Re: Louise Harrison

["Joey Vine" <sentaur@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Itinerary of Dick Clark's Hitsville '65 tour (w/ Louise Harrison)?

Source (other than Dick Clark Productions) for 60's tour itineraries in 
general?

+++++++


St. Louis Post-Dispatch 

February 21, 1995, Tuesday, FIVE STAR Edition

HEADLINE: YESTERDAY IS HERE FOR 'BEATLE HOUSE' IN ILLINOIS

    Louise Harrison  has called off a fund-raising effort to help save a 
house
in Benton, Ill., where her brother, Beatle George Harrison, once stayed.

    Louise Harrison  lived in the house in 1963. Her brother visited her 
there
for a couple weeks shortly before gaining fame in the United States.

   Civic officials had joined with  Louise Harrison  in trying to save 
the house
from the wrecking ball. She had proposed making it a tourist attraction 
and
turning over proceeds to the Benton grade schools.

But on Monday,  Louise Harrison  said that she had lost hope of 
collecting
enough donations by the deadline Sunday. The state bought the house last 
year
and plans to raze it for a parking lot for a nearby state office 
building.

   The state had held up its plans to give Harrison's group time to try 
to raise
enough money to either buy the house and move it, or buy a nearby house 
to swap 
with the state for a parking site.



St. Louis Post-Dispatch 

March 3, 1995, Friday, ILLINOIS FIVE STAR Edition

HEADLINE: 'BEATLE HOUSE' TO BE TURNED INTO A BED AND BREAKFAST

BYLINE: Linda Eardley Of the Post-Dispatch Staff


   Three couples in Benton, Ill., have pooled their resources and saved 
the
house where George slept.

   They plan to open a bed-and-breakfast in the blue five-bedroom frame 
house at
113 McCann Street. Beatle George Harrison stayed there for a couple of 
weeks in 
1963 while visiting his sister,  Louise Harrison. 

"The fact that George Harrison slept there just blew my mind," said 
Cindy
Rice, one of the investors.

   The house had been in jeopardy since the state bought it late last 
year,
planning to tear it down to make a parking lot for a nearby office 
building.
Avid Beatles fans heard about the plan, and soon  Louise Harrison,  who 
now
lives in Florida, and city officials were appealing to the state to 
spare the
house so it could be used for a tourist attraction.

   The state insisted it needed the parking space, but offered two 
options:

   The state would give the house to anyone who would move it to another 
site.

   The state would swap the Harrison house for a brick house next door 
and tear 
down the brick house for the parking lot.

   On Thursday, Rice's group signed an agreement to buy the brick house.

   "We're all Beatles fans, but I wouldn't say we're fanatics," said 
Rice, 38.
"We're naturally in it for the investment and to preserve it tastefully 
and not 
exploit it."

She said the venture would probably start out as a small catering 
business,
with inside dining in the living room and dining room. Some people have 
offered 
to donate Beatles memorabilia.

    Louise Harrison, who coincidentally is moving back to Benton, said 
she
would not be directly involved in the house. But, she added, "when I go 
to
Beatles conventions, I'll tell people about it and tell them to be sure 
and
stop."

   Rice's partners are her husband, Scott Rice; Jim and Daryl Chady, 
friends of 
 Louise Harrison;  and Connie and Dorothy Schultz, who live across the 
street
from the house.

   And what will they name the house? Cindy Rice says she likes the 
suggestion
of a friend: Hard Day's Night Bed and Breakfast.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch 



May 8, 1997, Thursday, FIVE STAR LIFT EDITION

HEADLINE: BEFORE FAB

BYLINE: Andrew Bedell; Special To The Post-Dispatch


   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 recon 
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.

   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," Barrel
emphasizes. "For me, the essence is that (I) got to do something to 
preserve
history."

GRAPHIC: PHOTO, (1) Color Photo - The '40s bungelow at 113 McCannn -- 
where
George Harrison visited his sister -- now hides a painstaking recreation 
of
early '60s decor.
(2) Color Photo -Some of the Beatles memorabilia at  A Hard Days Nite 
B&B in
Benton, Ill.
(3) Color Photo - Beatles historian and collector Bob Bartel.
(4) Color Photo - George Harrison



St. Louis Post-Dispatch 

May 8, 1997, Thursday, FIVE STAR LIFT EDITION

HEADLINE: GEORGE HARRISON SLEPT HERE

BYLINE: Andrew BeDell

   To pull up at the curb and look at the outside of 113 McCann, you 
wouldn't
think it was particularly interesting. Just a tidy 1940s-style bungalow 
set on a
whole street of tidy 1940s-style bungalows. But cross the threshold and 
you've
fallen back to 1963, into a home where someone is indulging a major 
Beatles
fixation.

   Three Benton couples got together and bought  Louise Harrison  
Caldwell's
former home in 1995, after Beatles historian and fan Robert Bartel 
guided an
all-out effort to save it from certain demolition.

