Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 374] Who Really Shaped The Beatles? The Story Behind the Band with Stuart Maconie

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[EP 374] Who Really Shaped The Beatles? The Story Behind the Band with Stuart Maconie · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: One day, John's reading the Daily Mirror and he reads
0:02
Speaker 1: this story about the Scottish guy John Mustard, whose wife
0:05
Speaker 1: has granted him a divorce for his mean behavior, which
0:09
Speaker 1: included switching the lights off to save electricity, and he
0:13
Speaker 1: gives her a pound a week to live on and
0:15
Speaker 1: all this. So John, in his mind takes this guy
0:18
Speaker 1: kind of does something fantastical with the story. Shaves in
0:21
Speaker 1: the dark trying to save paper, keeps a Timbob note
0:24
Speaker 1: up his nose. All this. The mean mister Mustard of
0:25
Speaker 1: Abbey Road Medley fame is a real guy, John Mustards,
0:29
Speaker 1: who were totally rock and roll. I think I'll leave you.
0:33
Speaker 1: You're reading little Hands.
0:35
Speaker 2: Since it's time to rock and roll, Rock roll out,
0:38
Speaker 2: I totally booked. Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the
0:45
Speaker 2: podcast for those about to read in rock and Eric Senachie.
0:48
Speaker 2: If you'd like to support the podcast and get episodes
0:51
Speaker 2: commercial free, sign up for the Backstage Pass from Patreon
0:55
Speaker 2: for just five dollars a month. We'll link in the
0:57
Speaker 2: show notes, or go to Booked on Rock dot com.
0:59
Speaker 2: Now onto our guest, Stuart Maconey, the author of With
1:03
Speaker 2: a little help from their friends, The Beatles and the
1:06
Speaker 2: people who made them. Stuart is known for books like
1:08
Speaker 2: Cider with Roady's, Pies and Prejudice and Adventures on the
1:12
Speaker 2: High T's. He's also a familiar voice on BB six
1:15
Speaker 2: Music and Radio four, and he is here with us today.
1:19
Speaker 2: How are you doing, Stuart?
1:20
Speaker 1: Hi, I'm good. How are you?
1:22
Speaker 2: I have great? Let's get into the book here. Let's
1:24
Speaker 2: talk about first the introduction. This story about Paul McCartney
1:27
Speaker 2: is great. He threw you are you through him a
1:31
Speaker 2: few curveball questions? This was back in seven. Can you
1:34
Speaker 2: share this story?
1:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course. Yeah. It's a common thing. I think
1:38
Speaker 1: with people who meet Paul McCartney. You feel compelled to
1:44
Speaker 1: ask trying and ask him something he's not been asked before,
1:47
Speaker 1: which is a mistake. What you should do, I know, realize,
1:50
Speaker 1: is simply say, Paul, just tell me anything about anything,
1:54
Speaker 1: because you know, he's Paul McCartney. But yeah, you feel
1:57
Speaker 1: you've got to kind of, you know, get something out
2:00
Speaker 1: no interviewer has done before, which is ridiculous because see
2:02
Speaker 1: everybody in the world. You know, he's talked a million
2:04
Speaker 1: times about things. So I said to him because I
2:08
Speaker 1: thought it was cute thing to ask. I said have
2:11
Speaker 1: you ever wished, even for a moment, that you'd rather
2:13
Speaker 1: been in Jerry and the Pacemakers. Oh, I don't know how.
2:16
Speaker 1: I don't know if American audiences are familiar with Jerry
2:19
Speaker 1: and the Pacemakers. But they were another Mersey beat group
2:22
Speaker 1: at the same time as the Beatles. It were quite
2:24
Speaker 1: popular for a while in Britain, three number one singles
2:26
Speaker 1: with the first three singles. So, and what I meant
2:28
Speaker 1: by that was you could have had a nice life,
2:31
Speaker 1: You could have been a musician, you could have made
2:33
Speaker 1: a good living without all the attendant hassle that's gone
2:37
Speaker 1: with being a Beatle. I mean, you know, from just
2:40
Speaker 1: the stresses of the Beatle life and fame to you know,
2:44
Speaker 1: in the case of John Lennon, tragic consequences. So that's
2:47
Speaker 1: what I meant. But the minute the words had left
2:49
Speaker 1: my lips, I realized that's a stupid question, and he
2:52
Speaker 1: said sorry, and I sort of said, hey, never mind, Paul,
2:57
Speaker 1: let's move on. And he was like, no, no, no,
2:59
Speaker 1: what did you say? And I said, and he said,
3:02
Speaker 1: did you ask me if I'd rather have been in
3:03
Speaker 1: Jerry and the Pacemakers? And I said, yeah, I think
3:06
Speaker 1: I did, and he said, you were aware that I
3:08
Speaker 1: was in the Beatles, and I said, yeah, I'm very
3:11
Speaker 1: aware of And I've talked to friends of mine who
3:13
Speaker 1: are journalists and they said, we did the same thing
3:15
Speaker 1: when we met Pau McCartney. We felt we ought to
3:17
Speaker 1: ask him something crazy and off the wall, and you're
3:20
Speaker 1: better off just saint Paul, tell me about the Beatles,
3:24
Speaker 1: you know, something really general like that. But he's cool,
3:27
Speaker 1: and as you imagine, he laughed about it. He's very
3:31
Speaker 1: because as you know Paul mccartty, he's very charming, very
3:34
Speaker 1: generous man. And yeah he was, and he was. He
3:37
Speaker 1: was great. But I do say an introduction to the
3:39
Speaker 1: book kind of like this is a two hundred page
3:42
Speaker 1: or whatever letter of apology to him.
3:44
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, I was thinking he's heard all the questions,
3:48
Speaker 2: so he was ready to roll with it. So your
3:50
Speaker 2: book tells the Beatles' story through one hundred people around them.
3:54
Speaker 2: It's divided into three sections, Before the Beatles, with the Beatles,
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Speaker 2: and Beyond the Beatles. You make it clear that the
4:00
Speaker 2: book is not meant to be a definitive academic history,
4:03
Speaker 2: but something more personal, impressionistic. Why was that the right approach?
4:07
Speaker 1: For this project, well, because there are so many Beatles books,
4:12
Speaker 1: and I mean, and as we speak, Beatle fans will
4:15
Speaker 1: know right now as I'm speaking to you, I hope
4:17
Speaker 1: somewhere in Kent in the UK, Mark Lewison is working
4:22
Speaker 1: on volume two of his Magisterial and Comprehensive Beatle Biography.
4:27
Speaker 1: So there have been so many excellent Beatles's been a
4:30
Speaker 1: lot of terrible Beatles boks, but there's been so many
4:31
Speaker 1: excellent Beatles books. And I didn't want to try and
4:35
Speaker 1: possibly say this is an academic Beatles history. I wouldn't
4:39
Speaker 1: have had the time, I wouldn't have had the skills,
4:41
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't had the inclination really to do that.
