Mike McCartney's Early Liverpool

Mike McCartney talks about his highly anticipated book, Mike McCartney’s Early Liverpool, which reveals the secrets of Sixties and Seventies Liverpool through his photography, illustrations and commentary. In this extensive interview, Mike shares his memories of the era, including the formative years of The Beatles.

The following is a transcript of his 2021 podcast with Jason Barnard. It is impossible to do the audio justice in which Mike’s vocal dexterity adds to his loquaciousness, whisking us back to over half a century ago with memories galore, bringing to life and adding colour to his amazing project. Some of these memories may have been juxtaposed over time but the essence is there. Every tale is one to be savoured. To quote Mark Twain, ‘Never let the truth get in the way of a good story’.

Mike McCartney (photograph by Sonny McCartney)

That was Bob Dylan and ‘Baby, Let Me Follow You Down’. We’re playing that song because we’re here to talk about Mike McCartney’s Early Liverpool. Mike’s got a fantastic signed limited edition book where he reveals the secrets of 60s and 70s Liverpool and in that book Mike talks about his love of early Dylan. A huge welcome again Mike.

[Mike sings a snatch of ‘Baby, Let Me Follow You Down’.] Did you like my impression of the Scaffold then?

I couldn’t tell the difference.

Pretty good, huh. How are you Jase? How’s the Strange Brew?

It’s been five years.

Five years it is. [Mike sings a few bars of Cream’s ‘Strange Brew’.]

There’s some really good photos of you looking very, very cool, listening to music and with your records around. And there’s also a story about you – there’s something… you talk about Dylan, listening to that early Dylan in the book, don’t you?

A couple of stories about Dylan.

Yes. When first of all he came to England and my brother and his chums saw him in the Albert Hall and we were booked, I think it was just [Roger] McGough and I, we were really into him… Okay. Right. We’re gonna take you even further back. Okay. Just stop me if you’ve heard this before but did you know about the early days when I was a young man and my first girlfriend was from the art college?

Oh no.

Okay. She was at the art college and I was in André Bernard’s, taking after your name, who had one of the leading hairdressers. I was a hairdressing apprentice. Her name was Celia Mortimer and she used to come in from the art college because we used to do, at night time for the staff, the apprentices, they would – art college kids girls would come in the ladies’ hairdresser for these free dos. Something. Get a free haircut. And all those apprentices would practice on doing their hair. Everyone benefitted and Celia was in there. Somebody had done her hair and she was under the dryer and she was watching this strange young man, called ‘me’, and she was just fascinated by him because she said, ‘I’ve never seen anybody with more disdain from like brushing up the floor.’ I was brushing up the floor as though this broom, this brush, was on the end of my finger as though I didn’t want to touch it. I didn’t. I hated it – brushing up the floor. All the hair. Cleaning the blinds, with all the dust, stacking the towels etc. Washing ladies hair and, sometimes they’d come in, and one particular lady – I think it’s in the book actually – because you only get a bit of… there’s a lot of stories in this thing and one of them is where the lady came into André Bernard’s and nobody would touch her. ‘Peter would you?’, sorry Mike – they had a Mike who was a stylist so I had to become something else. My name is Peter Michael, so I became Peter. In fact I’ve still got the badge somewhere. ‘Peter. Can you take it?’ and nobody wanted to touch her and I realized why, because when he went to start to do her hair, she stank. She obviously didn’t wash her hair all year. She was an eccentric lady. She didn’t wash her all year. Came, a big treat, once a year and nobody would touch her with a barge ball so the soft lad was sent in and it was… The stench was so bad. I had to turn my head away. It was so strong, pungent, and even when I got home my dad and my brother were going, ‘What the hell’s that smell?’ and it had impregnated my shirt, my clothes, and I had to take it off and put it in the washing. So, anyway, in that salon, André Bernard’s, this young lady…

[The house phone rings]

The only little problem about being on the iPhone is the ordinary phone goes. Hold on a second.

No worries.

Ro [he calls out to his wife] – can you get that?

Yes. Good. She got it. My wife Ro…

Mike McCartney (photograph by Mike McCartney)

Yeah.

…the saviour of the human race. She got that so we can continue speaking. I always like things on radios and podcasts and things when normal things happen. I did this once. I was talking to somebody on Radio Merseyside, I think, and these things kept going off and the doorbell. And the guy would go to stop the recording. I said, ‘No. No. Leave it on because this is life. It’s what’s happening. Don’t pretend it’s not. This is real.’ So, go to the door, answer the phone, whatever. And he kept it all in and the next day I had a call from Willy Russell, you know, the great Liverpool playwright. The Willy Russell. He said he’d just come back from Portugal because he’s got a pad, an apartment, in Portugal where he writes a lot of his wonderful stories. He said, ‘I just came in last night and it was a long journey I had to take from the airport to home and there was something on the radio. It was you on Radio Merseyside, and I couldn’t stop listening to it because it’s you and all the bloody things going on.’ And he said, ‘And in fact I woke up smiling this morning. I just had to ring you because it was so mad, so wonderful being away for so long, coming on to this Liverpool scouse nutter…’

