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This is what the Beatles were digging on the Telly in John's Aunt Mimi's basement in 1958....and they thought at the time that if they could be as cool as Billy Fury, they had it made....
This is as cool as it got in the 50's in Britain, before the "Invasion" in the 60's....England was biding its time, coping the US bands, and ready to storm across the pond..
..But not quite yet, when these songs/videos were laid down..
I posted a bit ago on another one of the very worthy threads started by inthe cut on Cliff Richard, noting his career output and the fact that for reasons I did not understand at the time (and still don't) why his career wasn't more popular in the States than it was. At least Cliff got credit where credit was due with a few top 5 singles from the late 70's.
With Billy Fury, it's just as puzzling. He has over a dozen 45's issued by London records, and a handful of 45's with other labels. To my best guess, no albums were ever released by Fury. That certainly is not the case across the pond as Fury released over 50 45's and EP's on Parlophone from 1958 to the early 80's (and recorded many lp's as well.)
I posted a bit ago on another one of the very worthy threads started by inthe cut on Cliff Richard, noting his career output and the fact that for reasons I did not understand at the time (and still don't) why his career wasn't more popular in the States than it was. At least Cliff got credit where credit was due with a few top 5 singles from the late 70's.
With Billy Fury, it's just as puzzling. He has over a dozen 45's issued by London records, and a handful of 45's with other labels. To my best guess, no albums were ever released by Fury. That certainly is not the case across the pond as Fury released over 50 45's and EP's on Parlophone from 1958 to the early 80's (and recorded many lp's as well.)
Billy Fury got thisclose to getting a crack at the American audience at the early height of his career in 1960, when he featured on a British tour by Eddie Cochran. Cochran was so impressed with Fury that he went to work on trying to set up a U.S. tour for Fury---work that was interrupted tragically when Cochran was killed in the British car crash that also crippled Gene Vincent.
But the title of this thread is extremely misleading. Billy Fury was one influence on the Beatles-in-the-making (they actually auditioned for a chance to back Fury on a tour, an audition they flunked), but the Beatles weren't influenced by a single performer or style even if much of what they loved was U.S. rhythm and blues and rockabilly and hearing Elvis when he broke big during their middle teen years kick-started the individual future Beatles' interest in rock and roll in the first place.
They hybridded what they liked best and made it come out as their own way, in their music and their stage style, even when they began going from good to great slogging it out in the Hamburg clubs where the name of the game was mak schau!. It's a complete misnomer to suggest there was any single performer from whom the Beatles drew influence, even if they were big fans of Billy Fury (and didn't think---with plenty of good reason---that he was the sellout they came to believe Cliff Richard was).
I agree that the Beatles would give their influences, including Fury, all the credit they had coming to them....just a wrong way to put it...The Beatles, actually, were completely restyled by Brian Epstein right before their big move to stardom in England, per the Mod suits, skinny ties, mop hairdo's...style was always far more important in England, and Europe for that matter....
But my point is, if you look at any of the old pics of the Beatles before Epstein's "makeover", they all look like Billy Fury, Eddie Cochran, Cliff Richards, and gang, as that was all they saw on the telly and on concert bills....though buddy holly and the crickets would end up their biggest influence..and I think most people know that the Beatles were a homage, per name, to the Crickets..
But my point is, if you look at any of the old pics of the Beatles before Epstein's "makeover", they all look like Billy Fury, Eddie Cochran, Cliff Richards, and gang, as that was all they saw on the telly and on concert bills....though buddy holly and the crickets would end up their biggest influence..and I think most people know that the Beatles were a homage, per name, to the Crickets..
The Beatles actually began wearing the soon-to-be-fabled mop tops before Brian Epstein caught hold of them. Then-bassist Stu Sutcliffe had the style first; his girl friend Astrid Kircherr fashioned it for him (he actually looked rather handsome in it, better than his greased-back quasi-Elvis look), and while the others cracked up the first time they saw it, apparently George Harrison didn't think it was all that funny---he turned up with the same style within days, and Paul McCartney followed, though it took John Lennon awhile to decide to go for it. (Pete Best was the only holdout, partly because he thought his hair was too curly to be straightened reasonably into the style, and mostly because he didn't like the style at the time.) They kept the leather jackets and slacks, though, until Brian Epstein decided they needed to smarten up their appearance just a tad. Considering how slim the Beatles' stage suits were, it wasn't that much of a stretch.
Astrid Kircherr may also have influenced their eventual collarless-suit style of early-to-mid 1963---she had a similar outfit that Sutcliffe liked, so she apparently made a male suit for him with the same jacket, and in time the other Beatles harked back to that when deciding on band suits in the early Epstein days.
great comments..London was a cauldron of fashion creativity in the early 60's, as post-war scarcity actually lasted about 15 years...took that long to rebuild the economy and city(country)...America was awash in prosperity all through the 50's, while the brit kids coundn't even afford electric guitars, and had to make to with skiffle make-shift guitars and such...
About 1960 or so, things suddently opened up..like the sun came out again after 15 years, and fashion was the first harbinger of the same, in London....King's road fashions took the world by storm, and the mini-skirt(named after the MG mini car), and hot pants, along with Mod fashions(actually first started out of gay habidasheries) took much of the world by storm, and fashion was a much larger part of the Brit Invasion that most think, prob as much as the music....The Who's Mod fashions were MORE important than the music, at least at the beginning, with mod lingo like "I'm the face" in their songs....
Mary Quant and Alexander Plunkett Green, along with Vidal Sassoon, were the biggies on that scene....fashion so so important that Mod/rocker fights took place at the time(Hence Ringo's famous pun on being a "mocker")...I believe one of the reasons Stu Sutcliffe was kicked in the head(later leading to a fatal brain hemmorage) was of a "rocker" taking offense to his Mod clothes, though I could be wrong...sounds like that was the case though
Found out more about Stu Sutcliffe....He definitely would have been as talented and influential as McCartney and Lennon..Considering that he outranked Lennon as the de facto group leader, he prob would have been the Alpha in the Beatles as well....
He named them the Beetles(His spelling), after seeing a gang named the same in this movie..
he was definitely the best looking of the beatles....that alone would have made him the leader, as he had moviestar matinee looks...but he had tremedous talent, painted in abstract impressionist style, and just had that flair...
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