4:44
Speaker 1: I was more interested in I just for me, it
4:47
Speaker 1: was like watching Get Back. And I think a lot
4:48
Speaker 1: of people felt the same way. It may be fall
4:50
Speaker 1: in love with the Beatles all over again. And I
4:52
Speaker 1: thought I would quite like as a jobbing writer, as
4:55
Speaker 1: a guy writes books, I thought I'd quite like to
4:57
Speaker 1: have my name in the Beatle canon of books, you
5:00
Speaker 1: know what I mean. I'd quite like to think in
5:03
Speaker 1: two hundred years time, five hundred years time, when people
5:05
Speaker 1: are looking back over the and they will be. I mean,
5:07
Speaker 1: they absolutely will be when they're looking back over the
5:09
Speaker 1: history or the historiography of the Beatles. Ah, there's Stupt
5:13
Speaker 1: mcconey's book that added something a little different. So I
5:15
Speaker 1: wanted to do something a little different though, which I
5:18
Speaker 1: didn't think had been done before, and that is to
5:21
Speaker 1: tell the Beatles' story through the contributions major and minor,
5:27
Speaker 1: of these hundred kind of supporting casts. I mean, the
5:31
Speaker 1: way I put it in the book is that if
5:32
Speaker 1: we imagine that the Beatles are a kind of Shakespearean saga,
5:35
Speaker 1: which I think they are, as well as the big people,
5:38
Speaker 1: the Lady Macbeth's and the King Leaders and all that,
5:42
Speaker 1: the George Martin's and the brown Epstein's, there's a whole
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Speaker 1: host of people, you know, the rosencrant and Guildensterns, as
5:48
Speaker 1: I say, who are in some way had some shaping influence,
5:52
Speaker 1: and sometimes the stories they tell are you know, funny, moving, interesting, amazing,
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Speaker 1: And I just wanted to say that there's a lot
6:00
Speaker 1: of other because the Beatles' story is so huge and multifaceted,
6:06
Speaker 1: it touched a lot of other people's lives and a
6:08
Speaker 1: lot of other people's stories impacted on them. That's not
6:11
Speaker 1: to say that the Beatles needed anybody really, I mean,
6:15
Speaker 1: they were a phenomenal talent. But I think even PAULC. Gartney,
6:18
Speaker 1: if he was he would agree that there were people
6:20
Speaker 1: along the way, from George Martin and Brian Epstein to
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Speaker 1: Mal Evans to whoever, to Jane Asher, people all along
6:26
Speaker 1: the way to you know, and Yellow and David, the
6:29
Speaker 1: people who made their shoes, the people who made the
6:31
Speaker 1: Beatle boots, people who in some way had some kind
6:33
Speaker 1: of shaping influence on this fantastic narrative. And I just
6:37
Speaker 1: thought it would be fun. So my intention was there'll
6:42
Speaker 1: be something in every item, I hope, a thought, a fact,
6:45
Speaker 1: an idea that even real seasoned beetle heads will think.
6:49
Speaker 1: Oh I never thought of that. I never thought of
6:51
Speaker 1: that before. It never occurred to me before that I
6:53
Speaker 1: Melde Marcos might be responsible for Sergeant Pepper, you know,
6:57
Speaker 1: or whatever. So just things like that. Yeah, And it
7:00
Speaker 1: really fun book to write. And I got to spend
7:02
Speaker 1: you know, a year immersed in the Beatles, which is
7:05
Speaker 1: a great place to be.
7:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, so many great stories from those early years and
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Speaker 2: the people closest to John, Paul, George and Ringo. One
7:12
Speaker 2: that I found really interesting is the chapter on Harry Harrison,
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Speaker 2: George's father, who drove buses in Liverpool. And you described
7:20
Speaker 2: the Liverpool buses almost like characters in the Beatles' story, right,
7:24
Speaker 2: I mean buses were an important part of their early lives.
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Speaker 1: Right, yeah. They you know, the Beatles were working class kids. Well,
7:29
Speaker 1: I mean you could say John Lennon was a lower
7:31
Speaker 1: middle We have different in American England. We used working
7:33
Speaker 1: in middle class slightly differently here middle class is slightly
7:37
Speaker 1: posha But yeah, John came from quite a posher background.
7:44
Speaker 1: But the other three Beatles were from very very working class,
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Speaker 1: down home backgrounds, council estates, you know, projects, if you
7:51
Speaker 1: want to call them that, and so. Yeah, and they
7:55
Speaker 1: used a lot of buses. They weren't rich kids like
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Speaker 1: a lot of British people. They used public transport all
8:00
Speaker 1: all the time. George and Paul basically met on a bus.
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Speaker 1: You know, they traveled together to grammar school together, and
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Speaker 1: their friendship is fourteen fifteen year olds forged on a bus.
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Speaker 1: Harry Harrison drove a bus in day in the life.
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Speaker 1: Right towards the end of the career, you know, Paul
8:17
Speaker 1: gets on a bus and goes upstairs and has a smoke,
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Speaker 1: and somebody speaks and he goes into a dream. That's
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Speaker 1: what you because the top deck of buses in Britain
8:24
Speaker 1: was where you could smoke and a double decker bus.
8:27
Speaker 1: So yeah, there's a lot of That's one of the
8:29
Speaker 1: things I love about the Beatles. They are very rooted
8:32
Speaker 1: in the culture that they grew up in. There were
8:36
Speaker 1: ordinary kids from ordinary backgrounds and so they you know,
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Speaker 1: Paul is the great genius, I think, you know, it
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Speaker 1: takes a song like Penny Lane. It's full of ordinary
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Speaker 1: people somehow imbued with magic, you know, like the barber,
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Speaker 1: the banker, the pretty nurse selling poppies and Harry Harrison. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: George's dad. The Harrisons were a very working class family.
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Speaker 1: They had chickens in the yard. I mean, if you
8:59
Speaker 1: go to visit the old Beetle Homes now forth Lyn
9:03
Speaker 1: Road and the Men Dips of course John Paul's Houses
9:06
Speaker 1: or Paul and johnes that the way around. They are
9:09
Speaker 1: National Trust properties now and they have blue plaques and
9:11
Speaker 1: they have tour guides and George's places. You still have
9:15
Speaker 1: to go to Quad, a run down part of Liverpool
9:17
Speaker 1: and you know, and to see his home, which he
9:21
Speaker 1: hasn't yet been afforded the same treatment. Yeah, they were,
9:24
Speaker 1: they were. You know, the families were very older. I
9:27
Speaker 1: think probably the Harrisons, of all of the Beatle families
9:32
Speaker 1: were the ones who embraced the Beatle fame the most.
9:35
Speaker 1: Harrisons loved it, you know, they really George's family really
9:39
Speaker 1: got into him being a Beatle. I mean, all the
9:41
Speaker 1: families to a degree enjoyed it. Ringo's mum and dad did.
9:45
Speaker 1: Paul obviously, his mom died when he was fourteen, and
9:49
Speaker 1: Mimi John's case was a little more ambivalent about the fame.
9:53
Speaker 1: But yeah, they are. They are rooted in the class
9:56
Speaker 1: and communities that they grew up and that's one of
9:57
Speaker 1: the things I wanted to get out in this book.
9:59
Speaker 2: You describe Pete Shotton is one of the most constant
10:01
Speaker 2: figures in John's life. Talk about Pete shot in what
10:05
Speaker 2: role he played in Lennon's early years.
10:07
Speaker 1: When he was a real you know, they were inseparable
10:10
Speaker 1: as schoolboys, to the extent that they were, you know,
10:13
Speaker 1: Shennon and Lawton, people called them. They were so inseparable.
10:16
Speaker 1: And it's fascinating how these people. He's one of the
10:20
Speaker 1: people in the in the book. Either Arbiter is another
10:23
Speaker 1: who have have a separate beat life than the Beatles.
10:26
Speaker 1: Pete Shotton, they were really great mates. Then they drifted
10:30
Speaker 1: apart and he came back into John's life quite by
10:36
Speaker 1: accident in the late nineteen sixties and John said what
10:40
Speaker 1: a he're up to? And Pete buy his own admission,
10:42
Speaker 1: was kind of falling them with the wrong crowd and
10:44
Speaker 1: was drifting in and out of work. And John said basically, well,
10:48
Speaker 1: I'll give you some money. What do you want to
10:49
Speaker 1: do And he said, I'd like to buy a supermarket.
