GE Power Systems presents

THE BEATLES: Now and Then, Photographs by HARRY BENSON

December 18, 2002 – March 2, 2003

Flash back a generation. It’s 1964. Photojournalist Harry Benson is pulled off a hard-news story to accompany a new band on its first trip to America. That band is The Beatles. The rest is rock ‘n’ roll history.

Photographer Harry Benson is a native of Glasgow, Scotland, who accompanied The Beatles to America for a London newspaper in 1964.  He began working for Life Magazine in 1968 and his photographs continue to appear in Vanity Fair, GQ, Esquire, Paris Match, and Life magazines.  Selected twice as the Photographer of the Year by the National Press Photographers’ Association, Harry Benson has been the recipient of many awards, including an Overseas Press Club award and two Leica Medals of Excellence.  His work is in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

“I came to the United States with John, Paul, George and Ringo, and I never left,” says Benson. Covering the years 1964 through 1998, The Beatles: Now and Then illustrates the rockers’ first American tour and their careers together and apart. Here, Harry Benson tells us how the Beatles changed his life – and our world.

In the photographer’s own words:

Paul McCartney

To me, Paul was the leader of the band. Paul was also the kindest one. He would always find time to talk to the fans, the reporters, whoever. He would make people laugh. Stopping, talking, signing autographs, he would always be the last to leave. If there was a decision to be made, John looked to Paul for confirmation. Decisions were definitely made by the two of them, but they took pains not to show the outside world they were in charge.

Ringo Starr

Ringo was not sophisticated at all at first. You can see in some of the pictures that he really deferred to John and Paul. I remember asking Duke Ellington once who was the most important person in a band was and he said definitely the drummer. A bad drummer can throw off the rest of the band. Ellington said he didn’t care about the drummer’s personality: he could be the man in the moon, as long as he could drum. Everything comes from the beat. Ringo was not the man in the moon – he was a streetwise kid from Liverpool who could drum. He was rough around the edges, but he learned quickly.

John Lennon

John was very natural … naturally intelligent. He was funny too; always making cryptic jokes that made us laugh. He loved to order room service everywhere they stayed – they all did. The last time I saw John was from a distance at an anti-Vietnam War peace rally in Bryant Park in New York City in the late sixties, where he said, “All we’re saying is give peace a chance.” I knew the State Department would try to deport him. He did all he could to stay in the United States and eventually it was all right. But it was very, very close.

George Harrison

I was actually closer to George than to the other three. We went out to clubs sometimes and I always sat and talked with George much more than I did with the others. John used to talk about intellectuals he had met. Paul liked to talk about the movie stars he’d met. And Ringo talked about the royalty who had come to meet them. George talked about Segovia, the great Spanish guitarist. “I’ll never be as great as he is,” he said, “but that’s what I’m aiming for.” It’s interesting that the one song on the Rubber Soul album written by George was titled “Think for Yourself.” He was quietly determined to keep his integrity.

Composing, January 1964, Paris

They were very intense, completely absorbed in what they were doing. This went on for hours – they completely lost track of time. I had become invisible. They had already written a lot of great music, like “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” As they played I heard the melody first, then the words. “My baby’s good to me, you know, she buys me diamond rings, you know.” They were composing “I Feel Fine.”  Both Paul and John had very strong egos, very strong personalities, yet they respected one another. That is one reason they wrote great music together.

Fan Mail, January 1964, Paris

They had just gotten up when this picture was taken, at about three or four in the afternoon. A huge pile of mail had just arrived. They all sat around going through the letters and the packages addressed to each of them. John was the most handsome in the classic sense, but I think I would have a lot of women arguing with me on that. Paul had a cute face, and George was nice looking. But Ringo, I believe, received the most fan mail. Women seemed to think their chances were better with Ringo.

Pillow Fight, January 1964, Paris

After one of the Paris shows at the Olympia, Brian Epstein came in at 3 a.m. to tell them that “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was the number one song in America and that they would be going there for the “Ed Sullivan Show” and their first American tour. They felt caged up in their hotel after each of the performances they gave at the Olympia. There was a violent energy in them – this tremendous energy that had to be let out. They needed a way to let off steam. Security was very tight – Epstein especially was watching for any 13-year old girls who might try to find their way into one of their rooms.  I had seen them have pillow fights before and when Brian Epstein left I said, “How about a pillow fight?” It became quite rough. They all seemed to take pleasure in hitting Paul because he was acting a bit superior. It was quite funny and it went on for a long time because they were enjoying it so much. They were quite excited and happy about going to America.

