Not long after Shoulda Been There came out, I received a letter from a puzzled reader. It said, "Why did you, throughout the book, make John's age one year older than he really was? Since his birthday is in October, he doesn't become a year older until October rolls around." And the reader proceeded to give me several specific examples of places where I had, in fact, made this boo-boo.
I wrote him immediately and my answer to him was, "Why did I do this, you ask? I'm an idiot. Thank you so much for finding these ridiculous errors for me and correcting them. If you don't mind, please help me by marking all the places where you encounter this kind of mistake in the book. I will truly appreciate it and will use your info to correct the book in Edition Two."
And so he did.
That is how I met Bob Felten.
Over the next few weeks, as Bob read Shoulda Been There, he was kind enough to do so with "eyes wide open" looking for other places where my less than mathematical brain had erred in determining John's age. And before we went to press with the second, revised edition of the book, Bob sent me a list of dates to correct - gratis, as a gift from friend to friend.
The new edition of Shoulda Been There will be out in late November, and thanks to Bob (and Ken Bloom who found typos, misspelled words, etc.) this new edition should be (from my lips to God's ears) error free. I owe both Bob and Ken a great deal of gratitude. And I can't wait for you to read the extremely cool story of Bob's life and his Beatles connection. ENJOY
Bob's Bio
I grew up in LA's San Fernando Valley (think Frank Zappa's Valley Girl) - played piano in elementary school, cello in Jr. High / High school, and guitar. I played in various High School and College rock bands, jazz bands and orchestras. Like many first generation Beatles fans, I'm obsessive about everything Beatles! I graduated CSUN with a math degree, and went on to get a Masters from UCLA in Compute Science. My chosen career was computer programming. After I met my current wife Tami, a full-time musician, I began performing music professionally. Together and separately we write songs, perform at festivals, coffee houses, restaurants, and we are both completing new CD projects. We play originals, bossa-nova, swing, jazz, blues, folk-rock, and country.
In 1999 we joined an international Orange County / L.A. based club called the Association of Fingerstyle Guitarists (AFG), devoted to presenting and teaching the art of Fingerstyle guitar in various genres, particularly Chet Atkins. For four years Tami ran sound for all the club's events. I was asked to edit and publish the newsletter, which contains interviews (predominantly guitar players), CD and concert reviews, tutorials, and club news. My first interview was with Laurence Juber, ex-Wings and current AFG club member. In 2007, Tami and I moved to Silicon Valley where I'm leading a double life performing and recording music, while writing software for a local Sunnyvale company.
In August 1995, I went on a Beatles tour of London and Liverpool with Charles Rosenay!!! of "Good Day Sunshine" magazine. There were 50 of us, and one afternoon, our Magical Mystery Tour painted bus was tooling around Penny Lane visiting local Beatles sights. We pulled up and parked at 20 Forthlin Road - Paul McCartney's boyhood home. The house was privately owned at that time, and not open to the public.
All 50 of us got off the bus, and one aggressive female member walked up to the front door and started banging on it, yelling for someone to let us in. Of course there was no answer. We took pictures of each other standing in front of the house, then hopped back on the bus and drove away. Interestingly, the house had a for sale sign.
The next day our group was going to visit Stuart Sutcliffe sites, but I had other plans. I love to go on long walks by myself, so I decided to skip the group tour, and go "parading" on my own. I had a cab drive me back to Paul's house.
My plan was to walk from there to John Lennon's two boyhood homes, the first on Newcastle Road, the second on Menlove Ave. This way I would get a feel for what it was like to be a kid in Liverpool in the 50's / early 60's.
When I arrived at Forthlin Road, to my surprise the front door to Paul's house was open, and a woman was sweeping the front porch. I asked her if I could take a picture looking into the house. She said she never lets Beatles fans into the house, but I could take one picture. After I did this, she shrugged and said, "Oh, why don't you come on in." She took me on my own private tour of the house and let me take pictures of anything I wanted.
Her name was Shirley and she had the house up for sale, asking. I believe 55,000 pounds. The next day, I really thought hard about buying it. I had spent so much money on Beatles collectibles such as autographs, clothing, rare records, and other expensive junk. I thought, why not own the ultimate Beatles souvenir, an actual Beatle house! How cool would that be? I'm sure it would have been a great investment. I wondered if there were a lot of legal hassles in buying and maintaining such a famous landmark as a U.S. citizen living in California. Then I got an alternate idea. Most of us on the bus were also spending a lot of money on collectibles. If each of us chipped in 1000 pounds, we could all own Paul McCartney's house together. Unfortunately, very few were interested.
To this day I wonder what would have happened had I purchased the house alone or with the group. The house was bought by the National Trust, and is now open for tours. However, before the opening, the National Trust completely restored the house to its original 50's look. My personal set of photos may be the only ones taken in the house just the way it looked in the 90's before it was sold to the National Trust.
Here are some of my pictures. In order to respect the privacy of then-owner Shirley, I am not including a picture of her.