10:52
Speaker 1: John lent him I think it was the twenty thousand
10:54
Speaker 1: pounds to buy a supermarket and he became a kind
10:57
Speaker 1: of mini retail entrepreneur and he started something called the
11:01
Speaker 1: Fatty Arbuckles diner chain, which was a big deal here
11:05
Speaker 1: for a while. So yeah, he had a separate wife
11:09
Speaker 1: other than the Beatles. Similarly, I love the fact that
11:12
Speaker 1: one of the other people in the story, I mean
11:13
Speaker 1: says Either Arbiter, who's the guy who ran a it
11:18
Speaker 1: was a music sort of business mogu. He ran a
11:21
Speaker 1: musical instrument store on London's Timpan early Denmark Street. Brian
11:26
Speaker 1: Epstein turns up one day in nineteen sixty two three
11:29
Speaker 1: maybe and says, you know, I want a drum kit
11:32
Speaker 1: for this new band I've got the Beatles tried to
11:34
Speaker 1: get one for free. Ither Rabitas, I mean, none of it.
11:37
Speaker 1: But he gets things and he says, we need a
11:39
Speaker 1: logo for the bass drum. And it's really interesting. If
11:42
Speaker 1: you see very early Beatles shots, they've got a different
11:45
Speaker 1: logo and it looks completely wrong. It's this kind of
11:48
Speaker 1: flowery handwriting. IV Arbiters said, yeah'll do you a logo,
11:51
Speaker 1: and he drew instantly on the spot what is now
11:55
Speaker 1: one of the most recognizable logos in the world. The
11:57
Speaker 1: Beatles dropped tea logo either just like that. Brian said,
12:01
Speaker 1: that's great. He got five pounds for it. I mean,
12:04
Speaker 1: if they've been an intellectual property rights then I mean,
12:09
Speaker 1: you know, he got five quid. Ivor Arbiter, you know,
12:13
Speaker 1: then goes off. And but in the nineteen eighties, IV
12:18
Speaker 1: Rabata is in Tokyo on a business trip with his
12:20
Speaker 1: daughter and he sees some Japanese salary men singing and
12:24
Speaker 1: crying along to this piece of pre recorded music, and
12:26
Speaker 1: he thinks you know, British people would go for this.
12:29
Speaker 1: Britich people would go this. So in a completely different
12:31
Speaker 1: second act to his life, he's the man who introduces
12:34
Speaker 1: karaoke to great Britain, you know. So he's he's an interesting,
12:39
Speaker 1: very interesting guy. There are a lot of these people
12:41
Speaker 1: in the Beatles' story who are who come in briefly
12:44
Speaker 1: and somehow have a you know, effect on their story.
12:47
Speaker 1: Like you know, like I said, the Beatles' logo is
12:48
Speaker 1: on the most recognizable logos in the world and it
12:50
Speaker 1: was done just like that in a shop in London
12:53
Speaker 1: one afternoon in nineteen sixty three.
12:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, all these people in their world a small world too.
12:58
Speaker 2: In your chapter on Jim McCartney's father, you write about
13:01
Speaker 2: Paul learning his first chords on the piano in the
13:04
Speaker 2: family home, which is twenty fourth.
13:06
Speaker 1: Land Road, Fourthlyn Road. Yeah.
13:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's a fascinating Sorry, the piano was bought
13:12
Speaker 2: from the shop run by the father of Brian Epstein,
13:15
Speaker 2: Harry Epstein. Yeah, it was that small of a world.
13:19
Speaker 1: Oh, it wasn't small of a world. Pretty much everybody
13:22
Speaker 1: in Liverpool would have known each other at the time
13:24
Speaker 1: or family connections. It's a it's a very working class city.
13:27
Speaker 1: It's an Irish Catholic city, lots of interconnected families. Oh yeah.
13:31
Speaker 1: I mean when Paul goes home and says to his dad, Jim,
13:35
Speaker 1: we're thinking of'll get up with this guy Brian Epstein,
13:38
Speaker 1: Jim says, oh, well, he yeah, you should do because
13:41
Speaker 1: I know his store, the nm's store that his family run,
13:44
Speaker 1: very good store. He's a good businessman. You should hook
13:46
Speaker 1: up with him. Yeah, they bought their piano from there. Yes,
13:48
Speaker 1: So all these people, you know, they all knew, you know.
13:52
Speaker 1: And my book begins with the guy called Ivan Vaughan,
13:56
Speaker 1: who I said, the whole history. If Ivan Vaughn had
13:59
Speaker 1: not been as cool and friendly a guy, the whole
14:02
Speaker 1: history of the world would have been different. Because Ivan
14:04
Speaker 1: Vaughan is a friend Paul McCartney's and a friend of
14:06
Speaker 1: John Lennon's. John Paul didn't know each other at the time,
14:09
Speaker 1: went to separate schools. Ivan says to the fifteen year
14:13
Speaker 1: old Paul McCartney, Hey, there's a skiffle band playing at
14:18
Speaker 1: the Walton Village Fate today, you know, the quarry Men.
14:22
Speaker 1: We should go and see them, you know. Paul says, yeah, yeah, yeah,
14:26
Speaker 1: we're going, they go Paul and Johnny and the rest
14:29
Speaker 1: is history. But if Ivan Vaughan hadn't been such a
14:32
Speaker 1: you know, sociable guy, remember, the whole history of the
14:34
Speaker 1: world would have been different. The Beatles also kept people close.
14:37
Speaker 1: Avan Vaughan's a good example. The Beatles kept people close.
14:41
Speaker 1: They didn't employ, you know, they didn't go looking for
14:45
Speaker 1: outside business people apart from Epstein that you could say,
14:48
Speaker 1: and unfortunately Alan Klein at the end of their career.
14:51
Speaker 1: They kept people close. They were very family. They were like,
14:54
Speaker 1: you know, they were like the mafia, like that sense
14:56
Speaker 1: mal Neil aspinall, all these peop they come into their
15:00
Speaker 1: lives early and they keep them close. And you know,
15:04
Speaker 1: so Avan Vaughn was one of those people, lifelong friend
15:07
Speaker 1: of Paul McCartney's. You know, yeah, they always they trusted.
15:12
Speaker 1: I think one of the things you really a bit
15:13
Speaker 1: of Beatles. The world was so crazy that they needed
15:17
Speaker 1: to have people buy them who were close like family,
15:20
Speaker 1: and that's what they did or nearly all their career.
15:23
Speaker 2: Right, It's what's that butterfly effect? If you just remove
15:25
Speaker 2: one person or one event, sure, how things change. Right,
15:28
Speaker 2: That's what I think about as I'm reading through the book.
15:30
Speaker 2: Johnny Hutchinson a major figure in the early Liverpool rock scene.
15:35
Speaker 2: How important was he and his band The Big Three
15:38
Speaker 2: to the environment that the Beatles emerged from.
15:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Big Three are interesting because a lot of
15:42
Speaker 1: people say, I mean, I never don't know them at all.
15:45
Speaker 1: Obviously you know, wasn't born, but they But people say
15:47
Speaker 1: the Big Three were live, one of the most exciting
15:50
Speaker 1: bands in Liverpool, but they just like a lot of
15:53
Speaker 1: bands around up Pool at the time. They were great,
15:56
Speaker 1: but they just didn't have what the Beatles had. Johnny
15:59
Speaker 1: hut and Johnny hutch The Beatles were keen for Johnny
16:01
Speaker 1: hutch to join. In fact, it's interestingly he mased this
16:03
Speaker 1: because Johnny Hudge, Johnny Hutchinson, Oh, Johnny hutch is they coming?
16:08
Speaker 1: He is? Really is the starting point for the whole book.
