#bob wooler

[dailyhowl]

I have been reading more about Bob Wooler for fic purposes, and the way he talks about his gay friends and homosexuality in general is revealing and quite sad. Wooler was very conscious of his public-facing role involving teenagers and the danger of being percieved as homosexual, and clearly felt he had to protect himself with cruelty while holding a lot of affection for Brian and his other gay friends.

To my mind it squashes that fringe speculation that he was reaching out to John at Paul's 21st in good faith or even as a friend in the know, and perhaps provides some clarity as to why Brian never outright told Bob he was gay despite being out to many other friends at the time. Provided, of course, that Bob was being truthful. But anyone familiar with the book knows that if Bob didn't want to reveal something, he was more inclined to shut down rather than lie. His story and quotes about Brian and John are very consistent, which also gives me the impression he was giving as much as he knew.

A few pages and quotes below the cut — they are quite interesting and provide important context for the Liverpool scene.

[muzaktomyears]

lowkey obsessed with Bob Wooler

[undying-love]

sooo what DO we know about the beatles that is actually true. since they’re all big liars…

I mean, there are plenty of things we know are confirmed to be true — dates like the church fete, locations, touring schedules, family backgrounds, details about their marriages and girlfriends, contracts, legal disputes, eyewitness accounts that independently match each other, the Quarrymen period, and so on. I could list examples forever. There really is a large body of information about the Beatles that is factual and well supported. What really keeps me awake at night is this question: if so many of those events are clearly documented and seem reliable, then how is it possible that 50–60% of the history is still “made up”? And what are the now accepted “facts” that, according to Paul, they have repeated so many times that they no longer remember what was true and what wasn’t? Which parts of the story were altered to "protect their families" from the "darker side" of their history?

We already know about many of the messier truths (the affairs, the groupies, the orgies, the drugs, the paternity disputes, the chaotic personal lives). If all of that is already out in the open, then what else is still concealed? What really stands out to me are Bob Wooler’s comments. He, of course, was around them closely from the late 50s through the early 60s, during the Cavern years, and he said that all the boys were big liars and that Beatles biographies were full of lies and distortions, while also skimming over many details. In an interview, he said that instead of cutting through the myths surrounding the Beatles’ story, the Anthology “rather enhanced it.” And when someone asked why he didn’t write a book, he answered: “I’m afraid I do like to tell the truth. I have another expression: If you want the horse’s mouth, you know where to come. If you want the other end of the horse, you know where to go. This is all to do with the people who make things up or exaggerate or embellish. I'd have to tell the truth in the book. And then I'd have to leave town! Because I know I'd be telling the truth on lots of people." So a significant portion of the early history (the period he personally witnessed) was later altered and reshaped. For him to say that implies he saw and heard things firsthand that contradicted what eventually appeared in the official narratives. The frustrating part is that we can’t even point to specific details and say, “Yes, that’s what was probably changed”, because as I said, a lot of things seem well documented and seemingly confirmed to be "true". It's hard to even come up with theories about what really was a "lie". We only know that the reality of those years were far more complicated (and maybe darker) than the official narrative allows.

[modrockmocker]

Paul and John as empowering forces

"Something special was growing between them, something that went past friendship as we knew it. It was as if they drew power from each other."—Colin Hanton via The Beatles by Bob Spitz

"Lennon had attitude, and, taking his lead from Lennon, McCartney could be similar. At times, they reminded me of those well-to-do Chicago lads Leopold and Loeb, who killed someone because they felt superior to him. Lennon and McCartney were 'superior human beings.'"—Bob Wooler via Tune In by Mark Lewisohn

[korkyofesher]

About John beating up Bob Wooler. Made me laugh

From the book The Beatles in Liverpool

[thehuxler]

Love Paul deciding to include this photo of him, John, and the man John almost beat to death ♥️

[repairingahole]

im going to start posting my titkoks

[tavolgisvist]

I first saw the Beatles at the Jacaranda. They’d just got back from a stint in Germany and were painting the walls of the coffee bar. They weren’t highly regarded at the time. Allan Williams owned the place, and wanted Bob Wooler to compère there, and said, ‘Could you take them off my hands?’ Bob said he might be able to get them booked at Litherland Town Hall for £4 a night, and so it was arranged. We didn’t play with them the first week, but the second week, we did. Stu [Sutcliffe] was wearing a leather jacket with a fur collar, and it stank! They were all wearing jeans, and John’s had a big rip down the side. John had a Gibson valve amp which he turned on with a hammer, and his Rickenbacker guitar, Paul had his solid red Rosetti with three strings. I was standing outside signing autographs when Bob went into one of his big announcements ‘DIRECT FROM HAMBURG… THE BEATLES!’ They went straight into Little Richard’s ‘Ooh! My Soul’. Paul’s voice was amazing. Every hair on my head stood up. I’d never heard anything like it. They did [Elvis’s] ‘Wooden Heart’ with the German bit in the middle. But it was the way they interacted with the audience. They talked to them. They chatted to each other onstage, all laughing and joking. ‘Gis a ciggie!’ ‘Shut yer gob and buy yer own!’ They would eat butties onstage, and Paul would shout to George, ‘What’ve you got on yours?’ ‘I’ll swap you for an egg one.’ It was just sheer brilliance. I said, ‘What’s going on?’ and Bob said, ‘What do you think?’ I jokingly replied that they’d never last, that’s how green with envy I was.

The Easter weekend 1963 we played one of the Rhythm and Blues Marathons at the Cavern. The marathons would start in the middle of the afternoon, some nished around midnight, and others went right through to the following morning. The place was always really chocka. They tended to be on holiday weekends, so people weren’t having to rush to get back to work. I was wearing a long corduroy coat I’d got in France and Paul came up to me and said, ‘Wow, that coat’s amazing. Where did you get it?’ Eppy was down there, and he said, ‘Come and look at this Brian.’ They were wearing their white shirts and blue velvet waistcoats instead of the jeans and leather jackets. When they went on, they were just amazing, so far ahead with their ideas. We’d sometimes mix it up a bit, different members of different groups, and we always had to share the same gear for the marathons. We played the nal night the Beatles played the Cavern as well. It was another holiday weekend in August. They were getting big by then and the place was heaving. It was sohot in there that the condensation was running down the walls. They had to stop the show a couple of times to mop up the oor of the stage and they wouldn’t let us plug in our ampli ers in. There were far too many people in there and it was complete chaos. FARON RUFFLEY, MUSICIAN, AUGHTON, LANCASHIRE

(The Beatles 1963: A Year in the Life by Dafydd Rees, 2023)