Beatles' friend remembers their rise to fame

From the Beatles' early days in Liverpool to their meteoric rise to fame, Tony Bramwell was along for the ride with the awesome foursome.

In his new book Magical Mystery Tours: My Life with the Beatles, Bramwell chronicles his memories of the group some have called the greatest band of all time.

"If you want to know anything about the Beatles, ask Tony Bramwell. He remembers more than I do," Sir Paul McCartney is reported as saying in a 2002 interview.

Despite their skyrocketing popularity, the Beatles stayed grounded, Bramwell said, appearing on Canada AM.

Indeed, he still meets with McCartney to share a pint of beer.

"He never buys a round though...he never has any money with him," Bramwell said, noting that McCartney's favourite drink is straight bitter.

However, their burgeoning popularity did impact their daily lives and serve to seclude them from the general population, he said.

Beatlemania meant that they were unable to travel on public transport or eat out unnoticed, he said. But the band members had each other.

"The Beatles were just a four-man unit," Bramwell said. "They were actually married to each other."

Still, the Beatles began falling apart when Yoko Ono entered the picture, he said.

"(There was) this motto, you don't take your wife to work," he said.

But John Lennon broke the unspoken motto when he brought his wife along, triggering what would be the beginning of the end for the Fab Four.

"John was bringing his wife to work and not wanting to go into the studio either, it made things difficult. That was the prime thing in the eventual break-up of the band," he said.

"Everyone was gloomy and miserable about the whole thing."

In fact, McCartney publicly announced the breakup of the band about 35 years ago on April 10, 1970.

"Paul decided to leave temporarily, but of course it wasn't temporary," Bramwell noted.

Although the band members went on to pursue solo careers, the mystique of the Beatles lives on even 35 years later.

Indeed, they topped the ranks of Rolling Stone magazine's original Top 50 "Immortals" list in 2004.

Excerpt from Magical Mystery Tours:

"Before real fame hit, the Beatles did summer gigs, a week here and there at seaside resorts, a mix of a week at Southport, then a one-night stand in Aberdeen, a Sunday in Torquay and a week in Great Yarmouth or Bournemouth. My job description at the time was what you might call a "clerk" to Brian, but a lot of the time, if the gig were in Merseyside, I'd be off with them in the van at lunchtime to wherever the gig was and afterward we'd come home. If they went further afield, on weekends I'd take them their pay packets and stay over.

"The first van was the secondhand Bedford provided by Neil. It had two bench seats and was pretty basic. Neil would drive, with John often sitting up front with him. We'd push the other bench seat forward to make room for all the gear and then basically sit on it and be bounced around. It didn't make for a great deal of comfort, but we were used to it."

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This page contains a single entry by posted on April 13, 2005 1:04 PM.

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