16:12
Speaker 1: Because I was watching Get Back and I was watching
16:14
Speaker 1: the Sorry, I was watching Anthology. The final episode of
16:18
Speaker 1: Anthology were if you remember there at George's place, I
16:21
Speaker 1: think frid Park and they're kind of reminiscing about the
16:24
Speaker 1: old days and they start talking about cars, and Ringo says, oh,
16:31
Speaker 1: I remember my first car hand painted? You remember because
16:34
Speaker 1: we seventy five quid. I bought it from Johnny Hutch
16:37
Speaker 1: and the other started to laugh, and I thought, hang on,
16:40
Speaker 1: this is brilliant watching them remembering this some tiny detail
16:45
Speaker 1: from back in the shared past, and I thought therees
16:48
Speaker 1: must be loads of great stories like this. I just
16:50
Speaker 1: found that fascinating that they remembered that Johnny Hutch drumming
16:53
Speaker 1: the Big Three, sold Ringo his first car. And I
16:55
Speaker 1: thought there must be loads of stories like this. So
16:58
Speaker 1: really that's what set my train of thought going the
17:00
Speaker 1: whole book. But yeah, he auditioned, He's with the Beatles,
17:04
Speaker 1: auditioned for a guy called Larry Palms who was a
17:08
Speaker 1: big music Svengali in Britain at Dam and they didn't
17:11
Speaker 1: get the audition. Johnny Hutch had to sit in on
17:13
Speaker 1: the audition and they didn't get the audition. Again, would
17:17
Speaker 1: the world have been different if Larry Pans had signed
17:20
Speaker 1: the Beatles and made them into a very different proposition
17:22
Speaker 1: than Epstein did because Larry Palms is stable. What people
17:26
Speaker 1: like the names that won't really mean, which I don't
17:28
Speaker 1: think in the States, but Marty Wilde, not Cliff Richard,
17:34
Speaker 1: but that kind of people quite wholesome entertainers, and would
17:37
Speaker 1: Larry Pans have steered the Beatles down that way? I
17:39
Speaker 1: doubt it because the Beatles were too forceful personalities to
17:42
Speaker 1: be mollif manipulated like that. But yeah, so Hutch is
17:47
Speaker 1: important and apparently he always used to maintain to the
17:49
Speaker 1: end of his career that he never regretted not joining
17:52
Speaker 1: the Beatles. He always said, I never regretted not join
17:55
Speaker 1: the Beatles. And as I put in the entry, if
17:57
Speaker 1: you believe that, you'll believe that.
18:00
Speaker 2: I'm glad you said Epstein, because I keep going back
18:02
Speaker 2: and forth. It is Epstein, not Epstein.
18:04
Speaker 1: It's you know what I you. People say it differently.
18:07
Speaker 1: I say Epstein.
18:08
Speaker 2: Okay, you know, I never know which way to go.
18:10
Speaker 1: I say Stein. But I think it's one of those
18:12
Speaker 1: that you can say to either way. Someone who gets
18:15
Speaker 1: as someone who gets Marconi a lot. I don't mind, Yes, okay.
18:21
Speaker 2: Find the Booked on Rock website at booked on Rock
18:23
Speaker 2: dot com. There you can find all the back episodes
18:26
Speaker 2: of the show, the latest episode in video and audio,
18:29
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18:31
Speaker 2: to the podcast, plus all the social media platforms were
18:35
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18:39
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18:46
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18:48
Speaker 2: Pick up some booked on Rock merch. It's all at
18:51
Speaker 2: booked on Rock dot com. Dick row is the name
18:55
Speaker 2: in the book. Now that's a familiar name among the
18:58
Speaker 2: diehard Beatles fans. He's for remembered as the man who
19:01
Speaker 2: turned down the Beatles. Do you think history has been
19:04
Speaker 2: a little unfair to him?
19:05
Speaker 1: I think it has because that's the famous Deca audition.
19:09
Speaker 1: And a year bet a year or two later, Dick
19:14
Speaker 1: Rowe appears on a talent show panel with George Harrison,
19:18
Speaker 1: who by now, of course is a very very famous
19:21
Speaker 1: and successful Beatle, and Dick Rowe says to George Harrison,
19:23
Speaker 1: I feel such an idiot that I let you go
19:26
Speaker 1: the legends, And George said to him, don't beat yourself
19:29
Speaker 1: up about it, Dick, we probably weren't very good, he said,
19:31
Speaker 1: I don't think we were very good that day. I'm
19:32
Speaker 1: not sure I would have signed us. But again, fascinating story,
19:36
Speaker 1: the Decker audition. They don't sign the Beatles. They signed
19:40
Speaker 1: a group called Brian Pool and the Tremolos, who had
19:43
Speaker 1: a few hits here, and one of the reasons apparently
19:47
Speaker 1: was that they thought, well Brian Pool and the Tremono
19:50
Speaker 1: Tamelos are from London. Well they're from the outskirts of London.
19:53
Speaker 1: The Beatles from Liverpool and back in nineteen sixty in
19:57
Speaker 1: Britain sixty one we'll be talking. I guess sixty two.
20:02
Speaker 1: He does a hell of a schlep to get to Liverpool,
20:04
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. It was probably a three
20:07
Speaker 1: hour train journey or a three hour ride, and I
20:11
Speaker 1: think they just thought it'll be easy to work with
20:13
Speaker 1: this gang of people from down the road in Daggingham
20:16
Speaker 1: than it is for the Beatles. So as I say, again,
20:18
Speaker 1: if the British road and rail network had been better
20:22
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty who knows, the whole history of the
20:26
Speaker 1: world might have been different. Again. But Dick, Dick Rowe,
20:28
Speaker 1: I think we're probably a little one kind to him.
20:30
Speaker 1: He's supposed to. I can never find an actual verifiable
20:34
Speaker 1: quote for this, but he's supposed to be the guy
20:36
Speaker 1: who says guitar groups are on the way out of
20:39
Speaker 1: Mister Epstein you know, which is so wrong. If anything,
20:42
Speaker 1: the Beatles are going to usher in a whole world
20:45
Speaker 1: of guitar groups. But he says guitar groups are on
20:47
Speaker 1: the way out, and you know, but what he doesn't
20:51
Speaker 1: make sense is the next group who auditioned for him,
20:53
Speaker 1: he does not make the same mistake again, and he
20:55
Speaker 1: signs the Rolling Stones. So he wasn't gonna let he
20:58
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna make the same mistake to.
20:59
Speaker 2: Heim, Jeff Emeric was only about twenty years old when
21:04
Speaker 2: he became the Beatles' chief engineer. In this chapter, we
21:08
Speaker 2: get some great stories from the Emi ds. Some of
21:10
Speaker 2: the techniques that you describe, like hanging a sweater over
21:14
Speaker 2: the bass drum or putting a microphone in a condom
21:16
Speaker 2: inside a milk bottle. You write that engineers like Emeric
21:19
Speaker 2: essentially invented modern pop production. What did recording studios look
21:24
Speaker 2: like before this generation changed the rules?
21:27
Speaker 1: They were very kind of sterile environments that played by
21:30
Speaker 1: the book. If you look at pictures of recording studios,
21:32
Speaker 1: if you look at the Abbey Road studios before the Beatles,
21:35
Speaker 1: it's you're looking at like factories, all laboratories, guys with
21:39
Speaker 1: white coats. You know, clipboards and white coats and everything
21:42
Speaker 1: done by the book. The Needles mustn't peek in the
21:45
Speaker 1: red you know, this has got to be done. And
21:48
Speaker 1: what the Beatles have the incredible good fortune and we
21:51
Speaker 1: the world of the good fortune is that the Beatles
21:53
Speaker 1: get purred with George Mountain, who is willing to take chances.
22:00
Speaker 1: He says, okay, well we will do, you know, take
22:02
Speaker 1: chances on everything, take a chance on letting them record
22:05
Speaker 1: their own songs, taking chances on recording techniques, you know.
