Weaving his way into the bohemian underground of the Soho district of London, he was quickly drawing comparisons to the American Beat poets, although he later cited influences closer to home, in particular the British poet Christopher Logue, who provided inspiration with his “jazzetry” — poems read to a jazz accompaniment.
Look at this from 1959:
The connection to The Beatles:
In May 1960, Mr. Ellis headed north for a reading at the University of Liverpool. Once in town, he dropped into the Jacaranda, a coffee bar popular with local youth, and “got talking to a boy, George, in a striped matelot T-shirt and black leather jacket who told me his friends played music,” he later recalled in an interview with the website Classic Bands. George (last name Harrison) suggested that they head to 3 Gambier Terrace, the home of John Lennon, the leader of the band that had been calling itself the Silver Beetles.
During his stay in Liverpool, Mr. Ellis befriended the rest of the band, which ended up backing him in a reading in the Jacaranda basement. The future moptops were fascinated by this louche literary star in their midst, soaking up his views on poetry, music and sex....
The working-class Liverpudlians found the homoerotic themes in Mr. Ellis’s work to be eye-opening, to say the least. Mr. Ellis, who was bisexual by his account, recalled that he gave them “a lecture about the Soho scene and said they shouldn’t worry, because one in four men were queer, although they mightn’t know it.”
In response, Paul McCartney said, “We looked at each other and wondered which one it was.”
Paul gets off a good punchline, recounting that story. Who knows what anybody said (or did) at the time?
Ellis claimed he was the one who got The Beatles to respell their name with an "a." True? He had a way with words and he was a Beat poet, so I choose to believe. It's more than a claim though, but an established fact, per Beatles scholar Mark Lewisohn, that Ellis introduced the Beatles to drugs... he showed them how to break into a Benzedrex inhaler.
पोस्ट्स
३२ टिप्पण्या:
Who?
Never heard of him.
I was born in 1954 and remembered growing uo with the Beatles _ love Me Do and She Loves You are the first I remember
Couldn't help but wonder what was catching the attention of so many in the audience who kept looking over off to the side...was it the camera person or a girl dancing in a cage like Goldie Hawn in Laugh-In?
🎶 I get high when I see you walk by....🎶
This world would be a better place without youth culture and shitty Beat poetry.
Far less disgusting perversion and body odor.
Like, the cats and chicks in the audience dig him not.
However: I bet if I didn't speak English this would be very cool. Love the sound. The Shadows are awesome.. But he needs better material. The Gold Standard for this kind of thing is still Bob Dorough's "Dog," a setting of Lawrence Ferlinghetti at full boil.
"Crimson flames tied through my ears
Rollin’ high and mighty traps
Pounced with fire on flaming roads
Using ideas as my maps
“We’ll meet on edges, soon,” said I
Proud ’neath heated brow
Ah, but I was so much older then
I’m younger than that now"
The Beat Era was very weird.
"Who?
Never heard of him."
Is that really what you want to see as the first comment on a post about an obituary?
Who are you?
It's quite often that the first time you hear about a person is when you read an obituary. This was true of me too in this case, but I chose to blog it because it was interesting. Why would you respond to that with "Who? Never heard of him."
It's an obituary. Isn't that enough? A man lived and died. Show some respect or keep silent.
In response, Paul McCartney said, “We looked at each other and wondered which one it was.”
Well, Nancy Shevell says it isn’t Paul, and Barbara Bach says it isn’t Ringo. What with the famous interview of John and Yoko in bed together for a week or more (we never learned how the hotel changed the sheets), that just leaves George. Who isn’t alive to defend himself.
Why
Is poetry and
Poets
Considered so special?
I
Suspect tha most
People who make a big deal
Of poetry
Read very little of it
Themselves
Quick, 5 favorite poets that you have actually read in the past 6 months.
For me, Robert service, William Blake, Lawrence ferlinghetti.
Anyone else want to play?
John Henry
Wikipedia:
Christopher Royston George Ellis (10 February 1941 – 27 February 2023), known as Royston Ellis, was an English novelist, travel writer and erstwhile beat poet.
"Erstwhile"? I guess he got over the "beat poet" thing.
Dude's been living in the Caribbean and then in Sri Lanka since his beat poet days. Sweet. Who knew beat poetry paid so well?
Allan ginsberg and Jack keruac are the American comparisons?
They could only think of a single American beat poet? From an Era when everyone claimed to be a poet.
They have to drag in a novelist for a little bit of heft?
Kind of proves my point above, doesn't it?
What about snyder
Ferlinghetti
Corso
Rexroth
Etc
John Henry
Or Zimmerman a/k/a Dylan.
He was at the tail end of beat. Does he count as a beat poet?
