By Martin Creasy

Arts & Culture Jun. 27, 2011 - 11:43PM JST ( 2 )

LONDON —

Back in the 1960s, the Beatles were given a generous reception wherever they played around the world - and nowhere was that welcome more in evidence than Japan.

Sadly, by the time of their visit to the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo for five concerts in the summer of 1966, during their troubled world tour, the group had already fallen out of love with life on the road, much preferring the quiet comfort of the recording studio. But their Japanese fans loved seeing the Beatles in the flesh and many have remained loyal followers of the group more than 40 years after they disbanded.

And now a new book about the rise of the Beatles in their homeland is hitting the bookshops of Japan. “Beatlemania! The Real Story Of The Beatles UK Tours 1963-1965,” just published by Omnibus Press, brings the Fab Four’s fascinating early tours, when they trekked through the towns and cities of the United Kingdom, to life through the eyes of a host of people who were there, but who have never spoken before.

Author Martin Creasy has tracked down 21 pop stars and the lone surviving compere from the tours, plus police who were on duty, music writers and regional reporters and photographers, cinema staff, technicians and hoteliers to tell the real story of what happened when the Beatles exploded in Britain… and there is even the hotelier’s daughter who gave up her bed for a Beatle!

Perhaps best of all, there are fans who were there to recall just what impact the Beatles had when they played their hearts out at cinemas and concert halls in their local high street.

Creasy said: “There has been so little recorded about those fascinating tours and I thought it was about time to fill in a few gaps. The national press in Britain only discovered the Beatles when ‘She Loves You’ broke in the autumn of 1963 - which is why all the photo books from the national papers tell the story from that point - but the Beatles had already completed three national tours by then.

“How much is known about that first tour - in February 1963 - when Britain was covered in snow and ice and the Beatles were on the tour bus as a down-the-bill act supporting Helen Shapiro, with the likes of Kenny Lynch and Danny Williams carrying more weight as entertainers? And what about their third tour that summer with Gerry & the Pacemakers and Roy Orbison elbowing them for attention as teenagers screamed for all their worth. Gerry and the Beatles were knocking each other off number one for 14 weeks that early summer, and for the outlay of just a few shillings you also got to see Roy Orbison. Has there ever been a better value-for-money line-up than that?

“This is an aspect of the Beatles’ story which has never been told in depth but it so deserves to be highlighted, which is why I have written this book. This was the group going full pelt, desperate to make a name for themselves and yet to become bored by playing night after night to audiences that screamed so hard that the group was simply overpowered.

“On those early 1963 tours - about which so little has been written, there were some screams, but the fans could still hear the Beatles as well as see them. It was an all-too-brief window that was to be firmly shut by the end of 1963, by which time the Beatles were being smuggled in and out of venues and drowned out by the screams, and the innocent days of the tour bus had already been consigned to history.

“The story of those six tours - finishing with a brief nine-gig venture at the end of 1965 - is told through the eyes of the people who were there and it was such a privilege to be able to record their memories.”

Here are 10 highlights of things from the book.

—The full story of how the Beatles, Kenny Lynch and Helen Shapiro were thrown out of a golf club dance at the Crown & Mitre Hotel in Carlisle following their two shows at the local cinema.

—A trainee nurse desperate to get into their dressing room to meet the Beatles was told by John Lennon that she could only come in if she stripped off. She came in and John ordered her to take her clothes off. She was naked when the cinema manager came in.

—The day from hell for Chris Montez where first Lennon roughed him up on the coach. Then Chris was pulled into the crowd by crazed girls at Newcastle and John emptied a pint of beer over his head in the bar of Newcastle City Hall that night.

—The story of how ABC-Paramount president Samuel Clark passed up on the Beatles by tossing their first LP into the bin after hearing just a few seconds of “I Saw Her Standing There,” pronouncing: “Gentlemen, that was crap!” It was singer Tommy Roe who had handed him the LP with the advice that he should sign the group - but Tommy was told to stick to singing. It was a costly mistake. Clark’s company passed up on the millions (billions?) it could have made by becoming the group’s American label instead of Capitol Records.

—For the first time, the full story of what happened as the Beatles played the Globe Theatre in Stockton as President John F Kennedy was being assassinated in Dallas.

—A policeman’s tale of how John Lennon turned the air blue at a Hull police station and was threatened with arrest before their performances that day.

—An incident that was later developed into Ringo’s scene in “A Hard Day’s Night.” The drummer was smuggled out of the cinema in heavy disguise to hospital before the Lincoln shows to have treatment for severe earache. The cinema’s area manager was rocking in his seat and biting his nails as showtime neared and Ringo was still in hospital. Victor Spinetti did exactly the same in “A Hard Day’s Night.” What happened in Lincoln may well have been the inspiration for Ringo’s famous “escape” scene in the film.

The story of a run-in between the Beatles and a local priest before their shows in Sunderland that day.

—Revealed for the first time: The Beatles stayed at The Cavalier Country Club on the opening night of their 1964 tour with Mary Wells. The problem was it was a private dining club rather than a hotel and the owner’s daughter - Gail Moss - tells the story of how she and her sister gave up their beds for the night for John and Ringo.

—The Ipswich cinema manager’s young son picked up John Lennon’s discarded harmonica and took it home during the group’s first house. The boy thought John no longer had need for it, but Lennon insisted he wasn’t going to perform in the second house unless it was returned. Cinema manager David Lowe, now in his 80s, recalls how he solved the dilemma.