So, anyway, we’re back with the ladies in André Bernard. Young, 18-year old boy brushing up the floor with great disdain and this young lady fell in love with me because, again, this nutter was there. And so that was it. We met up after work, as it were. Lovely girl. And then I used to stay weekends at hers in Liverpool, away from my home which was like 20 minutes, a half an hour away in Forthlin Road in Allerton. And I used to wake up in her flat in Liverpool to this. ’Cos she kept putting this record on. And it was that one [Mike pastiches Dylan singing ‘Baby, Let Me Follow You Down’.] ‘What the hell’s that?’ ‘Oh. It’s a new singer. All the guys down the art college are way into him and he’s just a folk singer called Bob Dylan.’ and so I said, ‘Folk crap. Bloody folk music. Rubbish.’ But, she kept playing it, ignored me, kept playing it. And I eventually started listening to him. I thought fthis guy can’t sing and then suddenly it wasn’t the singing. It was the words and his interpretation. This is interesting and I got hooked. So I went back to our house in Forthlin Road and I borrowed her album, his first album, and I used to play it myself and our kid came in through his rock and roll world one night and said, ‘What the hell’s that?’ I said, ‘A new singer called Bob Dylan. All the art college love him and I’ve slowly got into him.’ He said, ‘Folk crap.’ and went to bed. So that was that. And then some time later, probably about a year later, our kid’s gotten into a rock and roll group. They’re doing very well and they’re now playing Paris. And so my dad and I are invited over to the Georges Cinq Hotel [Hotel George V]. Big posh hotel. And we’re given the secret floor etc. ‘Don’t tell anyone…’ And so up we go. Very hot, I’m remembering. It was beautifully warm. It was winter and it was beautifully warm in this hotel. Because at Forthlin Road it was bloody freezing. No central heating. Only one room where it was warm – when you put the fire on – and so to come into a nice warm hotel was great. So eventually there we are. This number, you know, five zero un trois quatre cinq and so knocked on the door. And the next thing is our kid came to the door and the other lads were inside in their suite, you know. And so we walked in and I suddenly heard this record being played and it was another album. But it was a Dylan thingy. I said, ‘Hey, hold on you. You said Dylan was folk crap.’ and he said, ‘Just one second,’ he said, ‘it’s John’s. It’s John’s album.’

So these things… It’s weird how everything is interrelated. So that was that. And so years later [Editor’s note – likely to be 1965], now Dylan is famous, fills the Albert Hall and our kid goes to see him. And Roger McGough and I, we were both into Dylan, and we were going to see him in the Odeon Cinema when it was a theatre in Liverpool, London Road, the next night. And so, our kid had seen him. So I rang him the next day and said, ‘Right. McGough and I are seeing Dylan tonight in Liverpool. What was he like at the Albert Hall?’ And so our kid’s said, ‘Ah. First half was okay.’ I said, ‘Didn’t he have two halves?’ He said, ‘Well. You’d think that but I don’t think he would remember the second half. We certainly didn’t. He was out of his head. He was on something. He was not communicating with his audience.’ ‘Oh, ’ I said, ‘Oh Christ. We’ve bought the tickets now.’ So we’re just waiting to go and see this drug addict singing. So we get to the Odeon, we left it late so our tickets were right at the back of the Odeon and he comes on centre stage. There is a chair, a stool, a table with a glass of water on it. He walked on. He’d learnt from the Albert Hall you don’t get stoned before you go on. Now the new rules are:- straight – no interval – whole set and, just every now and then, have a sip of water. A great show. And so that was that and so we then headed into town to go to a place called the Blue Angel in Liverpool. It was a sort of nightclub. Allan Williams, who was our kid’s first manager, who said to Brian Epstein when Brian said [putting on a posh voice], ‘I’m thinking of managing The Beatles, Allan. Would you give me any advice on that? You used to manage them, didn’t you?’ And so little Allan said, ‘Yeah. I’ll give you a bit of advice there, Brian. Don’t touch them with a fucking barge pole.’ You’ll have to delete the effing word, but that’s what he said. And so that was Allan. The bottom line on it. He had a club. First of all, he had one called the Jacaranda and then he had this one called the Blue Angel and so that was the latest ‘in’ thing. What was his name, the pianist? Rubin – John Rubin I think – used to play jazz piano when you went in. And so we get in there and – oh, in fact, sorry. We must have gone to a pub first after we got out the Empire. We’d obviously gone to a pub first and then, ‘Right. We want more. We’re young. We can take it. Let’s go down the Blue.’ And so, about an hour later and so, smashing, we go to the Blue Angel. Just as we’re gonna open the door, the door opens. There is Bob Dylan with two beautiful girls from a group called The Poppies. He had his arms draped round these two beautiful girls and we go, ‘There’s Bob Dylan. We’ve just seen him on the stage.’ and so we said, ‘Oh, right. We’ve just seen you.’ And he said, ‘Oh. Hi.’ He was gonna keep going. But the girls said [in a thick scouse accent], ‘All right here Bob. This is Mick and Rog. They’re in the groups like you, you know. You do all that sort of thing like and, you know, they’re great. Scaffold. They’re famous. They’re great.’ And so Dylan said, ‘Oh okay. If the girls like you, I like you. I’m having a little ‘after’ party after the show at the Adelphi Hotel if you want to come along later.’ We said, ‘Oh that’d be great. We’ll have a little ale, a scoop here, and then we’ll come and have your free ale, hopefully.’ You know you have plenty and so that was it. So, off he goes with the two Poppies to the Adelphi and so we had a scoop in the Blue and then meandered up to the Adelphi and were ushered into his suite. So, that was that. and we’re just having a nice evening and at one stage, before the Poppies decided to sing, we were talking on the couch. There was me, Dylan and McGough on a couch in the hotel room. And so he found out that Roger liked poetry and he said, ‘Oh. Are you a poet?’ He says, ‘Oh no. I’m a teacher, but I write poetry.’ ‘Oh do you? Well so do I. That’s what I’m hoping…’

So McGough was a teacher and very prolific on poetry and knew everything about them all. He started to go into these things and then you could see Dylan’s eyes slowly, you know, losing interest because this guy knew a damn sight more. He’s a bloody teacher, going on about these poets and all. Then suddenly we were saved by the bell because the Poppies, the Poppies were great – three girls they were – beautiful girls and they wanted to be the Supremes. They were mixed race so you know they thought they could be the next Supremes. They’re gorgeous looking. And so they suddenly announced, ‘All right. Hello everyone. We’re gonna sing for youse now.’ And we thought, hold on. How are you going to sing with no… ‘Yeah. No. We haven’t got no band but we’re going to sing for you acapulco [a capella].’

