Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
He may be just an amateur, but Oregon Public Broadcasting thinks Chuck Stenberg is ready for air time.
A documentary on the Beatles, “The Beatles in Portland ? The Complete Story,” by Stenberg, a former Sweet Home resident who now lives in Salem, will air at 10 p.m. on tonight, Aug. 10, on OPB’s “Oregon Lens” series ? and it’s not just another history of the Beatles.
Stenberg’s documentary focuses specifically on the Fab Four’s only visit to Oregon. The Beatles stopped in Portland in 1965 and played two shows.
Stenberg has been a Beatles enthusiast since he was about 11 years old, he said. He heard “Ticket to Ride” from the “Help” album and was an instant fan. His parents bought that album for him. By then it was already four years old, and the Beatles were hitting the charts with the album “Abbey Road” and their final single, “Let it Be.”
“I like the ’60s, a time when rock ‘n’ roll was fresh and new, Stenberg said. “That’s the thing with the Beatles. When they came out with something new, it was new.”
After he got “Help,” he slowly collected more Beatles albums.
“I’d just be amazed,” Stenberg said. “Every song was good.”
Stenberg is a dental hygienist by day in Salem, where he moved in 1997. Making documentaries is a hobby.
“I like editing photography,” he said. “It’s a challenge.”
Stendberg’s previous work includes “Oregon’s Historic Covered Bridges and Lighthouses,” a documentary available for checkout at Sweet Home Public Library. He completed that documentary about 10 years ago. He has also done wedding videos.
“This will be first time anything I’ve made will be on TV,” Stenberg said.
“I’ve always wanted to do another documentary,” he said. “Something real different.”
No one has done this type of documentary on the Beatles, focusing on a single event, Stenberg said. The video consists of two hours of interviews with people who were there, including 30 concertgoers describing the excitement of seeing the Beatles.
It is divided into 13 chapters, ranging from the band’s arrival by air at a weather station near the airport to avoid a mob of fans, to a press conference held by the Beatles between shows in the basement of Memorial Coliseum.
“I was only 6 years old,” Stenberg said. “I wasn?t even aware of it at the time.”
He did see Paul McCartney the first time the former Beatle returned to Oregon three years ago.
“I wanted to do something on the Beatles,” Stenberg said. “I knew they had come to Portland one time, and I thought maybe if I could find people who were there…”
He placed an ad in the Portland newspaper, and he received about 75 phone calls from people who were involved in or at the show. He ran a similar ad a year later and received 100 phone calls.
“I had a lot of people to talk to and get on camera,” Stenberg said. As he got information and did interviews, the documentary evolved into the chapters he uses. Three or four people, for example, were at the press conference and told him about it.
Those he talked to for the documentary included limousine driver Al Ouchi, who transported the Beatles around Portland, Seattle promoter Zollie Volchok, former KISN radio disc jockey Steve Brown ? who remembers getting a phone call from Beach Boys Carl Wilson and Mike Love, who were trying to get backstage, and photographer Allan DeLay who attended the press conference.
A couple of things struck Stenberg about the concert.
One was the noise level.
“People say they’d start the first chord of the song, and people erupted screaming and you couldn’t hear the song,” Stenberg said.
The Beatles played through 100-watt amps, and just couldn’t get over noise of the crowds, Stenberg said. That led the band to stop touring after the next year. They toured the United States only three years of their 10-year career, 1964 to 1966.
Another thing that struck him was how the five warm-up acts that preceded the Beatles’ appearance couldn’t catch a break from a crowd that hungered for the main attraction.
The documentary took Stenberg two years to complete, he said.
“I started sending it out to show people what I had done.”
Among others, he sent it to OPB.
OPB staff called and told him they enjoyed it and asked if he could edit it down to one hour to be aired.
“When they called back and said that they really enjoyed it and wanted to air it, I was pretty excited,” Stenberg said.
Although the work of an amateur, it was good enough to air on television.
“I spent a lot of time on it, and I really wanted it to be as good as it could possibly be,” he said.
Steve Amen, executive producer and host of “Oregon Lens”, the OPB program on which Stenberg’s documentary will air, said the purpose of the summertime series is to feature the work of Oregon documentary makers.
“Some are very well known and some aren’t,” Amen said.
He said Stenberg’s work is “historically interesting” and noted that because this is year is the 40th anniversary of the Beatles’ visit to Portland, the documentary is particularly attractive.
“I like the idea of a person having passion and pushing through with a project like this,” Amen said. “They’re on their own. The purpose of “Oregon Lens” is to provide a forum for independent producers such as Chuck.”
Stenberg said the Beatles drove him into music, and in the eighth grade, he joined Wheatstone Bridge, a local high school band also including Eric Duncan of Sweet Home, Jim Cook of Portland, Richard Black of Sweet Home and Lorin Bumbarger, a teacher at Aloha High School.
They played the Top-40 hits of the mid-1970s, including the Eagles, Doobie Brothers and some Beatles.
In 1975, when his bandmates went on to college, they met a superb guitar player and became Gin, a band that won two battles of the bands and earned a writeup in The New Era.
Stenberg played drums at the Community Chapel from 1992 to 1997.
He started playing in the school band in the sixth grade, Stenberg said. “I chose drums because I liked the Beatles.”
His parents eventually bought him a set of drums, and he would attend basketball games at the high school where he could watch Randy Claasen play in the school band.
“I thought it was so cool,” Stenberg said. While learning to play, one of the drummers from the high school, Jim Tuller, would drop by and help him out.
Stenberg says his next project may be a documentary on Paul Revere and the Raiders, focusing on their time as a Northwest act before they broke out into the big time.
Paul Revere, the only original member still with them, is still touring today, Stenberg said.
“They created a lot of excitement at the time. They were pretty wild on stage.”
Stenberg is married to Kelly. He has two stepsons, Camron, 23, and Kyle, 21. He has two grandchildren.
The full-length version of the documentary, a two-DVD set, can be ordered by sending a check or money order for $19.95 to PO Box 4492, Salem, OR 97302. Copies of the documentary on covered bridges and lighthouses are also available. The DVDs also can be ordered at http://www.clsproductions.org on the Internet.