Nathan Duncan

a group of 19 photographs of The Beatles performing at the Mid-South Coliseum in Memphis, Tennessee, and 2 photographs of opening acts Cyrkle and The Remains, digital chromogenic prints, each signed by the photographer in ink on the image and signed and dated by him in ink on the reverse, 1966, printed later (21)

These photographs are in generally excellent condition.
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The photographs offered here comprise previously unseen documentation of The Beatles performing in Memphis, Tennessee, in the summer of 1966. This was not only one of the group’s last performances in America, it was one of the final live performances they ever gave. 

 

The Beatles began their fourth and final tour of America in August 1966.  It came on the heels of John Lennon’s comment to the London Evening Standard that the group was ‘more popular than Jesus.’  While the interview had left British audiences unfazed, it caused a furor when quotes were reprinted in the United States, especially in the South where The Beatles were condemned by church groups, local governments, and the Ku Klux Klan.  The outcry, which included protests and record burnings, made the tour a tense one.  Their two-performance stand at the Mid-South Coliseum took place under heavy police guard, and despite the mayor’s formal statement that ‘The Beatles are not welcome in the City of Memphis.’

In the audience for the second performance on August 19^th was the young Mississippian photographer Nathan Duncan.  Duncan worked part-time for the Tupelo Daily Journal, but was in Memphis solely because he was a Beatles fan, albeit one with a press pass and a camera.  Duncan’s first photographs of the evening were taken from his seat.  Dissatisfied with this distant vantage point, Duncan used his press pass to gain access to the foot of the stage, where he shot two rolls of 2-¼ film, in color and black-and-white.  Duncan’s images, taken with the enthusiasm of a fan and the proficiency of a professional photographer, capture the immediacy of the event, and focus in on individual Beatles, as well as the ensemble. 

 

A tense moment occurred during the third song—George Harrison’s If I Needed Somebody—when an audience member threw a firecracker on the stage.  Despite the explosion, the band completed the song, and then continued with the concert.  Lennon later commented that, given the threats they had received prior to the show, he and his band mates initially assumed a gun had been fired.  The tensions the group endured on this tour, as well as security concerns and the fact that the musicians could rarely hear one another properly in performance, are generally understood to have spurred the band’s decision to cease touring and concentrate solely on recording.