global media coverage in recent days.
However, a spokesperson for the auction house today told Amateur Photographer that the images have been ‘temporarily withdrawn' at the request of the vendor who wanted to remain anonymous.
The ‘significant' archive includes 34 shots that had remained undiscovered in Derek Cooper's camera until 10 years after the photographer's death in 1983.
It was to have been the first time that prints of the negatives were offered for sale on the open market.
It is not known whether the auction will be rescheduled.
‘They [the vendor] wanted to delay it,' said the auction spokesperson, adding that the items were removed from sale earlier this week.
‘It's not unheard of for people to have a change of heart.'
John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Star featured in the pictures, which ranged from informal backstage shots, to formal portraits and photos taken on Beatles tours.
The films had been found in cameras bequeathed by Cooper to a childhood friend in Liverpool.
On its website auctioneers state: ‘This represents the opportunity to procure a significant, largely unpublished collection, the majority of which have, as yet, only been available for public viewing while on exhibition.'
Auctioneers said they expected the sale to attract ‘huge international interest'.

 
Cuttlestones’ Tom Waldron with some of the prints of
The Beatles that are set to sell in Wolverhampton on
Friday, 16th August 2013

Rare Beatles Photos Go On Display In New Mexico

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Rare Beatles Photos Go On Display In New Mexico

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
08/02/13

TAOS, New Mexico — Snow and frigid temperatures didn't stop thousands of screaming teenagers from crowding into the Washington Coliseum in the nation's capital for the Beatles first live concert on American soil.

And not having a flash didn't stop photographer Mike Mitchell, then just 18 years old, from using his unrestricted access to document that historic February night in 1964 using only the dim light in the arena.

Ghostly shadows and streams of light filled some negatives. With the help of modern technology and close to 1,000 hours in front of the computer screen, Mitchell was able to peel back decades of grunge and transform those old negatives into a rare, artful look at one of pop culture's defining moments.

Mitchell's portraits of the Beatles are the centerpiece of a monthlong exhibition at the David Anthony Fine Art gallery in Taos – the first time the prints have been exhibited since being unveiled in 2011 at a Christie's auction in New York City. The gallery started hanging the first of the framed prints a week ago in preparation for Friday's opening.

"Just amazing," gallery owner David Mapes said as he looked around the room at the large black and white prints and wondered aloud what it must have been like to be in Mitchell's shoes that night.

Mapes pointed to a photograph of the four band members, their backs to the camera with a thin ribbon of light outlining their silhouettes. When he first saw it, he said he teared up. He knew he had to find a way to share it with others.

"It brought back memories of that time. I was a teenager and it was so much about love and everything was optimistic feeling," he said.

It didn't take long from the time the Beatles released their debut album in 1963 to go from a little British bar band to an international sensation. The Beatles' reach eventually stretched beyond music and haircuts to religion and politics.

"The Beatles came to represent some of the yearnings for peace and hope and equality and a larger social justice. In the United States and throughout the world, their personalities became as important as the music," said Norman Markowitz, a history professor at Rutgers University.



For Paul Vance, who teaches a class on the Beatles at Winona State University in Minnesota, the band was the reason he pursued music. He was 11 years old when the Beatles first came to the U.S.

The Beatles had good timing, he said, having arrived at a time when America was still heartbroken over the assassination of then-President John F. Kennedy and young people were looking for meaning in their lives.

"Much has been said and written about it," Vance said of the Beatles' influence. "It's a very significant point that the world after the Beatles was a radically different place than the world before the Beatles, and they did influence and change so many aspects of not just American life, but life everywhere."

Mitchell can't predict what role his photographs will play as historians and music fans continue to examine the evolution of American pop culture. Still, those moments captured by his camera that February night tell a grainy story of four young men who seemed to be having the time of their lives.

Mitchell remembers how hot it was inside the coliseum. The crowd was deafening but the resonating bass beats were unmistakable. He said the Beatles were "on fire" that night.

"They were really juiced. It was obvious at the time that they were really, really, really into it and I think the pictures really benefit from that," he said.

Mitchell said his goal was simple. He wanted to make great portraits of the Beatles while discovering a little more about who they really were.

With no flash, he was forced to wait for the perfect time to snap that shutter. His photographs immortalized the important details of the moment in a bath of light while the rest faded into darkness. It was the concert that marked the beginning of his fascination with light.

"I think that was the first time in my life that I had to really look more deeply at light and take my queues from what the light was doing," he said. "I learned to sort of feel from the light."

The Beatles first manager

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The Beatles first manager
By BILL HARRY



This is John with Nigel Walley, his childhood friend, who he appointed manager of his group. 
Since Paul and George were in his band at the time, you could say that Nigel, not Allan Williams, was the Beatles first manager. After all, they weren't called the Beatles when Allan first became involved with them. Credit where credit is due. Nigel also got them their first Cavern booking. 
Sadly, Nigel was the last person ever to speak to Julia, John's mum, and was the sole witness to her death in a car accident.
Nigel felt that John had a different attitude to him as if he felt that if Nigel had spent another minute or two talking to Julia she wouldn't have crossed the road at that point and would have lived.


