The Beatles Death Curse

[YoungWillz 21,037]

Report of the death of Tony Clark, engineer who worked on Abbey Road for the Fabs as well as many Wings releases: 

Worked at Abbey Road with many other artists.

[Thatcher 2,406]

Johnny Gentle, pop singer, has died aged 87. He toured Scotland in 1960 with The Silver Beetles.

[YoungWillz 21,037]

John Askew aka Johnny Gentle, who the Beatles supported in the Beat Ballad Show Tour of Scotland in 1960, being reported dead: 

 

 

[YoungWillz 21,037]

Gently ninja-ed. 

[Ulitzer95 12,586]

25 minutes ago, Thatcher said:

Johnny Gentle, pop singer, has died aged 87. He toured Scotland in 1960 with The Silver Beetles.

Death and funeral notice.

[Ulitzer95 12,586]

On 07/03/2024 at 16:32, Thatcher said:

Johnny Gentle, pop singer, has died aged 87. He toured Scotland in 1960 with The Silver Beetles.

Gets a Telegraph obit.

Copied it into the spoiler for all the Beatles fans on here  
 

Spoiler

Johnny Gentle, singer whose backing band on a tour of Scotland was the future Beatles – obituary
‘We were crummy, horrible, an embarrassment,’ George Harrison recalled – though Gentle claimed to have seen ‘something special’
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Johnny Gentle in 1960
Johnny Gentle, who has died aged 87, was a square-jawed rock singer with an Elvis-style quiff who failed to make the charts but had the distinction of being a headline act whose backing group, on a 1960 tour of small-town dance halls in Scotland, was a band called the Silver Beetles; while they went on to fame and fortune as The Beatles, he returned to his first trade, as a carpenter and joiner.

It was Larry Parnes, a flamboyant entrepreneur who specialised in re-naming his acts (Marty Wilde, Tommy Steele, Vince Eager, Billy Fury, Dickie Pride) who booked Gentle (real name John Askew) into a seven-show tour of Alloa and the Highlands in May 1960. Parnes had held auditions in Liverpool looking for people to back Billy Fury and Marty Wilde.

The Silver Beetles – then comprising John Lennon, Paul McCartney, 17-year-old George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe (bass) and Tommy Moore (drums) – flunked the audition, but they had a certain charm, and Parnes decided they would do as a backing group to a singer who had little to his name other than a few flop singles.

Gentle's 1998 account of his stint as frontman to the future Beatles: the cover photo features 17-year-old George Harrison on guitar
It was the group’s first professional gig and they were not even credited in the publicity: all the flyers stated was “Johnny Gentle and his group”. They met Gentle for the first time half an hour before the first show, in Alloa. He had sent them his set list – covers of hits by Paul Anka, Elvis, Jim Reeves and others – to rehearse so that they would know the songs on the night.

It was not an experience any of them remembered with pleasure. “We felt, ‘Yippee, we’ve got a gig!’ ” George Harrison recalled. “Then we realised that we were playing to nobody in little halls until the pubs cleared out, when about five Scottish Teds would come in and look at us... We were like orphans. Our shoes were full of holes and our trousers were a mess... I remember trying to play to ‘Won’t you wear my ring around your neck?’ – [Gentle] was doing Elvis’s Teddy Bear – and we were crummy. The band was horrible, an embarrassment. We didn’t have amplifiers or anything... We all slept in the van. There weren’t enough seats and somebody had to sit on the inside of the mudguard on the back wheel. Usually Stu.”

Gentle, right, with his Larry Parnes stablemate Billy Fury in 1960
Gentle later claimed that he recognised the band had “something special”: “All things considered we sounded pretty good from the off. 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.”

The Silver Beetles departed with less money than they had started off with; Tommy Moore, who had lost his front teeth when the band’s van, driven by Gentle, had a minor accident, returned to his old job in a Liverpool bottle factory.

But three months later, renamed the Beatles, and with Pete Best on drums, they were in Hamburg and on the runway to fame. When Gentle next needed a band to tour with, they were unavailable.

With another Parnes protégé, Marty Wilde, and the singer Anne Shelton, at the Philips Christmas party in 1960
John Askew was born on December 8 1936 in Liverpool. After leaving school he was apprenticed as a carpenter and made his own guitar. Teaming up with a friend, he began performing Everly Brothers covers at local clubs. Then, after a short period as a merchant seaman he began entering talent competitions as a solo singer, changing his stage name, first to George Baker and then to Ricky Damone. Moving to London, he won a talent competition at the Locarno Ballroom in Streatham and was taken up by Larry Parnes, who secured him a recording contract with Philips in 1959 and renamed him Johnny Gentle.

He released two singles that year, Wendy and Milk From the Coconut, but they did not chart; neither did an EP, The Gentle Touch. Then came the Scottish tour.
 

Gentle wrote a song on that tour, I’ve Just Fallen for Someone, reportedly with help from John Lennon. The song was later recorded by Adam Faith. He released three more singles on the Philips label, after which, changing his name for a fourth time, to Darren Young, in 1962 he released his own version of I’ve Just Fallen for Someone on Parlophone.

He made appearances on television pop series such as Oh Boy and Drumbeat but chart success continued to elude him, and in 1963, with no recording contract, he replaced Gordon Mills in the Viscounts vocal combo. By the mid-1960s he had retired from show business.

Returning to his real name, he later moved to Jersey, where he worked as a joiner. He then moved to Kent. In 1998 he co-wrote Johnny Gentle & the Beatles: First Ever Tour.

He is survived by his wife Jane, by a son and daughter and by a stepson and stepdaughter.

Johnny Gentle, born December 8 1936, died February 29 2024

 

[maryportfuncity 10,646]

On 07/03/2024 at 16:35, YoungWillz said:

John Askew aka Johnny Gentle, who the Beatles supported in the Beat Ballad Show Tour of Scotland in 1960, being reported dead: 

 

 

 

 

Gentle into that goodnight, then!

[Spade_Cooley 9,519]

On 23/02/2024 at 00:42, TheKeysOfMarinus said:

That’s a shame. Incidentally, Len Garry, another former Quarryman, is currently hospitalised and in poor health

Back in hospital according to his wife.

[Lafaucheuse 4,046]

[ladyfiona 2,578]

So anyway, Sean Ono Lennon and James McCartney have released a song together called Primrose Hill.

 

 

 

[En Passant 3,741]

Ono.

[Ulitzer95 12,586]

On 30/10/2012 at 21:38, Davey Jones' Locker said:

The so-called Fifth Beatle, Bob Rogers, is still working but, at age 85, he is one to start watching now.

Bob Rogers (wiki) dead at 97.

[YoungWillz 21,037]

On 30/10/2012 at 21:38, Davey Jones' Locker said:

The so-called Fifth Beatle, Bob Rogers, is still working but, at age 85, he is one to start watching now.

Australian DJ Bob Rogers, who trailed the Fabs through their 1964 tour through Europe, Asia and Australia, reportedly dead aged 97: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-13471041/Bob-Rogers-Sydney-radio-legend-dies-age-97-tributes-flock-devastated-fans.html

 

Ninja-ed!!! 

[TheKeysOfMarinus 390]

Longtime Beatles associate Tony Bramwell reported dead at 78. 
 

He grew up with three of the Beatles in Liverpool, worked for them at NEMS and later Apple Corps and directed the “Lady Madonna” promo clip. Quite a prominent figure in the world of Beatles conventions and the like. Apparently he had dementia.