Yes, I agree, it’s a bit presumptuous, but I’ve been a huge fan since they first exploded onto the scene… I still have my original Parlophone 45’s of their early singles and the first album I ever bought was “Please Please Me”, which unfortunately is not one of those rare copies with the gold label, but I still treasure it all the same. Back in those days, my cousin Dick & I would share our records and soon after, he bought “With The Beatles”. I hated to be parted from it, but my mum thought it silly for me to have my own copy, so I went to the HMV store near Bond Street Station and bought the “All My Loving” EP that had the same picture on the cover. At that time, I couldn’t understand why “All My Loving” wasn’t released as a single!
A short while after, strolling down Marylebone Road during my school lunch break, I saw the Beatles; “Long Tall Sally” EP in the window of a record store. None of the 4 tracks were on their first two LPs and I just had to have it! It was almost 11 bob (that’s 11 shillings or 55p in today’s language). I borrowed a bit of cash from my mates – and it was mine!!
Dick & I had been to see The Beatles 1963 Christmas Show at the Finsbury Park Astoria – it was great, even though it was hard to make out what they were singing above the screaming of all the girls!
So you get my drift… as I’ve told a few of my colleagues at Golden Square, it is really hard to explain what the Beatles phenomenon was really like for those of us who lived right through it. Nothing since compares to it… Osmondmania, Rollermania, Bowiemania, Bolanmania… Take That, Wham, Spice Girls… believe me, they do not come close.
I was saying much of this to Ben Jones on the evening he played “Revolver” in its entirety, and told him that it reminded me of the euphoria that had engulfed the nation in the summer of 1966 as England had just won the World Cup (I was there at the final at Wembley to witness the event). At that time I had a Saturday job in a great record store, Musicland, in London’s Portobello Road, and when he played the album that evening, I could smell and taste the custard slices that we used to buy from the ABC Bakery, next door, back in ’66!
Prior to getting into the radio biz, I went into the music biz after leaving school. My then girlfriend decided that she’d also like to get into the music biz so when she left school, she saw a job advertised in the London Evening Standard looking for an office junior at a record company. She got the job – at Apple in Savile Row! So she took me to her first office Christmas party – and I met George Harrison.
Some years later, when I was working for RCA Records, I would hang out with Harry Nilsson and that’s how I first met Ringo Starr. In the late 70s I was working for Jet Records, looking after E.L.O., and accompanied Jeff Lynne to an awards dinner in 1978 for the album of the year (“Out Of the Blue”). We also had Carl Perkins with us, who was in the UK promoting his comeback album “Ol’ Blue Suede’s Back” (great title, eh? Yeah, I came up with that one!) Anyway, I strolled over to Paul & Linda McCartney’s table during dinner and told him that Carl was with us. Paul said, “Bring him over” and they re-acquainted after many years. A photographer took a photo of Paul & Carl, and I was alongside, but when I saw the final pic, I’d been cropped out!
Jeff Lynne saw all this and called me over. “I didn’t know you knew Paul. I’d love to say hello as I’ve not spoken to him since my days with the Idle Race when we were recording our album at Abbey Road as they were recording the ‘White’ album.” So I took Jeff over to the McCartneys, too.
Towards the end of the 80s I began to work in radio, including setting questions for David Hamilton’s pop quiz on Capital Radio. I then was offered the job as Head of Music at Chiltern Radio’s new SuperGold brand (Clive Dickens was my opposite number at Chiltern’s Hot-FM brand). However, unlike Clive, I was also a presenter on the network, and among many of the shows I did was the weekly ‘Beatles Hour’, which ran successfully for over 5 years, with a huge following.
In 1995, I went to the annual Buddy Holly Week concert that Paul always arranged. Included on the line-up were The Crickets, Bobby Vee and my old friend Carl Perkins. At the after-show party, I told Carl how miffed I was to have been cropped out of that photo 17 years ago… and he immediately took me over to Paul and said we needed a new photo – with me in between them… and here it is!
Paul was actually saying, “Sorry, Willie, but we’re gonna have to crop out the centre and join up the sides!!!”
Of course, what goes around comes around. Jeff Lynne not only produced George’s “Cloud Nine” album (with “Got My Mind Set On You”) and joined him in The Travelling Wilburys, but went on to produce The Beatles’ “Free As A Bird” for Anthology 1 – and he spotted me at the press launch and gave me an exclusive interview for my radio show.
So, I’m a very lucky fella. I not only grew up right throughout the era of The Beatles and can remember hearing each new single and album as NEW RELEASES. I’ve been lucky to have met George, Paul and Ringo. I never met John, but my aforementioned cousin Dick, who lived with his family in Mayfair, saw him in a car outside of the apartment that George & Ringo shared at 57 Green Street – and got his autograph!
I’ve written all this to show how much The Beatles have been a part of my life (though not the only part, as my musical tastes are quite diverse, and oh, how I miss our old Groove DAB station!) and how thrilled I was to have been asked to set the questions for the on-line Absolute Beatles Quiz. If you haven’t yet had a go and think that the questions might be too difficult – don’t worry. They are multi-choice, and I had great fun in dreaming up incorrect wrong alternative answers!
Willie Morgan