So, ‘Two. Three. One. Two. Three. Four. Da Doo Ron Ron. Da Doo Ron Ron …’

All flat. But they looked so beautiful. And then the ending came ‘Da Doo Ron Ronnnnnnn’ . Absolute silence until Dylan – and I’ll have to put the phone down now – Dylan roared [Mike puts phone down and emulates Dylan giving a raucous round of applause.] and then everyone in the room joined in. That’s my Dylan story. [Editor’s note – we are not sure which venue and date this Dylan concert is following subsequent research.]

Yeah. Lots of stories intertwined into one there. That’s fantastic.

Yeah. I’m like that.

George, John, Paul & Dennis (photograph by Mike McCartney)

One of the great things about Mike McCartney’s Early Liverpool is that it’s got never seen before photographs in it and one of the photos that has been sort of trailed is one of the earliest colour photos of your kid, John and George together in Auntie Gin’s front room.

It was. What I have, even now… My little problem is like my filing system is non-existent, so I come across things: photographs, articles, programmes – you name it; tapes, film, whatever. Whenever I’m looking for things I find something else and I can assure you as soon as this book is finished, as soon as it goes to print, I’ll find something else. So this one, I was looking for things for this book. Genesis approached me. Genesis Publishing, for all your listeners who don’t know about Genesis Publishing, is a wonderful company started nearly 40 years ago and they produce fine-art, coffee table, beautiful books. They’re works of art and so I’ve always admired them but couldn’t afford to buy them, they cost so much. So it’s warning all your readers now listening – start saving up now because these things cost a fortune. But I can assure you, I can, this is a one-off. This is the definitive collection of my stuff that I’ve had for a hundred years and, as I say, I keep finding. And those I keep finding are in the book like this one. There’s one I took called John, Paul, George and Dennis. A colour photo. To shoot colour photography in those days was a real treat, a real honour. It must have been a birthday or Christmas or something and my dad must have bought me some colour slide film and so I put it in my camera and that wonderful one they say, the first Beatles colour photo, called John, Paul, George and Dennis. Dennis [Littler] was a friend of my cousin Ian’s. So there we are. I’m looking for other pictures for this book, ones that haven’t been seen before particularly. And so, going through old Mick’s little box, little yellow box of slides, and I thought, ‘Oh. That looks old. I’ll have a little look inside.’ So I get in there and there’s a slide of me and my dad. Fine. And other slides etc. And then I found the slide of John, Paul, George and Dennis. And then I saw as another one that I’d forgotten about, because I had made the decision, in those days a hundred years ago, this one I found was one of George’s back. I call it George’s back because he’s come back and it’s his back and our kid is down on the left playing. They’re singing and they’re practising something in Auntie Gin’s 147 Dinas Lane house in Huyton. John is on the right, George with his back to the camera. But the other one was them looking facing front, looking at the camera – John, Paul, George and Dennis. So I’d chosen that for the obvious reason you can see their faces. George on the left, looking very young – and I was younger than him. John looking like he’s had a shaving rash and our kid said, ‘Shaving rash, my arse. He’s drunk.’ And our kid, young, very young face on the right and then Dennis with his half of Guinness on the complete right, stealing the whole picture.

But there’s this other one and, bloody hell, of course. These are the very early days and anybody interested in that era and… wait till you see some of the others too. Not only our kid and his chums but other groups around Liverpool – The Road Runners and people like that, that were going at the same time. But that one, the George’s back one, was going to be just a quiet one in the book and it was all going to be a big surprise, but then somehow it got out. You know how these things get out. And the next thing it is plastered… I got enquiries and comments from all around the world because no one had ever seen this thing before. And that’s what the book is. It’s full of never-before-seens but you’ll never ever see them again because this is going to be the last one. This is the definitive collection of that magic era.

Left to right: Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John Lennon 1958 (photograph by Mike McCartney)

Because that photo of your kid, John and George at Auntie Gin’s, that was just three or four months before they, as the Quarrymen, went into Phillips Sound and recorded ‘That’ll Be The Day’. So it’s just before that period.

Oh was it? Yeah?

Yeah.

Oh. I’m not very good on the details. I’m not very good at all, so I bow to your knowledge.

Now we opened with Bob Dylan ‘Baby, Let Me Follow You Down’ but, as well as the photos of you looking cool, there’s photos of you looking cool with the Modern Jazz Quartet.

With John Lewis.

Yeah. So you were listening to that. You listened to a lot of jazz in that period?

