Johnny Gentle

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Johnny Gentle was a Liverpool singer who spent a few days in May 1960 touring Scotland with an unknown backing group called the Silver Beetles. That group would later become the Beatles. Gentle himself never had a chart hit, changed his name twice, and eventually settled into work as a joiner on the island of Jersey. Yet his brief intersection with John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Stuart Sutcliffe makes him one of the more quietly remarkable footnotes in popular music history. Who was the man behind the name Larry Parnes invented? How did a carpenter's apprentice from Liverpool end up on a Scottish stage with the future Beatles? And what did those nine nights in 1960 actually sound like?

• 2. Carpenter to Crooner

  ›

  John Askew was born on the 8th of December 1936 in Liverpool and grew up in the same city. After leaving school he trained as a carpenter, and, with only a borrowed instruction book to guide him, built his own guitar from scratch. He began performing at local clubs alongside Bobby Crawford, the pair singing Everly Brothers material in the venues available to amateur acts at the time.

  Askew then took a job on a luxury ocean liner, pausing his performing life before shore brought him back to talent competitions as a solo singer. He used the names George Baker and then Ricky Damone before moving to London, where he worked on a building site while looking for his break. That break arrived at the Locarno Ballroom in Streatham, where he won a talent competition and caught the attention of manager Larry Parnes.

  Parnes was one of the most powerful figures in British pop management at the time, known for grooming young men into marketable stars under invented names. He auditioned Askew, secured him a contract with Philips Records in 1959, and handed him the identity he would carry for most of his career: Johnny Gentle. It was a name designed for the ballad market, soft and reassuring, and Parnes expected it to sell.

• 3. Singles That Sank

  ›

  Gentle released two singles on Philips in 1959. The first, "Wendy", was self-penned. The second was "Milk From The Coconut". Neither charted. Philips also released an EP titled The Gentle Touch, which collected four tracks: "I Like the Way", "Darlin' Won't You Wait", "Milk from the Coconut", and "This Friendly World". That release fared no better.

  Three more singles followed on Philips: "Darlin' Won't You Wait" and "After My Laughter Came Tears" both appeared in 1960, with "Darlin'" arriving in 1961. He also made several appearances on television and radio during this period, keeping his profile just visible enough to remain on Parnes's roster. In 1962 he released his own version of a song called "I've Just Fallen for Someone" on Parlophone, this time under the new stage name Darren Young. That release, too, failed to make the charts.

  By 1964, the year Beatlemania had fully taken hold, Gentle had joined a group called the Viscounts. The contrast between his trajectory and that of the boys he had toured with four years earlier could hardly have been more pronounced.

• 4. Nine Nights in Scotland

  ›

  In early May 1960, Larry Parnes co-promoted a show at Liverpool Stadium with local promoter Allan Williams. The bill starred Gene Vincent, supported by Cass and the Cassanovas, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, and Gerry and the Pacemakers. Watching those Liverpool groups, Parnes had an idea: his own artists, who included Billy Fury, could use local bands as backing groups on tour and cut costs. He held auditions on the 10th of May 1960.

  The Silver Beetles were selected to back Gentle on a short Scottish tour running from the 20th to the 28th of May 1960. The itinerary took them through Alloa, Inverness, Fraserburgh, Keith, Forres, Nairn, and Peterhead. The group at that point was John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Stuart Sutcliffe, with Tommy Moore on drums.

  Tour publicity listed no band name; the billing was simply "Johnny Gentle and his group". Informally, the musicians used pseudonyms of their own invention. McCartney went by Paul Ramon, Harrison called himself Carl Harrison, Lennon was billed as Long John, and Sutcliffe adopted the name Stuart de Staël. Their set included "It Doesn't Matter Anymore", "Raining in My Heart", "I Need Your Love Tonight", "Poor Little Fool", "(I Don't Know Why) But I Do", and "He'll Have to Go". They also played "C'mon Everybody" as a tribute to Eddie Cochran, who had died while on tour with Gene Vincent only a few weeks before.

  Gentle later wrote about meeting the group: "We met at the venue just half an hour before our first public performance together and all things considered we sounded pretty good from the off. Every night the sound we made got better, by the end of the tour I knew these boys were as good as any I'd worked with."

  On that same tour, Gentle composed a song called "I've Just Fallen For Someone", reportedly with help from Lennon. The song was later recorded by Adam Faith on his second album. Gentle also said he had urged Parnes to sign the group, but Parnes was focused solely on managing solo singers and declined. After the tour, Gentle sang onstage with the group at one of their Liverpool performances, but by the time he next needed a backing band, they had left for Hamburg.

• 5. Later Life

  ›

  After his recording years ended, Gentle moved to Jersey and worked as a joiner, returning to the trade that had first occupied him as a young man in Liverpool. He later relocated to Kent. He made occasional appearances at Beatles fan conventions, where the nine-night Scottish tour gave him a clear and specific story to tell.

  In 1998, he co-wrote a book titled Johnny Gentle & the Beatles: First Ever Tour, setting down his account of those May 1960 dates on the record. Gentle died on the 29th of February 2024, at the age of 87. The date itself was a leap-day, a calendar rarity he shared only with the years divisible by four.