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50 Years Ago: Beatles on Tour with Tommy Roe & Chris Montez

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Before resuming their participation in the Tommy Roe & Chris Montez tour, the Beatles spent Monday, March 11, 1963, at EMI House in London. The group taped conversation for the EMI Friday Spectacular program, which was broadcast on Radio Luxembourg the following Friday evening. Both sides of their current hit single, Please Please Me and Ask Me Why, were played on the show off the 45 RPM disc. Because the BBC was not allowed to play records on a regular basis, the show provided an opportunity for EMI to get its records heard on the radio.

On Tuesday, March 12, 1963, the Roe/Montez tour resumed with a show at the Granada Cinema in Bedford. On Wednesday, group dropped by Abbey Road Studios in London so that John could overdub harmonica on the B-side of the Beatles next single, Thank You Girl, which had been recorded the week before. That evening, they played a tour concert at the Rialto Theatre in York. The next night the tour was at the Gaumont Cinema in Wolverhampton. For all three of the shows described above, one of the Beatles was too sick to participate, forcing the band perform as a three-piece unit. (No, they were not billed as the “Threetles” for those shows and were not referred to as a “power trio.”) On Friday evening, the Beatles were once again at full strength for two tour shows performed at Colston Hall in Bristol.

On Saturday, March 16, the Beatles performed live on the BBC radio show Saturday Club, which was broadcast from the BBC’s London headquarters from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon. The band performed six songs, I Saw Her Standing There, Misery, Too Much Monkey Business, I’m Talking About You, Please Please Me and The Hippy Hippy Shake. The afternoon was spent traveling 158 miles to Sheffield for evening tour shows at City Hall. The weekend concluded with a tour appearance on Sunday at the Embassy Cinema in Peterborough.

At the time the Roe/Montez tour was booked, the Beatles were relatively unknown outside of the Liverpool area. But now, with Please Please Me having topped most of the British charts, the Beatles were becoming an increasing important part of the package tour.

Today’s trivia questions pertain to the Tommy Roe & Chris Montez Tour and the group’s March 16, 1963, Saturday Club BBC radio appearance, during which the group performed I Saw Her Standing There, Misery, Too Much Monkey Business, I’m Talking About You, Please Please Me and The Hippy Hippy Shake.

  1. What was Tommy Roe’s big hit single that earned him top billing on his 1963 U.K. package tour?
  2. What was Chris Montez’s big hit single that earned him second billing on his 1963 U.K. package tour?
  3. Which Beatle missed three nights of concerts on the Tommy Roe & Chris Montez Tour due to a severe sore throat?
  4. What two songs performed by the Beatles on the March 16, 1963, Saturday Club had Paul playing similar bass parts?

tommy-roe-cover

  1. Tommy Roe’s big 1962 hit was Sheila. The Beatles were attracted to the song by its strong Bubby Holly influence (think Peggy Sue). Although the Beatles obviously did not play Sheila on the Tommy Roe tour, the group did play the song at some of their earlier club appearances.
  2. Chris Montez was best known, and perhaps only known, for his monster hit Let’s Dance.
  3. John missed three nights of concerts on the Roe/Montez tour with a sore throat. This required a few of the group’s songs to be rearranged and for George to handle more vocal duty.
  4. The bass part from Chuck Berry’s I’m Talking About You influenced Paul’s playing on I Saw Her Standing There.

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