Whilst travailing the backwaters of the internet in search of snippets for this blog, I came across the claim that there was an unreleased Beatles bootleg recording, done around 1967 of a song called 'The L.S. Bumblebee'.
I duly listened to it and wasn't convinced. The Beatles influences where there, sitar drone, hallucinogenic lyrics etc... but it didn't sound like The Beatles. Sure enough after a little bit of searching I discovered it was performed by none other than Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.
Cook and Moore are widely considered the most influential comedy act ever. They spearheaded the satire boom of the 1960s and paved the way from everything from the Pythons to The Mighty Boosh.
I duly YouTube'd and found this extract from the series Not Only... But Also... showing the full L.S. Bumblebee sketch - keep an eye out for the surprise guest in the segment following the song!
John Lennon appeared no fewer than three times in Not Only... But Also... in 1964, 1965 and 1966. I'm still trying to find out his relationship with Cook and Moore but obviously it was more than just a casual acquaintanceship.
The Beatles has performed in comedy before, most notably with Ken Dodd and Morecambe and Wise but this was as an ensemble. Was Lennon's relationship with Cook and Moore more personal? I can easily imagine Lennon's acerbic humour chiming with the satire, surrealism and musical comedy of Cook and Moore.
Whether Lennon personally had any influence on the LS Bumblebee song itself is doubtful, but in a time when great performers are too often pigeon-holed into one area or another it is good to remind ourselves that crossovers in the 1960s were more common and often surprising than you'd think.
Here are two photographs of the same building, a building that for a time was the centre of Liverpool music business - here 'the most important contract in music history' was signed.
And 40 years later... demolished for redevelopment.
Photo from PhillipGMayer
It shows the NEMS (standing for North End Music Stores) building on Whitechapel, Liverpool.
Legend has it that At about three o'clock on October 28th, 1961, a boy called Raymond Jones, walked into this NEMS record-store in and asked:
'There's a record I want. It's "My Bonnie" and it was made in Germany. Have you got it?'
Behind the counter was the store manager, Brian Epstein.
He shook his head. 'Who is the record by?' he asked.
'You won't have heard of them,' said Jones. 'It's by a group called The Beatles....'
Whether the story is true or not, it was from this building where Brian began his music empire signing The Beatles and going on to manage some of the biggest bands of Merseybeat.
The building is now gone but i'm sure the legend will live on.
In the 1960s a wave of British culture crashed upon the shores of the US. All over America the sounds of British groups were blasting out of radios and a generation of US teens became swept up in the 'British Invasion'. It was The Beatles that led the vanguard, but the trans-Atlantic traffic was not just one way.
Dylans 1966 Wolrd Tour would prove to be controversial, it was his first tour after his famous change from playing acoustic folk music to 'going electric'. During this tour he made his second visit to Liverpool.
On 14th May1966 the bleak cobbled streets of north Liverpool became host to the 'coolest man in the world'. In a bizarre moment the essence of swinging bohemian sixties style would meet the post-war poverty of Liverpool's urban youth. He was due to perform that evening at the Liverpool Odeon, where he had first appeared a year previously.
Dylan and the photographer Barry Feinstein spent the afternoon before the gig wandering the austere post-war streets. Feinstein hated staged photoshoots and so when he stumbled upon a group of kids playing amongst the urban wasteland he realised had found the perfect photo opportunity.
Chris Hockenhall, a self-confessed 'Dylanologist', says:
“Dylan and Feinstein just seemed to have stumbled into what amounted to a kids’ playground. It was such a clash of 1960s culture. The kids looked like Victorian street urchins and Dylan looked like a man from Mars with his loud shirt and wild hair – that’s what fascinated me.”
The streets in the photographs are eerily deserted of adults - no doubt because it was the day of the FA Cup Final, Everton vs. Sheffield Wednesday (Everton won 3-2).
It's interesting to note that the musical origins of Dylan and the Beatles seem to be exact opposites of each other. The Beatles began as 'The Quarrymen' skiffle group, playing american folk music before moving into Rock and Roll whereas Dylan's development was the reverse.
Dylan's school yearbook claimed he: 'wanted to follow Little Richard' but by 1959 Dylan's tastes had changed. He had given up the electric guitars and taken up banjos and harmonicas and he began digging deep into Woodie Guthrie and folk music.
Dylan seems to have a fondness for Liverpool, one wonders if this is born from his close links with the Beatles (he famously gave them their first joint!). Only a few years ago whilst in the city Dylan took a history tour and was fascinated by John Lennons childhood bedroom in Mendips.
Perhaps though, Dylan's links with Liverpool are earlier. A year before he met the Fab Four, Dylan wrote and recorded a song called 'Farewell' (sometimes 'Fare Thee Well').
It's tune and words are taken from 'The Leaving of Liverpool' - a traditional folk song, well known amongst Liverpool households from the 1880 onwards.
Chris Hockenhull tracked all ten of the children down, all now grown and in their fourties, and recreated the photograph. Amazingly non of the children remember meeting the bohemian bard. Their grubby playground of cobblestones and bomb-shattered wastelands were a thousand miles away from the glitz of the swinging sixties.
Yet I wonder, when Dylan stood with those children on the steps of a warehouse in 1966, did he realise that most of them would've probably known the tune - if not the words to his earlier recording?