22:09
Speaker 1: And Jeff Emeric, who's a very young guy. They originally
22:12
Speaker 1: work with a guy called Norman Smith, who weirdly goes
22:15
Speaker 1: on to become a minor popstewn Britain. I think he,
22:17
Speaker 1: you know what I think in a number one record
22:19
Speaker 1: in the States as well, Norman Smith does Hurricane Smith
22:22
Speaker 1: or Babe what would you say? They just were lucky
22:26
Speaker 1: enough to meet these guys who and there was probably
22:29
Speaker 1: because of the great personality in the charisma that people
22:32
Speaker 1: will say, okay, well let's let these guys take a chance.
22:35
Speaker 1: Jeff Emeric is only young when he's doing things like
22:37
Speaker 1: Lenin famously comes to him and says, I wanted to
22:40
Speaker 1: sound like the Dal Alarma chanting on a mountain top
22:43
Speaker 1: a thousand miles away, and he does things like this.
22:46
Speaker 1: But they break the rules all the time. They break
22:48
Speaker 1: all the studio rules in order to get the Beatles
22:51
Speaker 1: to achieve the sounds that are going on in their heads. Yeah,
22:54
Speaker 1: so again, I'm sure that the Beatles would would say that,
22:59
Speaker 1: you know, Jeff George Marlin obviously really important to the
23:02
Speaker 1: success and more contemporary pop fans. One of my favorite
23:06
Speaker 1: albums of the nineteen eighties, Imperial Bedroom by Elvis Costello,
23:10
Speaker 1: produced by Jeff Emerick. Costello said, I want the guy
23:13
Speaker 1: who worked on the Beatles records to produce this.
23:16
Speaker 2: Stewart mccony, the author of with a little help from
23:19
Speaker 2: their friends, the Beatles and the people who made them.
23:21
Speaker 2: Jimmy Nickel's story almost sounds fictional, but it is true.
23:25
Speaker 2: A drummer who suddenly steps into the biggest band in
23:29
Speaker 2: the world for less than two weeks. How did that
23:31
Speaker 2: extraordinary situation come about?
23:34
Speaker 1: It is an extraordinary thing, and it tells you a
23:36
Speaker 1: little bit about how the entertainment world has changed. Because imagine,
23:39
Speaker 1: if you know you two or I'm trying to think
23:43
Speaker 1: a band not like an individual pop start like Taylor Swift,
23:46
Speaker 1: but like a band maybe you Two or Radiohead. Imagine
23:48
Speaker 1: they're going to go on a World two now and
23:51
Speaker 1: suddenly the drummer gets ill. You would you would probably
23:56
Speaker 1: just say, well, we just pull. We'll pull the first
23:57
Speaker 1: couple of shows. You know, we'll reschedule them. But the
24:02
Speaker 1: time Ringo gets farngiitis and larrynge acis and he's in hospital,
24:08
Speaker 1: Tom slis, I beg your pardon, and which is a
24:11
Speaker 1: very nineteen sixties thing to get not and gets it anymore,
24:14
Speaker 1: you know. He and George says, well, well the schedule
24:20
Speaker 1: to go to Australia, and George says, well, we can't
24:23
Speaker 1: go without Ringo, and Brian Egstein says, this is how
24:26
Speaker 1: much money we're going to lose if we don't put
24:27
Speaker 1: to these dates. So they go. They suck it up, basically,
24:30
Speaker 1: and they get a replacement. They get a replacement for
24:33
Speaker 1: I think it's four shows. Mark Lewison would tell you
24:36
Speaker 1: they do. I think they do a show in Holland
24:38
Speaker 1: and then they do two or three in Australia. This guy,
24:42
Speaker 1: Jimmy Nicol who's a job in London, sort of drummer
24:44
Speaker 1: you know, it's a strange booking because you look at him.
24:49
Speaker 1: They put him in a Beetle jacket and everything, but
24:51
Speaker 1: he just looks wrong. He just looks completely wrong. And
24:54
Speaker 1: there's this excruciating press conference where he's trying to join
24:57
Speaker 1: in with the gangs and be a Beatle, which never
25:00
Speaker 1: gonna be the Beatles with this alchemical forsome. I always
25:04
Speaker 1: think the Beatles, as well as the incredible musical talent,
25:07
Speaker 1: they just had some kind of blazing charisma as these
25:10
Speaker 1: four individuals, the like of which the world had never
25:13
Speaker 1: seen before. You know, people say, but Pete Best, was
25:17
Speaker 1: Pete Best the better drummer than Ringo? Well, no he wasn't,
25:19
Speaker 1: but he definitely wasn't as good a Beatle because when
25:23
Speaker 1: Bringo arrives, they become the Beatles. Pete Best never really
25:26
Speaker 1: fitted in with that quick witted, sparky Beatle charisma. And
25:31
Speaker 1: you can see this with Jimmy Nickel trying to be
25:33
Speaker 1: a Beatle. It just it just doesn't work. But the
25:35
Speaker 1: Jimmy Nickels story is so amazing. So he's drafted him
25:37
Speaker 1: for this handful of gigs and I always think it's
25:43
Speaker 1: a bit comparable to you know, like loads of the
25:45
Speaker 1: moon astronauts went a little bit crazy when they came back.
25:50
Speaker 1: I think that they admit themsels, people like buzz Aldrin.
25:52
Speaker 1: They had they struggled with the return to Earth, and
25:55
Speaker 1: I think being a Beatle in nineteen sixty six, even
25:58
Speaker 1: if just for ten day, is probably the nearest and
26:02
Speaker 1: immortal is going to get to go into the Moon.
26:04
Speaker 1: The madness of that world and Jimmy never really recovers
26:08
Speaker 1: from it. It bends him out of shape for the
26:10
Speaker 1: rest of his life. No one really knows where We
26:12
Speaker 1: don't know where he is. We don't know if he's
26:13
Speaker 1: a live or dead. Right, it's a mystery, right, it's
26:15
Speaker 1: a mystery. Last heard of living in Mexico. We don't
26:18
Speaker 1: know if he's a live or dead. The really weird
26:20
Speaker 1: coincidence is that Jimmy's son, who doesn't know where he is,
26:24
Speaker 1: became a signed engineer and worked on anthology, which is incredible.
26:29
Speaker 1: That's such a coincidence. But yeah, they And there's a
26:32
Speaker 1: picture you can see this picture online. There's a picture
26:36
Speaker 1: of Jimmy Nickel at the airport in Australia waiting for
26:39
Speaker 1: his flight back home, a deserted airport and him just
26:43
Speaker 1: sitting there and you just think, what's going through your head.
26:46
Speaker 1: You've been, you know, you've been. You've spent eight, nine,
26:50
Speaker 1: ten days in the eye of this hurricane of madness.
26:54
Speaker 1: That's beat Ormania. Because the Australian dates as a digression.
26:59
Speaker 1: Mark Lewison, the great Beatle authority, he wrecks that the Beatles.
27:02
Speaker 1: You know, we said, what did the Beatles change? Or
27:05
Speaker 1: they change? Watch things? They changed music, they changed the
27:07
Speaker 1: whole nature of masculinity. They changed their men looked, they
27:10
Speaker 1: changed their young people looked and spoke. He rangs the
27:12
Speaker 1: most powerful change they had anywhere in the world was
27:15
Speaker 1: in Australia, which was a very conservative with a small
27:20
Speaker 1: sea country, very macho, very conservative. He thinks that their
27:25
Speaker 1: impact on Australian culture was phenomenal. You know that they
27:28
Speaker 1: basically brought Australia to the twenty twentieth century. But yeah,
27:32
Speaker 1: Jimmy goes back. They give him a watch, an engraved
27:35
Speaker 1: watch for thank him. They give him five hundred quid
27:38
Speaker 1: and an engraved watch which they spell his name wrong,
27:41
Speaker 1: which is tragic. And the night before he goes out.
