I had the best Mom ever.
My parents were the greatest, but Mom was the one who made sure I knew all about The Fab Four and later, Monty Python. When I was 8 or 9, she was the one who came home to our Upper West Side apartment in Manhattan with two huge blue and yellow plastic shopping bags from E. J. Korvettes containing every Beatle record she could find to get my collection started. Being a musician and having her own history as a performer, she became a big fan and loved their music as much as I did. When Paul “died” in the fall of 1969, my Mom and I stayed up all night with WNEW-FM jocks attempting to discover even more clues. How many Moms did that?
Just as we sat together in front of the black & white and watched them change the world on Ed Sullivan, Mom and I now poured over those records and I learned every lyric. I became an immediate encyclopedia on all things Beatle. I enlightened my friends on a regular basis, whether they wanted to be enlightened or not. I taught a short summer course on them at school, the highlight of which was showing several reels of Beatle cartoons that I got on loan from the production company. I fanatically collected any article, any bit of memorabilia I could. Posters and pictures from magazines covered the walls of my room, and I grew up listening to almost nothing else on my small Webcor record player. Like everyone at the time, I had a favorite Beatle (Paul), but truly I loved them all. I do remember thinking how incredible it would be if I ever had the chance to go to London and maybe meet him (them) one day........
In the spring of 1971, about two weeks after I turned a very adult and savvy city kid of 12, I found out there was a play running on Broadway called The Philanthropist. Jane Asher (who had been Paul’s fiancé up until a few years before) and Victor Spinetti (who co-starred in three Beatle movies) were in the cast, and to me meeting "inner circle" friends of the Fabs was almost as good as meeting the Fabs themselves. Here I had not one, but two connections to them in one place! So, as any good Beatle detective would do, I got on the M104 bus and rode downtown to Times Square to stand by the Barrymore Theatre stage door.
My parents were the greatest, but Mom was the one who made sure I knew all about The Fab Four and later, Monty Python. When I was 8 or 9, she was the one who came home to our Upper West Side apartment in Manhattan with two huge blue and yellow plastic shopping bags from E. J. Korvettes containing every Beatle record she could find to get my collection started. Being a musician and having her own history as a performer, she became a big fan and loved their music as much as I did. When Paul “died” in the fall of 1969, my Mom and I stayed up all night with WNEW-FM jocks attempting to discover even more clues. How many Moms did that?
Just as we sat together in front of the black & white and watched them change the world on Ed Sullivan, Mom and I now poured over those records and I learned every lyric. I became an immediate encyclopedia on all things Beatle. I enlightened my friends on a regular basis, whether they wanted to be enlightened or not. I taught a short summer course on them at school, the highlight of which was showing several reels of Beatle cartoons that I got on loan from the production company. I fanatically collected any article, any bit of memorabilia I could. Posters and pictures from magazines covered the walls of my room, and I grew up listening to almost nothing else on my small Webcor record player. Like everyone at the time, I had a favorite Beatle (Paul), but truly I loved them all. I do remember thinking how incredible it would be if I ever had the chance to go to London and maybe meet him (them) one day........
In the spring of 1971, about two weeks after I turned a very adult and savvy city kid of 12, I found out there was a play running on Broadway called The Philanthropist. Jane Asher (who had been Paul’s fiancé up until a few years before) and Victor Spinetti (who co-starred in three Beatle movies) were in the cast, and to me meeting "inner circle" friends of the Fabs was almost as good as meeting the Fabs themselves. Here I had not one, but two connections to them in one place! So, as any good Beatle detective would do, I got on the M104 bus and rode downtown to Times Square to stand by the Barrymore Theatre stage door.
When I arrived, I found a group of girls waiting there as well. It was clear they were all friends, and soon they were looking at me, checking out this new, young person who had shown up. Three from the group walked over to me, and being a suspicious New Yorker even then, I wondered what I might be in for. It was there, standing on my own with a John Lennon sticker on my coat that I had carefully peeled off the cellophane of his first album, that I first met Linda, JoAnn and Evy. Had it not been for that chance meeting with these three ladies who were 10 years my senior, I never would have met Paul, nor would I have the wonderful, special memories of meeting him and the other Fabs that I have. I owe all of that to those amazing women, and my Beatle life was never the same. I had three great friends for the next 20 plus years.
