Stuart Sutcliffe was an artist and The Beatles’ original bassist in Liverpool and Hamburg. His paintings were highly acclaimed, and he is often referred to as “the fifth Beatle”.
On discovering a fourth little even littler man called Stuart Sutcliffe running about them, they said, quote: ‘Sonny, get a bass guitar and you will be all right,’ and he did – but he wasn’t all right because he couldn’t play it. So they sat on him with comfort till he could play.
Mersey Beat, 6 July 1961
He was born Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe on 23 June 1940 in Edinburgh. He was raised in Liverpool, and attended Prescot Grammar School. He showed early artistic talent, and enrolled at Liverpool College of Art where he met fellow student John Lennon.
Paul and I got to know Stuart Sutcliffe through going into the art college. Stuart was a thin, arty guy with glasses and a little Van Gogh beard; a good painter. John really liked Stuart as an artist. Stuart obviously liked John because he played the guitar and was a big Ted. Stuart was cool. He was great-looking and had a great vibe about him, and was a very friendly bloke. I liked Stuart a lot; he was always very gentle. John had a slight superiority complex at times, but Stuart didn’t discriminate against Paul and me because we weren’t from the art school. He started to come and watch us when we played at parties and he became a fan of ours. He actually got some parties for John, Paul and me to play at.
Sutcliffe lived at 9 Percy Street in Liverpool before moving to 3 Gambier Terrace with fellow art student Margaret Chapman. In early 1960 Lennon moved into the flat, and he and Sutcliffe painted the rooms yellow and black.
In July 1960, The People newspaper ran an article entitled The Beatnik Horror. It featured a photograph, arranged by The Beatles’ early manager Allan Williams, taken in the flat below Sutcliffe’s, in which the 19-year-old John Lennon was pictured lying on the floor.
After Sutcliffe sold a painting for £65, he was persuaded to use the money to buy a musical instrument. He was encouraged to buy either a set of drums or a bass guitar, as both positions were needed by the group. Eventually he agreed to buy a bass.
The work, titled The Summer Painting, had been selected for inclusion in the biennial John Moores exhibition at Liverpool’s Walker Gallery, which took place between November 1959 and January 1960. The Summer Painting was bought by Moores himself, a significant event for a young art student.
What do you do with £65? We all reminded him over a coffee: ‘Funny you should have got that amount, Stuart – it is very near the cost of a Höfner bass.’ He said, ‘No, I can’t just spend all that.’ It was a fortune in those days, like an inheritance. He said he had to buy canvases or paint. We said, ‘Stu, see reason, love. A Höfner, a big ace group… fame!’ He gave in and bought this big Höfner bass that dwarfed him. The trouble was he couldn’t play well. This was a bit of a drawback, but it looked good, so it wasn’t too much of a problem.When he came into the band, around Christmas of 1959, we were a little jealous of him; it was something I didn’t deal with very well. We were always slightly jealous of John’s other friendships. He was the older fellow; it was just the way it was. When Stuart came in, it felt as if he was taking the position away from George and me. We had to take a bit of a back seat. Stuart was John’s age, went to art college, was a very good painter and had all the cred that we didn’t.
Anthology
Although he didn’t take to playing rock ‘n’ roll immediately, Sutcliffe had previously sung in a Huyton church choir, and had taken piano lessons as a child. He had also played the bugle in the Air Training Corps, and had learned some rudimentary guitar.
He wasn’t really a very good musician. In fact, he wasn’t a musician at all until we talked him into buying a bass. We taught him to play twelve-bars, like Thirty Days by Chuck Berry. That was the first thing he ever learnt. He picked up a few things and he practised a bit until he could get through a couple of other tunes as well. It was a bit ropey, but it didn’t matter at that time because he looked so cool. We never had many gigs in Liverpool before we went to Hamburg, anyway.
Anthology
Sutcliffe took centre stage on occasion, to sing Elvis Presley’s Love Me Tender. However, for the majority of their shows he stayed out of the spotlight, preferring to hide his deficiencies as a musician. In addition to performing with the group, Sutcliffe also arranged bookings for them to perform, and occasionally allowed them to rehearse in his flat.
In 1960 the group became The Beatles, although it was a while longer before the name became permanent. It was Lennon and Sutcliffe’s suggestion to change it, and the new name inspired a number of variations: the Silver Beatles, Silver Beats, Silver Beetles, Silver Beatles once more, before settling in August 1960 on The Beatles.
