In December 1960, Charles ‘Chas’ Newby was temporarily the bassist for The Beatles. The members of The Beatles had returned from their first trip to Germany in early December, except for bassist Stuart Sutcliffe who stayed behind in Hamburg with a cold. Sutcliffe didn’t return back to Liverpool until January 20, 1961, with airfare money borrowed from his girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr. In the meantime Newby, a friend and former band mate of Pete Best (in The Blackjacks and skiffle group The Barmen), filled in on bass for three gigs with the Beatles.
In the book Liddypool: Birthplace of The Beatles, Newby said this about his start in music – “I started playing acoustic guitar and then progressed to the bass guitar. I never wanted to be a professional musician – I had always longed to be a scientist.” In fact, during his brief stint with the Beatles, Chas was on vacation from a university he was attending. John Lennon asked him to go with the Beatles to Germany when they were to make their second trip there, but he chose to return to the university instead. Newby would later become a Mathematics teacher at Droitwich Spa High School in Worcestershire, England.
When Stuart Sutcliffe left the band in August 1961, Paul McCartney switched from guitar to bass to permanently fill that vacancy. It’s interesting to note that like Paul, Chas is also a left-handed bass player. And not only that, they share the same birthday (June 18) with Chas being one year, to the day, older than Paul.
