Happy Birthday Tony Sheridan, "Teacher" of The Beatles
Saturday Matinee Music Video
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TONY SHERIDAN + SATURDAY MATINEE MUSIC VIDEO “My Bonnie”
— On a cosmic jukebox, this track would play next to “Hang On to Yourself” (David Bowie), “I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock’n’Roll” (Dave Edmunds), “Jailhouse Rock” (Elvis Presley), and “God Save the Queen” (Sex Pistols). “My Bonnie” is usually thought of as a children’s folk song telling of a faraway lover across an ocean. However, it’s actually a “code song” for Scottish political insurgency in the 1740s, tributing the exiled Bonnie Prince Charles (I like the kid’s interpretation better). I recorded this in a grunge-y San Francisco warehouse loft: Fast, dirty, and just for fun, perhaps subconsciously prompted by the rock’n’roll remake of it by Tony Sheridan & The Beatles.
Today Sheridan is mostly remembered as a footnote in the massive legacy of The Beatles, but Sheridan had his own showbiz trajectory. As a wild, energetic front man and guitarist, his star rose in the late 1950s. Due to a glitch he missed nabbing a spot in The Shadows. Then he went to Germany where, for a few years, there was more interest in him than in his “pick up band” i.e. The Beatles—who called Sheridan “The Teacher” despite (or because of) his crazy ways and occasional fisticuffs. After Beatlemania, Sheridan kept on as a successful German-based pop star, segueing into blues and jazz and involving himself in bizarre side hustles, anti-Communist platforms in Europe, and spending time with Bagwhan Sri Rajneesh in the USA. He was extremely secretive about his personal life, but on stage everything was set free. HB Tony and thank you for your energy.
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