O.k. class...put on your creative writing thinking caps! The only rule here is the notion that the Beatles NEVER EXISTED in the annals of music history. C'mon, let's 'ave a bit 'o fun 'ere at abbeyrd.
We did a "collaborative" on another Beatle board where everybody participated. This is a collage of 1963-70...it got much much weirder after this:
Beatles break up in 1963... what do you think happens in the world of pop and rock?
Obviously it (popular music) would continue to exist. No one can argue that.
What would have rose to the top?
Would there have been a British Invasion?
Maybe it would have occurred a few years later via the Stones and the Who?
1964
In England, an amateur cartoonist named John Lennon was arrested for robbing a butcher shop and stabbing a young butcher-in-training named Paul McCartney. While the young McCartney would survive…he therefore decides to quit the butchering business and finish pursuing his teaching credentials. While teaching French the young teacher writes a poem about a colleague on staff: Miss Michelle Snoggins. He writes the poem in French...Michelle, ma belle...
On the young McCartney's last day he has his picture taken with his co-workers as they sit on a table. On a whim they grab several cuts of meat and adorn themselves for a rather odd-looking photo of McCartney's last day.
1965
A gruffy young electrician finishes off his work day at the local pub for a dark warm brew. A juke box plays a song by an American band called "David Crosby and the Five Flyers", lead by a couple of folk singers by the name of McGuinn and Crosby trying to sound like Frankie Valle. "What is this rubbish" thinks Harrison. He puts in a coin for some good old old Chuck Berry, and remembers the days when he could still play a guitar. Unfortunately, his weathered hands could no longer position themselves into chords, but could perform some great detailed electric wiring configuration when called upon.
1966
He was so sick of drumming in that stupid jazz band. Bernard Ray and the Imperials were still playing that stupid Dorsey crap and Ritchie, who still performed under the name of Ringo Starr, thought back to those wonderful days when he played with Rory Storme and The Hurricanes. He regretted not going to Hamburg when they had the chance, but then again, why? Rock and roll had rolled over and died shortly after Buddy Holly, the Bopper and Richie Valens crashed so many years ago and nobody in England had done anything since Lonnie Donnegan and the skiffle craze. You know, it was just about time to put up the old drumsticks and get a job...maybe driving a bus?
So the amiable Mr. Starkey strikes up a conversation with the driver of the bus, which he rides when he goes to visit his mother and stepfather. His discussion with Harold Harrison intrigues Richard, and eventually the elder Harrison invites the prospective driver over to his home to discuss a career in transportation.
Mr. Harrison invites the young man to dinner, saying that his son is just about his age, and has been looking for his own flat. George and Richard meet, and realize that they knew each other when both were in Liverpool skiffle bands.
Richard (Ringo): “Whatever happened to the Quarrymen?”
George gave a bit of a groan: “Pete left the group y’know… went to drum with Gerry and the Pacemakers…played on Sullivan in the States in ’65, stayed behind and ended up on a hit TV show in America called “The Beatkeepers”. He’s number one in Scandinavia y’know…that big hit ‘Last Boat ‘cross Clarksville’… didn’t even have to play his own instrument! Think they hired him for his looks…lucky bum.”
Ringo knew the group: “yeah they got that crazy eyed guitar player …Charlie Mason or sumthin’.
You had a singer...Lemon or something. “
George: “Yeah. last time we played some Japanese lady took exception to something he said and took him out with one swing of a bag she had. I haven't seen John in years.”
Ringo: “Didn’t he go mad?”
George: “Yeah, the blow to the head made ‘im daft… he robbed a butcher and ended up stabbin’ our old bandmate - didn’t even recognize him. The woman who whacked him visited him in jail and slept by his side- yodeling gibberish.”
Ringo: “What happened to that lefty fellow?”
George: “He’s a teacher or something. Pushy fellow. A teacher friend of mine said Paul was trying to tell him how to teach. My friend told Paul “I’ll teach the way you want me to teach or I won’t teach at all…whatever it is to please you…I’ll do it…”
Ringo: “Teaching is a tough job…eight days a week.”
George: “Hey…s’pose ya wanna go to Manchester with me? Big concert by The Stone Army…back from the States.’