27:45
Speaker 1: The night before, because the Beatles never went out, they
27:47
Speaker 1: couldn't The Beatles couldn't go out. That's why they Again,
27:50
Speaker 1: they've such a tight bond. When they weren't playing shows,
27:52
Speaker 1: they were with each other in their hotel rooms, listen
27:54
Speaker 1: to records, getting high whatever. Jimmy, Jimmy, because he's not
27:59
Speaker 1: really in with them, goes out to a bar which
28:02
Speaker 1: is the Boat and forbidden by the Epstein and mal
28:06
Speaker 1: mal Evins finds him in the bar and said drags
28:08
Speaker 1: him but says get back to the hotel, and Jimmy says,
28:11
Speaker 1: I'm believing in the morning. I'm going home in the morning.
28:14
Speaker 1: You know that's the eight And he says. Male says
28:16
Speaker 1: to him, you're a Beatle until we put you on
28:18
Speaker 1: the plane, which is a brilliant, brilliant line. But yeah,
28:21
Speaker 1: it's a sad story. And you know, someone bought someone
28:26
Speaker 1: has bought the rights to the film. Someone's bought film
28:30
Speaker 1: rights to Jimmy's story. But you know, I don't know
28:33
Speaker 1: whether we'll ever see the light of day. It's a
28:34
Speaker 1: really tragic, fascinating story.
28:37
Speaker 2: Were all the unexpected characters in the Beatles stories. There's
28:41
Speaker 2: one Pablo is it pronounced.
28:45
Speaker 1: He's interesting because he's an interesting story in his own right,
28:49
Speaker 1: because he is a sort of circus guy. He's a
28:52
Speaker 1: he's a British circus but he's one of the first
28:54
Speaker 1: black entertainment entrepreneurs in the UK ran a circus that
28:59
Speaker 1: you know, show man who came to town. But of course,
29:02
Speaker 1: one day I think they're filming the nineteen I think
29:05
Speaker 1: they're filming the Penny Lane Strawberry Fields music video. I
29:09
Speaker 1: think it's that and John on an afternoon off wanders
29:13
Speaker 1: into an antique shop and sees this poster for a circus,
29:19
Speaker 1: a Victorian circus poster that says, for the benefit of
29:24
Speaker 1: mister Kite. You know, there'll be the show of the
29:26
Speaker 1: Hendersons and of Pablo Fankers Late, of Pablo Fankers Fair
29:31
Speaker 1: and so all these things. Yeah, he's so I think
29:35
Speaker 1: the main reason people know the name Pablo Fankers know,
29:37
Speaker 1: if they know him, it is because he's mentioned him
29:39
Speaker 1: being for the benefit of mister Kite. But yeah, he's
29:42
Speaker 1: an old buried in leads. People go to his graving
29:45
Speaker 1: leads because a lot of Beatle fans going mate, they
29:47
Speaker 1: think another one of these little stories that just come
29:52
Speaker 1: into the you know, I wanted to have these some
29:55
Speaker 1: of these people in there, the people who make a
29:57
Speaker 1: small but significant contribution to the story. There is a
30:01
Speaker 1: mean mister Mustard, John Mustard. The Beatle's got a lot
30:06
Speaker 1: of stuff. The Beatles come from that generation of people
30:10
Speaker 1: who read a newspaper every day. You see him get back.
30:13
Speaker 1: They've always got a cup of tea and a fag
30:14
Speaker 1: on the going a newspaper. They read the papers every day.
30:18
Speaker 1: And one day John's reading the Daily Mirror, and which
30:23
Speaker 1: is a British tabloid, and he reads this story about
30:26
Speaker 1: the Scottish guy John Mustard, whose wife has granted him
30:29
Speaker 1: a divorce for his mean behavior, which included switching the
30:36
Speaker 1: lights off to say of electricity and all these kind
30:39
Speaker 1: of things. And he give he gives her a pound
30:41
Speaker 1: a week to live on and all this. And so
30:44
Speaker 1: John in his mind takes this guy kind of does
30:48
Speaker 1: something fantastical with the story. Shaves in the dark trying
30:51
Speaker 1: to save paper, keeps a timbob note up his nose
30:53
Speaker 1: all this. Yeah, but the mean mister Mustard of the
30:56
Speaker 1: of Abbey Road Medley fame is a real guy, John Mustard. Yeah,
31:00
Speaker 1: And I often wonder about these people later in life.
31:03
Speaker 1: Did they dine out on it I mean in that age,
31:06
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't want to be remembered it. But I mean,
31:08
Speaker 1: did he ever say to anyone, no, you know me,
31:09
Speaker 1: mister Musta, that's me, you know.
31:14
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for checking out the Booked on Rock podcast.
31:16
Speaker 2: If you've just found the podcast, welcome. If you've been listening,
31:20
Speaker 2: thank you so much for your support, and make sure
31:22
Speaker 2: you tell a friend, a family member, share on social
31:25
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Speaker 2: the full episodes on video, along with video highlights from
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Speaker 2: episodes on the Booked on Rock YouTube channel. Find it
31:47
Speaker 2: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
31:50
Speaker 2: to the show. In the Get Back Footage, John Lennon
31:54
Speaker 2: notices a man sitting quietly in the corner and he
31:56
Speaker 2: asks who's that little old man? And that man turns
31:59
Speaker 2: out to be Shamsundar Das. How did he end up
32:03
Speaker 2: in the Beatles' orbit?
32:05
Speaker 1: He is one of the guys the Harry Kristnan movement
32:09
Speaker 1: sort of begins in San Francisco but relocates to London,
32:14
Speaker 1: in no small part because they realize that the Beatles,
32:16
Speaker 1: but George Harrison is interested, so they moved to London
32:19
Speaker 1: and with George's help, they set up this thing called
32:21
Speaker 1: Radha Krishna Temple in London, and he's there. He's in
32:27
Speaker 1: That guy is the guy sitting quietly in the get
32:30
Speaker 1: back footage. But another really interesting thing like that is
32:33
Speaker 1: so the Rabit Christna Temple. George says, let's make an album,
32:37
Speaker 1: and they put out an album on Apple and they
32:41
Speaker 1: have a hit. They have a hit with the Harry
32:43
Speaker 1: Krishna chant in the UK. So they're on the British
32:45
Speaker 1: TV show Top of the Parks, which George thought was hilarious.
32:49
Speaker 1: Then in the middle of all these you know the
32:52
Speaker 1: pops that bridge pop stars of the late nineteen sixties,
32:55
Speaker 1: all these guys in flowers and shaved heads singing Harry Christna,
32:58
Speaker 1: Harry Krishna. But yeah, that's him. That's one of the people.
33:01
Speaker 1: George is fascinating in that respect that a lot of
33:05
Speaker 1: people went through faddish relationships with various you know, religious
33:11
Speaker 1: or spiritual ideas in the late nineteen sixties, but George's
33:13
Speaker 1: was a proper lifelong commitment. George was committed to Harry
33:18
Speaker 1: Krishna and transcendental meditation all for the rest of his life.
33:21
Speaker 1: This wasn't just a passing fund. And I say in
33:24
Speaker 1: I think when I talk about that gentleman, and when
33:27
Speaker 1: I talk about Ravi Shankar in the book. A lot
33:32
Speaker 1: of Indian people and Indian commentators think the Beatles did
33:36
Speaker 1: India a great service in that instead of it being
33:39
Speaker 1: regarded as this far flung and slightly primitive outpost, ex
33:43
Speaker 1: colonial outpost of the British Empire, the Beatles said, this
33:47
Speaker 1: is a rich and beautiful country with the beautiful culture
33:52
Speaker 1: and art and religion. And they a lot of Indian
33:55
Speaker 1: people think that he turned a spotlight on Indian culture
33:59
Speaker 1: and made it respect, vectible and valued in a way
34:01
Speaker 1: that it hadn't been before.
