Steve Cuden: On today’s StoryBeat:

Charles Rosenay: I would send Yoko, Paul, George, and Ringo copies of the magazine religiously. As soon as it came out, I would send them a free copy. Years later, Linda McCartney said to me, Charles, thank you so much. We read them and love them. Years after that, Ringo donated a large chunk of his memorabilia collection to a fundraising auction. And one of the lots was his collection of Good Day Sunshines, which meant they didn’t go into the paper shredder.

Announcer: This is StoryBeat with Steve Cuden. A podcast for the creative mind. StoryBeat explores how masters of creativity develop and produce brilliant works that people everywhere love and admire. So join us as we discover how talented creators find success in the worlds of imagination and Entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden: Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Steel City, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I’m truly delighted to chat with Charles Rosenay for the second time on StoryBeat. Charles has been in the Entertainment business for over four decades as an actor, promoter, music aficionado, entertainer, mc, dj, humorist, and author. Recently, he released his latest book, The Book of Top Ten Beatles Lists, which contains dozens of top ten lists from pop culture notables like Pete Best, Dick Cavet, Tommy Chong, Melanie, and even Dave Winfield, all laying out their favorite songs by the Beatles, who are, for me, the greatest rock band of all time. Among all of his other accomplishments, Charles has produced Beatles conventions and festivals since 1978, and he’s been the organizer and host of the magical History tour since 1983, bringing Beatles fans to Liverpool and London. Charles published and edited the magazine Good Day Sunshine, one of the world’s most famous beatles 60s magazines. He’s also promoted Monkeys conventions since the early 80s. As an MC, Charles has shared the stage with countless Entertainment figures, including Charles Grodin, Geraldo Rivera, and the late Danny Ayello. For the record, I was part of a group that Charles led on an outstanding Dracula tour of Transylvania. Charles also leads ghost tours in England. So for all those reasons and many more, I’m truly, truly happy to welcome my friend, the multi talented Charles Rosenay. Back to story be today. Charles, welcome to the show.

Charles Rosenay: And we’re out of time. Thank you and good night.

Steve Cuden: And good night. Have a nice night.

Charles Rosenay: You included so much. I forgot all those things I did.

Steve Cuden: You’ve done too much already, so slow down, will you?

Charles Rosenay: No.

Steve Cuden: Never. So when in your life did you first take note of the Beatles and 60s rock and roll?

Charles Rosenay: I got to tell you my first memory in life when I put out the horror book. The book of top ten horror list. I would say my first memory in life was seeing Bride of Frankenstein with my mom, and I would tell the story of how she talked me into seeing it. But as I was working on the Beatle book, I said, wait, no, that’s not true. the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, February 9, 1964. That was my first memory, and that was the most world changing. This is the one that made my life in the direction it’s been. That was it. They arrived in America on February 7, 64, and they played the Ed Sullivan show on February 9, 1964. And I was watching it as every other little picture was like I wanted to see topo gigo, who would come on and say, kiss me, eddie, kiss me. And instead there was these guys who sang song after song, and, wow, that was it. I was gobsmacked.

Steve Cuden: Well, there’s almost no doubt anymore that they literally changed culture and society. Just that one act just coming on. The Ed Sullivan show changed everything forward.

Charles Rosenay: Correct. It wasn’t just the music. It was on so many levels, and it never happened again. And it was just the stars aligned. The stars aligned on so many levels, with the music being great, the songwriting being great, their personalities, the four of them clicking the way they did, I think, once in a millennium, once in ever, and that was them.

Steve Cuden: Well, I can for sure say, and, I’m kind of dating myself like you, but I watched that show that night, too. I saw the Beatles that night, too, and it was like, holy know, they really did something just absolutely special and outstanding. Of course, it was years later that the monkeys came around, sort of as an answer to the Beatles. And did you then immediately fall in love with them, too?

Charles Rosenay: I’ll tell you why I did, because I was still young, and I had still listened to AM M radio, and I thought that know was too sophisticated. I mean, I remember picking up the album and saying, wait, I don’t know any of these songs. There’s no hits. So I gravitated know M, the Monkey’s first album, more than M. And they were on tv, and they had so many of the elements of the Beatles in that they had personality and they had comedy, and they all sang and had great voices. So, yeah, I mean, what the difference is? Everyone got over the monkeys. I didn’t. I always loved know the Beatles are at the very, very top of the echelons, and then the monkeys a little under them, and then everybody else.

Steve Cuden: Has your passion for either of them faded over time?

Charles Rosenay: No, never faded. But what I find, and you’ll get a kick out of this is, you know, I do the Dracula tours to Transylvania, but I also do beetle tours to Liverpool. I’ve been doing that for 40 years. What happens is we go over during Beetle week. If someone isn’t as familiar, it’s probably comparable to Elvis week in Memphis. But every club, every pub, you hear Beatle music 24 hours. And I got to tell you, I do not listen to beetle music for two weeks before I go on the tour. And when it’s done, I wean off it for about a month because I am so, oh my gosh, if I hear come together one more time, and if there’s a few certain songs that every Beatle band does, and it’s twist and shout, it’s come together, there’s a handful. And. Yeah. So has it ever really fallen off my existence? No, no way. But, I overdose on it for times, and then I have to wean off it for a little while.

Steve Cuden: Well, I have the Beatles channel on my Sirius XM in my car, and I can’t listen to it all the time or I get a little burnt out on it. So I will very selectively find days where, okay, I’ll listen to the Beatles now.

Charles Rosenay: Ah.

Steve Cuden: As opposed to every day, because most of the other channels I listen to, there’s always the refreshing with different songs. But it’s like anything else in life, too much of a good thing is too much. So what is it about the Beatles that makes them so fascinating?

