Beatle Shapiro

Brow Beat is following the Beatles in “real time,” 50 years later, from their first chart-topper to their final rooftop concert. In our latest weekly installment, we check in with the group as they release their first No. 1 record, “ Please Please Me.” (other entries HERE)

This week's Browbeat entry HERE, about a tour starting off with The Beatles as openers and ending with them being...well, The Beatles.

When the Beatles finally hit No. 1 with “Please Please Me,” in the middle of the tour, things began to change. Soon they were getting as much applause as the headliner—and this created some tension. “All the people coming to the show were just waiting for The Beatles,” Harrison later remembered. “It was embarrassing, because she was a very nice person.” This is characteristic of the Beatles’ relationship with Shapiro. They liked her, and she even had a crush on John (who was secretly a married man), but he dismissed her music as “mush.”

A few months later they toured with one of their heroes, Roy Orbison. They shared top billing.