#6jul

A photo posted by Sean Lennon on his Instagram account yesterday (15th June 2018). 

“In one shot, you see the ball go in — but that was me. I held the camera in one hand, and threw the ball in. Miles and John were very bad [at basketball]!”

[Jonas Mekas, New York Post, 28th September 2017]

John playing basketball in 1971. This photograph was derived from the original 16mm film, Happy Birthday To John, a film by Jonas Mekas. In the film John plays basketball with Miles Davies. Here are a couple of videos from Jonas Mekas’ films.

Happy McLennon day! 60 years since John met Paul at the Woolton Church Fete on the 6th July 1957 and started this whole thing off... 

“I just thought, ‘Well, he looks good, he’s singing well and he seems like a great lead singer to me. Of course, he had his glasses off, so he really looked suave. I remember John was good. He was really the only outstanding member; all the rest kind of slipped away.”

[Paul, talking about his first impressions of John, Record Collector Magazine, 1995]

“I was on a battered old guitar, which hadn’t cost much. A bloke named Rodney was on banjo, Pete Shotton was on washboard, I think Eric Griffiths was on another guitar and Len Gary [sic] was on box bass. 

“There was a friend of mine called Ivan who lived at the back of my house and he went to the same school as Paul McCartney - The Liverpool Institute High School. It was through Ivan that I first met Paul. Seems that he knew Paul was always dickering around in music and thought that he would be a good lad to have in the group.

“So one day when we were playing at Woolton he brought him along. We can both remember it quite well. We’ve even got the date down. It was June 15th 1955 [sic]. The Quarrymen were playing on a raised platform and there was a good crowd because it was a warm sunny day.”

[John, talking about how he and Paul met, quoted in Beatles Monthly No 2, September 1963 - and obviously getting the date really wrong - on purpose or not?!]

Pics - top - the first (?) photo of John and Paul together. The Quarrymen, including Paul, playing at New Clubmoor Hall, Broadway, Liverpool on 23rd November 1957. Photo by Leslie Kearney.

Photos on truck taken by James Davis - Rod Davis’ dad, who is the Rodney on banjo that John’s talking about. Photos taken on 6th July, 1957. (John with his eyes closed in the centre of the first photo, he’s obscured by Pete Shotton in the second).

Bottom 2 photos - The Quarrymen playing on 6th July, 1957, the day John met Paul. (Last photo - Geoff Rhind, other photo - Unknown but maybe Geoff Rhind?).

“The procession started outside the church, on Church Row. The lorry was pointed downhill and we were on the back of the lorry. I can still feel the lurch as the driver let the handbrake off on the way down, because you’re standing on the back of a lorry and it’s quite precarious!

“When we were going down King’s Drive, some of the other guys were playing - I don’t know why I wasn’t playing. We didn’t notice him [Rod’s Dad, James Davis] take the photograph. There’s one photograph where John is singing with his eyes closed. I’m standing, leaning against the back of the cab, and it must have been a hot, sticky day because my glasses have slipped down my nose. I’m pushing my glasses back up my nose and the banjo’s at my feet, in the case. Then we noticed it was my dad so there’s a second photograph where we’ve all turned around to look at him, but John unfortunately is obscured by Len. That particular photograph had been undiscovered from 1957 until 2009.

“Paul McCartney arrived on his bicycle and saw us playing. I met Paul in 2005, bumped into him on the seafront in Brighton. He said, “Oh, you must have been there on the day I first met John at St. Peter’s?”

“I said, “Yeah, in the famous photograph, I’m standing behind John’s right shoulder.” So he remembers it, I don’t remember him!

“Apparently at some stage during the day - and there are various contradictory versions of what happened - John and Paul were introduced by Ivan Vaughn (there doesn’t seem to be any doubt about that bit). No one invited Paul to join that night. Lennon is on record in an interview saying, “I immediately saw how fantastic he was and I asked him to join there and then!” Well, no, that didn’t happen. Pete and John were walking home because they both lived very close to each other, and John said to Pete (this is from Pete’s own mouth), “What did you think to Ivan’s friend then? Should we have him in the group?” and Pete said, “Yeah, I think he’s good. We should have him in the group.” So if Pete hadn’t said that, if Pete had said, “No, I think he’s an idiot,” then he wouldn’t have been in!

“I remember going to Aunt Mimi’s and there was somebody else there. I said to John, “Who’s that? Who’s this?” and he said, “Oh this is Paul. He’s come to listen to us practice,” so obviously by that time, he’d been invited to join the group.”

[Rod Davis, Banjo player in The Quarraymen, via The Liverpool Echo, 2017]

“It really started when I got to know John first because my mum and dad wanted a bit of peace on a Sunday afternoon. So they packed my off to St. Peter’s Sunday School. In my class was Pete Shotton, Ivan Vaughn, Nige Walley, Geoff Rhind, Barbara Baker. There must have been fifteen or so of us. When John came to live with his Aunt Mimi, she obviously also wanted a quiet Sunday afternoon, and packed John off to St. Peter’s. [...]

“We were all in this Sunday class aged five or six, and in our house, as in many other houses, he was known as “that Lennon”, in the phrase, “You stay away from that Lennon,” which didn’t help, it only made him more attractive! [...]

“[John and I] were outside a record shop, and the sound of Lonnie Donegan’s Rock Island Line came wafting out of the shop, and I thought, ‘Wow! That is absolutely fantastic. I’m going to have some of that!’ So I started pestering for a guitar or a banjo. Eventually we found out that an uncle of ours, who played in a dance band in North Wales, he played the fiddle and the musical saw. My brother had the saw and I had the fiddle, and his brother-in-law, who played in the same band, had a banjo and a guitar which he was selling. By the time we found out about it, the guitar had already been sold, which is to my eternal regret because if I’d got the guitar instead of the banjo, McCartney probably never would have got into the Quarrymen! But that’s another story!

“I went into school the following day and said to my friend, Eric Griffiths, “Oh Eric, I got a banjo the other other day.”

“Oh yes?” he said. “Do you want to be in a group?”

“The problem was not finding people who knew how to play, it was finding people who had an instrument! So I said, “Who’s in this group?” So he said himself on guitar, Pete Shotton on the washboard and Bill Smith on tea chest bass, and John Lennon on guitar. They were all friends of mine in the same year, so that was how it started and that was how I got in.”

[Rod Davis, Banjo player in The Quarrymen, via The Liverpool Echo, 2017]

Photos: The Quarraymen playing on 6th July, 1957, the day John met Paul.