Charles Rosenay: Why, the Beatles first beatle convention I ever produced was in the late seventy s. And people thought, all right, how long is this going to last? And I came up with, my pat answer. And it’s, what is it? It’s the three M’s. And even in the applies now, 50 years later, it’s the music which is the above all. It starts and ends with the music, and then it’s the memories, the nostalgia factor for people who might have lived through it, or maybe lived through it through older siblings or parents. I mean, it’s multigenerational now, Beatles festival, it’s original fans. Or the grandparents, or the great grandparents, it’s their kids. So that’s the, m the memories. But the last m, is. It’s the magic, Steve. It’s the x factor. No one can explain that. And no one could put their finger on. Maybe it was the haircuts, maybe it was the smiles and the personality, maybe it was the trousers, maybe it was something, who knows? But it was definitely something that. Why were they different than the Dave Clark five and the Rolling Stones and the Hermits. Hermits and the Kingston. You go on forever. And these are all amazing great bands with great songs, but the Beatles were above it all, and that’s because of the magic of the Beatles.

Steve Cuden: Well, here’s the thing. I think that for whatever reason, and of course, it is a mystery, a, true mystery, they are still beyond everybody to this day, that they’re still ahead of their time. They’re ahead of our time still.

Charles Rosenay: Well, maybe that’s the fourth m. the mystery, because, yes, they still are. And how the world couldn’t, wait for this new record. It was just so amazing. I was doing interview after interview, just on a song, because it was so special to so many people. Yeah.

Steve Cuden: Do you consider yourself to be a Beatles historian at this?

Charles Rosenay: You know, I stayed away from expert, historian, archivist, stayed away from all those levels. I’m a super fan. I don’t take know there’s a difference between a Beatle fan and fanatic. And I guess I’m fanatic in my love for them and in my. How long, 50, 40, whatever years of promoting their music and keeping their spirit alive. But yeah, I think, however you want to do this categorization, it starts with Beatlefanbeatleauthorbeatle producer, and I never would put historian or expert or any of those, because I know so many, people who are so much more knowledgeable than I am and who I would defer to if I had questions.

Steve Cuden: So, speaking of you, because of you, I had the good graces to have, Mike Byrne on the show of Mike and Bernadette Byrne, who are the creators of the Beatles story exhibition in Liverpool. And I’m just know he’s been on the podcast. What would you say it is about Mike and Bernadette that makes them special? And I think I know the answer. But you tell me

Charles Rosenay: There’s a bunch of answers to that. First of all, I mean, Bernie dated George Harrison. My God, there’s pictures of her sitting in the cavern just watching them play. So she was there, she’s. That’s credibility. Mike, was part of that scene. He played in Mersey bands when the know were playing a cavern and they were playing New Brighton and all these great clubs. Mike was in the next club over, or he was. So he lived it and breathed it. But what he did is just so special in that he brought to Liverpool what is one of the world’s greatest tourist attractions. I mean, he created the Beatles story and, for people who don’t know, it’s not just a museum. It’s an exhibition where you room after room, the Beatles actually, you live and breathe it. And I remember when he was first building it, and he brought me to this dungeons, this dinghy little warehouse on the Albert docks of Liverpool. And I don’t want to go as far as saying it was rat infested, but I was afraid to walk around. I didn’t want to get my know, embedded in mud and all that. And he said, okay. And he, like a hole in the ground, be the Brian Epstein room. This will eventually be John Lennon’s white room. And he had it all sussed out. He knew what it was going to be before there was even excavation and plans. And I walked out of there and said, oh, what they call in Liverpool are nutters. Nutters. And, I thought, another one of these nutters who has grand schemes, this will never happen. And within a few years, it won awards as an amazing tourist attraction. And to this day, it’s one of England, if not all of Europe’s most attended and most beloved attractions. So they are so special. But beyond that, they’re great people. They’re just know. And you find that in so many things we do, whether it’s the books or movies or rock and roll, that just, so many of these people are just, they’re fans first, and then they just happen to have gotten into different roles in this world. But when it comes back down to it, what’s her favorite memory? It’ll probably be going to a movie with George or going to see the cavern with them on stage.

Steve Cuden: It’s got to seem like a dream to her at this point.

Charles Rosenay: Yes, because so much, I mean, I try to remember stuff, pre marriage or pre college and all that, my parents were alive and all that. It’s another world, it’s a different life. And when you look back on that, I think as so many more things happen, and as I lost brain cells when I had kids, I’m so glad I kept clippings and photos and everything else, because people said, yeah, Charles, don’t you remember when you went, I’m like, no. Did that really happen? And then we see photos and it’s like, oh, yeah, I guess I was there.

Steve Cuden: So what then triggered you to decide to do tours to Liverpool with tourists?