   Today, the house where the "Quiet Beatle" slept is A Hard Days Nite 
B&B,
operated by the investors: Cindy and Scott Rice, Daryl and Jim Chady and 
Connie 
and Dorothy Schultz.

   Connie Schultz, who lives across the street from the house with his 
wife,
Dorothy, says the rehab of the house has taken a "good part of two 
years."
Virtually everything in the home is circa 1963: the furniture, the 
kitchen, the 
light fixtures, a virtually new console hi-fi.

   Even without all the Beatles memorabilia, you could experience a 
major
flashback to your parents' or grandparents' Kennedy-era decor. A visitor 
half
expects meat loaf, canned peas and a Jell-O mold to magically appear on 
the
kitchen table.

   It could be an interesting place to stay, for the kitschy aspect 
alone, but
most people visit to soak up the George Harrison/Beatles aura. Sleep in 
the room
where George slept, watch TV in the living room where George watched his
favorite show, "Hootenanny." You can even sit on the couch where George
reportedly composed the melody to "Daytripper."

Many items from Bob Bartel's extensive mop-top collection decorate the 
home, 
including autographed pictures, records, posters, books and Beatleboots. 
Heady
stuff for Beatles fans.

   The four bedrooms all have private, new baths that rival those found 
in nicer
hotels. There's even a TV with a VCR in each room.

   "We've had people from all over stay here," says Schultz. "Our first 
guests
were one of those Beatles look-alike bands." The rates are what you 
would pay in
other B&Bs, typically $ 60 to $ 65 a night, with the continental 
breakfast.

   A Hard Days Nite B&B is approximately a two-hour drive from St. 
Louis. Take
Interstate 64 east to Interstate 57 south near Mt. Vernon, Ill. The 
Benton exit 
is approximately 15 miles south on Interstate 57. If you need directions 
once in
Benton, Connie warns that people don't know the B&B as A Hard Days Nite. 
He
says, "ask for the Beatles house." Call (618) 438-2328 for more 
information.

GRAPHIC: PHOTO, Color Photo - Beatle boots -- we loved them, yeah, yeah, 
yeah.



St. Louis Post-Dispatch 

August 21, 1996, Wednesday, FIVE STAR LIFT Edition

HEADLINE: IT WAS 30 YEARS AGO TODAY THAT THE BEATLES CAME TO BUSCH 
STADIUM TO PLAY

BYLINE: Dave Dorr Of The Post-Dispatch Staff

   WHERE were you on Aug. 21, 1966? If you were among the 23,143 soaked 
spectators at
Busch Stadium screaming with joy for the Beatles, you no doubt can still
remember much of what occurred on that rainy Sunday night.

   The appearance here by the Beatles was part of the group's third tour 
in the 
United States. St. Louis was the 10th of 14 cities in which they 
performed.
Because of light rain, the Beatles were moved up in the program at the
3-month-old stadium, then known as Busch Memorial Stadium, becoming the 
third of
five acts.

   They did 11 songs in 30 minutes and were guaranteed $ 75,000, 
according to
Dick Esser, whose St. Louis ticket agency handled ticket sales. The 
event was
promoted by Regal Sports Inc. The cost of an evening with George 
Harrison, John 
Lennon, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr was a pittance by today's concert
standards. Tickets were scaled at $ 4.50, $ 5 and $ 5.50.

   The Beatles flew to St. Louis from Cincinnati by chartered jet and 
were taken
to the stadium in limousines. One driver forgot to lock the doors of his 
car
after the Beatles emerged and somebody stole the rear mats. After the 
show, the 
Beatles left in two police cars.

   Lorraine Bremler, 38, did not attend the Beatles concert but is as 
much a fan
as Richman. She owns Beatles For Sale, a store she opened 10 months ago 
in Union
Station. There, you can find Beatles memorabilia and products such as 
T-shirts, 
silk boxer shorts, jewelry, stamps from other nations and even pieces of 
sheets 
from beds the Beatles slept on at a Detroit hotel during their 1966 
tour.
Locating Beatles items has turned into a "full-time job," Bremler says. 
"I've
got many sources. A lot of the stuff comes from flea markets and estate 
sales.
Everybody still loves the Beatles."

   As part of today's events at Union Station marking the 30-year 
anniversary of
the Beatles' concert here, George Harrison's sister,  Louise Harrison,  
will
appear at Beatles For Sale from 2-5 p.m. and at KSHE's Real Rock 
Restaurant and 
Concert Club from 5-7.

   There will be a Beatles memorabilia exhibit at both locations. A 
trivia
contest and raffle of a commemorative plaque will take place at the 
restaurant. 
Proceeds from the raffle will go to Lou Harrison's environmental 
charity, DROP
IN (Determined to Restore Our Planet).


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