Free When They Were Boys by Larry Kane Page B

VERYTHING WAS CONTROLLED BY MOGULS, THE BUSINESS PEOPLE . C LOTHING—EVERYTHING—WAS CONTROLLED . M ANIPULATING TEENAGERS . A ND THAT WAS AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT IT WAS LIKE . W E WANTED OUR OWN VOICE—WE HAD TO CREATE OUR OWN DESTINY, OUR OWN VOICE .
    The boys were constantly searching for their voice. John, Paul, and George studied songs and discussed styles until their throats were dry from talking, or until their eyelids closed. Although they were enamored by the big names of music, they were also impressed by daring artists who were willing to break through.
    One thing that all four Beatles were serious about was rolling out their reel-to-reel tape recorder and listening to any recordings they could find. I can say, from watching their in-flight, hotel, and pre-concert routines, that Ringo and George were as serious as John and Paul about learning all they could about other people’s music. There were two amazing moments on theBeatles’ North American tours, aside from the Elvis Presley meeting: the brief but exciting meeting in a trailer at Tulane Stadium in New Orleans with Fats Domino, and the backstage meeting with Johnny Cash at the Cow Palace in San Francisco.
    These meetings were very revealing. Although the artists they met in America were thrilled to meet them , the boys were more like fans than contemporaries. Whether it was Joan Baez, Elvis, or the young Bob Dylan, the Beatles seemed thrilled, and in awe. America was always a marker for music excellence to the Fabs, unaware that, in those early days, they were becoming the markers of the musical future.
    Monitoring the rest of the world’s music, especially the American stars and one-hit wonders, took second place to priority number one: perfecting their sound on stage. Having covered sixty-three Beatles concerts in 1964, 1965, and 1966, I can say that their relentless pursuit of perfection made them the tightest and most nearly perfect performing band in history. They mirrored their early stirrings. Listening to the music, carefully listening to the music, John and Paul, with a heavy assist from George and Pete, were determined as early as 1960 to find the best music there was, put their own touches to it, and never settle for a bad night. They did have plenty of bad nights, but after a certain record retailer named Brian Epstein showed up, most of the bad habits, like eating on stage, vanished.
    It all started with their obsession with devouring American music. Getting the music was not easy. But they had help.
    Their record supplier during the early sixties was a young guy named Ron Ellis, who was and still remains a renaissance man. For years he has offered a uniquely important insight into the later influences on the boys. In his nearly fifty years of work, Ellis has been a group manager, promoter, singer, author, publisher, broadcaster, researcher, concert deejay, and one of the “go-to” guys when you are seeking the truth on Merseyside.
    For four years, night and day, he researched the Beatles and John Lennon for controversial author Albert Goldman. Goldman’s book, The Lives of John Lennon , was despised by Yoko Ono and members of the Lennon family, almost universally. About one thing, almost every Beatles expert agrees: RonEllis’s recollections of his eyewitness accounts of the Beatles’ early performances, and their musical influences, is second to none. The book that he worked on for Goldman is not the first controversial book on the Beatles. Ray Coleman’s book, Lennon: The Definitive Biography , is beautifully written, but the author, for some reason, glosses over John’s eighteen-month relationship with May Pang in 1973 and 1974. Even the man considered to be the gold standard of Beatles biographers, Philip Norman, reserves just two sentences in his Beatles biography, Shout , to the Lennon-Pang relationship. Ellis will not reveal his opinion of Goldman’s work, but he guarantees that the