Charles Rosenay: Well, okay, so the first thing I did was a, ah, Beatles convention, and that was in the late 70s, because I think it was in high school and I was a gopher. I got a job gophering at a theater, a kung fu porn movie theater. But it was one of those old grand gals in New Haven. It was the Roger Sherman theater, held 1600 people, and it went into such a bad disarray of falling apart. But a promoter came from out of town and was going to turn it into a live theater and had this whole Broadway series, and all these acts were going to be there. And I saw, heard about it. So I said, let me see if I can get a job there. And he brought me in and he said, you will be my executive producer. Now, this guy was smart, because by giving me a title, I lived there, I was there back and forth every minute. I could be associate producer was actually the title he gave me, but it was a glorified gopher. I’d run out and get his coffee, and I’d get the mail, and I’d answer the door. And when people called for him, I had to make up excuses. And within, I don’t know, four or five months, he was out of town. He fled town, leaving this theater with a lot of debt and only two shows under its belt. And so I was there answering questions and trying my best to cover up for this guy who I love, but didn’t do all the right things. And, Steve, I learned then what not to do in show business, which is. So I learned that you don’t use the money that you may get from one show to pay for the next four shows, in case the next four shows bomb. And then you don’t. Just a lot of things like that. Simple things that really would make sense to someone, when you hear it, but you don’t think about it when you’re in that business. And what we did do, though, is I wanted to do a Beatles convention really badly, because there were conventions in New York and in, Boston, and I guess there were Chicago and LA and other areas, too. And I thought, well, I’m in Connecticut, I’m a Beatles fan, why don’t I bring one to Connecticut, not knowing what it entailed? And he said, sure, we’ll put the vendors in the lobby, we’ll show some movies. But of course, he fled town and the theater closed. So here I was with the hopes of doing a Beatles convention. I thought, I’ll bring it to a little hotel. And I did, and that was 78. It bombed. But I learned again how to improve. I think that’s a big thing, is if you fall, you get back up and you find ways. And the ways I found is my parents, helped me finance the first one. I had to finance the second one. By selling my Beatles butcher cover or my memorabilia. And it worked because by the second show, I did it in a college, and it went to the next level. And a few years later, I thought, all these people are writing to me. These were days where you wrote to each other, and I was getting letters from Oshkosh and all over the place, hey, can you please bring a Beatles convention to my town? And all this? I couldn’t, I couldn’t do that, obviously. But, what I found is I was writing hundreds of letters a week. I was getting in hundreds of letters. I was answering letters, because that’s the only way we corresponded. You weren’t going to use the phone to call Chicago, because that was a long distance phone call. There was no Internet, there was no computer, there was no emails. So the stamps one were killing me. But I thought if I did a newsletter, well, I could answer so many of these questions in my. And if I’m doing conventions, maybe this newsletter could promote the conventions, and then the conventions could promote people to want to get in the newsletter. So in 1980 81, I started a magazine called good Day Sunshine. Right? In those days, they called them fanzines. But this was a real magazine. This was a real 80 pages, sometimes 9100 pages. And I was putting it out very regularly because predecessors were putting out similar fanzines, and it was whenever they could, three times a year, twice a month, and then not for nine months, that kind of thing. I was determined to put it out every other month. And did we put out six issues a year for going on 20 years? And around 1983, the magazine was successful, the conventions were growing. I was contacted by a friend in the Beatle business, who was also a travel agent, and said, hey, if I put together a tour to Liverpool, would you host it? Would I host it? This is Liverpool, this is the holy land. as far as I’m concerned, yes, absolutely. And through good day sunshine, through the Beatles magazine 2030, 40 people signed up to be with me on this tour. And it was so successful that 40 years later, last year, we celebrated our 40th anniversary with a recording session inside Abbey Road Studios.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Charles Rosenay: Yeah. And then, around 84, don’t forget the Beatles 20th anniversary. We think now it’s the 60th. Oh, my God, it was the 20th anniversary. I was at that point getting to the level where I was being called by promoters, hoteliers. It wasn’t fans saying, please bring this convention to St. Louis. It was the venue saying, we’d like to have a convention in, Detroit. Will you come out and produce it. So in 84 I produced, one at the omni in Miami and it drew 55,000 people.

Steve Cuden: Wow.

Charles Rosenay: Which I think to this day is probably a record for the know well, because I was going Liverpool at really great people like Pete Bendles first drummer, and Cynthia Lennon, John’s wife. She should rest in peace Alan Williams, the Beatles first manager. On and on and on and on. I was then bringing them back to America because we became friends and they were guests at my conventions, so everything was feeding off each other. There was the conventions which were promoting my magazine and my tours. There was the magazine which was promoting the conventions and tours, and then there was the tours, which was the only thing making money at the time. And I started it just to get a free vacation. I said, this is great, I want to go to Liverpool. I will do this and I will host it. I’m putting a lot of work into this. I might as well raise my cost about $50 or $100. And I started making that, that was about the only thing the conventions were hit and miss the magazine, forget about that. Lost money. That was a labor of love. But the tourists started doing well and so everything sort of fit together. And it’s really funny because at that time, and this is probably going to lead to your next question, but I’ll circumvent it here. People would say, hey, Charles, when are you doing a book? Because they figured that all the guests I interviewed at these conventions, or all my memories of Liverpool, or all the how to produce a Beatles command, they thought that would make a great book. Firstly, in those days my answer was, well, I published good day sunshine for nearly 20 years. I was putting out six books a year, right? I am never putting a book together in my life. Putting it out in time being that much sweat and love. And in those days it was typewriters, don’t forget, we were like, yes indeed, word processors.

Steve Cuden: I remember quite well.

Charles Rosenay: I hand addressed close to 5000 envelopes, every other month to get these out, because we didn’t have computers then, so I would never do a book.

Steve Cuden: Did you think all the way back then that you would still be doing it 40 years later?

Charles Rosenay: I don’t think anyone thinks in those terms. Well, did you think you’d be doing.

Steve Cuden: It for a while or did you think, this is it, I’m doing it once and that’s it.

Charles Rosenay: So the tours, I didn’t know if that was a one shot. That’s about the only thing that I didn’t look in the future. Conventions I thought, well, yeah, as long as they’re successful, as long as there’s fans who want to go. We did Seattle, I did Detroit, I did upstate New York. So I was at a point where I thought it would grow and grow and grow and more and more and more places. I thought I had a little cottage industry with that. Not realizing that other people were astute enough that if they wanted to, they could also produce conventions in their. Sure.

Steve Cuden: Well, sure. That’s indeed. You did figure out at some point that it was a good thing to keep doing, though. Yes, clearly.

Charles Rosenay: Absolutely. But having said all that, from about the age of 16 and 17, I had a real job. I was a DJ. I djed VAR mitzvahs and weddings and school dances, and you name it. And in fact, tonight when we’re done, I’m actually driving out to a town called Westport, which is about a half hour from me, and I’m djing a nightclub, because they’re having a chinese new year celebration. So to this day, that’s my bread and butter. If, a conventions stop, if I don’t do any more tours, I mean, don’t forget Covid hit. And I couldn’t DJ. I couldn’t do tours, I couldn’t do the conventions. Everything was very affected by that. So that’s been pretty much my livelihood that’s kept me afloat when a convention bombed.

Steve Cuden: Do you still love it?

Charles Rosenay: I still love it. You put me in front of an audience, I know that I will have them either dancing or laughing or smiling or singing along. I’m not a DJ. I’m an MC. There’s a big difference.

Steve Cuden: What’s the difference? Tell the listeners what the difference is.

Charles Rosenay: A chimp could press buttons and be a DJ. And that’s no knock to djs, because they put on the headphones and they mix the beats, and there’s a talent and an art to that. But what you can’t teach and what you can’t pass on to somebody, and I’ve tried and I’ve come close a few times, is personality, is how to make a crowd laugh and have fun beyond just dance. And, the people who do that are very in demand, and I’ve been doing that for a long time. I know that if I walk into any crowd, if they’re 15 years old or if they’re 115 year old, I know that I will walk out and they will say, thank you, we had such a good time.