34:02
Speaker 2: Glenn Johns is a legendary producer, but his story in
34:06
Speaker 2: Beatles's History is interesting in that you say he's notable
34:10
Speaker 2: not for what he did, but the influence he did
34:12
Speaker 2: not end up having. What role was he originally supposed
34:15
Speaker 2: to play?
34:15
Speaker 1: And let it be Glenn John's. I met Glen Johns
34:19
Speaker 1: at the Let It Be movie remastered Let It Be
34:21
Speaker 1: Movie premiere. He's in his early eighties now, and I
34:25
Speaker 1: said to him, you know, you're the coolest looking guy
34:28
Speaker 1: and get Back and he laughed. He said, oh, do
34:30
Speaker 1: you think so, I look ridiculous Because if you've seen
34:32
Speaker 1: Get Back, you'll know Glen John's was more like a
34:35
Speaker 1: rockstyle than the bea get Back. Yeah. He was a
34:39
Speaker 1: well respected producer at the time, and they get him in.
34:43
Speaker 1: They get him. It's a bit of a but it's
34:45
Speaker 1: complicated and slightly sadness. I think because John says at
34:50
Speaker 1: the time of the Let It Be project, which is
34:52
Speaker 1: supposed to be the idea is they want to make
34:54
Speaker 1: a strip back record. They want to make a record
34:57
Speaker 1: that captures them in a raw form. Now I people
35:01
Speaker 1: have given opinion about this. I think that was a
35:02
Speaker 1: mistake because I think what results is the Beatles' weakest album.
35:07
Speaker 1: It's not to say that it wouldn't still be compared
35:09
Speaker 1: to a lot of other people's work the best album,
35:11
Speaker 1: but for the Beatles, I think Let It Be is
35:13
Speaker 1: a weak album because, well, John says to George Martin,
35:17
Speaker 1: we don't want any of your production shit, which I
35:20
Speaker 1: think is a terrible thing to say, because John's artist's
35:22
Speaker 1: production is so bad about the Beatles said, but anyway,
35:25
Speaker 1: they decid they're going to get a more rock and
35:26
Speaker 1: roll said, they get Glynn. John's in and Glynn's a
35:29
Speaker 1: great producer. But what happens in the end is messy
35:32
Speaker 1: because they don't like the mixes. They give them to
35:35
Speaker 1: Phil Spector. Phil Spector puts strings and female vocals on them,
35:40
Speaker 1: which Paul hates, and that contributes to the end of
35:43
Speaker 1: the Beatles really, but the main thing is that Glynn.
35:47
Speaker 1: If you see that bit and get back, they've met
35:50
Speaker 1: Alan Klein. John has met Alan Klein, and he is
35:55
Speaker 1: saying to the other Beatles, well, not so much to
35:57
Speaker 1: port this guy's great. We should get this guy into
35:59
Speaker 1: Madam Jariff first and Glynn. And it's a moment you
36:02
Speaker 1: get back where it's an extraordinament when you see Glenn.
36:04
Speaker 1: John saint to John do you like it? Alan Clem
36:08
Speaker 1: And John says, yeah, I think he's great, And he
36:09
Speaker 1: said yeah, I'm not sure. And you're yourself shouting at
36:13
Speaker 1: the TV screen. Listen to Clin, listen to what he's saying.
36:17
Speaker 1: It's you know, but they don't and you know, and
36:22
Speaker 1: that is anything if not your coono, but but Alan
36:25
Speaker 1: clems will splits the Beatles up.
36:27
Speaker 2: By the time Glynn was working on those sessions, the
36:29
Speaker 2: band's relationships were already strained. How difficult was it for
36:33
Speaker 2: someone like Johnson navigate the tensions in the room.
36:36
Speaker 1: I think it really really difficult, and you can see
36:38
Speaker 1: that and get Back, although what you do. What I
36:40
Speaker 1: think what Get Back the documentary project did do, though,
36:43
Speaker 1: which is good, was to make us realize that, yeah,
36:46
Speaker 1: there were tensions, Yeah these were These are four young
36:49
Speaker 1: men who've lived in each other's pockets since they were teenagers.
36:54
Speaker 1: And like any group of friends you're going to go
36:56
Speaker 1: through you know, you know they've had wives and girlfriends
36:59
Speaker 1: and family issues, and you know it's the strain who's
37:02
Speaker 1: going to tell on anybody who's lived together so intensely
37:05
Speaker 1: for that period of time since they were teenagers. But
37:08
Speaker 1: what you do you see from Get Back is they
37:09
Speaker 1: still loved each other. You still see that they are
37:12
Speaker 1: loving being with each other, loving playing together. And if anything,
37:17
Speaker 1: the plane on the roof of Apple had rejuvenated them.
37:20
Speaker 1: They'd think, yeah, let's let's get George back, Let's get
37:24
Speaker 1: George Mountain back, Let's do a new album, and you know,
37:26
Speaker 1: and they do, and they they they go forward to
37:29
Speaker 1: Abbey Road, and you know, and you realize that they
37:33
Speaker 1: were in a much better place than a lot of
37:35
Speaker 1: the biographies of letters to believe. But yeah, if they'd
37:38
Speaker 1: listened to Glynn, it's a it's a funny one if
37:42
Speaker 1: you could say, if they'd listened to Glenn John's, they
37:43
Speaker 1: wouldn't have hired Alan Klein and the Beatles would have
37:45
Speaker 1: carried on. But would that have been a good thing?
37:49
Speaker 1: I mean, I do find myself on is the Beatles
37:51
Speaker 1: story not perfect as it is? Because I kind of
37:55
Speaker 1: think there's something interesting about how the Beatles' story really
37:59
Speaker 1: run for the duration of the nineteen sixties, the decade
38:03
Speaker 1: that they are absolutely synonymous with, and the decade that
38:07
Speaker 1: they created in some ways. So the Beatles story is
38:09
Speaker 1: the story of the nineteen sixties across the world, and
38:12
Speaker 1: something I think kind of perfect that they end the
38:16
Speaker 1: without making tons of Duff records and you hear on
38:19
Speaker 1: RB Road, I think you can hear the beginnings of
38:21
Speaker 1: what a seventies Beatles would have sounded like. The sound
38:25
Speaker 1: a smooth kind of FM rock sound that was later
38:28
Speaker 1: taken not by you know, say Fleetwood mac or whatever,
38:31
Speaker 1: that kind of sound ten CC Fleetwood mac and you
38:34
Speaker 1: can hear that that's what the Beatles might have gone
38:36
Speaker 1: on to do, a kind of more smooth, steely down
38:40
Speaker 1: Fleetwood Macie type sound. But in a way, you know,
38:42
Speaker 1: it's perfect as it is. It's a perfect story like it is,
38:44
Speaker 1: particular if we the right books about them. It's got
38:47
Speaker 1: a beginning, it's got a middle, and it's got an end.
38:49
Speaker 2: Sure much too lay for goodbyes by Julian Lennon. Always
38:52
Speaker 2: maybe think that might be what the Beatles have sounded
38:54
Speaker 2: like in the eighties, right.
38:55
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, And of course we've got wings
38:58
Speaker 1: and wings are what the Beatles it sounded like the
39:01
Speaker 1: in the seventies and eighties too, and similarly with George
39:04
Speaker 1: and with all the solo stuff John Seller stuff as well.