Yeah. In fact, again, something that our kid wasn’t particularly into but then got more into it than me and he’d do all Stockhausen and all weird people down in London when he was in his London home. But initially, the MJQ – John Lewis Third Stream Music, MJQ…

In fact I went to see them. Again this sort of Celia, art school influences, just to be a bit different. Because the only music that was around was jazz – trad jazz – and the only trad jazz I ever have… and, thank God, having been to New Orleans and hearing a traditional black trad traditional jazz, to hear all the white interpretations of it. Even then I wasn’t enamoured at all. It was nice, it was good but just no interest. It was just… If we’d have had the New Orleans stuff then I’d have probably been far more into it. But lovely people – Terry Lightfoot, Acker Bilk – all these jazz bands didn’t mean a light to me so therefore these new avant-garde Erroll Garner, MJQ, all these people that were very different, were different. But in fact at the beginning our kid wasn’t that. It was like Dylan. Like, it grew on him like it grew on me. There’s one great bit in London, once, when I was at our kid’s house and he said, ‘Look. I’m in the studio every day.’ I think they’re doing Pepper or something. ‘Can you get some records to play when I come home? Go and do your choice of what you want because, you know, I don’t know what you’re into…’ I’m younger than him so he’ll have a different outlook on things and you know might be something, ‘…but it’s your choice. You get what you want.’ So he gave me the money to go and get them. So I went out and got a few things and I suddenly saw these MJQ albums that he didn’t like and I thought I’ll introduce him to them again. After all these years, he might like them now. And, as I said, he was way ahead by that time. So I’ve got them home and I put the Third Stream Music on and I think it says – one of the MJQ albums, anyway. Floating around with the vibes, floating around etc and the bass, that thingy bass. And our kid said, ‘That’s MJQ isn’t it?’ I said, ‘Yeah. Yeah.’ He said, ‘Oh yeah. I thought so. I remember that.’ And he said, ‘Bloody hell. I’ve suddenly realized where I got blah blah blah from…’ I can’t remember what song. One of his big hits. One of their big hits. He said, ‘…just the notation. I suddenly realized.’ One of his biggest hits. That’s where he realized like subliminally – like George did ‘I Me Mine’ from ‘Da Doo Ron Ron’. He didn’t even know that the influence was that song. But George’s was… ‘Right. Hold on George. Da Doo Ron Ron Ron Da Doo Ron Ron’ etc – or whatever it was. [Probably ‘My Sweet Lord’ and its similarity to The Chiffons ‘He’s So Fine’.] So, yeah I was into MJQ and all these different things and, not only that, other albums like… I don’t know whether it’s on the old photograph. Chicago blues. It was great. All blues stuff. Real heavy black blues and there was one song on it I remember. What was his name now? It was called ‘Ring Of Fire’, a song, and it is this guy had a voice like this [talks in a gruff voice] and ‘walked through a ring of fire to get to you.’ Oh, what’s his name? [Maybe Otis Spann’s ‘Burning Fire’.] It was great. I might remember before the end of the chat. And things like that. A particular love for both me and our kid and dad was Fats Waller. We used to love Fats Waller stuff and in fact it was coming from a letter. I don’t know… Oh yeah. There’s a few letters in this book, come to think of it. There is definitely Stu’s letter, Stu Sutcliffe’s letter from Hamburg to me because I’d asked about murals because I wanted to go to art college. And in fact another thing is, you’ll see in the thing, is where I asked John, ‘How did you get into art college?’ and he drew me a drawing and that is in the book. You’ll like that one but, sorry, where were we just prior to that?

We’re just talking about your love of John Lewis and Modern Jazz Quartet.

And Fats Waller etc.

Yeah, yeah.

Yep. Did.

Well, I mean, there’s so many great photos in this book and one of those many photos is from June ’62 at the Tower Ballroom with The Beatles and Delbert McClinton who played on ‘Hey Baby’ – Bruce Channel.

Yeah. Correct. Oh yeah and I’ve got pictures of them with Bruce and Delbert. A few new ones I’ve found as well. And the best part was, we’ve done the show, taken the photographs and there’s Bruce [Mike mimics], ‘Hey, hey baby. I want you to know-o-o, won’t you be my girl?’ There is Bruce Channel on the stage and there in the dressing room afterwards is Bruce Channel with Delbert McClinton etc and John wanted to have his picture taken with Delbert particularly because Delbert, the harmonica player, Delbert, he, John had his gob iron, as we call them in Liverpool. And he wanted to be near Delbert because he, I think, I should say pretty definitely, he was practising for the ‘Love Me Do’ gob iron. So he wanted to have his picture taken with Delbert who was the gob iron player from America. From Bruce Channel, the hit singer. So I’d taken all the pictures etc and so now it’s time to go to the top of the… this is in the Tower Ballroom, New Brighton, which was eventually burnt down. First of all the tower fell off – which was bigger than Blackpool Tower. That sort of disintegrated. But, then, the big Tower Ballroom was there. So we go to the top of the Ballroom to have drinks after the show and the greatest one was John saying to me, ‘You wouldn’t dare.’ I said, ‘I would dare.’ He said, ‘You wouldn’t dare.’ This is John Lennon saying I wouldn’t dare and I said, ‘Okay. Watch me.’ And so I went up to Bruce Channel. I said, ‘Excuse me Mr Channel. Could I have your autograph, please?’ and he said, ‘Certainly son. Delbert. Could you hand me one of those photographs?’ So Delbert gives him this photograph and he says, ‘Okay son. Who shall I sign it to?’ I said, ‘Could you sign it to Bruce McCartney?’ That was the dare. ‘Could you sign it to Bruce McCartney from Bruce Channel?’ and I’ve still… In fact it’s in the book. And he signed it ‘To Bruce McCartney. Best wishes from Bruce Channel’ and there’s John pissing himself in the corner of the dressing room, the fact I would dare to do that. So, that was one of the Bruce Channel stories.

And you say that there are some nice pictures. The pictures you’ve seen are the tip of the iceberg. It’s a big book. A big, physically, book. Heavy, bloody hell, just the layout…

Paul McCartney and Nora (photograph by Mike McCartney)

It’s a proper…

It’s a proper book.