Steve Cuden: Are you able to craft different evenings for different reasons, like different events?

Charles Rosenay: Absolutely. I mean, one might be an oldies night, one might be old rap and hip hop, one might be a rave dance club stuff. Obviously, I prefer it if I’m playing the older stuff, but I’ll play whatever the crowd wants. I mean, a, wedding, a typical wedding, is everything. It’s a mix of generation.

Steve Cuden: So, yeah, I’m going to bet you’ve never done an evening of gregorian chance.

Charles Rosenay: Oh, I did that last night, of course. No, I’ve never done an evening of gregorian chance, so.

Steve Cuden: All right, let’s talk about the book of top ten Beatles lists. Where did this idea come from? Did it come after the top ten horror book list?

Charles Rosenay: Right.

Steve Cuden: Well, I said that all wrong, didn’t I? It’s the top ten top ten horror.

Charles Rosenay: Lists and the book of top ten Beatle lists. And one, of course, led to the other. But if you recall, I think I explained that, having said I would never write a book in my life. That changed because of COVID I was on the treadmill. I’m watching horror movies with my kids. I’m thinking, what can I do? I’m going crazy. Not being able to do conventions, not being able to dj, not doing the tours. All the things I do, I can’t do. And it’s Covid-19 and I’m gaining 19 pounds. I got to figure out how to get the brain and everything else stimulated. And that’s when I realized I was going to put together the book of top ten horror lists. And I thought, okay, this is going to make everyone happy. It’s got nine beetle chapters, it’s got seven monkey know. It will appeal to. Did it, did it appealed to people who love horror, people who love pop culture and celebrities. But those Beatle people said, Charles, how dare you not have, a first book as a Beatles book? Literally, it’s like, how dare you? I thought, well, wait a second. The book of top ten horror list was so much fun, and it’s not me sitting and having to write fiction and having to put together a story, and I don’t think I’m disciplined enough to do that. I thought, well, wait a second, if I did 100 celebrities who gave me their top ten horror lists, I can go back to the. Well, I can ask some of them and ask a bunch of other people. And I thought it’d be so easy to put together a book of top ten Beatle lists, but it was no longer Covid. So the rock stars were out gigging again. All the actors, they were out doing movies, and the athletes were back playing ball. So this was a tougher nut, to crack here.

Steve Cuden: How long did it take you to put the top ten horror list together?

Charles Rosenay: The book of top ten horror list from when I first got one list till it came out was twelve years.

Steve Cuden: Is that all? Just twelve years?

Charles Rosenay: Yeah, but it was never supposed to be a book. When I realized that I had all these celebrity interviews that had top ten lists, it was pretty much two years from beginning to end. The Beatle book was pretty similar, but I didn’t do 100. I stopped at that magic number of 64. Of course, when the Beatles arrived in America, what I did is a little more thought out. The horror book was any celebrity I could find, blah, blah, blah, including yours truly.

Steve Cuden: You actually had me do a list?

Charles Rosenay: Well, because of your filmmaking history.

Steve Cuden: Well, because I made a movie called Lucky. That’s definitely a weird, twisted horror movie. But you had asked me, which was very interesting because you got to give me the right answer. I gave you that list years ago.

Charles Rosenay: Correct.

Steve Cuden: It wasn’t near the publishing of the book, it was many years before. And I said great, so I gave you the list and then years later here comes this book.

Charles Rosenay: Well, you didn’t give it to me and I didn’t have the intent of it ever being in a book back then. Good day, sunshine. The Beetle magazine had ended and the Internet had happened and I felt doing Dracula tours and beetle tours had my audience for the was no sunshine, you know, gave me tons of publicity. What else? But I didn’t think I had enough ways to reach out to horror people. And I wasn’t going to start a horror fanzine, I wasn’t going to do a magazine. So online I did something called national Horror happenings. It was a newsletter once, a week or once daily, whatever. Whenever it hit me, if I saw a horror movie, I reviewed it. If I heard of a new movie coming out, I put it in there. If I had a chance to interview a star for whatever reason, I put that in. So that was really fun, but it only like five or six eyeballs. And then I did a top ten list and all of a sudden there was 1000 clicks and I was like, wait, that’s why David Letterman does top ten lists, because people love top ten lists. Started doing it once a month and it got the biggest numbers. So I said, let’s do it once a week and I’ll ask everyone I know, even with the faintest or remotest connection to horror or in the show business, because we were friends and knew each other and I knew with the film lucky I asked you for a list and that went into that. That was online at national horror happenings. When Covid hit, I realized I had 70 of those lists. And, so therefore, all I needed was another 20 or so more. And that’s how that book came out.

Steve Cuden: So the horror book just sort of came around just out of happenstance. There was no intention to put the book together at all. But the Beatles book you intended to write.

Charles Rosenay: Very big difference, right? The first one was a matter of me going crazy and needing something to do. And then, thank God this was on a database that wasn’t erased. And I had all those lists. I think two lists disappeared, but of the others, literally 70 lists. And they were great people like Ed Asner, William Shatner. So many of people, who would never do it, maybe now or are no longer with us. So, yeah, that was definitely without intent to ever do a book, but I was very fortunate to have that. And I say I’m a great compiler. So I took the lists, I wrote bios for them all, I put in great photos for them all. And then, it all made sense. The Beatle book followed the same pattern. You look at the covers, one of them is surrounded by all these horror classic icons. The Beetle book is similar, formatted with artwork, by the way. It’s not photo. Right. The great artist Shannon did that. I thought, well, if I follow the same pattern of the bios for everything. But what was different about this one is I had a thought that I wanted to appeal to Beatle fans. Absolutely. But I wanted like the horror book, for it to be of general interest to pop culture people, people who love celebrity, people who love top ten lists. So a, third of it is Beatle connections, Beatle relatives, Beatle people who played with them, people who toured with them, relatives, all that. All that. One third of it is rock and rollers, people in the vanilla fudge, in the cars, in this band, in that band. And then a third of it is just general celebrities, actors, actresses, athletes who had no Beatles connection, aside from being able to come up with a kick ass Beatles list.

Steve Cuden: Were these all people you knew?

