[purchase The Quarrymen Live in Penny Lane, featuring Chas Newby on bass and vocal]
You’re a teenage (left-handed) bass player, and a former band mate asks you to fill in on a few gigs with a cover band that had recently
been on tour, because their bass player is unavailable. Needing a bit of extra Christmas cash, Chas
Newby agreed, and played four shows in England with his old friend Pete, and
his fellow band members, John, Paul and George.
Chas had fun and pocketed all of £4. But when John suggested he stay with the band
for a tour in West Germany, Newby declined, figuring that he had a better
chance of success in his preferred field of chemistry.
Of course, the rest is history. Nearly two years after Newby declined Lennon’s
offer, the Beatles hit it big with “Love Me Do,” featuring Paul McCartney on
(left-handed) bass.
As Newby said:
To me then it was just four gigs with a different band. Music
was never going to be a living for me. All of us at that time were thinking
what we were going to do with our lives, some doing teaching, or science, or
whatever.
I wanted to do chemistry. John, Paul and George, they just
wanted to be musicians.
They had been away in Hamburg. They’d played a hell of a lot over there so they were very tight, very proficient, and they gave it some stick. But I did the four gigs and went back to my college course the week afterwards.
In fact, Newby went back to St. Helens College and continued
his studies in chemistry, eventually getting his Master’s from
Manchester University. In 1971, a decade
after his brief encounter with possible superstardom, he joined Triplex Safety
Glass, which manufactured windscreens for trains and aircraft. He retired in 1990 and became a math
teacher.
Further proof of his being merely a blip in Beatles’ history,
Chas only had one encounter with any of the band after his four gigs (the last
of which was 63 years ago today--New Year's Eve 1960--at the Casbah). In 1962, he recounted:
I was on my way home and I pulled up at some traffic lights. There, waiting at the crossing, was George. I said hello and asked if he needed a lift. He said he was waiting for someone and that was that. Off I went.
Before his death on May 22, 2023, Newby played in a charity band, The Racketts, and in the reformed Quarrymen, which once counted John, Paul, George, and Newby’s predecessor in the Beatles, Stu, as members.
2 comments:
Très intéressant de redécouvrir ce genre d’épisodes peu connus de l’histoire des Beatles. L’histoire de Chas Newby montre bien que la place d’un musicien dans l’histoire ne se mesure pas forcément au nombre de concerts joués ou au temps passé dans un groupe. Même une collaboration très courte peut devenir une petite pièce importante dans le puzzle de la musique populaire. J’aime particulièrement ces récits qui permettent de sortir des noms habituels et de découvrir les personnes qui ont gravité autour des grandes figures de l’époque. À propos, pour ceux qui souhaitent consulter une ressource extérieure sans rapport direct avec la musique, je laisse aussi ce lien à titre informatif : https://spinaura-avis.fr/. Merci pour cet hommage et pour avoir remis en lumière une partie aussi particulière de l’histoire des Beatles.
What an interesting little piece of Beatles history. It’s amazing to think that Chas Newby played just four gigs with John, Paul, and George and then went back to studying chemistry, completely unaware of what the band would become. I especially liked the story about bumping into George at the traffic lights years later—it really shows how ordinary that whole experience must have seemed to him at the time. Stories like this make the early Beatles history feel much more personal, and I enjoyed reading about his life beyond those famous four shows. It’s also nice to know that he eventually returned to music through the Quarrymen and charity performances, even after building a completely different career. https://spinmamas.com/
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