It was John and Stuart who thought of the name. They were art students and while George’s and my parents would make us go to bed, Stuart and John could live the little dream that we all dream: to stay up all night. And it was then they thought up the name.One April evening in 1960, walking along Gambier Terrace by Liverpool Cathedral, John and Stuart announced: ‘Hey, we want to call the band The Beatles.
Anthology
The name was a pun inspired by Buddy Holly’s group, The Crickets, with a nod to the beat music that had replaced skiffle among the young Liverpudlians. It has been claimed that Sutcliffe was inspired by the film The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando, in which Lee Marvin referred to biker girls as ‘beetles’.
The connection was raised in books and interviews by Derek Taylor and George Harrison. However, The Wild One was banned in Britain until the late 1960s, and it is extremely unlikely that any of the group would have been able to see it.
It is debatable where the name came from. John used to say that he invented it, but I remember Stuart being with him the night before.There was The Crickets, who backed Buddy Holly, that similarity; but Stuart was really into Marlon Brando, and in the movie The Wild One there is a scene where Lee Marvin says: ‘Johnny, we’ve been looking for you, the Beetles have missed you, all the Beetles have missed you.’ Maybe John and Stu were both thinking about it at the time; so we’ll leave that one. We’ll give it fifty/fifty to Sutcliffe/Lennon.
Anthology
Typical. This is one of those articles you just start to read, then can’t let go. I’m hooked!!
Awesome article!I’m impressed. It had a lot of information I didn’t know about…
Do you think that the release of “Love Me Tender” here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Tender-Elvis-Presley-cover/dp/B005XLTRLO
is really Stu??
elvis Presley did a cover of the song but stuart did make the song
I look after Stuart’s grave in Hyton cemetry,Liverpool…R.I.P
It’s been said that Sutcliffe’s mental health declined heavily after Lennon kicked him in the head.
There is absolutely no proof whatsoever that lennon “kicked” sutcliffe in the head. Lets be clear about that. Eyewitnesses do not recall sutcliffe being struck in the head when he was attacked in liverpool either. (the time lennon came to his aid)
John was not with Stu in the four months prior to his death. No head trauma causes cerebral bleeding and death after that long an interval.
The sad truth is that it is far more likely sutcliffe’s tragic death was the result of an Aneurysm. Possibly acerbated by the huge amount of speed that he was taking. But that just isn’t as sensational a story though.
Very touching, very moving article. Impossible to stop reading. Thank you so much for this deeply emotional and beautiful bit of writing.
Just been to Stuart’s grave this morning. 55 years gone yesterday. Only a kid x
My son dated a distant relative of Stuart’s her name is Sarah sutcliffe
Being an artist himself, I wonder what Stu would’ve thought of Yoko Ono, and/or John’s fascination with her?
I feel that Paul sounds a liar when he involves George in his jealousy towards Stu, when the reality is that George liked Stu, he was never jealous of him, it was only Paul who felt that jealousy very strongly. Paul has a tendency to involve others in feelings that are uniquely his own.
Look, Paul’s memory is not perfect and nobody’s is. In the “Anthology”, Paul has complimented Stuart by calling him a very good painter and when he says that the only trouble with Stuart being the bassist was that he couldn’t play, he may have been referring to the formative days.
George even said that Stuart did learn a few tunes, but never fully felt at ease being in The Beatles, so he decided to return to the Liverpool College of Art or perhaps in Hamburg – I’m not really sure. It’s not like Stuart never put any effort into learning how to actually play.
Paul also denies that he ever tried to force Stuart out of the group so that he could take over on bass himself and it has to be noted that he reluctantly took over bass guitar duties.
Allan Williams alleged that Paul would surreptitiously unplug Stuart’s bass from the amplifier without his knowledge, but AFAIK, I have never seen any photographic evidence to prove it.
I’m not talking about Stu’s musical abilities. Nor am I talking about why Stu left the group. I’m talking about Paul saying that he and George were jealous of Stu, because of his friendship with John. But the only one jealous was Paul. This is very clear in Mark Lewisohn’s Tune In. It is not right for Paul to involve George in feelings that are exclusively his own.
