Sue Mautner left school at 16 in 1962 and, through chutzpah and serendipity, found herself rubbing shoulders with the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and many more 60s legends while still in her teens. Mautner went from a Ready, Steady Go! TV dancer to an accidental music journalist and then a record company executive, becoming a front-row witness to pop’s first golden age. Along the way she mixed with high-class hookers on the Beatles’ 1966 German tour.
Her much older boyfriend, unbeknown to her, was selling them LSD; and she was rescued from an over-amorous pop star by their producer George Martin. All this, plus how Sue discovered Cat Stevens, her close friendship with tragic Rolling Stones star Brian Jones, Simon Dee’s ego, and why she ended up wearing Cathy McGowan’s trousers, can be heard at length for the first time on her new podcast series, She’s With The Band: A Love Letter to Rock and Roll. Here Sue, 79, shares some of her secrets.
.. The Beatles played Essen on the second night of their 1966 German tour .
This concert was absolutely wild; the noise was deafening. You couldn’t hear the band for the screaming. After the show, the boys had to leave by the exit door at the back of the hall and there was a stampede.
I thought I was going to be trampled to death. Peter Brown [then manager Brian Epstein’s personal assistant] practically lifted me out. The police outside looked like Nazis and they set their big Alsatians on these very young kids, and used tear g.