(maybe not)
John Henry
I read the obit. There's a photo of him towards the end. He looked genial and kind with a big white beard and not a bit subversive. It looked like life had treated him well and that he had no great qualms about joining the Establishment. He had a secret identity as the writer of historical potboilers....I would have bet on George Harrison, but Lennon was the one who dabbled in gayness.
Ellis claimed he was the one who got The Beatles to respell their name with an "a." True?
Not according to them. They've always maintained that it was Lennon (who had a penchant for word play) and Stu Sutcliffe who came up with the name.
transgenderism
What about Lew Welch, the beat poet who disappeared, and who's only known for disappearing, not for anything he wrote (well, his vanishing and the fact that Huey Lewis's. mother was his living companion)?
I met the Beat crowd during my years in San Francisco, at the City Lights bookstore, the Cafe Vesuvio and the Trieste Cafe. Green kid fresh in Illinois.
This crowd was the most corrupt, vicious, drunken and generally lousy group of people I’ve ever encountered. They exploited one another sexually ruthlessly. Worthless pieces of shit living the most miserable lives you can imagine.
The only thing good I can say about this experience is that it cured me of romanticizing assholes because they write poetry and screw around.
Fuck Beat poetry.
The archetypal Beats were Ginsburg and Kerouac. They were also for a time part of the West Coast's San Francisco Renaissance scene, but if you talk about the Beats, they sort of trademarked the label.
Adrian Henri was the better-known poet/painter of the Merseybeat school. He passed away years ago, and had crossed paths with both the Beatles and with Allen Ginsburg. Liverpool "beat music" was a separate development from the American Beats and didn't take the name from them, but since they were happening at roughly the same time, contemporaries might well have looked for connections between the two movements.
If any Beatle was Gay, it was John Lennon. He always got my Gaydar beeping. Wife or no. The long hair, the flat chest, the plain faced wife. The house-husband bit. The twee jokes. I could definitly see him as a "dabbler".
Quick, 5 favorite poets that you have actually read in the past 6 months.
@John Henry, i haven’t read poetry in almost half a century, when I read poems by Kahlil Gibran and Rod McKuen to my girlfriend to show her how sensitive I was. We’ve been married 48 years now.
If you read Ellis' wiki page, being a Beat and knowing the Beatles was the least of this guys accomplishments. Successful travel writer and historical novelist, who lived his long life after 20, in the Carribean, Sri Lanka, and other places. I especially liked that he was a member of several cricket clubs.
Here's a plot description from the First Bondmaster Novel:
Tt was an idea whose time had come. The Hayes plantation would stable and mate the prime African lines: breed, raise, and season slaves. Carlton Hayes would produce a superlative crop. But Carlton's "crop" were also his companions, Prince was his childhood playmate. Ella was his bedwench and confidante. Claudius was his advisor as well as his manservant. And the situation grew even more complicated when Carlton married, and his beautiful wife found temptation she could not resist.
This crowd was the most corrupt, vicious, drunken and generally lousy group of people I’ve ever encountered. They exploited one another sexually ruthlessly. Worthless pieces of shit living the most miserable lives you can imagine.
And that was during Christimas. they were even worse the rest of the year.
I was commenting on the article, which said "he was hailed as Britain’s answer to Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac..."
and I don't believe it.
I was not commenting on the subject of the obituary, and I'm sorry if you thought I was.
So the fan base for this sort of edgy performance all wore suits and ties to it, and the free-versifying hepcat was wild enough to dress-down in a tucked-in collared shirt? Crazy, man, crazy.
"This world would be a better place without youth culture and shitty Beat poetry."
The resentful complaint of every angry old man throughout history.
More interesting than his Beatles connection is his with Christopher Logue. In any event as a sixth grade dropout he had quite a life.
“Ellis claimed he was the one who got The Beatles to respell their name with an ‘a’.”
Whether or not his tale was true, the fact is he understood the importance of a single letter.
When I was a kid I read that Oscar Wilde complained about a particularly exhausting day - in the morning he had put a comma into a poem he was writing and in the afternoon he had taken it out. Wilde was being funny but there’s an element of truth there. Sometimes commas are important. And that “a” in Beatles is as perfect as so many of the songs they wrote.
Never heard of nor read the gentleman. RIP. But I've read Howl. Pretty much fits what Capote said about "On The Road": "That's not writing, that's typing."
Not Sure.
Indeed. Many photos of the beats show them in suits and ties. It was the thing.
@Robert Cook
That’s quite a lecture, following on your Hall Monitor lecture about sterilizing the workplace of any hint of sexuality for the good of the women last week.
You know how the Beat jerks I knew survived? They sure as hell did not work. They whored out their old ladies, either to clients or to the topless bars in North Beach, or both.
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