Before Fab

From St. Louis Post-Dispatch - Thursday May 8, 1997

Reported by Andrew Bedell

In the quiet of September 1963, Beatle George Harrison visited his sister in Southern Illinois, where a teen-age DJ first put needle to Beatles vinyl -- months before the group's milestone "Ed Sullivan" gig.



Now a local fan wants history to remember Harrison's musical recom mission -- and the time.



Maybe you're old enough to remember -- or surely you've at least seen film of the historic event: On Feb. 7, 1964, a jet touched down at Kennedy Airport in New York, chauffeuring in an event that would change music -- some say Western culture -- forever.



The Beatles arrived in the United States for the very first time. The hysterical mob at the airport was only the beginning. On Feb. 9, and again on Feb. 16, more than 70 million people tuned into the now-legendary broadcasts of the "Ed Sullivan Show" and heard "She Loves You" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Girls screamed, they cried, they fainted. Beatlemania had made it to the United States.



It's time to rewrite popular history. The trip to New York was not exactly the first time the Beatles were in America, and the "Ed Sullivan Show" was not the first place their music was played here. Beatles historian and collector Bob Bartel of Springfield, Ill., is setting the record straight, and helping preserve what he and other Beatles fans believe is an important piece of history. He's made a documentary telling the real story.



In September 1963, while the rest of the Beatles took a holiday in Europe, George Harrison, then 20, and his brother, Peter, visited the United States. Ostensibly on a recon mission to test the market before the group cemented plans to finally play here.



George and Peter were actually here to see their sister. Their destination: Benton, Ill., a small mining community in Southern Illinois. Louise Harrison Caldwell moved there early in 1963 with her husband, a mining engineer.



Bartel's film, "A Beatle in Benton," which won honorable mention at the recent Berkeley Film Festival in California, is a straightforward documentary in which the director interviews many of the folks who encountered Harrison during his stay in the area. It consists mostly of casual chats with family members, musicians, radio DJs and others who helped make local history.



"George spent 18 days in Benton," says Bartel, a middle-aged guy who wears tinted glasses and drives a cab. "While he was there, he played at a VFW dance with a local band, he bought a guitar, he went camping with the family." Just a normal visit to your older sister, right?



"Remember, at this time the Beatles were huge in England, and early that summer, George's mom sent Lou the Beatles' latest single, 'From Me to You,' Bartel explains. "And Lou acted as the Beatles advance person, taking their record to local stations to get it played." She decided to take it to WFRX-AM, in West Frankfort, Ill.



WFRX was a typical middle-of-the-road station, but it did have a show that played youth-oriented music. The disc jockey of the show, Marcia Raubach, was just a high-school girl (her father owned the station). So, in June 1963, for the very first time anywhere in the United States, Marcia cued up the Beatles, and "From Me to You" went over the air in Southern Illinois. Bartel believes Marcia should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, right alongside Murray the K.



When George arrived in Benton three months later, it was obvious that his sister's advance work had paid off. Brother and sister hitchhiked to WFRX with another new single for the playlist, "She Loves You."



"So here you have this small radio station in Southern Illinois brea king the Beatles in the U.S. months before anybody else," says Bartel. "Lou had also arranged for George to play with a local band, the Four Vests, so he'd have some musicians to hang out with," Bartel adds. "She even gave the band some Beatles records so they could learn the music before George arrived."



The Four Vests -- plus George Harrison -- played a gig in Eldorado, Ill., at the VFW Hall. "The band played their normal first set, popular stuff like the Ventures, and then took a break," Bartel says. "They came back for the second set and introduced George as the 'Elvis of England.' They said people's mouths dropped open."



Harrison even bought a guitar at the music store in nearby Fenton -- his famed Rickenbacher hollow-body. (Please note: This reporter did not have accurate information in preparing this portion of his interesting report. The instrument was a "solid-body Rickenbacker" as described in the article You Won't See Me



Bartel, 48, is a life-long Beatles fan. He says he had always known the significance of the connection with George and Benton, Ill., but never got directly involved until 1994. "I drove down to Benton to buy the new CD, 'Live at the BBC,' the day it was released as a gift for my wife, Janice. When I was down there, I thought, 'I wonder where Louise Harrison lived?'''



Bartel started digging -- and it didn't take him too long to find what he was looking for. Bartel is trained as a private investigator. "At first, no one seemed to remember Louise Harrison. But then I looked in a directory from 1963 and found a Louise Caldwell," Bartel says. "So I went over to 113 McCann."



Louise Harrison Caldwell and her husband had sold the house some years before. When Bartel found it, the bungelow was in disrepair and was slated to be torn down by the state to make way for a parking lot for the Mine Rescue Unit. Bartel made some calls to state officials and discovered that the house should have already been demolished. Frantically, he made more calls and got a stay of execution. He wanted to save the home.



He called Louise Harrison, now living in Florida, for help. She came to Benton and they began an all-out effort to save the home. Months later, after much agonizing and legal wrangling, Bartel and his band of Beatles preservationists succeeded. A group of local investors bought the home and turned it into A Hard Days Nite B&B.



Bartel's belief in the historical significance of George's stay in Benton, and of Louise's former home, is profound. That's why he filmed a documentary on the subject. The 120-minute video, "A Beatle in Benton," tells the whole story, in depth. The video is in the archives of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.



"Benton is really the birthplace of the Beatles in America," Bartel emphasizes. "For me, the essence is that (I) got to do something to preserve history."



