Following is an interview with Jim O'Donnell on the subject of his book, The Day John Met Paul. Media may quote from it freely.
Do you think The Day John Met Paul is better now that it has pictures?
Definitely. Absolutely. The best thing about the pictures is that they show the truth of the text. For example, I had written that Liverpool was going completely crazy over rock ‘n’ roll in 1957. A few people, here and there, over the years, have emailed me and said that neither Liverpool nor England, in general, was that caught up in rock music in 1957.
Well, there’s a picture in the book now of dozens of kids at a Liverpool shop in 1957—and they’re every bit as excited as any kid ever was at the height of Beatlemania. They’re ecstatic, waiting at this store for some singer to come in and sign his hit single. The store and street—this Liverpool store and street in 1957—are absolutely packed with teenagers and the kids are just wild-eyed.
That picture bears out what I had written about how rock ‘n’ roll was being received there in 1957. Lots of the pictures do that. They prove the text.
Are there any other ways that the pictures improve the book?
Well, sure, they draw people into the story and they enliven the text. You’re reading about Strawberry Field and there’s the picture of it on the opposite page. Actually, in a way, the pictures help to tell the story, too. At one point in the text, I wrote about how Liverpool was still struggling, in 1957, to recover from the war. Well, now the book includes graphic pictures of post-war, late-1950’s Liverpool and the reader sees, literally, what I’m talking about.
That makes the scene more vivid, and memorable, as well, and helps the story along. The reader becomes involved on a visual level, as well as an intellectual one.
How were the pictures chosen?
The pictures were chosen very, very carefully. I put a great deal of time into finding photos and then examining them. I wanted the pictures to work with the text—not rub up against it. Then I tried very hard to place the pictures where they would work best in the book’s layout.
I would go so far as to say this is a brand new book, at least so far as I’m concerned. I’m hoping that the readers of the first edition come to realize that. It really is a different reading experience with the pictures—more intense. I mean, if they liked the first edition, they’ll love this one.
I also think that this edition will find a whole new audience. The pictures now make this as much of a historical documentary as a Beatles story. By gathering together these photos of a particular time and place, the book becomes a record of European cultural history. I think that fact will attract readers who aren’t necessarily Beatle fans, but who like to read cultural history that includes quality photos.
Speaking of readers, how do you think the book will go over with people who were actually living in Liverpool in the late 1950’s?
Well, they certainly liked the first edition. So I suspect that they’ll experience a shock of even deeper recognition when they see these pictures. Pete Shotton, John’s best friend, liked the book. He said I cost him a night’s sleep because he couldn’t stop reading it. Rod Davis, one of the Quarry Men, told me I’d captured the Liverpool of his youth. He felt like he was there all over again. Geoff Rhind—he’s the guy who took the famous picture of John playing that day—Geoff said I’d caught the chemistry between John and Paul.
As for Liverpool itself, physically, most people said I’d portrayed the environment accurately. Actually, quite a few readers were surprised to find out I was American. They were so taken with the details about Liverpool that they were sure I was born and grew up in Liverpool.
Now, in this new edition, these really stunning photos dovetail with the text quite well. Let’s put it this way: anyone who lived in Liverpool in the 50’s—and still has a few brain cells working—is in for a treat.
How did you come to write this book?
Well, I know this will sound strange, but this book about the beginning of the Beatles actually started out as a book about the death of John Lennon. In 1982, I started a book called Lennon's Last Day. The problem was that the material I was uncovering was making me go to pieces, emotionally. Dwelling on a subject like that every day just got impossible.
I finally couldn't face the project anymore so I stopped work on it in 1986. Then I remembered reading that the initial idea for the Sgt. Pepper album was that it be a series of songs about an average day in Liverpool. I had also noticed in my research that there were very few details in print about the day John and Paul met. And the few details that were out there often didn't jell with one another. The day became kind of a mystery to me.
So I decided in '86 to combine the Liverpool-day concept with the single-day writing approach, focusing on the day John met Paul.
How did you get the information for this book?
My main source was my own interviewing. I live in the States and I made a few trips to England and I also did phone interviews. I talked to most of John's band, the Quarry Men Skiffle Group, and to dozens of people connected with that day, like the guy who was in charge of organizing the day's events. I also did a lot of reading.
Reading of what?
Books, newspapers, magazines—anything that would help me see July 6, 1957, more clearly. Luckily, Paul McCartney's brother Mike has written a good deal about his family's past. Mike has also taken all sorts of photos over the years.
Another important work in my research was Pete Shotton's book. Shotton, as I said, was John's "best mate" in their younger days and he talks about those days in his book. I also read books about Liverpool, the 50's, rock 'n' roll, you name it.
