As does everyone, Leaside author Jeff Walker likes sex. And he likes the Beatles. Fortunately for readers, he likes them together.
Walker, 61, has composed a rollicking tale of the seedy, often sad, yet always titillating behind-the-scenes erotic adventures and misadventures of the fab four entitled Sex and the Beatles (SomethingNow Publications, Toronto).
Told in a series of anecdotes, the book traces the Beatles’ sexual exploits as mop-top rockers playing nightclubs in Hamburg, Germany, to their struggles to keep their marriages intact as rich, middle-aged superstars, each pursuing his own creative path musically.
“These guys were sexually decadent in the extreme,” says Walker, whose interest in the group began in 1964 during their first North American tour, “and the extent to which they were motivated from the get-go by the availability of casual sex with groupies was a revelation to me.”
It was perhaps George Harrison’s appetite for female company that Walker finds the most shocking, in light of what he refers to as his “religious piety.” Paul McCartney impregnated several women prior to marrying his first wife, while John Lennon’s attraction to members of both sexes drew rumours of bisexuality. Originally from Montreal, Walker came to Toronto in 1980 to try to escape the cultural tensions caused by the Quebec referendum. Shortly after his arrival, he commenced his first book-related job selling the Great Books of the Western World (a companion set to the Encyclopedia Britannica) door-to-door in Leaside. He had been told that the neighbourhood was a great place to raise a family.
A few years later, when his father and step-mother were visiting the city, Walker took them to the Bayview Playhouse to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show, a play as renowned for its music as it was for its kinky sexuality.
“At the time I certainly couldn’t have imagined that a decade and a half later I’d be living in a house a stone’s throw from the Playhouse raising a daughter (15) and a son (11),” he says. In 1998, he purchased a house on Donegall Dr.
Walker expresses mild disappointment that his children do not share his passion for all things Beatle. “My 11-year old boy is at the stage where he groans ‘Yuck’ whenever anything the slightest bit romantic comes on the TV screen,” he says smiling, adding that his daughter’s musical tastes similarly lie elsewhere.
“In many ways, Leaside is a throwback to the ‘50s,” he adds, referring to the neighbourhood’s renowned conservative tastes. Nevertheless, he derives comfort from recharging his creative batteries in local bolt-holes such as Rosie’s Diner and The Second Cup, both on Bayview Ave.
Sex and the Beatles is Walker’s third book. His first, entitled The Ayn Rand Cult, was published by Open Court Press in 1998. His second, Let’s Put the Beatles Back Together Again 1970-2010, by SomethingNow Publications, appeared in 2010.
Walker plans on releasing even more books about the Beatles in the near future. The first, 600 pages to be divided into two volumes, is almost complete. The title is Beatle Irony: 1,111 Confounding Twists of Fab History and 1,111 More From the Solo Era.
These books will be followed by two more offerings, one tentatively called Beatles Humour and the other Beatles Drama.