McCartney Times

The following is a recent phone interview with Beatles scholar Aaron Krerowicz, who has written four books about his favorite band. Last year he gave more than 150 multi-media presentations about the Beatles across the country.Krerowicz will give a presentation at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Edwardsville Public Library. It will span the Beatles’ career as a band, beginning with their seminal visits to Hamburg and concluding with Abbey Road. The program will be supplemented with audio clips of music and excerpts from interviews with band members. Q – How did the group finally settle on the name “The Beatles?”A – It comes from Buddy Holly. The Beatles were big fans of Buddy Holly and his band The Crickets. And what they wanted was a similarly insectoid name as a way to pay homage to their idol, Buddy Holly.Actually, they had quite a few before that. They started out, I believe, as The Blackjacks. And then they realized that there was another band that had that name so they changed to The Quarrymen and kept that for many years. Then they went through several around 1959 or ’60. For at least one gig they were Johnny and the Rainbows. Then there was also Johnny and the Moondogs, which I suspect is a reference to Alan Freed, the radio disc jockey in Akron, Ohio, who is credited with coining the term “rock-and-roll” for that style of music.

Source: Beatles scholar gives thoughts on Fab Four – The Edwardsville Intelligencer