Nigel Walley and his wife, Pete Shotton with Cynthia and John in Weybridge.



www.triumphpc.com/mersey-beat
Nigel Walley - Their First Manager
By Bill Harry
Mersey Beat

Nigel was a childhood friend of John Lennon from the age of five. John often referred to him as ‘Whalloggs’. 

Nigel was born in Woolton, Liverpool on 30 June 1941 and lived in Vale Road, to the rear of where John lived in Menlove Avenue and in the same road as another friend, Ivan Vaughan. The other member of John’s gang was Pete Shotton, who also lived in Vale Road. John and Ivan went to Dovedale Primary School while Nigel and Pete went to Mosspits Lane Junior School. 
When John formed his group the Quarry Men, Nigel, who was now attending Bluecoat Grammar School, was invited to play tea chest bass, although he says he only played it occasionally, with Ivan being the main bass player. 

At the time Nigel was apprentice golf professional at Lee Park Golf Club. There was an incident, which put him off playing tea chest bass for good. This happened when they’d finished a gig one night and had traveled home by bus. As they got off the bus they were approached by two aggressive local youths, Rod and Willo, who threatened to beat them up. Everyone fled, leaving the tea chest bass in the road. After that, Len Garry took over on tea chest bass. 

The group needed someone to get the gigs sorted out and promote the group. No one really wanted to do it, but John asked Nigel who then set about getting them work. He placed a card in the window of a Woolton sweet shop at 2d per week, took small ads in the Liverpool Echo and the Daily Post and even had professional cards printed. The name on it was ‘Quarry Men,’ he says, “and the correct name is two separate words, not one, as people these days seem to think.” 

His printed card read:

 COUNTRY. WESTERN. ROCK ‘N’ ROLL. SKIFFLE 
 THE QUARRY MEN 
 OPEN FOR ENGAGEMENTS 

When the Quarry Men were deciding on their repertoire, Nigel says, “They picked out records by Buddy Holly, Bill Haley and popular rock and roll numbers of the time. Elvis Presley’s ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ was a number John was particularly struck on. We saw Buddy Holly live with the Crickets when he appeared on the Liverpool Empire. It was one of the highlights of my life. 

“We picked the tunes from records that were readily available in the shops. That story about Liverpool groups getting their repertoires from records brought in by merchant seamen is a myth, although lots of Liverpool men went to sea. Pete Shotton’s brother Ernie was in the Navy.”

When Nigel used to go round to John’s house and ask his Aunt Mimi “Where’s John?” “Where do you think, in his bedroom playing his guitar”, she’d say. Nigel would go up and sit on the bed while John would be playing. “He’d write a song in a few minutes” said Nigel. “I didn’t think much of it at the time. 

At one time John and Nigel intended enrolling at a catering college in Hampshire and had even bought railway tickets – but when John told his Aunt Mimi, she put a stop to it. 

Lee Park Gold Club was a Jewish golf club; if you weren’t Jewish you couldn’t get in. 

One of the members was Dr. Sytner, whose son Alan ran the Cavern Club, which was then a jazz venue that occasionally booked local skiffle groups as supports. Nigel asked Dr. Sytner if he could persuade Alan to book the Quarry Men on the Cavern. He was told that they’d have to see the group before they could be booked on the Cavern and he suggested that the group perform at the golf club first. If they were any good, then Alan would book them on his club.



They were told that as the appearance would be something of an audition, they wouldn’t be paid. However, they would have all the drink that they wanted, a slap-up meal and the hat would be passed around. When they completed their performance they did have lots of drink, a slap-up meal – and the hat, when passed around, brought them more money than they’d ever received from a gig before. Not only that, Alan Sytner liked the group and booked them on the Cavern. They appeared there on 7 August 1957, although John was to upset Sytner when they did appear, by singing Elvis Presley numbers at a time when rock ‘n’ roll was barred on the Cavern.

Paul McCartney didn’t play with them on that occasion as he was away on holiday. They began with the Del Vikings number ‘Come Go With Me,’ then John launched into ‘Hound Dog’ and ‘Blue Suede Shoes,’ Sytner immediately had a note delivered to them on stage, ‘Cut out the bloody rock.’

Although Nigel acted as manager, when he didn’t actually perform with them on tea chest bass, Paul McCartney got understandably upset and said that he should take a reduced fee.

July 15 1958 proved to be a traumatic night for Nigel. He’d dropped around to ‘Mendips’, John’s house in Menlove Avenue, to see if John was at home. He wasn’t, having gone to Bromfield Road to see his mother, Julia – who had actually arrived at Mendips. Julia was at the gate talking to her sister Mimi Smith. Nigel then walked along Menlove Avenue with Julia for about 200 yards, having a chat, then he continued on his way while Julia crossed the road. Then he heard the sound of brakes on a car and turned to see Julia’s body being tossed into the air as a car crashed into her.

She’d been knocked down and killed by Eric Clague, a police constable at the time of the accident who was unaccompanied in the car, although he hadn’t yet passed his driving test.