…not something you just go into Waterstones to get. It’s a proper…

It’s a limited edition. There’s only 2,000 made. I sign every one and there’s a few nice little forewords from nice people. I’m waiting for some to come through. It was a lovely one from Klaus Voormann. He’s done a lovely one. You’ll like that. But, as I say, the big thing and there’s drawings in there. There’s lots of my drawings that nobody has ever seen in the world before because I suddenly thought, illustrating… oh there’s me dad and I’ve taken a picture of me dad, that people might have seen, but next to it is a drawing of me dad looking remarkably – I call it Serious Dad because he’s just looking at me.

Is that in the kitchen?

No. This was in the living room, the parlour. In the front parlour. He’s sitting on the chair. The drawing is him sitting on his chair in the room in the front parlour of Forthlin Road that I took, from that chair, the picture of our kid and John writing ‘I Saw Her Standing There’. And so I’m now in where they were there. Sitting, drawing that on the other side. Two particular nice ones with my dad. One with a bowl of fruit, next to the bowl of hand. You’re going to like the bowl of hand. And they are interspersed throughout the book, all my drawings. So, if you like drawings, I hope you’ll like mine.

Yeah. My favourite photo in the whole book is the one where you’ve got Gene Vincent, your kid and John – you know, walking under the archway in the Cavern and looking back. I mean it’s just so evocative. It’s stunning.

It is stunning and beautiful. Wait till you see the last one which no one’s ever seen before. You’re gonna love that. The picture is: left, is our kid, knowing what’s coming up. John – it’s another time that he said to me [whispering], ‘Mike. Get your camera. Ssh. Don’t use the flash. That’s gonna ruin it. Just take a photograph.’ And the picture is our kid on the left knowing what’s coming up, because he knew John rather well. The next one to it is Bob Wooller. This is in the Cavern dressing room, after the show. And our kid’s on the left. Bob Wooller is next with Gene Vincent – both with their backs to us – and on the right is John saying [in a hushed tone], ‘Are you ready?’ I said [in a whisper], ‘Yeah.’ Thumbs up etc. Look at the book for what John Lennon did to Gene Vincent behind his back.

He’s pulling a face and then there’s some… what is he doing with his hand???

Yeah. Exactly. That to me is so John. It’s like the one of them again, no this is the Tower, that one’s the Cavern. The other one in the Tower, another favourite John picture is the one of him – I call it Marcel Marceau John, Rambo Paul – because he looks a bit like Sylvester Stallone – Goon Pete [Best] and Nipple-shooting George because our kid’s got his shirt off and George is pointing to our kid’s nipple.

Left to right: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Pete Best and George Harrison backstage at the Tower Ballroom (photograph by Mike McCartney)

But that is so evocative, so real as what was happening at the time and how that group were real. That’s what you want to do is show people what it was actually like. That’s what our kid said about the picture of him and John rehearsing to the school book. Our kid’s said, ‘That’s an important, a very important picture because it shows the world what it was actually like. John and me. Brothers at work.’ He says that picture shows everyone what happened and it’s as though I was, you know, Rembrandt’s kid when he’s doing a self-portrait and I’m doing a little portrait of him doing his self-portrait in the corner. It’s that sort of thing that just happens and you’re just lucky to be there at that time and then, of course, none of this was going anywhere. None of these people, including me, and certainly not these people John Lennon or Paul McCartney or George Harrison and Pete Best and Ringo Starr. They were going nowhere. None of us were going anywhere and so that’s why it’s important having pictures from this era because it shows you before the showbiz aspect of it, before it got out of hand, before it became the mania. This was all it was, as young people. Me practising on my camera, them practising on their guitars and that’s why they’re important.

The thing that surprised me about the photos with Gene was just they just look thick as thieves with Gene. It’s just brilliant.

Well, he’s our idol Gene Vincent. Jerry Lee Lewis. Chuck Berry. Little Richard. You know these guys were absolute heroes. Can you imagine actually meeting Little Richard? You know what I mean? Once, actually it was with The Poppies. That picture you were talking about with John, our kid and Gene. Our arms around each other, waiting to go on stage. Sounds Incorporated. You can see them, actually, on the stage. And… Look at that photograph. And here the dressing room was freezing and above their heads you will see a heater with one bar, electric heater – on – because it was freezing. There, out there, was Sounds Incorporated. Gene was going out – full leathers. Pete was going out – full leathers. When they came back they were dripping. Soaked to the skin. Right, where was I? This is gonna end up on a nice bit.

Well you mentioned…

Oh there you go. It’s them with leathers. They got, basically I think, from all of us, from Gene and us, sorry, The Beatles, from Marlon Brando and the Wild Thing. What’s it called? The Wild? Marlon Brando film.

The Wild One.

The Wild One. Yeah, you know what I mean. I think that’s where we all got the idea of the leather stuff from. Now, there’s them in their leathers etc and now we are going to… you heard the story about The Poppies, and now down in London, in a club called the Scotch… I’m taking you everywhere today.

It’s always a ride.