Arriving, February 7, 1964, New York

We landed at Kennedy Airport at 1:20 p.m. on Feb. 7, 1964. I was the fifth one off the plane. I had already told them what I wanted ¾ for them to turn and wave to me going down the stairs with the big crowds of screaming fans in the background. But when they actually started off the plane, a lot of people in front of them and behind started shouting instructions. They were beginning to forget what we had planned. I yelled and Ringo heard me in the melee and made them all turn around.

Ed Sullivan Show, February 9, 1964, New York

On the plane to New York they kept saying, “We’re going to meet Ed Sullivan, Ed Sullivan.” He was like the Pope to them. They always addressed him as “Mister Sullivan.” They knew just what he was doing for their career. Ed Sullivan even got a Beatles wig from someone in the audience and he put it on his head while warming up the crowd before the show. Girls in the audience were crying, screaming, fainting, jumping up and down – it was bedlam. It was estimated that more than 73 million people watched the show, one of the largest TV audiences ever.

At the Beach, February 1964, Miami

In Florida, the crowds were calm. I wanted to photograph the Beatles on the beach and they obliged. They were all wearing the same thing. I think someone had sent them over matching terrycloth cover-up outfits for them and they all put them on. The girls on the beach were shy but curious. You could never take photographs like that now. Today, bodyguards would surround rock stars of this magnitude.

Cassius Clay, February 18, 1964, Florida

In Florida, the Beatles said they wanted to meet the world heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. This was before the famous Clay-Liston match. Liston told me that he didn’t want to see the “bums” so I had to quickly substitute the challenger, Cassius Clay. It was only later, after he beat Liston, that Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali.  We went down to the ring and Clay ordered the Beatles around telling them to lie down, line up, etc. He called Paul the pretty one, but told him, “You’re not as pretty as me.” Clay was great. The Beatles played along, but they looked stunned when they walked out. They weren’t happy because for the first time someone else had taken over.  They had been acting really cocky and funny in their press conferences. They thought they were going to meet some dumb boxer and when they met Clay, they were really thrown for a loop. They felt taken advantage of, and wouldn’t speak to me for a few days.  Afterwards, John said, “That man made a fool of us.” It wasn’t pleasant having The Beatles mad at me, especially John.

‘A Hard Day’s Night,’ March 2-7,1964, England

They changed the name of the film after Ringo came in one morning, looking disheveled and hung over, and said, “It’s been a hard day’s night.”  When they were making the movie, people wondered what they would be like in a film. They needn’t have worried. The movie opened in July 1964 and was a smash hit. The critics said that although all four parts were good, Ringo was the most natural.

Beatlemania, Summer 1966, United States

I believe it was Derek Taylor, the correspondent from Manchester who later became their road manager, who coined the word “Beatlemania.” They generated mass hysteria everywhere they went. All the young faces, hysterically crying, screaming, out of control, not exactly knowing why. Thinking back, the crowds were really quite well behaved in comparison to what they are like now.

On Tour, Summer 1966, United States

When the Beatles first started touring in 1964, there were no ground rules on what a rock concert was all about. Everything was new, no one knew what would happen next. By the third world tour in 1966, we knew what to expect.  Being a photographer, I didn’t want to get too close. There were too many hangers-on by the end of the first world tour. The Beatles changed and moved on. The people close to them often got hurt or left behind; their first wives for example, Pete Best for another. I just wanted to get photographs for the newspaper and then be on my way again.

Controversy, Summer 1966, Chicago

John gave an interview to English journalist Maureen Cleve, in which he said that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus. It caused quite an uproar when it was published in Datebook [July 29]. I was somewhere else and told to get to Chicago as quickly as I could. John was very upset and started to sob, saying, “Why did I open my big mouth, why did I do it? I didn’t mean it.” And the rest of the Beatles were really quite annoyed with him. He issued a formal apology retracting his statement. People in the Bible Belt burned their records. Others called radio talk shows to condemn the band. DJs across the country were keeping count of the number of stores that refused to sell Beatles’ records and announced the results on air. This went on for weeks.

Paul and Stella, 1975, California

Three-year-old Stella McCartney sat very still and watched intently as Paul played and sang to her. “My family is my life,” Paul said. Stella, now the Paris-based designer for Chloé, has received rave reviews from the critics as well as from her parents. Her first collection, shown in early 1998, was one of Linda’s last public appearances.

Yoko and Sean, 1985, New York

The first time I met Yoko Ono was in 1985. I went to the Dakota where she and her son, Sean Lennon, live and where John had been killed in 1980. I found her to be a smart, down-to-earth woman. Yoko and Sean played the piano, sang, and played a game of chess.  Then we went across the street to Central Park. They sat in Strawberry Fields at the Imagine Circle, ran, and played tag. It seemed Yoko had decided to remember John in a positive way, knowing that John would have wanted that for Sean.

IMAGES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.