Ivor Davis - The Beatles and Me On Tour

ALSO BY IVOR DAVIS

Five to Die

Divided They Stand

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THE BEATLES AND ME ON TOUR

THE BEATLES AND ME ON TOUR

Cockney Kid Publishing.

Copyright 2014 by Ivor Davis

www.ivordavisbeatles.com

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form (beyond copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the United States Copyright Law, and except limited excerpts by reviewer for the public press), without written permission from Ivor Davis.

For a complete list of photo credits, please see Photo Credits at the end of the book.

Author services by Pedernales Publishing, LLC.

www.pedernalespublishing.com

Front jacket design: Edward Scully, and Barbara Rainess

Back jacket design: Jose Ramirez and Maurina Sherman

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014939592

ISBN 978-0-9903710-7-6 Paperback Edition

ISBN 978-0-9903710-8-3 Hardcover Edition

ISBN 978-0-9903710-9-0 Digital Edition

Printed in the United States of America

I V O R D AV I S

Cockney Kid Publishing

In memory of the incomparable Sally Ogle Davis, the muse of my life, who met and interviewed the Beatles long before I did.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

M y editor Lew Harris who, after knocking me into shape for years at Los Angeles Magazine , returned for an encore performance.

Jose Ramirez and Barbara Rainess, at Pedernales Publishing, for tolerating my whims and rolling with the punches.

Maurina Sherman for correcting the errors of my phrase.

Diana Wilmot for gently pushing me to finish this book.

This project would , unquestionably, still be a scatter of napkins and notes, tear sheets and treasured recollections, if not for immeasurable help and steadfast guidance from my family and friends: Gigi Benson, Harry Benson, Keri Botello, Joshua Burt, Vivienne Collier, Susan Cook, Bernard Davis, Gideon Oscar Ogle Davis (for tech support), Tricia Eatherly Davis, Anthony Delano, Bob Eubanks, Jerry Feingold, Carolyn Fox, Steven Gunther, Krissy Harris, Paul Harris, Jann Haworth, Chris Hillman, Connie Hillman, Karen Hoffberg, Clark Hubbard, Dave Hull, Chris Jones, Kathleen Sexton Kaiser, Robert Lands, Martina Lauchengco, Nancy Lueck, Cyril Maitland, Lucie Scheuer Maitland, Peter Noone, Michael OKelly, Jose Ramirez (for back cover design), Gino Robair, Scott Rosenberg, Mike Safier (for his enlightened exegesis of Greenwich Mean Time), Arthur Schreiber, Belle Schwartz, Mark Sennet, Mel Sheeler and the guys at Sheeler Moving and Storage (for looking after my Beatles collection), Anthony Strauss, Dr. David Suskind, Rebecca Davis Suskind (for early editing), Daily Express Syndication, Edward Scully (for front cover design), Rob Teifeld, Victoria Torf, and Terry Wieser.

I thank them all for taking this magical ride with me, back half a century, to a time when the world felt like it was splitting open. Rock n roll laid the anthemic soundtrack to the dreams and fears and changes that were afoot in the crucible of that pivotal period, and the Beatles were, no doubt, its explosive epicenter.

As everyone knows, the memory plays strange tricks as time goes by. Although my personal time capsule swept me back fifty years and my reminiscences got considerable help from folks who were there, some people might not have seen things quite the same way I did at the time. And there will be those today whose memories differ from my own. But, to borrow the late anchorman Walter Cronkites nightly network sign off, Thats the way it is.

DIARY OF A 1964 TOUR

August 18, San Francisco

The jet-lagged Beatles arrive after brief stops in Winnipeg and Los Angeles.

Hotel: San Francisco Hilton

Odd fact: To prep for the invasion, hotel staffers were ordered to see the Beatles just-released film, A Hard Days Night.

August 19, San Francisco

Venue: Cow Palace

Crowd: 17,100

Hotel: San Francisco Hilton

Odd fact: A nervous Brian Epstein rejected a ticker-tape parade before their first concert.

August 20, Las Vegas

Venue: Convention Center

Crowd: Two shows, 17,000 each

Hotel: Sahara

Odd fact: Liberace insisted on meeting the boys because he loved the way they played piano.

August 21, Seattle

Venue: Seattle Center Coliseum

Crowd: 14,400

Hotel: Edgewater Inn

Odd fact: The Beatles went fishing through the windows of their waterside hotel. They caught nothing.

August 22, Vancouver

Venue: Empire Stadium

Crowd: 20,600

Hotel: Hotel Georgia

Odd Fact: Rowdy crowds outside Hotel Georgia forced them to skip their planned overnight staybut they still got stuck with a $350 hotel bill.

August 23, Los Angeles

Venue: Hollywood Bowl

Crowd: 17,000

Odd fact: The Ambassador Hotel rejected the Beatles as unruly, so the band rented a house in Bel-Air and watched a movie at Burt Lancasters house.

August 24, Los Angeles

Day off included a charity garden party hosted by Capitol Records boss Alan Livingston.

Odd fact: Groucho Marx gatecrashes the party.

August 25, Los Angeles

Odd fact: The night goes wrong for George as he, John and Ringo hit the Sunset Strip to make merry with Jayne Mansfield at Whisky A Go Go, while Paul is otherwise engaged.

August 26, Denver

Venue: Red Rocks Amphitheater

Crowd: 7,000

Hotel: Brown Palace Hotel

Odd fact: Rare sight of 2,000 empty seats at the spectacular outdoor arena.

August 27, Cincinnati

Venue: Cincinnati Gardens

Crowd: 14,000

Hotel: Vernon Manor Hotel

Odd fact: Local DJs worked out a deal to buy up all the Beatles soap, bath mats and towelsalthough the boys skipped the hotel and never stayed overnight.

August 28, New York

Venue: Forest Hills Tennis Stadium

Crowd: 16,000

Hotel: Hotel Delmonico

Odd fact: Every radio station in New York put out an all-points bulletin to find Ringos St. Christopher medal, which had been torn from his neck in an arrival melee.

August 29, New York

Venue: Forest Hills Tennis Stadium

Crowd: 16,000

Hotel: Hotel Delmonico

Odd fact: Edgy Beatles helicoptered from the Manhattan waterfront to both performances to avoid New York traffic.

August 30, Atlantic City

Venue: Atlantic City Convention Hall

Crowd: 19,000

Hotel: Lafayette Motel

Odd Fact: Posters at the convention center did not show the Beatlesbut leftovers from an earlier Lyndon Johnson Democratic confab.

August 31, Atlantic City

Day off, with the Beatles screening A Hard Days Night.

Odd Fact: A local promoter took the liberty of bringing a contingent of prostitutes to the film screening, from which the band members each chose their evenings escort.

September 2, Philadelphia

Venue: Pennsylvania Convention Center

Crowd: 13,000

Hotel: Bused in from Atlantic City, the boys skipped a sleepover in favor of a flight to Indianapolis.

Odd Fact: Clarence Frogman Henry took over for the Righteous Brothers as an opening act. But who really noticed?

September 3, Indianapolis

Venue: Indiana State Fairgrounds and State Fair Coliseum

Crowd: Two shows, 30,000 total attendance

Hotel: Lafayette Motor Inn

Odd Fact: The Beatles lost Ringo, who went for an unannounced excursion. He didnt return until the next morning.

September 4, Milwaukee

Venue: Milwaukee Arena