Clague was sent to trial and Nigel was called as a witness. The inquest established that Clague was driving without a license, but he still escaped with a reprimand and a period of suspension from duty, this verdict so angered John’s Aunt Mimi that she shouted “Murderer!”

Nigel recalls that he was haunted for years by the thought that if he’d kept Julia talking for a few more minutes, it might never have happened. Following the accident, John wouldn’t talk to Nigel for months because he also thought that if Nigel had delayed his mother for only moment, the accident might never have happened.

The saddest words in the English language could well be; “What if?”



Nigel had to cease managing the group when his family moved from Vale Road to New Brighton as he now lived too far away from them to manage the band, although Paul’s objection to him receiving any money also had a part in it. He then left Liverpool in 1961 when he became qualified as a professional golfer and found work in a hotel complex in Semmering, Austria. He never returned to Liverpool, apart from occasional visits. 

He was invited round to see John when John lived in Kensington as John still liked to keep in touch with the friends who knew him before he became famous as a Beatle. Nigel also visited John on several occasions in Kenwood.

Over the years, Nigel has enjoyed a successful and happy career in the golf world after finally settling down at Wrotham Heath Golf club in Borough Green, Kent.

Nigel’s father was Chief Superintendent Harold Walley, head of City Police ‘A’ Division. The Liverpool Echo reported when he met John and Paul backstage after they’d become famous: “Mr. Walley first met the two Beatles when they were part of a skiffle group which his son, Nigel, managed in 1957. ‘I used to worry about some of the clubs and places they were performing at. I told them that there was no future in that kind of thing and advised them to drop it. I told them a few times to get a haircut as well.’”

Editor’s Notes: It’s true that the Quarry Men was spelt as two words and not one, as all the posters, handbills – and even the drum kit at the time, attested. 

Although, as Nigel says, they did began to choose a repertoire including songs by Elvis, Buddy Holly and the Del Vikings from records they bought in the shops, when the group originally formed they had a repertoire of mainly skiffle numbers which included ‘Maggie May’, ‘Don’t You Rock Me Daddy-O’, ‘Rock Island Line.’ ‘Rail Road Bill’, ‘Cumberland Gap’, ‘Midnight Special’, ‘Worried Man Blues’, ‘Freight Train’, ‘Putting On The Style’; and ‘Bring a Little Water Sylvie.’

Nigel’s wife Pat came from Hoylake and was one of Cynthia Lennon’s best friends.

As for Eric Clague, as a consequence of the accident he was suspended from the force and he later became a postman. Ironically, his round included Paul McCartney’s house in Forthlin Road. As he had to deliver literally hundreds of letters to the address, he commented, “I remember struggling up the path with them all. But of course they just reminded me of Lennon and his mother.”

He was also to say: “I read later how his mother’s death had affected John terribly. I felt desperately sorry about it.”

John had originally attended Mosspits Lane Infants School, the primary where Nigel and Pete went to. However, John apparently bullied a young girl at the school, Polly Hipshaw, and was expelled for his disruptive behaviour and then enrolled at Dovedale Road Junior School.



All photographs courtesy of Nigel Wally.

George Harrison – Two New Rare Tracks on the Way

beatlesblogger.com
George Harrison – Two New Rare Tracks on the Way
by beatlesblogger
July 21, 2013

For those George Harrison completists among us there are a couple of new rare tracks to be aware of.

Bob Dylan is about to release another volume in his continuing Bootleg Series, and it contains two songs where Harrison makes an appearance.

The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 - Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) comes out on August 27 and the trailer for the compilation (below) says it features unheard collaborations between Dylan and Harrison:



Rolling Stone says the two songs, "Time Passes Slowly" and "Working on a Guru," come from Dylan's one-day session in New York with George in May, 1970. "Most of the songs from that day suck," says a quoted source. "The story we heard from the engineer is that they were just messing around as they waited for Elvis, and Elvis never showed up. They were just treading water. But these two songs are very nice."

The Harrison session marked the first day of recording for the Dylan album which followed Self Portrait called New Morning.



The Bootleg Series, Vol. 10 - Another Self Portrait (1969-1971) will be released as a 2CD Standard Edition, a 3LP Standard Edition, and a 4CD Deluxe Edition:

July Newsletter: 'What's That You're Doing? (No.7/Vol.1)'

www.paulmccartney.com

JUL312013

July Newsletter: 'What's That You're Doing? (No.7/Vol.1)'

PaulMcCartney.com's monthly newsletter for July - 'What's That You're Doing?' - has been published today. The newsletter collects together the stories from the past month here at the website.

Fans can read the newsletter HERE!

Sign up to receive the newsletter, as well as all the latest updates on Paul's news, releases, tour dates and pre-sales, by clicking HERE!

Let us know your favourite Paul moment from July in the comments below...

RINGO STARR & HIS ALL STARR BAND : OSAKA 2013

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RINGO STARR & HIS ALL STARR BAND : OSAKA 2013

Zepp Namba 01.March.2013

Ringo Starr, Todd Rundgren, Steve Lukather, Gregg Bissonette, Richard Page, Gregg Rolie y Mark Rivera

Los Beatles La Historia Oculta (Documental de History channel)