@Isa. I wonder why you are assuming it’s Paul who is lying rather than George. George looked up to John, followed him and Cyn everywhere, according to John who felt irritated by it. George could have felt humiliated or silly years later after the acrimonious Beatles split and not admit to being jealous for all we know.
We’re talking about the relationship between Paul and Stu, nothing to do with Cynthia and John. According to the people who were there, Paul was jealous of John’s relationship with Stu, but George was not jealous of Stu, on the contrary, he got on very well with him. Therefore, Paul’s statement that “we were a bit jealous of him (Stu)” is a way of ascribing to someone else feelings that were his alone, nobody else’s. Moreover, Paul was not “a little jealous” of Stu, he was “very jealous”, according to the testimonies of Dot Rhone (Paul’s girlfriend in those days), Astrid Kirchherr, and even his brother Mike McCartney, among others.
Well, if anyone knows jealousy it is George since he spent his entire Beatles and Post Beatles life jealous of Paul for many reasons but especially because of how John favored Paul above everyone, including his own wife! Just look at Geo’s face in every interview when Paul and John are going on about something or joking – George looks like a jilted GF! You see it clearly in Get Back. George has this angry, sad puss on his face the entire time. In 1970 John finally gave George attention because he USED him to set the campaign against Paul to dis-barge his career. Sad but all true!
Back to Stu…Paul has admitted many times he was jealous of John’s relationship with Stu but John also admitted he would go overboard with attention to Stu to get a rise out of Paul because he loved how it bothered him. Paul, not one to show affection – so this what the only way John got to see that Paul really dug him, cared for him. That is what people do to get attention – they go out of their way to make the person they truly love jealous and that is exactly what John did with Stu. Not saying John didn’t love Stu, he certainly did.
Lets face it… John and Paul had one of the most loving, toxic, incredible, strange and erotic relationships in Rock history. Not even Yoko could deny John’s feelings, deep deep feelings for Paul – let alone either of them. Paul, still today at 80, still grapples with his emotions concerning John. What a love story!
“…but John also admitted he would go overboard with attention to Stu to get a rise out of Paul because he loved how it bothered him. Paul, not one to show affection – so this what the only way John got to see that Paul really dug him, cared for him.”
Really? Have you the source? I’m curious!
Why shouldn’t Paul be jealous? It’s quite normal in young male and female friendships and there doesn’t have to be any romance involved. John and Paul shared their mutual love of writing songs when they met and Paul taught John many chords he didn’t know. He helped get the Quarrymen going and got George on board. Then John, nearly two years older than Paul, went to art school befriending Sutcliffe and started treating Paul like a school boy. He minimized their friendship and everything Paul had contributed. And, according to Lewisholn, both of them played some pretty mean tricks on him. Why shouldn’t Paul feel upset? John pulled rank on him again years later when he replaced Paul with Yoko Ono. Who cares whether George was jealous of Stu or not; he was undoubtedly jealous of John and Paul. I’m sure he enjoyed every moment of Paul’s distress and I’d say it’s Paul’s way of not letting George off the hook. Paul’s detractors really seem very smug about all this.
This page busts the misconception that Stuart was a mediocre bassist and even Klaus Voormann praises him as a good bassist. It wasn’t like he had no prior musical experience and his father did teach him some chords on the guitar.
The circumstances surrounding Stuart and Pete Best’s exists were vastly different – Stuart chose to leave the band to return to art college and focus on visual arts, so he wasn’t fired, whereas Pete got kicked out of the group for a myriad of reasons.
We can only speculate what Stuart could’ve done with his life had his life not been cut so short – he could very well have done album covers for The Beatles if they asked him to provide paintings and John himself was a talented visual artist in his own right or perhaps become an art teacher in Hamburg or Liverpool.
I know that lots of biographies state that Stuart had two sisters named Joyce and Pauline, but a lot of them don’t mention this: he also had three elder half-brothers named Joe, Ian and Charles and an elder-half sister named Mattie, all of whom were the offspring of his father’s first marriage to a woman whose name has never been disclosed to any biographers. Until I knew of the existence of his elder half-siblings, I used to think that Stuart’s only siblings, half or full, were his two sisters Joyce and Pauline.
Who knows what Stuart could have done with his life had he lived?
” In 2001 she published a memoir which alleged that Sutcliffe and Lennon had had a homosexual relationship” That shocked me a lot.