Charles Rosenay: Most were. Some. You know, I happened to come across an email or they were appearing, at a local dinner theater or whatever. I go to a lot of was at, it’s called Chiller theater, but it’s not a horror convention anymore, it’s in New Jersey. And, who was signing autographs but Larry Thomas, the soup Nazi from Seinfeld, sweetheart of a guy. We hit it off, we talked and I said, I don’t know if this would interest you, but I did a book of top ten horror lists. I may do a sequel someday, but I’ve got a Beatle. Oh. He goes, I love the Beatles. I go, would you be interested before I finish my sense? He said, yes, what can I do to be in the book? I said, I would love a top ten list. He goes, now, what’s with the horror? He gave me two lists overnight. He went to his hotel and worked on it overnight. Gave it to me the next day. And the lists m are, great. The Beatle one made it into the book, and I loved it. Because you don’t associate Larry Thomas, you don’t associate the Seinfeld soup Nazi with either horror or the Beatles. But those are the ones that are really special. Tommy Chong, Cheechin Chong, gave me a list, and, I’m like Dick Havitt. That was reaching for me.

Steve Cuden: That’s big. That’s a big.

Charles Rosenay: You know, he interviewed Harrison, and he interviewed John and Yoko. And just Groucho. He’s interviewed, know, the ones that we didn’t get to in our lives. He got to.

Steve Cuden: Was there anyone you went to that turned you down or said no?

Charles Rosenay: Yeah, of course, a bunch. But some of them were very nice. I’ll tell you. I worked really hard because I had seen Lynn Manuel, Mirando, the great.

Steve Cuden: Broadway songwriter, Hamilton and in the Heights.

Charles Rosenay: Hamilton and in the heights, of course. And I saw him at the 92nd street y, and he talked about loving the Beatles growing up. I said, no, can’t be. Really. What did I do? I sent a letter to his manager, and it never got through. Sent a letter to his agent, never got through. Sent a letter to his publicist, never got through. Found a home address, and it was returned to sender. So wait, one more try. I’m not giving up. He has a bookstore in New York.

Steve Cuden: Yes, he does. It’s called the drama bookshop. And my book is in that store.

Charles Rosenay: It sure is. Whoa.

Steve Cuden: Actually, both of my books are in there, beating Broadway and beating Hollywood, but go on.

Charles Rosenay: That’s all right. Never a reason not to throw in a plug. Lin Manuel finally got it and wrote back to me with an autograph with a personalized letter. I’m not up for doing this, but please accept know with my congratulations and with my comments. So that’s much better than all the ones. Most of them just don’t reply.

Steve Cuden: They don’t reply? Sure. Well, either they don’t get it, or they’re not interested in replying one of.

Charles Rosenay: The two, I find if I get it to a manager or an agent, I’ll never get a response because of course they get nothing out of it. They don’t want their client homework.

Steve Cuden: Right?

Charles Rosenay: Yeah.

Steve Cuden: Were there any list that you did get but didn’t make the cut and you don’t need to name names. Were there any that you just said, no, I’m not putting it in.

Charles Rosenay: No, I got one that I didn’t put in by mistake.

Steve Cuden: Oh, by mistake you didn’t put in.

Charles Rosenay: Because it was a recorded one and I couldn’t find. I mean, I forgot about it. And then I found the file after the book came out. And it’s a, Beatles contemporary, one of the major names in the british invasion. And it’s Billy J. Kramer, who the Beatles wrote a bunch of songs for. And, is a friend and every know I take pictures with him. I’m praying that he doesn’t say, hey, is my chapter in the book. And fortunately, I think he’s forgotten about it. And please, Billy, if you’re listening to the show, I’m sorry, once that I might have left out are ones where they. And I think there’s two of them where they just gave me a list and didn’t give the reasons why. I mean, you know, the meat of the book is not if hey Jude was their favorite and I want to hold your hand was number two. It’s why those songs were important to the people.

Steve Cuden: Well, sure. And it’s the same with the horror list book as well, that it’s the reasons why those things make the list.

Charles Rosenay: Exactly. And what I loved, and they did it in the hard book and they did it here, too, is the ones who thought outside the box when they didn’t just give their top ten favorite songs or albums. One of them was, he was on tour with the Beatles as a journalist, Larry Kane from, Philadelphia, and went to every single show they did and gave me his top ten favorite concert memories. And why Elliot Easton from the cars, lead guitarist, he thought out of the box, he gave me their favorite middle eights.

Steve Cuden: Their favorite middle eight?

Charles Rosenay: Yeah. How cool is that?

Steve Cuden: Yeah, that’s really cool, because the Beatles.

Charles Rosenay: Were king of that. That’s one of the things that a non musician might realize when you hear the verse of a song, you hear the chorus, but there’s that bridge, that break, that something that makes it a little different. And, the Beatles were kings of those, would you say?

Steve Cuden: Overall, there were, common themes in the list that things just kept coming back and back.

Charles Rosenay: Well, favorite songs. Sure. Yeah. When you look through it, what surprised me is nor Rigby made a lot of lists, and in the back of the book is I called it the toppermost of the popper most, and it’s the top ten of the ones the celebrities picked.

Steve Cuden: Right.

Charles Rosenay: And I was surprised that she loves you. And a lot of the early ones were not on the list, and that might have been actually, a case of maybe. I asked a lot of younger people as well as older people. Younger.

Steve Cuden: It. I think, honestly, Charles, it’s because the early songs, while, totally memorable and completely great, are more in line with everything else that was happening at the time. And as they progressed, they started to do things that were utterly unique and still are utterly unique. And I think that’s why people remember them as being the height of their career.

Charles Rosenay: You’re absolutely right, because. Right. Those were innovative and those were groundbreaking.

Steve Cuden: You get to strawberry Fields and Penny Lane and those kinds of songs, and they’re just completely unique. And so how did you gather all those photos for the book?

Charles Rosenay: So, a little ego here, because when I’m gone and my kids have these books, I want them to see that dad was met most of these people. So a lot of pictures, I’m thinking, hey, I got to show pictures that have not been published. And the best way to do that was me with this guy, me with that gal. I put a lot of photos of myself in there with some of the stars, the ones that were of albums or of 45 sleeves. That’s kind of free use. That’s kind of promotional stuff that you’re allowed to print. And then if it was things that were really unique, I got permission. And the best example of that was Bernie Byrne, because there’s a picture of her in the cavern watching the Beatles, and that came right from her. Right, right.

