Gene whipped out a gun and asked if I slept with his wife

THE LUGER pistol that Gene Vincent was pointing at Cliff Bennett was real, but the rockabilly legend's eyes looked colder and meaner. "I'd walked into the dressing room in Hamburg's Star-Club and the first thing Gene said was 'Who the **** are you?'

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Cliff, 85, recalls. "Then he whipped out his gun and asked if I'd been sleeping with his wife Margaret, although not so politely.

"It wasn't exactly how I'd expected my idol to be. Luckily Peter Grant [Led Zeppelin's future manager] disarmed him and told him to sit down; I was shaking."

Sixties legends Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers, fondly remembered for Top 10 hits Got To Get You Into My Life and One Way Love, performed regularly at the Star-Club where they shared bills with The Beatles.

But Cliff says the famous German venue was more villainous than glamorous.

"It stayed open until 6am and was heaving at weekends. We did two one-hour sets at night, one for a young audience and the later one for an older audience who were all gangsters. They used to send up trays of drinks with requests. It was a scary place, just off the Reeperbahn" Hamburg's red-light area.

In his memoir, Cliff recalls seeing the waiters swindle customers. If anyone objected, co-owner Horst Fascher, an ex-boxer who had served time for manslaughter, would knock them out.

"You witnessed things like that nearly every night. It was very violent.

"The Beatles were wild back then. They were good kids but they liked to drink. I was impressed by them, especially when Paul McCartney told me they were writing their own songs and played I Saw Her Standing There. I got on well with Paul."

Macca loved Cliff's soulful voice and the band's R&B prowess so much that he convinced Beatles manager Brian Epstein to manage them.

"I had respect for Epstein, he told it like it was. He took 25%, but for that he did everything," says Cliff.