Gimme Some Truth

Twenty five years after first becoming a bona fide beatlemaniac, I'm still learning things about the Beatles that I didn't know, largely thanks to the vast amount of information available via the internet.

For instance this morning I innocently googled 'John Lennon Hamburg' as I was looking for a pic to add as my mobile phone's wallpaper. I found the one I had in mind two hours later as I was diverted by this wonderful website www.jimvallance.com on the way. Although I hadn't heard of him before, Jim has been a musician and songwriter for over 40 years (he co-wrote some of Bryan Adams' most famous songs, 'Run To You', 'Summer of '69', 'Heaven', as well as songs for Aerosmith, Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper to name but a few).

The reason his website was one of the first returns to come up on the google search screen is because he owns the original work permit documents for John when the Beatles went to Hamburg in 1960-1962. Jim has lovingly posted up every single page of the permits on his website, and what caught my eye is a great photo booth shot of John stapled to one of the pages (which is the extract I have posted above). As usual, his expression is hilarious, and so out of keeping with the solemn, serious shot that would have been required for official West German work papers at the time (remember we are talking only 15 years since the Nazi regime had been toppled!).

Jim's website is a mine of information from the various projects that he takes an interest in, plus he's an interesting fella on his own anyway. Also of note to Beatle fans is the page he dedicates to shooting down the claims of a reknowned jazz drummer called Bernard Purdie who has said for the past 30 years that his drumming appears on at least 21 Beatles recordings. And not satisfied with that he also states that Ringo didn't drum on anything the Beatles ever released. Although I would never have believed Bernard's story for a second, for ye of little faith Jim patiently refutes the outlandish claim bit by evidential bit.

It's fans like Jim who take the time, money, and love to preserve such precious data about the Beatles who gain a world of respect from me. Even within my lifetime (I wasn't around when the Beatles were) it's becoming more clear as time passes that they are becoming significant historical figures. And for every book, article, documentary released about the Beatles, there is such a wealth of inaccuracy that can so easily become labelled as fact as it gets misunderstood, repeated, taken out of context, whether unintentionally or not.

I'm not going to go crying into my coffee at the delusions of Bernard Purdie, cos it's as clear as day to me that there isn't a word of truth in it, but information passed on enough times can drift from the realms of fiction to fact. And as John sang, "all i want is the truth, just gimme some truth".

PS here's the pic I had been originally looking for, which, if memory serves, Mimi labelled his 'come hither' look, sarcastically of course!