Julia Baird. Photo by Felice Calabro
The Mersey Beatles, the world’s best-known Beatles cover band, will be bringing the British Invasion back with a performance at the Lincoln Theatre on Oct. 20. They will be accompanied by Julia Baird, sister of John Lennon himself, to promote her book Imagine This: Growing up with my Brother, John Lennon. In this exclusive CityScene interview with Baird, she talks the Beatles and growing up with a rock legend.
Up until 1964, the capital city of London had only been shut down once before by council, and that was back in 1922 to welcome a world champion football player back home. The second time was to welcome back local heroes, the Beatles, to the city for the premiere of their 1964 film, A Hard Day’s Night.
Julia Baird, sister of Beatles’ singer/guitarist John Lennon, recalls this evening as one of her most memorable experiences with the band.
“I remember my family and I begging and begging John to let us come with them to the London premiere, and he insisted we not go,” Baird says. “He kept telling me, ‘Julia, we are just doing this because we have to. The real premiere will be back at home in Liverpool the next day with everyone.’”
If George and John were here, we don’t know what the Beatles could have been. They may have very well been playing the biggest stadiums in the world and been richer than they ever, ever would have thought.
Baird’s persistence would get the best of Lennon, and he finally give into the family’s requests to accompany the band to the premiere. This event was no ordinary movie premiere. Aside from the city of London being shut down, Queen Victoria was in attendance along with the renowned dancer, Lionel Blair. The Beatles had already begun their US takeover and were well on their way to becoming a household name.
“We were and are all so intensely proud of John at that moment. We never saw anything like it,” Baird says. “It really never quite hit us at the time of the Hard Day’s Night premiere, and even The Ed Sullivan Show, just how big the boys had become. Actually, I do not even think the Beatles even realized.”
The success and creative energy surrounding the Beatles can be traced all the way back to the town of Liverpool, England. The Lennon household would become the focal point for all the rehearsals for a number of John’s bands, including the original Quarrymen and a number of other Lennon-fronted projects.
“Where other mothers were saying, ‘absolutely not, go and do your homework or get a job,’ my mother would actively invite the boys in to play music at our house,” Baird says. “My mother would play banjo with the boys, they could not have a rehearsal without her. She was very vibrant.”
Julia Baird
Julia Lennon, John’s mother, was teaching him the instruments that she had grown up playing, including the piano, ukulele and banjo. Baird refers to her brother and Paul McCartney as the “dream team,” and when the two got together, Lennon played the banjo and McCartney played the guitar. McCartney, who was left-handed, played the guitar upside-down, unaware that a guitar could be restrung in the opposite direction.
“Our house growing up was very musical in many different ways,” Baird says. “My father was very much into opera at the time, and my mom adored Elvis and Buddy Holly, and she had a strong interest in Latin American dance culture.”
For years, Lennon, McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison rehearsed at the Lennon household, drinking endless amounts of tea and really perfecting their act to take out on the road. The Beatles would play more than 200 shows at the legendary Cavern Club in England before being discovered by Brian Epstein, who would bring the band to the forefront of the world, encouraging them to head overseas to play to American crowds.
“John didn’t leave Liverpool for the US until he was almost 23 years old, and most of the group was pretty reluctant to leave,” says Baird. “They didn’t want to leave home, let alone their mothers.”
The success of the Beatles overseas – often dubbed “Beatlemania” – was, in its own sense, a fit of mass hysteria. After their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, everyone wanted to be a part of this phenomenon. Fans would flood venues at which the fab four were playing and would often drown out the band’s sound on stage with screams of joy, shocked the Beatles were playing right in front of them. It would soon become more about the presence of the band more than it would be the music they were playing on stage.
“Being a Beatle at that time wasn’t always the most brilliant and happy time that people think about,” Baird says. “On stage at Candlestick Park back in 1966, the band agreed right then and there that it would be their last show live.”
The band would retire their live shows to focus on time spent in the studio and would go on to release arguably four of the most influential albums in music to date, including Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which celebrated its 50th birthday this year. In a way, the Beatles were finally able to creatively express themselves with newer sounds and techniques that were essentially unheard of in the world of pop and rock music in that age.
The Beatles would officially breakup in 1970, and each of the four would go on to pursue wildly successful solo careers. To this day, the two remaining members of the Beatles, McCartney and Starr, are extremely active and still play all over the world.
“If George and John were here, we don’t know what the Beatles could have been,” Baird says. “They may have very well been playing the biggest stadiums in the world and been richer than they ever, ever would have thought.”
On Paul McCartney–
Paul is beyond fantastic, he is a universal talent. The stamina and style he still has is unbelievable. He is truly the Beatle beyond the Beatles.
On John’s iconic circular glasses–
John was a mad Buddy Holly fan. It was actually Buddy Holly who encouraged John to put his glasses on. John had been walking around practically blind until Buddy Holly was hanging around him and told him it was cool to wear them. He told him, ‘just wear the specs.’
Rocco Falleti is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