Steve Cuden: So did you try to get Paul Oringo?

Charles Rosenay: No, I didn’t.

Steve Cuden: Would you have liked to have had Paul or.

Charles Rosenay: clearly. But guess, you know, you’re the first person who’s asked, think, well, they’re kind.

Steve Cuden: Of, like, obvious to me, they’re the Beatles.

Charles Rosenay: In the days that I used to publish good day sunshine, I would send Yoko, Paul, George and Ringo copies of the magazine religiously. As soon as it came out, I would send them a free copy. And I thought, oh, well, they’re probably know. Years later, Linda McCartney said to me, Charles, thank you so much. We read them and love them, which was, wow, that was validation. And years after that, Ringo donated a large chunk of his memorabilia collection to a fundraising auction. And one of the lots was his collection of good Day sunshine.

Steve Cuden: Oh, wow.

Charles Rosenay: Which meant they didn’t go into the paper shredder.

Steve Cuden: No, he collected them.

Charles Rosenay: So that was great. I didn’t bother asking them for lists because that’s, I think, one of the questions that they’ve been asked ad, nauseam. What are your favorite Beatles songs? What song did you love to perform on? I would have asked them for horror lists before I asked them for a Beatle list.

Steve Cuden: They probably have their top ten favorites, but they probably wouldn’t tell you. That would be my guess.

Charles Rosenay: And neither would John Lennon’s sister Julia. I, asked her for a horror list in the day and she said, Charles, I hate horror movies. I can’t watch horror movies, but leave it with me. And she came up with a chapter which was the great elements of horror and literature with a focus on Shakespeare. And I thought, oh, brilliant. I asked her for the Beatles list and she goes, no, I can’t do that. I cannot do that. If I give you those ten, the fans will ask, why didn’t I pick the other ten? If I leave out John songs, why did I put too many Paul songs? And I said, all right, no problem. And then she came back and wrote the forward for the book.

Steve Cuden: Oh, there you go.

Charles Rosenay: So I’ll take that.

Steve Cuden: You bet you will. For sure. So are you still just.

Charles Rosenay: Actually, a film came out and I’m part of the crowd scene. It came out of a few weeks ago. I saw it in a theater, which is always a thrill. It’s a horror movie called Founders Day Independent, film, and I’m part of the crowd scene. It’s the second film I did for the Bloomquist Brothers. The one before that was a horror film called Knighted Eagle Inn. And I play a cross dressing debutante.

Steve Cuden: Of course you did, because that’s perfectly.

Charles Rosenay: Of course, perfect stereotyping. And my kids had to take a triple look. That’s really you dad and my dad. Why did you do that?

Steve Cuden: You get a kick out of acting still?

Charles Rosenay: I love acting. Yeah, I get a thrill out of it. I love the process. And give me a horror movie where I can just be seen for a second and be in the credits. I love that. One of my biggest roles was, I played Elton John along with Patton Oswald as Elton John in, Flight of the Concords.

Steve Cuden: Oh, really?

Charles Rosenay: I was in their second season in this show called Prime Minister with art Garfunk. And there’s two Elton John and I’m one of the.

Steve Cuden: That’s it. I saw that entire series, and I don’t remember seeing you in it.

Charles Rosenay: You would never have known I had the glasses, the gap in my teeth. I channeled Elton very well, but, yeah, you would not have known it.

Steve Cuden: All right, so I’m going to ask you an interesting question. If you could go back in time and do one thing over again to achieve a more satisfying or a better result, what do you think that would.

Charles Rosenay: Be in my life or in your life?

Steve Cuden: In anything from your life.

Charles Rosenay: I would have learned how to play guitar.

Steve Cuden: Learned how to play guitar?

Charles Rosenay: Yes. Started me on accordion because that’s what the kids in the Bronx had to do. And I flipped and I. Please guitar. Please beatles. Please guitar. And. Okay, so she went to a friend who had one, and it was a spanish classical, and the neck was probably bigger than my neck. I couldn’t get my fingers around it. I gave up on that. I would have been Paul in Beatlemania if I stuck with that. I would have stayed with the Beatles. I would have stayed. World of music somehow.

Steve Cuden: Can you sing?

Charles Rosenay: well, that doesn’t count, does it? No.

Steve Cuden: For the Beatles, of course it wouldn’t count.

Charles Rosenay: Yeah, I can’t anymore, but I could have in the day.

Steve Cuden: Yes, you could have in the day. Well, I am having the most marvelous conversation with Charles Rosenay, my dear friend from more than 20 years ago from Dracula tour in Transylvania. One of the greatest trips I’ve ever taken and will ever take. I will tell you that if you have any interest in Dracula or ghosts. By the way, did you ever see a ghost on the ghost tours?

Charles Rosenay: I didn’t, but some people did, and someone saw an amazing story on one of the Dracula tours. But the only ghosts that I’ve seen are in photos that I’ve taken because a book we never talked about is my second book that came in between the two. Top ten list is true ghost stories of Connecticut, where piled a lot of ghost stories. And I’m part of a paranormal team, believe it or not, called the shaman and the showman. The shaman is the guy who’s the clairvoyant and the ghost hunter, and I’m the showman. I go out there as the skeptic, as the non believer, and together we explore and do a lot of fun stuff. So, yeah, in answer to your question, yes, they’ve seen ghosts on my tours. I have never seen ghosts on my tours. But if you ever stay at the Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool, where we stay, every room is haunted.

Steve Cuden: Every room is.

Charles Rosenay: Oh, yeah. Oh, definitely.

Steve Cuden: So, all right, you’ve done lots of interesting odball things. Can you share with us a story that’s either weird, quirky, offbeat, odball strange, or just plain funny?

