Besides, Stu looks the part. He’s a thin guy with a Vandyke beard who looks a lot like American actor James Dean. According to George, John wanted Stu in the band because he “looks so cool.” He wears shades clipped on his eyeglasses.

“Who’s the drummer?” Williams asks.

“We haven’t got one,” John admits.

“I’ll try to find you one,” Williams assures him. He delivers a fellow named Tommy Moore. Moore’s married and old—almost twenty-nine—but promises to come to the audition on May 10, after his shift at the Garston Bottle Company factory.

They’ve upgraded their clothes—to black shirts and jeanslike trousers—and their equipment. George has a new guitar, a Futurama, and Paul purchased an Elpico amplifier. John’s former guitar, a gift from his mother, broke into pieces after all the playing. Mimi refused to buy him another one (“If you want it,” she told him, “prove it”), which forced him to get an actual job, laboring to construct the city’s new water pumping station. His hands bled every day of the long, hot summer.

John bumps into Brian Casser, the lead singer of Cass and the Cassanovas. “What’s your group called again?” Casser asks John.

“The Beatles.”

Casser laughs at the unusual name. They go around and around until John settles on Long John and the Silver Beatles.

When their turn arrives, they play three songs—John taking lead in one, Paul taking lead in the second, the third an instrumental. Stu, who doesn’t know the proper notes, plays with his back to music promoter Larry Parnes and the rest of the auditioners. It was Paul’s suggestion—he called it “doing a moody,” as if Stu, with his dark glasses, was too cool to be bothered.

Long John and the Silver Beatles fail the audition. The band needs a lot more practice.

*  *  *

Williams lets them use the Jacaranda cellar for rehearsals. George ties a microphone to a broomstick, and Cynthia Powell, John’s girlfriend from art college, holds it up for whoever is singing.

One day, they have an audience—Rory Storm and his band the Hurricanes, with guitarist Johnny Guitar and drummer Ringo Starr, whose real name is Richard “Richy” Starkey.

“Why Ringo?” Cyn asks him.

He holds up a hand and says, “Because I wear three rings. That’s what they called me at first—Rings.” He tells Cyn the story behind each one. “This one’s from me mum I got when I was sixteen, this one’s an engagement ring from me girlfriend, and this one’s me granddad’s wedding ring I got when he died.”

“He looked like a tough guy,” George says after Ringo and his bandmates leave, “with that gray streak in his hair and half a gray eyebrow and that big nose.”

John agrees. They all do.

Chapter 7

Chapter 7

What can a poor boy do

’Cept to sing for a rock ’n’ roll band?