Special thanks to ThisDayinMusic.com.
Having got the music bug after he built his own guitar as a kid, John Askew left Liverpool for London in 1958 and used his carpentry skills on a construction site, while he aimed at breaking into the music business. Pop impresario Larry Parnes replied to one of Askew’s audition requests and liked what he saw. Parnes thought Askew talented, but a little quiet, and renamed him Johnny Gentle.
After Gentle’s first two singles did very little, Parnes decided to send him on tour to find his audience. Parnes has been working with Liverpool promoter Alan Williams and figured that, with new bands popping up every week in Liverpool, the city might be a good source of backing bands for his artists.
On May 10, 1960, Parnes held auditions. He liked a band called the Silver Beetles and picked them to play with Johnny on his Scottish tour.
The Silver Beetles weren’t billed on the tour; instead they were listed simply as Johnny Gentle and his Group. That group consisted of Paul Ramon, Carl Harrison, Stuart de Steel, Johnny Silver and Tommy Moore. These were stage names, of course, for Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and John Lennon (and Tommy Moore).
Gentle told Bill Harry of Mersey Beat that, despite lack of rehearsal (about 20 minutes), they sounded pretty good for the first show in Alloa on May 20, 1960.
“We met at the venue just half an hour before our first public performance together and all things considered we sounded pretty good from the off,” he said. “Every night, the sound we made got better, by the end of the tour I knew these boys were as good as any I’d worked with...”
Of course, the set list was mostly covers of pop and rock and roll hits like, “It Doesn’t Matter Anymore,” “Raining in My Heart,” “I Need Your Love Tonight,” “Poor Little Fool,” “Come On Everybody” and “He’ll Have to Go.”
Gentle recalled that Lennon helped him with a song during the tour, “I’ve Just Fallen for Someone,” that was later recorded by Adam Faith. He also tried to persuade Parnes to sign the Silver Beetles, but the impresario was only interested in solo acts. When Johnny Gentle tried to hire the Silver Beetles again, he was out of luck. They were in Hamburg and about to change rock and roll history.
Johnny Gentle was not so lucky. In an attempt to pick up a faltering career, he changed his stage name Darren Young and then joined a band called The Viscounts. But music never worked out as a career, and in the ’70s Johnny went back to working as a carpenter.
When the world’s attention fell on The Beatles again in the Anthology-era ’90s, Johnny wrote his story with Merseyside historian Ian Forsyth in the book Johnny Gentle & the Beatles: First Ever Tour.
He told Bill Harry that every now and then he still performs. “My most recent show was at the 2004 Eddie Cochran Convention in Chippenham, sharing the stage with acts brought over from America: Little Richard, Billy Haley’s Comets, Buddy Holly’s Crickets, Charlie Gracie and British rockers Marty Wilde, Terry Dene, Vince Eager and Tommy Bruce.”
He added: “I think it would be good if somebody could do a cover version of the song I collaborated with John Lennon on, ‘I’ve Just Fallen for Someone.’”
The song is on Adam Faith’s Adam Faith album. Anybody?
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