Always a ride. I’ll keep going until I stop. And we’re now down in Londinium, the old Carnaby Street era and there was a club there called the Scotch of Saint James. The club. And I’m going into the club and there, can you believe again, when we went into the Blue Angel, trying to get in the Blue Angel, who is coming out? Bob Dylan. With two of the Poppies. Right. And, so, now going into the Scotch of Saint James, and there’s one Poppy coming out. She sees me. [In a thick scouse accent] ‘All right Mick? Mick.’ Big hugs etc. Lovely girls. Real scousers, just nice people and she’s, I think she’s called Yvonne, and she says, ‘Are you coming Marl?’ and she grabs me and drags me down the tartan coloured draped staircase down to the Scotch of Saint James – down below. ‘Are you coming Marl?’ She kept saying this statement. ‘What’s she saying?’ and so that was it and so dragged me down, across the little dance floor of the Scotch of Saint James, to her other sisters who were at the table and she said, ‘All right, Marl, this is Mick, he’s an actor like youse.’ and this man stands up and shakes my hand. And there on the end of my hand is Marlon Brando…

Oh wow.

…from The Wild One. Oh dear God. And so charming, so lovely. The Poppies, like Dylan, these girls are beautiful. The secret was the Beatles now become world famous and so, to Americans now, the scouse accent, in the world, scouse accents ruled. So there are these three beautiful Polynesian women with scouse accents. So there’s Bob Dylan with these girls and there is Brando down in London with these and that was it. And may I tell you of course films – a bit misleading. Much shorter than I thought, Marlon Brando. I thought he’d be a giant, you know, much bigger than me but so saying you should never ever listen to what anybody says about anybody till you’ve met them. Next time I talk to you in 20 years / five years time I’ll tell you the story about Cliff Richard and his villa in the Algarve but, now, may I tell you that Marlon Brando was not only a nice man. He is. He proved to be a nice man and this is for all of you listening now. This is the proof of the pudding is in the eating. And so, we’re at the end of the evening, in the Scotch of St James. You couldn’t make all these things up could you? People would say, ‘Hold on. He’s got a good imagination.’ In the Scotch of Saint James, at the back – Marlon was in the front by the stage and the girls, because they obviously wanted to show him off – but at the back there were a couple of tables and it said on them, on that area, tables, chairs and benches, you know around there, it said on the thing ‘Beatles’. Nobody’s allowed to sit there. Next one ‘Rolling Stones’. Nobody was allowed to sit in them. Only the Beatles or their friends or whatever. So that’s why Marlon wasn’t sitting up there because he wasn’t… And in fact we sat in there… you’ve just brought back another memory.

[Mike parks his Brando story]

We sat in there with a singer. God, you’re getting the stories today aren’t you? In that area is me, our kid and this singer and my dad. Dad was down in London. And so we’re sitting around The Beatles table getting our drinks etc and having a lovely evening and, next to dad, was this singer. He wasn’t a young kid. He wasn’t The Beatles era. He was an older, more established singer and so dad got on well with him. They were getting on like a house on fire. Anyway this singer eventually gets up and said, ‘Well, I’m sorry. I’ve got to go. I’ve got to do my show now.’ I think we were in there early evening and so he had a show later that evening. He said, ‘So nice to have met you Mr McCartney.’ – he was an America guy. And he goes off to his gig and dad says to our kid, ‘That man. What a lovely bloke. You know, a really, really nice man.’ And so we have to tell Dad. ‘Dad. You remember in Forthlin Road. You used to come in and there was a singer and he would go “Nah nah na na-na nah” etc and you used to say, “You don’t call that music. That is not music. That is absolute rubbish”.’ And dad said, ‘Yeah. I remember a singer like that.’ We said, ‘Well that was the singer. He’s called Otis Redding.’ That was at the end of the thing. That was the table we was sitting at.

[Back to the Brando story]

Later the proof of the pudding as far as Marlon Brando goes was, we’ve done the whole evening and it’s like two, three, four in the morning and we’re all merry. The only ones left, I think, are us. Scaffold on our Beatle table. That was right. Scaffold, Zoot Money and his wife, Ronnie, and that was us on our little posh table but we’d run out. We said to the waiter, ‘Okay. Can I? More scotch and cokes please.’ That was the drink in the 60s for us. Somebody said Ringo invented it. I don’t know that. ‘More scotch and cokes please.’ ‘No. No. No. The bar’s closed.’ They wanted us out. It’s like four in the bloody morning and they’ve been up all night. So we said, ‘Oh God. Just a bit more whisky. We’ve got some coke here.’ He said, ‘No. We’re closed. That’s it. Sod off.’ That sort of feeling. So one of us spotted… Marlon was down below in his table with the girls and somebody spotted he had half a bottle of whisky. You know, he’d bought a whole bottle of whisky and he’s halfway through and so we said to Ronnie, Zoot Money’s wife, Ronnie. ‘Ronnie. Can you go down and ask Marlon – can we borrow his bottle to have a few slugs? We’ve got coke here. Just to borrow his whisky for a bit.’ And she said, ‘Oh. Certainly.’ She’s great. Wee Scottish girl. Glasgae girl [as Mike puts on a Scottish accent when referring to Glasgow]. ‘Hey. No problem.’ Gets down there. Next thing, she comes back with the bottle and we just thought it was going to be to fill our glasses and then take it back. ‘Oh, sorry. Marlon said he’s had enough. It’s ours. He’s given it to us.’ Now there is a gentleman. Proof of the pudding is in the eating. Marlon Brando gave us his half a bottle of the best scotch in the world. Scotch of St James. Scotch of this country and St James.

The Scaffold, left to right: Roger McGough, John Gorman and Mike McGear (courtesy of Mike McCartney – photographer unknown)

The book also includes lots of photos of the Scaffold and some of the sort of memorabilia…

A proper group you mean. You’re talking about a proper group now.

Yes.

Originally called The Liverpool One Fat Lady Non-Electric Show.

Yeah.

That’s what we were called originally.

And I wanted to play Miles Davis from the Lift To The Scaffold soundtrack because a birdie tells me…

Oh.