Charles Rosenay: Endless. I was thinking in terms of the book, because getting the lists, most of them I’d gotten by email, or they wrote back to me and I had to read their handwriting and get it. But a few of the people who were in the book said to me, I’ll do it, but I’m, not going to write it down. So I do an interview. One was Joey Molland from Badfinger, who keeps the bad finger name alive, apple recording artist. The other one was Tommy Chong. Wouldn’t write it down. I had to do an interview with him. But the interesting one is, this is a quirky one, because here is this Grammy award winning composer, wrote Aerosmith, produced everyone, produced nine Ringo albums, and had a career of his own. Mark Hudson, he was one of the Hudson brothers.

Steve Cuden: Sure, Harry Nelson. He produced Harry Nelson.

Charles Rosenay: He produced. Harry Nelson is right. And he’s a great guy, and he’s a sweetheart, and he’s funny and he’s loud and he’s colorful. And he said, yeah, Charles, I’ll give you the list, but we got to sit down and have a coffee, and I’ll give it to you in person. All right, so a year and a half of. Sure, Charles, whenever. Well, he’s on the West coast most of the time. I’m on the east coast. We happen to both be guests at a, Beatles festival, Florida Beatles on the beach. It’s Mickey Dolan’s. It’s him, it’s me. And we’re on stage. And we’re on stage. And I say on stage, by the way, mark Hudson, I have a Beatles book coming out, and you promised me you would give me a list. Put him on the spot on stage, and he said, all right, we’ll go for coffee after the interview, and we’ll spend 15 minutes at Starbucks. We go to Starbucks. And 3 hours later, I recorded that whole time and got a great list from him that I then had to wheedle down to a top ten list, but went on and on and on. When I thought about what was different or what stood out from all the interviews of the book, that’s one that really jumped out at me. But I will share a ghost story with you.

Steve Cuden: Sure. Please.

Charles Rosenay: Because as you said, we do the Dracula tours. We do the ghost tours. I’ve never seen a ghost on any of those. And now I’m part of a paranormal team, and I produce paranormal conventions, believe it or not. And I also put that book together, true ghost stories of Connecticut. And as I’m putting together this book, where I’m compiling ghost stories from other paranormal experts, and I went to them and I said, I want to know your most outstanding ghost happening. I don’t want you to embellish it. I, want what scared you? What was your mouth dropping story? And they all gave it to me. And as I was compiling, I was about halfway through, I remembered that in college, I had an unbelievable experience. I was in college, and I had a buddy who was in California now, and we reunited on facebook, and his name is Ed di Piazza. And ed and I were on the same college radio station, and Ed and I loved so much of the same stuff, but tangentially. I love the beatles. He loved the who. I love the monkeys. He loved Springsteen. And we found common ground in that. And on the know, I would come in as the program director and say too much, who, hello. A little more beatles. And we always tease each other. And we’d go out to clubs. We’d see know in those know. We’d go out to all the local dives. And he goes, hey, Charles, someday I got to take you to see the pink lady. And I’m thinking, oh, man, I’m not going to go to a stripper with this guy. What’s the pink lady, steve? I don’t know what? The pink lady goes, no, we’re going to go, you’ll love it. And he’d forgotten about. And then he mentioned it again a few weeks later. And I’m thinking, is my mom going to be mad at? Just all I’m thinking is, it’s not going to be the right thing if it’s something called the Pink lady. And I schluff it off. All right, sure, someday. We went to see a band, and then there was a second band after them, and the second band was so loud and so unpolished, and so, let’s get out of here. I’ve had enough. And he goes, all right. You don’t want to go straight home, do you? I go, no, why? He goes, we’re going to go see the pink lady. And I’m like, oh, man, how am I going to get out of this? Well, I didn’t. And he took me to the seediest, probably worst neighborhood of New Haven, and he parks under a bridge, and he turns off his car, and I’m like, this is it? I didn’t get to say goodbye to my parents. I’m never going to have children. The Beatles career is done. I’m, never going to sing in Beatlemania. I’m never going to have a radio. All of these things are flashing to my mind. And he goes, Charlie, I want to tell you a story. And he proceeds to tell me of this beautiful, loving couple that met. And they met and they said, this was the love of the lifetime. Everything was perfect. They got along forever together. And they decided to buy a house in this neighborhood in the day. And they bought the house and they lived on the second floor. And the worst thing is, we plan. And God laughs and God laughed on them. And he was sent off to war. He was enlisted in World War II, the big one. And he was sent overseas. And they hugged and they kissed and he said, I will be back. Not like Arnold, I’ll be back. He said, I’ll be back. And when I come back, whatever it takes, I’ll borrow a car, I’ll come with a friend, I’ll rent a cadillac. But I will come around the corner to where our house is. I’ll stop, I’ll go slow, I’ll beep twice, and I’ll flash our high beams. And when I flash my high beams and you hear the two beeps, you’ll know it’s me. You’re going to come out on the patio, on the porch, on the deck, be wearing the pink neglige I love. I will come in the house and we will pick up where we left off, there’ll be no stoppage of our relationship. I love. And what happens next? Can you guess?

Steve Cuden: He dies in the war.

Charles Rosenay: Killed. He killed in the war. We don’t know. Finds this out. We don’t know. She knows. We do know that if any car turns that corner in front of the house and if they beep twice and they turn on their high beams, when she sees those brights, she comes out on that porch. And at this point I thought that Ed Dipiaza, had too much to drink or too much to smoke or I don’t know what. But he starts up his car and he goes, we’re going to visit the pink lady now. And we leave the bridge. We go about four blocks, and then we take this little sharp turn. And the neighborhood is not good. And it’s not a place I would want to get stopped in or break down. But he then turns. He beeps twice. He flashes his high beams. And this specter, this figure, this what looked like a white face with no eyes but a pink smock. Pink. Mag walks out, looks at the car, and fades back into the house. This is the truth. I experienced it. Ed experienced it when I was writing the book. I remember now. I don’t know if this was a suppressed memory, because I didn’t think of this. I didn’t really remember this until it was time to write the book. And I remembered it vividly, the whole story, to the point that I wrote the chapter and sent it to Ed on, Facebook. And he said, my God, I haven’t thought about it since then. That’s exactly how it happened. The next night, I went back with my parents, told them the story, beeped the horn, put on the brights, and she came out again two nights in a row.

Steve Cuden: Oh, wow.

