Enjoy your tour of famous Beatle sites in England with BeatleTracks John Haberstroh
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Marylebone Station: opening scenes from A Hard Days Night were all shot here-all the train madness, the fans etc. |
EMI studios at Abbey Road. |
Shot of the famous crosswalk with the studio in the back. |
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Cavendish Avenue: Where Paul McCartney still has a home, right
around the corner from the Abbey Road studios.
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Me at the gate of Paul's Cavendish Ave. home. |
Me at the world famous Cavern Club: remember, the original was
torn down and this one, directly across the street was built to look and feel
like the original, still on Matthew Street in Liverpool.
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Me with sculptures of the fabs, specifically here, John to my left, Paul to my right. |
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An exact replica of the original Magical Mystery Tour bus. The original is in Florida but this coach is exactly the same and painted the same. |
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Penny Lane-really. |
St. Peter's Church, Woolton-Liverpool. It was at this facility that Paul first met John on July 6, 1957. |
Me with "John" the caretaker at this address-20 Forthlin Road, the McCartney household. This was also bought by the National Trust and is maintained as a shrine. John also takes care of Lennon's house. What a gig! He gets to live for free in both places, is provided a nice salary and food!! He runs the tours that have to be booked by the National Trust. |
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Me at the very site of "Strawberry Fields." Things
have changed unfortunately. Kids go to foster homes now, not institutions
like SFs. The original buildings have all been torn down and what are there
now are newer dwellings. The fate of SFs at this time is unknown. The
original gates still look good and that is what everyone likes getting
photographed. |
John Lennon's home: I always thought it was the whole house but
if you look closely, it is a duplex. Only the left side was Lennon's. The
National Trust owns and maintains it now as a shrine. We couldn't get in and
this shot was taken from the Magical Mystery Tour bus. Note the telltale
flash residual in the upper left corner. Menlove avenue is a surprisingly
busy thoroughfare. It's a four lane highway actually. I always thought he
lived on some quiet side street. |
Pic taken inside the new Cavern. The New Cavern has two stages,
this one that is just about like the original-tight, longitudinal, very
cramped area and a second huge stage and dance floor further out. This was an
Argentine band who were great featuring a female lead guitar playing the
Gibson SG. Didn't catch their name. |
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"Penny Lane there is shelter in the round-about, the pretty
nurses selling poppies from a tray . . ." That is the roundabout in the
right of the picture. The barber and the bank are still there too! |
Ann Summers: Adult female lingerie. All very nice, but this used
to be NEMS (North End Music Stores), Brian Epstein's shop where he first
heard about the Beatles and made the 300 yard "trek" over to the
original Cavern Club on November 9, 1961 to see them. The rest, as they say,
is history. |
Me shaking hands with . . . you guessed it, Mike McCartney in
Liverpool. |
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Pic taken right next to the small stage in the cavern. This was
a different, English Beatles Band and they were good too. |
Sgt. Pepper! Actually, these guys were and remain the reigning
"Best Beatles Band" in Liverpool. Seen here on the larger second
stage, they are called "The Shouts" and are also from Argentina. |
Me with the Beatles' first manager, Alan Williams. He has been the subject of endless debates as the "man who gave away the Beatles." He got them to Hamburg originally but there was a fee dispute and he stopped managing them in 1961. Enter Brian Epstein. |
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Me standing outside of Litherland Town Hall. Now a medical
facility, but widely credited with being the official scene of the actual
start of Beatlemania: The date was December 27, 1960. The Beatles had just
returned from the first Hamburg tour and they had been transformed into what
we would now call hard rock. There simply was no one else around that sounded
like they did. There was a riot that night. They would go on to play 36 more
gigs at the Litherland, their final being an evening gig on November 9, 1961:
the same day Brian Epstein first saw them at the Cavern Club at lunchtime. |
One of my favorite pics: That’s me standing in between two of
the ORIGINAL Quarrymen!!!! To my right is Rod Davies and to my left is Collin
Hanton, guitar and drums respectively. The Quarrymen were John Lennon's first
band and these were the actual guys in. They still reconvene and play at
special gigs like this annual Liverpool Beatles Fest. When I bought the book,
The Quarrymen, a year ago by Hunter Davies, (author of the first Beatles
biography), he too was amazed that they were still out there in demand.
Sadly, since that book was printed and my visit to Liverpool, guitarist Eric
Griffiths has died. Pete Shoton, John's best lifelong friend, sold his chain
of food stores for a small fortune and has retired to LA, so he doesn't play
with the Quarrymen anymore. |
Me crossing over, following the Beatle’s Tracks! |
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