Oh shit!

…that was the inspiration for the band name. Was that the case?

Lift to the Scaffold. Now then. Now then guys and gals [as he mimics Jimmy Savile] – I’ll get locked up for that one. How about the extraordinary, and there’s no such thing as coincidence, it all meant… Have you seen the cover of Lift to the Scaffold?

I haven’t actually.

Okay. I’ll tell you what it is and everyone now will be able to, for the first time in their life, be able to see it, because I’m going to paint it. It was in the 60s. No. It’s only in school, not the 60s. In school, everybody, all the kids were into Brigitte Bardot and smoking. They were the two big things that all kids are, you know, naughty and rude and ‘ooh dear, ooh Brigitte’ and smoking. All that etc. And being a contrary young man, everyone was into Brigitte and so I said, ‘No. I’m not going to be. I’m certainly not smoking.’ Tried that, didn’t like it. ‘No. I’m not smoking and I’m not doing Brigitte, I’m going to do Jeanne Moreau, French actress.’ Jules et Jim. Everybody listening to this, if you haven’t seen Jules et Jim – is it Truffaut? Jules et Jim – François Truffaut, I think, and Jeanne Moreau is the star of that. Google it. You’ll love it. So I had her on my wall – Jeanne Moreau. So that was it. And then years later, I was doing a video or something and Miles Davis’ Lift to the Scaffold, which is one of the reasons we called ourselves Scaffold was – right now – ‘have we got the album cover? We’ll put it on the video.’ And so, okay great. Here it is. Sent it through and there on the cover of Miles Davis’s Lift To The Scaffold album is Jeanne Moreau.

Yeah. Yeah.

It must have been when he was in France, in Paris, and must have fallen in love with her, like I did. A very cool woman. And he chose her as the cover of Lift to the Scaffold. [In fact, Moreau starred in the 1958 film Ascenseur pour l’échafaud – which became Lift To The Scaffold when released in the UK over two years later in March 1960. She was reputedly at the soundtrack recording session, sipping champagne with Davis in between takes.]

Not many people know that… [as Michael Caine] Sorry. What was your question appertaining that?

I understand that that soundtrack name was the inspiration for the band name Scaffold.

It was one of the reasons. The other two [Roger McGough and John Gorman] were, you know, they sort of really introduced me to the jazz thing as well – Miles Davis, sorry, MJQ. And the Scaffold were into, because they were older than me, and they were into modern jazz and they were into Miles Davis. So that was their big contribution. And so that was it. And Roget’s, not Rogers, Roget’s Thesaurus – the Scaffold tumbled out of that and so that was the reason. Mainly for Lift To The Scaffold because of Miles Davis. And the connotation – Scaffold is erection, erecting scaffolding and destroying, you know, being hung on them. So two connotations of Scaffold – up and down.

You mentioned this briefly before but one of the other stunning photos in the book is your kid and John composing ‘I Saw Her Standing There’.

Yeah. I mentioned that before didn’t I?

Yeah. They’re just in the moment there aren’t they?

Oh yes, as I said, that was one of the most important pictures for our kid because it encapsulates the way it was, the way he and John got on so well together and that’s why, to him, it is important. And, as I said, if it had been somebody like in the same room as Rogers and Hart or, you know, Rogers and Hammersmith [Hammerstein]. Someone like that. If I had taken photographs of them. It was just lucky for the world that my big love, not only hobby, was photography. But my passion was – I still love it. I still love photography now and just fortuitous that I should capture them doing what they did best and that is writing songs. And writing rather good songs, to tell you the truth. Obviously not as good as Scaffold. But they did some good stuff.

They’re just sort of staring at the lyrics and then you can see the pattern of your carpet and I think I can see your television behind as well.

On that one, you can see everything. You see the off-cuts of carpet where, underneath those offcuts of carpet – we couldn’t afford to have a new carpet because we didn’t have any money. Mum had died and my dad was bringing up two lads in with no money. I think, when The Beatles were, like, number one, I think my dad was on £10 a week in the Cotton Exchange, Liverpool. So we didn’t have any money. So things like that when in our house… When you went to the bath, you would be joined by the ceiling because it was all flaked up like the Cavern. It was all flaked off in the heat, same as the Cavern, but in our bath, it would join you in the bath – the paint flakes from the ceiling. So all that was there. In that room – three wallpapers. We couldn’t afford all the same wallpaper, so we had false brick wallpaper on…

Paul McCartney and John Lennon write ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ (photograph by Mike McCartney)

That’s what I can see on the left is that. That’s false brick.

…on the left is the false brick wallpaper. Behind that is sort of striped or just stripey stuff and then the other – and I think it’s on two walls – and then the other wall is Chinese wallpaper. Chinese, you know, like famous Chinese motif. And that was three wallpapers because we couldn’t… It was like my curtains upstairs. I said to Auntie Mill [his father’s sister, who was married to Uncle Albert], ‘Can I have black corduroy curtains?’ She said, ‘We’ll go to Garston market and see if we can get your black cord and make your curtains.’ And so we got there. The nearest she could find was dark blue corduroy and fawn corduroy. That was the nearest she could find for black so she said, ‘What I’m going to do is do it in four squares.’ and that is in our back room in Forthlin. Well it was. But then, years later, I said this story – because the National Trust bought our old house for the nation and I mentioned this story and they said, ‘Oh. It’d be great having those curtains like you had. Like Auntie Mill did for you.’ And so my wife heard this – Ro, the lady that came in before, sorry, got the phone before – and she said, ‘I can make those.’ because she makes beautiful wedding dresses and so I said, ‘Oh great. So it is dark, very dark blue cord and fawn.’ So she went and found it eventually in London and made them in four squares and they’re now hanging in Forthlin Road. Not many people know that neither.

