The first editions of Disc and New Record Mirror of 1963 hit the streets. Disc wished Elvis Presley a Happy Birthday on its cover, while page two headlined its Post Bag - “We’re Raving Over The Beatles,” giving its Prize Letter to David Smith from Preston, who wondered whether “the nation’s reaction (to the Beatles) will be as enthusiastic as that of the Merseyside public.”
The New Record Mirror featured pictures of Adam Faith, Cliff Richard and Helen Shapiro on its front cover. In the paper’s Top 50, Cliff and Elvis took the top two spots, with familiar names such as Frank Ifield, Duane Eddy, the Shadows and the Tornados all in the Top 10. Love Me Do dropped seven places to number 24, sandwiched between hits by Joe Loss and Bernard Cribbins. Mersey Beat announced the group had topped its poll for the second year running. The Daily Herald reported that the first pop discs of 1963 were the “shabbiest batch for a long time.”
Flights from London to Scotland were getting back on track, albeit delayed. John was up at 5.00am to catch the 8.15am flight to Glasgow and then to Aberdeen. Even though part of the A939 from Cockbridge to Tomintoul, the A941 from Rhynie to Dufftown and the A3 from Blairgowrie to Brechin were all blocked, Aspinall drove the group to Dyce Airport to pick up John and then on the 60-mile journey to Elgin in Morayshire, heading north west on the A96, for the evening’s show at the Two Red Shoes club in South College Street.
The now four-date Scottish tour earned the group £42 per concert (they were on a salary of £30 a week at the time.) They were contracted to perform two twenty-minutes sets at each venue, but because it was a block booking of five shows, the initial fee of £250 was reduced to £210. Promoter Albert Bonici had negotiated the Scottish tour with manager Brian Epstein in November 1962 through Jack Fallon at the Cana Variety Agency. Bonici would lose money on the tour but had a clause in his contract that allowed him first refusal on any further Scottish dates during the year. A canny move that would bear fruit later in the year.
The group checked into their lodgings for the night at Myrtle House at 27 Lossie Wynd, a five-minute walk from the venue. The house was owned by ‘Ciss’ and Jimmy McBean, who regularly boarded groups who performed at the Two Red Shoes. As student nurses Adeline Smith and Joan Allan set off for their shift at Dr. Gray’s Hospital from their digs next door, they were greeted by John leaning out of his bedroom window. “Nurse, oh nurse,” he called out, “Will you take my pulse, nurse, I’m feeling all faint for having seen you.” The nurses’ landlady Mrs. Grossart appeared at the front door and told him to behave himself. Later the group walked over to the club and ate at the Park Café, owned by Bonici’s wife, Betty, and operated part-time by Jimmy Russell, who lived at 10 South College Street, next to the Two Red Shoes.
The weather continued to be a problem, with several roads blocked and the temperature close to freezing. Fewer than one hundred people managed to brave the snow and make it to the dance. (Russell, who also took tickets at the door, reckoned that by the end of the evening about 200 people were in attendance, while bandleader Alex Sutherland thought it was more like 80.)
A complaint about the noise the group were making came from a neighbour. During a break, Bonici took John aside to tell him. “Can I have a quick word?” Bonici asked. John, brushing by to get some coffee, replied, “Velocity.” The group sat down in the dining area next to the kitchen to have refreshments at Table 1, reserved for all the acts who performed at the club. After the show, they chatted with Russell and Alex Sutherland’s singer Eithne Alexander while having a few drinks and some food, before making their way back to Mrs. McBean’s for the night.
“It was a night like any other of my nights as vocalist with the Alex Sutherland Sextet. As the resident group, we backed artists that visited and entertained the huge crowds, which regularly attended the Two Red Shoes - at times stretching four or more deep down the street. I had been in a room over the Two Red Shoes all week after work listening to Lena Horne, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan etc. No music was read, just my ear and the unfailing faith my mentor and agent Albert Bonici had in my unique quality of tone.
Albert cornered me. ‘Eithne. The Beatles are the guest group tonight, you’ll like them, they’re from Liverpool and I have heard great things about them. I want you to listen to what they have to say and what they sing and play - you might pick up some interesting musical tips.’
Albert always knew what was what in the music business, keeping his ear to the ground and his finger in many pies. Though Elgin was really a backwoods farming and whisky-distilling town in the north of Scotland, many new groups who wanted to make it, threw themselves into Albert’s arms. ‘I haven’t heard of them Albert - what is their line up?’ His reply did not fill me with excitement. The Two Red Shoes’ biggest crowds turned up for the likes of Acker Bilk and Kenny Ball - clarinets and trumpets, not four guys with just guitars and drums! No one it seemed had been particularly keen to turn out that freezing evening to hear a ‘beat group.’
The night was bitterly cold I remember - as were relations between the west and the then Soviet Union. Everyone had just been traumatised by the Cuban crisis and was still reeling from the possibility that we might be plunged into a Third World War. Talk at home was all related to this and I recall the feeling of fear clouding my 16-year-old brain and heart.
Finishing our first stint, Albert burst onto the stage puffing from climbing the five steps from the café. ‘They’re here’ - addressing the group as well as me! I don’t know what I expected. I was hustled towards the café and introduced to the Beatles who, to give them their due, jumped up from their haze of smoke and motioned for me to sit with them, commenting on how they liked my singing. I shyly thanked them. I was painfully ill-equipped as a small-town teenager to take on these supremely confident and streetwise individuals determined to enfold me into their company. There was no protestation accepted; I had to sit in the back of the booth, wedged in a Beatle ‘bosy’ (Scottish word for hug) unable to escape
Thinking back now - how many girls in a few weeks’ time would have given their bras and bouffants to be in my position! I did not think this though and thought them scruffy, loud and over-familiar. The smoke was heavy and the chat was mainly about Hamburg. Paul, who could see my blushes, deflected some of John’s pushy advances towards me and every now and then would raise those soon-to-be familiar eyebrows and widen those boyish eyes.
When they went on the stage to do their stint, the crowd - apart from one or two, viewed them with apathy and disinterest. There was something which excited me about the chords and the harmonies - perhaps also, their unkempt appearance, the boyish vulnerability, the devil-may-care attitude to their less than riotous reception. At the end of their slot Albert was full of praise and encouragement and a tad apologetic about the crowd.
Back to the café, again squashed into the bench seat and my Beatle bosy. No surreptitious slithering off for coffee and sandwiches for me - and by this time I did not want to! I listened with open mouth and innocent disbelief to some of their tales of exploits in Germany and, following some seat rearrangement, made my exit. I had to get home as mother, I knew, always stayed awake until I was in. Walking home across the railway bridge to New Elgin where I lived, I felt strangely optimistic about the future.”
EITHNE KNEALE, EDUCATIONAL MENTOR, ANDALUSIA, SPAIN