Then there were the movies and photos and tapes and videos. There's a listing of all the sources in the back of the book. Again, though, my main information came from my own interviews, especially material about that day. The people of Woolton, in particular, were very good, letting me look at home movies and snapshots of various fetes during the 50's.
Were there any surprises in the research?
Oh, yeah. I suppose the biggest surprise was finding out, first-hand, that John Lennon and Paul McCartney did not grow up in the city slums of myth. They weren't exactly uppity crusty, either, but they certainly didn't live in anything remotely resembling a slum.
Like a lot of people, the image I always had of Liverpool was an industrial city full of tenements. Then I went there and saw that the image was wrong. So that's an area of the book that I think will open a few eyes. Actually, with things like that, I'm hoping the book makes a cultural re-connection between pre-Beatle history and the beginning of the Beatle story.
What was the hardest part of the research?
The greatest challenge was trying to get the facts straight. For instance, John Lennon once told an interviewer that he was so sure of the date he met Paul McCartney that he had it written down: June 15, 1955. The Beatles' "Authorized" biography has this date: June 15, 1956. But I saw the original of the church program of the Woolton church fete at which they met, and it said "6th July, 1957." And that's just confirming the date!
Were there many problems like that?
Sure, all the time. In the introduction to one of the books Lennon wrote, McCartney said that he and John were twelve years old on the day they met. But birth certificates indicate that John was sixteen, almost seventeen, and Paul had just turned fifteen. Easy enough, but the plot thickens.
Lennon's half-sister, Julia Baird, says in her book that she was at the "St. Paul's Parish fete," but that John's Aunt Mimi was not there. Meanwhile, John's aunt had very specific memories of being at the fete—which was sponsored by St. Peter's Church, not St. Paul's.
To keep this going, one of Aunt Mimi's memories was of the sunny weather all day. But according to records at Liverpool Airport, the day had plenty of clouds.
So then your book has the story right?
I'd love to shout, "Yes! Of course! Undoubtedly!" But I can't make that claim because you never know. I can only claim that I worked very had to get the facts straight, doing a lot of checking and re-checking. I think, in the process, I might have come close to getting the story right. I'll say that much.
You’ll notice that the subtitle of the book is “AN Hour-by-Hour Account,” not “THE Hour-by-Hour Account.” I’m under no illusions that this is THE story. History doesn’t work that way. But it is as close to THE story as I can get after a lot of work.
I mean, I had a great moment, at one point, when I was interviewing Bob Molyneaux, the fellow who taped the Quarry Men on July 6, '57, and then sold it at auction for $122,000.
Before I talked to him, I had done many, many interviews to determine exactly when the Quarry Men played that day. Also, as I mentioned, I had traced down what the weather was like throughout the day.
Combining the times the Quarry Men played with the day's weather patterns, I had established that there was a rare thunderstorm during one of the band's performances. Well, while I was talking to Bob [Molyneaux], he happen to mention that while he was taping the Quarry Men that night, the lights had gone out. I asked him why. He said it was because of a thunderstorm.
That made me feel pretty good, but it was also a little spooky—to have someone casually confirm such a subtle point in the storyline. It made the day come even more alive for me. It was like taking a photograph, thinking you got the picture, and then standing in the darkroom and seeing the image come onto the paper in perfect focus.
Then, a few minutes later, he [Molyneux] said I would do well to talk to Jack Gibbons, who had been the head of the Youth Club when Molyneaux and Lennon were teenagers. He said Gibbons was a great fellow who had put a lot of time into helping the youth in the community.
Unfortunately, I had to tell him that I had interviewed Jack in England in 1988 and that he had died about a year later. Molyneaux was sad to hear that, so I sent him a copy of one of the interviews I had done with Jack Gibbons.
Did you have a single, overriding objective in writing this book?
I suppose I did. I suppose my main goal was to make manifest the spirit of July 6, 1957, Liverpool—to get at the sense of what it was like to be alive at that time, in that place. See, what I hope I've brought to the Beatle book party is the interplay of teenagers John Lennon and Paul McCartney with the whole process of living Liverpool.
Because Beatle music goes straight to the heart in a way that no other music can, I wanted this to be a people book, not a superstar book. So I've tried to link the two teens' actions organically—to reveal their 7-6-57 breaths as inseparable from all the other human breaths taken during one daily spin of the globe.
Did you accomplish that?
I don't know. I hope so. I hope I at least came close, but I don't know. I'm too close to the piece to have any idea. But I know I gave it a good shot and that's all you can do. I started this in '86, after all. That's eight years. That's hundreds of reading hours, dozens of interviews, thousands of travel miles and one writing job that pushed me well beyond my limits. So I hope I got it and that people enjoy reading it.
But even if they don't, I've made some friends because of this book. There are people in Liverpool that I've been exchanging Christmas cards with for years now. It's a wonderful place the Beatles grew up in with many wonderful people. I hope my book gets that across, too.
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