Charles Rosenay: Yep. A week later, I brought a car full of friends. Boys, girls. I thought if I’d scare them, I’d get lucky. You know the word lucky? and we went around the corner. The same thing happened, and I never did it again till it was time to put out the book. And I went back to that neighborhood. I tried to find it, and the hole is all demolished, the buildings that were there. I want to tell you that on the third night that I went with my friends, I looked across the street. I wanted to see if there was somebody who was projecting this, even though this was in a year that no one had projections. I thought something somehow, maybe there is a scientific reason as to why, after two beeps and two brights, maybe someone triggers. But she came out kind of the same way all three times. So is this a quirky story?

Steve Cuden: That’s a quirky and rather creepy story.

Charles Rosenay: And it’s the truth verbatim, because I experienced it, and I’m not brilliant enough to make up that good of a story.

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s, an awesome story.

Charles Rosenay: It really is.

Steve Cuden: And I’m glad I didn’t experience it, because I’d be having nightmares.

Charles Rosenay: So.

Steve Cuden: All right, last question for you today. Charles, you’ve already told us a bunch of things that are very useful and helpful for anyone that’s trying to do what you’ve been doing for your whole career. But I’m wondering if you can share a piece of advice or a tip that you like to give to people who are starting out in the business, or maybe they’re in a little bit and trying to get to that next level.

Charles Rosenay: I think last time I really pondered that a lot. And what hit me was, I overdo things when I go out for an acting role, I overact. I think that if there’s a director that can see that, I can overact, he can pull it back. But if he sees another actor and that actor is like, lemon, a guy, blah, blah, blah, you can’t maybe make a better actor out of a lesser actor. And I think I’ve done that in everything I do. So if someone wants to hire me for a dj, I want them to come see me at my craziest, knowing that they say, okay, we don’t want you to dress up in a sergeant pepper outfit and play a Beatles song. I don’t have to. But if they just see a dj standing behind the booth and just pressing not, So I always say, give more, show more, present more. And then I think that will leave an impression. I went out for an acting role in January, and it was for a film where they were looking for a Judge and mayor. I, read for the judge, and I was loud. And at one point, he’s supposed to get mad at the detectives, and I slam a book down and I scream at them, and I get in their face. Now, no one else did that in the auditions, and I think that was impressive. I think it actually scared the director because he didn’t expect that kind of over the top. But then I had to read for the mayor, and he was, like a religious. He had been a pastor or something, because it know, a Bible touting mayor. And the guy before me was, oh, was he great. He had a James Earl Jones voice. It was like, my God, I am going. Greatest voice. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? So there was another room. There was a podium. I wheeled in the podium, and I stood behind the podium as I felt a mayor might do. In the podium was a book. I lifted that book as if it was the Bible. And I spoke in that southern voice, and I said, people. And, ah, I think that did the trick because I got the role. What am I getting at? Yeah. When I was in college and we did communication courses, people said, see who you love, see who writes the best, see who talks the best, see who’s the best of this and that. And if you could emulate them, that’s great. But you’ve heard this too many times. Be yourself. Be yourself, because so much of it is bringing yourself. And myself is energy, and myself is personality, and myself is trying to make sure that everything I do, someone has a great time if they’re on with me. And I think that, you can’t teach that. But if someone can get a taste of that and realize that if they’re just that same person in a line, they’re that same person in a line, and that line will move down. But if they could stand out in any way, I mean, I’m only five five. I can’t stand out by being six foot eight. So I have to project, and I have to be high energy, and I have to not be loud, but be fun. And I think those are the things that, have helped me in all the things I do, plus the fact that I love everything I do.

Steve Cuden: That’s a big key, isn’t it?

Charles Rosenay: It’s such a big key. And I think the two things you hear a lot is be yourself and be something you love. Because if you love what you work, you’ll never work a day in your life. But it’s kind of true.

Steve Cuden: I think it’s a real shame that you don’t have any energy or personality.

Charles Rosenay: I’m working on it.

Steve Cuden: But that’s very wise advice, and it’s advice that I have been given before in my life as well, where one time I went to audition for a role, this is many, many years ago, and I played it down the middle, and the director said, you have to give us something more than the middle. You have to take a chance. And if you don’t get the part, you don’t get the part. But you’ve taken a chance and shown them that you can take something out there into a very solid place. That’s what you’re talking about.

Charles Rosenay: 100%. I remember one thing I auditioned for, I think my first time auditioning in New York, and they said, bring a script with you. And, everyone was bringing stuff from on the waterfront, and I guess there are set things that you do when you do an audition that you read from. And I had a page from a comic book. It was a swamp thing or man thing, whatever. And he says how he was bullied as a child. And I remember the end of my audition, I looked straight into the casting director’s eyes, and I go, you were probably one of the ones who bullied me. And I turned around and walked out with disgust. And they called me back in and said, oh, my God. That was the best reading I’ve ever heard. What is that from? Is that Tolstoy? who wrote that? And I looked and I said, I don’t know. John Ramita. I don’t know. Some comic book artist. I didn’t get the role.

Steve Cuden: But you showed them something.

Charles Rosenay: Yeah, I intimidated well, that, I think.

Steve Cuden: That is exactly the way to do it. Charles Rosenay, this has been an absolutely fun hour on StoryBeat, and I can’t thank you enough again for the second time. And perhaps we’ll have you back again with another book if you put one out. And it would be terrific to see you again. And I can’t thank you enough for spending your time, your energy, your wisdom and just being you on today’s show.

Charles Rosenay: Thank you so much. I just want to leave with the website, which is www. Dot bookoftop ten, the number ten, not T-E-N bookoftoptenbeatleslists.com. That’s the website. And it’s also, of course, on Amazon.

Steve Cuden: Well, that’s fantastic, Charles. And I hope people go out and get it, because I’ve read both of your books, and I think they’re both fantastic. They’re a lot of fun to read. So I can’t thank you enough.

Charles Rosenay: Thank you. I love being here, and I love you aside from the show. So thank you so much. Neve.

Steve Cuden: and so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you like this episode, won’t you please take a moment to give us a comment, rating, or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to? Your support helps us bring more great StoryBeat episodes to you. StoryBeat is available on all major podcast apps and platforms, including Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, iHeartRadio, tunein, and many others. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden, and may all your stories be unforgettable.