Messages from John, Paul, George and Ringo
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| The Beatles: Messages from John, Paul, George and Ringo |
Excerpts from Chris Hutchins’ recently released book, “The Beatles: Messages from John, Paul, George and Ringo” were published in the Daily Mail and several other online editions of British newspapers today. The postcard on the cover of this book says it all. The card was written by John Lennon and sent to his friend Chris Hutchins. On the card’s photograph of the Beatles, John had drawn a fifth member – the founder of the group Stuart Sutcliffe who John went on to describe as the best friend he ever had. This is the kind of confidence John, Paul George and Ringo shared with writer Hutchins who they befriended in their days as ‘unknowns’ in Hamburg.
He shared their adventures during the heady days of Beatlemania; he was with them during their American tours in the 60s, sharing their euphoria and their sad moments. It was, for example, at Hutchins’ Chelsea apartment that Paul met the love of his life, the actress Jane Asher. And it was Hutchins who arranged a party with Elvis Presley, the man they had always wanted to meet – alas, a meeting which was to cause a cataclysmic feud between Presley and Lennon which the author explains in detail along with how President Nixon and J Edgar Hoover got involved.
The stories excerpted in today’s Daily Mail was the evening Chris and Ringo spent with Little Richard and Billy Preston in Hamburg, the first encounter with Jane Asher, the night three Beatles met Jayne Mansfield, when Bob Dylan pushed the Beatles and Brian Epstein off their chairs, and several other, highly entertaining stories.
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Excerpts look like Chris has been trawling his memory-bank for fresh anecdotes so this is definitely a must-read as it seems to place new wrappers around oft-biographed incidents and the new wrappers sound more akin to Lennon's descriptions of the 'backstage' scenes in The Beatles.
But you could read the same stories in book of Chris Hutchins and Peter Thompson "Elvis and Lennon". Now we have a new book but with old stories.
I don't recall this fellow being mentioned in 'Tune In', which I think most people would consider THE authority. Seems a bit dodgy.