Ringo: “with that line-up…Richards, Jagger, Townshend, Clapton and that wild Keith Moon.” “Wish I could have been in a group like that!”
Over in the States, Beach Boy Brian Wilson is arrested for Marijuana possession. Mike Love takes over the band during the Pet Sounds sessions, tosses out all of Brian’s tapes he labeled as “garbage” and changes the group name to Mike and the Beachmen. They would never crack the top 40 again and become an oldies group.
1967
Jim Morrison appears on the Ed Sullivan Show to sing Mac the Knife and The Summer Wind with a twenty-piece orchestra. Sullivan is tickled pink by the young Morrison’s politeness and says that he can’t wait to have him back on the show. Morrison would become the youngest member of the Rat Pack, pleasing his military dad.
1968
Although “performance poet” Bob Dylan successfully merges rock and folk with some success, he chooses not to be a leader in the cry against the war. The so called “Hippy Movement” of 1967 loses steam and protest groups such as the Chicago Seven fall apart. Without the planned protest of the Chicago Democratic Convention, Hubert Humphrey soundly defeats Richard Nixon, who exclaims for the second time, “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around anymore…really…this time I mean it…I do.”
John Lennon is influenced by Bob Dylan and plays some clubs in London acoustically under the name Johnny Dillon. He already has a groupie…a middle aged Japanese woman who looks vaguely familiar…
1969
(From the Manchester Guardian, August 14, 1969)
Fourteen Die During Stone Army Concert!
It was a tragedy on Saturday when fourteen youths were killed by the American body guards hired by the pop group Stone Army during their concert here. The identities are not being released pending notification of the deceased’s families, but it seems to have begun as several youngsters tried to rush the stage when the band varied from its approved set list and began to play rock and roll from Elvis Presley and some old American blues. The bodyguards, who were imported from an American motorcycle club known as Hade's Bandits, admitted to the killings but claimed self-defense...
It was a major disappointment to American fans the week before that the Stone Army would not be appearing at the Yasgur Farm Festival in New York State. They would have been the only band from England participating, with the lone exception of Graham Nash, who replaced Charles Manson in the Beatkeepers earlier in the year, joining the three originals, Pete Best, Steven Stills and John Sebastian. Manson’s new Supergroup “Toys in the Attic” would also not be participating at the festival, as all of its members (Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson and Brian Jones) were all in group scream therapy in LA.
Almost 100,000 showed up at Yasgurs to see the Beatkeepers, Frankie Valle, Mike and the Beachmen, Country Rock group Birds Bees and Buffalos with Jim Clarke, Neil Young and Michael Nesmith, crooner Neil Diamond, The Crossfires, and dozens of unknown artists in a two day concert. The crowds were reduced to a few hundred after heavy rains, canceling the third day. The planned group discussion on the pros and cons of the war never took place since President Humphrey announced a complete withdrawal of troops from Vietnam by Christmas. The planned movie was scrapped.
1970
Shortly after the Yasgur Farm Festival, it was announced that Bob Dylan and his wife, the former Joan Baez, would be traveling to England on a tour of old English castles. The two, famed for their performance poetry and being different, are expecting an exciting time.
By coincidence the big screen blockbuster Addams Family meets the Munsters is being filmed in one of the castles. Dylan and Baez do a cameo as Milo and Rebecca Wilbury and end up writing and performing the soundtrack for the movie, including the hit novelty tunes The Night they Drove Bran Castle Down and Knockin' on Satan's Door.
One of the movie set's electricians, George Harrison befriends Mr. Dylan, who inspires Harrison to get back into music.
George was so inspired; he called up his old mate, Richie, who was happy to pull out his drums. With luck, Paul McCartney, who had once been a bandmate with the Quarrymen, had just opened a small record label called Banana Records and agreed not only to record the boys, but release their record as well.
The record, a little tune inspired by the spiritual "Oh Happy Day" and called "My Sweet Chord", in honor of George's refound love for his guitar, became an international number one record, although George was sued for plagiarism because the song sounded too much like something American producer Phil Spector had hummed in the bathroom when he was a wee-child.