Fantastic. Well, we’ve got to our final track and, when I was thinking of what to play, it seemed very apt to play the Scaffold version of ‘In My Liverpool Home’ which seemed to kind of round off things really nicely for the podcast. I mean there’s so many great photos and I think we’ve only sort of skimmed the surface of some of the highlights.

As I said, you’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. You won’t believe. Just the layouts, whatever they’re called, or just the paper. It’s not just even the book. Just the paper that goes in them. This is a big book. It’s so heavy. I’m going through it every day and it is so big and there are so many pages and on each one there are all these little secrets, those little surprises. And in fact I got the idea, and only Genesis can do this sort of thing because they’re so professional. From one of their books… They sent me a book of Ringo’s. I think it was the photograph book and this beautiful Genesis Ringo Starr book. Same thing. Beautifully made. But I’m going through that and I’m thinking, ‘Oh. Blimey. Look at that.’ And then suddenly you see a little bus ticket and you think, ‘What the hell? That’s not there?’ and you suddenly realize it’s not only on the page but you can take it out and it’s printed on both sides, like a real bus ticket. And so you take it out and then you can put it back and you know, you could take it out, go on a bus, get a ride around.

If you went back in time.

Yeah. And so there are bits in my book Mike McCartney’s Early Liverpool of, you know, letters and things stuck on. At one stage, when they first sent it, and they forgot to tell me that this thing, and I thought… I opened one page and I thought, ‘Oh. Oh dear. The other page is stuck to it. It’s obvious they’ve only just done these.’ And sometimes, in printing pages, they stick to each other. So I’m just about to rip it. Good job I didn’t cos I opened it to rip it and it opened, and then it opened again and opened four times. This thing comes right out of the book. Spreads right across and in fact I think on that one is, the middle of that one, because it’s early on, is the Liverpool Institute 1956 upper or lower yard.

Oh. The school photo.

The school photograph.

That’s amazing.

Half the kids. We had 1,000 boys in the Liverpool Institute High School for Boys and this is only half of about 500 kids and you can’t see the guy, because he was expelled, that was on the end. They had this camera. It panned round the whole school. So it starts, ‘Right everybody. Children. I’m the cameraman. It’s a special camera. You have to keep still and keep as still as you can. And it’s going to take a time. You will see the camera move. Don’t worry. Just keep still. Ready. Steady. Go.’ And then slowly this thing panned along. And this poor schoolboy at the end saw what was happening and, as soon as the camera moved off him, he legged round the back to be on the other end. He was at one end. This school kid went right round and gone on the other end and then only when they developed the film did they see this little bugger twice on the same picture, which gave the thing away, and he was expelled.

But, no, that’s the picture that goes across four pages. In the thing is me, our kid. Neil Aspinall is in there. George. Ivan Vaughan – one of the most important people in rock and roll because he introduced our kid. He was born – I’d forgotten till the other day, I’ll put this in the book. I’d forgotten – he was born the same day and the same year as my brother. 18th of June 1942. And he lived behind John in Menlove Avenue and they were friends and he introduced… He said to our kid, ‘Hey. You’ve got to meet John.’ and so our kid says, ‘Who’s John?’ ‘He lives behind me in Menlove Avenue but you’ve got to meet him. You’ll get on well.’ And he took him into I think the Woolton Garden fete and introduced him to John and that was it. Without Ivan Vaughan, you’d have none of this. And it’s like having my mom, if she’d had lived, you’d have none of this. That’s the way it is.

Actually before we go, we definitely need to mention the website mikemccartneybook.com so everyone can reserve their copy as well.

Okay. Now, apologize to everybody listening here because we’ve just had some tragedy in our family. Because of funerals, because of Covid pandemic, because I’m coming up for a hernia operation soon etc. Because of the actual reality, because this area has just had a big internet problem etc. All these things, you know, we’re not gonna get it out on time. So just to tell it to everyone. Greatest apologies. But I can assure you it’ll be well worth waiting for.

Mike McCartney’s Early Liverpool Deluxe Edition

Yeah. It’s just got page after page of stunning photographs and it’s been presented…

And drawings.

And drawings.

And drawings.

Yes, yes. Bus tickets perhaps.

Those sort of things, yes. I found Ray McFall’s and Bob Fuller’s Cavern business cards.

Wow.

So, I’m going to ask them if they can do them. And… I’ve got a letter from Ray McFall talking about the Cavern going under and Ray McFall is writing to the Scaffold saying, ‘Just to say thank you for doing that concert to highlight the problems the Cavern is going through. Without your help, we could have gone under.’ Can you believe our little group, part of obviously all the other real groups – I had even forgotten that I’d played the Cavern but somebody showed me – I think it’s Alf Keegan’s daughter – sent me a picture and said, ‘Here you are. Here’s a picture of you on the Cavern in my Cavern book.’ And so, all these things, though, you couldn’t, as I say, you couldn’t make these up. But I’m hoping those little business cards will be in. And lots of surprises.

Well, hopefully, we can speak or perhaps even see each other in another five years time.

Yeah okay, Jase. I’ll be brewing up a strange brew and so we can share that strange brew together.

Have a brew. Lovely. All right. Take care, Mike, and thank you again.

Bless you and love to all your lot and safety to all your lot.

Acknowledgements and further information

Mike McCartney’s Early Liverpool is available now from Genesis Publications: mikemccartneybook.com

Transcript and extra research provided by Nigel Davis.