Fifty-year-old photo brings Beatle and Sonoman together at last

'Ev'ry time I see your face, it reminds me of the places we used to go…'

– Ringo Starr, 'Photograph'

Charlie Schwartz says it was 'the only time I ever cut school in my life.' He was with his best buddy Matt Blender in the student lounge at Fair Lawn High School in Bergen County, New Jersey, when a couple of other guys said, 'The Beatles are coming in to JFK. Let's go find them!'

It was February 1964, and the so-called 'Fab Four' were in the United States for the first time as a group for what became an historic appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. A total of six kids spontaneously piled into a 1961 Chevy Impala convertible to go to the airport – four male seniors, and two female juniors – and were quite surprised when they managed to intersect a motorcade of limousines. They pulled up next to one of them on the Van Wyck Expressway, going about 60 miles an hour.

The window rolled down, and in the back seat of the limo was Ringo Starr. The kids waved and Ringo waved back, trying to carry on a conversation. Then Ringo picked up his ever-present camera and shot a couple pictures.

'A day after this whole thing happened,' Schwartz told the Index-Tribune recently, 'it was history, I forgot about it.' He went about his life – moved to California, became a bartender in the San Francisco financial district, and married his wife Stacey about 15 years ago when they moved to Sonoma.

He remained a rock music fan – although perhaps surprisingly, perhaps not, 'I was a Stones fan. And a huge Grateful Dead fan.'

Then, in 2013, Starr pulled together his collection of photographs of the Beatles' glory days into a large-format book called, appropriately, Photograph. (Starr had a number one single of that name in 1973, co-written with George Harrison.)

One thing he insisted on was that the centerfold of the book be a picture of the fans – those six kids in a car, all those years ago, somewhere in America. But who were they? He decided to find out.

The music writer for USA Today put out the query in their Oct. 23, 2013 paper, and inside of a week the truth came out: the six kids in the car were driver Gary Van Deursen, the girls Suzanne Rayot, Arlene Norbe, and in the backseat Bob Toth and Charlie Schwartz.

Barely visible in the shadows, almost ghostly, is Matt Blender – who had died two years earlier, in 2011.

Schwartz was by then living in El Verano with his wife, who had founded a nonprofit Project Fit for America. At first they were oblivious to the swirling search for 'Ringo Starr and the Kids in the Car,' until Schwartz's lifelong friend Vinnie Strully called him from Boston at 7:30 one the morning.

'Did you know Ringo Starr is looking for you?' said the voice on the phone.

Once the word was out, the Schwartz' phone didn't stop ringing. 'Everyone wanted to talk to us,' said Stacey Schwartz. 'Inside Edition, United Kingdom news, even the Bergen County Evening Record. We were happy to give the exclusive to the Today show, it meant we could tell the others not to bother us anymore!'

The Today appearance made instant celebrities of the five surviving 'kids in the car,' and the stage was set for a meeting with Starr himself at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas, in November 2013. Naturally the celebrity kids – now all in their late 60s – got first class treatment, including their own limousine.

So how was it meeting the Beatle after all these years? 'It was fantastic,' said Schwartz. 'The guy is so down to earth. You know that quote from 'Rudy'?' he asks, referring to the 1993 sports film. 'He's about five foot nothing and 100 pounds nothing' – not quite the scale of a rock god, but hey, it was Ringo.

Although the initial rush has abated somewhat, it is not entirely gone. The Schwartz's went to a Beatles memorabilia exhibit in April, at the Ice House Gallery in Petaluma, and were the hit of the show. Starr himself pointed out the photo, and told the story, on 'Conan' just a few months ago.

And now that Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band is coming to Sonoma – with Steve Lukather of Toto, Gregg Rolie of Santana, and Todd Rundgren of, well, Todd Rundgren – George and Stacey Schwartz hope to get a chance to meet Ringo one more time.

'I'd just like to say hi again, shake his hand again – and maybe get another hug,' said Schwartz.

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The Sonoma Music Festival runs Oct. 2 to 4 at the Field of Dreams in downtown Sonoma. Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band perform Saturday, Oct. 3, with Pablo Cruise opening. Doors open at 4 p.m. Visit sonomamusicfestival.com.