Chas Newby speaks
The Beatles’ first left-handed bass player has given an interview to Sunday Mercury about his time with the group. When the Beatles arrived back in Liverpool from their first stint in Hamburg, Stuart Sutcliffe was missing. He stayed behind in Hamburg to spend Christmas with Astrid Kirschherr and her family. The Beatles had a few gigs lined up, so they were in need of a bass guitar player, and Chas was duly recruited. All in all, Newby played four concerts as a Beatle, in December 1960.
Here’s the interview: Sunday Mercury.
And here’s a thing from Mr Rock’n’Roll Detective, who tracked down Chas last year.
I thought of myself well versed in Beatle history. I never-ever heard this story before. I love your bog. Its post after post of new layers of the Beatle story. Thank you!
Me, too, I've followed The Beatles all my life and NEVER heard this story or hos name before. Good for him.
This is my great uncle, and when he told me more about this I was amazed. He really is a fantastic person.
I met him at Beatleweek in 2006- what a lovely fella! Signed my MOJO Yellow Submarine edition too, which I’d just purchased from the Convention. Good times.
This man was my old Maths teacher at high school he was always an inspiration although he told us about him playing with the Beatles I thought he was joking. Can anyone tell me if he is still alive ? and where he is now? He was not just a teacher but a friend and someone you could talk to about anything. One of my favourites.
Chas Newby is currently the bass player for the reformed version of The Quarrymen, which originally was John Lennon’s first music group (1956) formed during the skiffle craze in England. The Quarrymen is the group which evolved into The Beatles! We are currently working on a documentary about the original Quarrymen called “PreFab” and Chas makes an appearance at the end of the film playing Blue Suede Shoes with three of the original Quarrymen members! https://prefabthemovie.com/
Hi! Nice to hear from you and that the documentary is still being underway. We did mention it in this, newer post of ours: http://webgrafikk.com/blog/news/a-piece-of-history/