39:06
Speaker 1: But there is something I think quite perfect about the
39:09
Speaker 1: fact that they still when they're still young and still
39:15
Speaker 1: you know, we never saw the Beatles decline. That's a
39:18
Speaker 1: great thing. I Mean, you could argue that Letty Be
39:20
Speaker 1: is not a great album. I don't think it's a
39:22
Speaker 1: great album, but it's you never saw the Beatles just
39:27
Speaker 1: turning up for the cash. You never see really hearts,
39:32
Speaker 1: not in it reunion shows or anything like that. The
39:36
Speaker 1: history of the Beatles is short ish and vivid and
39:40
Speaker 1: full of incident and brilliant, and there's no longers in it.
39:43
Speaker 1: There's no boring bits in it.
39:45
Speaker 2: I want to go back to Alan Kleine just one
39:47
Speaker 2: more time. Hard knows American business manager. He took control
39:51
Speaker 2: of the Beatles' financial affairs from sixty nine to seventy three,
39:54
Speaker 2: I believe, and he was he was their manager following
39:58
Speaker 2: Epstein's death. Today, how should we understand him? A villain, opportunist,
40:03
Speaker 2: simply just a businessman, maybe caught in the middle of
40:06
Speaker 2: a collapsing partnership.
40:07
Speaker 1: Maybe I try and be quite even handed and generous
40:11
Speaker 1: to Alan klein in it only because I think it's
40:14
Speaker 1: he has been carricatured as the big villain of the
40:16
Speaker 1: Beatles' story, and I think with some justification. So I thought,
40:19
Speaker 1: come on, let's give him a break. Let's think about
40:21
Speaker 1: this objectively. Wasn't he just a person who was interested
40:26
Speaker 1: in making money and making money for the Beatles. That's fine,
40:30
Speaker 1: and there's nothing wrong in that. But and it's a
40:33
Speaker 1: big butt. There's just something wrong with him. For the Beatles,
40:36
Speaker 1: there's just something temperamentally, artistically, spiritually wrong. The Beatles are
40:43
Speaker 1: about joy. The Beatles are about love. It sounds a
40:46
Speaker 1: cliche now, but the Beatles are about joy and they're
40:49
Speaker 1: about love. My friend Debi quantic writer uses his brilliant expression.
40:53
Speaker 1: He says the Beatles were like a hand grenade of
40:55
Speaker 1: rainbows going off in the nineteen sixty he says, a
40:58
Speaker 1: lovely expression into a into a quite dark post war
41:03
Speaker 1: Britain still and into a darkened America in the wake
41:07
Speaker 1: of Kennedy's assassination, into a country, into countries that are struggling, mourning, grieving,
41:14
Speaker 1: whatever you want to say. The Beatles arrive and it's
41:17
Speaker 1: like the lights have gone on. They are a shot
41:21
Speaker 1: in the arm of love and fun and youth and exuberance.
41:24
Speaker 1: And Alan Klein's got none of that. Alan Klein's just
41:27
Speaker 1: all about the bottom line. He's an accountant, he's a
41:28
Speaker 1: number cruncher, and in the end he's not very good
41:33
Speaker 1: with them either. I mean, Lennon says it. I think
41:35
Speaker 1: I'm like the Cavit interviewing about seventy three. Yeah, Paul
41:38
Speaker 1: never wanted him, and you know what, Paul's right, and
41:41
Speaker 1: we know that later on Client does do time for
41:44
Speaker 1: financial mismanagement. I think it's about the concept of Bangladesh.
41:48
Speaker 1: So Paul's instincts were right. And I try and be
41:51
Speaker 1: even handed to one and clin but in the end
41:52
Speaker 1: you've got to say, yeah, he wasn't right for the Beatles,
41:54
Speaker 1: He wasn't a good fit for the Beatles, and he
41:56
Speaker 1: you know, there's Glenn John's talks about the moment where
41:59
Speaker 1: Alan Client comes into the studio and berates Paul McCartney.
42:03
Speaker 1: But bully's Paul McCarney, and you just know that Paul's
42:05
Speaker 1: not gonna have this, you know, you just know that
42:07
Speaker 1: Paul Polai you thinks at that point, the hell with this,
42:09
Speaker 1: I don't need to do this. So and also another thing,
42:13
Speaker 1: if you're just interested in writing a good story like
42:14
Speaker 1: I was, you need an Alun Klein somewhere, because you
42:17
Speaker 1: need a soon A Moriarty. You need a bad guy,
42:21
Speaker 1: you need a villain, and he's the villain of the piece.
42:27
Speaker 2: The book Down Rock Podcast is part of the Boneless
42:29
Speaker 2: podcasting network. If you're a fan of classic rock and
42:32
Speaker 2: classic film like I am, go to Boneless dot lovable
42:35
Speaker 2: dot app to find over twenty great shows there that's
42:39
Speaker 2: boneless dot lovable dot app. Or just go to book
42:42
Speaker 2: down rock dot com the Boneless podcasting network. It is
42:46
Speaker 2: what you want to be listen with confidence. So, after
42:51
Speaker 2: everything you've learned and written about the Beatles, what do
42:54
Speaker 2: you think it is about these four young men from
42:57
Speaker 2: Liverpool that made them go on to become some thing
43:00
Speaker 2: the world that I had never seen before?
43:02
Speaker 1: And since it's interesting, it's hard you start to think,
43:08
Speaker 1: even if you're an agnostic, even if you're not a
43:10
Speaker 1: spiritual person, not on a people who believes in the supernatural,
43:13
Speaker 1: you start to think, was there's something supernatural about that event?
43:17
Speaker 1: You know? And probably not, But there's just a conjunction.
43:21
Speaker 1: I think of a lot of different issues. Liverpool the place.
43:26
Speaker 1: Liverpool is a port city with cultures and influences from
43:30
Speaker 1: all over the world. It's a lively, vibrant, working class city.
43:34
Speaker 1: The Beatles are super bright. They're working class, but they're
43:37
Speaker 1: super bright lads and they grew up at a time
43:39
Speaker 1: in Britain when we had after the Second World War
43:44
Speaker 1: in Britain, we had a post war labor government that
43:46
Speaker 1: brought in a lot of new and brilliant things, but
43:48
Speaker 1: it called the welfare state. Working class kids could go
43:51
Speaker 1: to grammar school. There was a national health service. So
43:54
Speaker 1: you get a country that's opening up, that old traditional
43:58
Speaker 1: class barriers are being into break down, and the Beatles
44:00
Speaker 1: break down a lot of but it's a country where
44:03
Speaker 1: young working class kids have an opportunity to go to
44:06
Speaker 1: art school, go to grammar school. So these four super
44:09
Speaker 1: bright lads, and they also are getting to hear rock
44:12
Speaker 1: and roll. Rock and roll records are coming, rock and
44:15
Speaker 1: Loll records and I should say tamiel Motam records. I
44:17
Speaker 1: think this is really under talked about in the Beatle history.
44:20
Speaker 1: Everyone talks about little Richard Elvis. Absolutely just as important
44:24
Speaker 1: as the Beatles's story are the Sharelles and the Supremes
44:28
Speaker 1: and the black girl groups of the American ninet sixties.
44:30
Speaker 1: They want the Beatles love, particularly McCartney, and you can
44:33
Speaker 1: hear that in McCartney's writing. So there's just this combination
44:36
Speaker 1: of factors. I think that Britain's opening up were coming
44:39
Speaker 1: out of the shadow of a war. We've got an
44:41
Speaker 1: education system that values working class kids, you've got rock
44:44
Speaker 1: and roll coming in. So all these things just happen
44:47
Speaker 1: to make for this moment, this cultural moment. But that said,
44:52
Speaker 1: some of it's still inexplicable. What I think is inexplicable
44:54
Speaker 1: almost is people who meet the Beatles fall in love
44:57
Speaker 1: with them instantly, woman, child, whatever. So they go to
45:03
Speaker 1: Hamburg and the one of the first guys they meet
45:06
Speaker 1: those horsed fashion who is a I wouldn't say a
45:09
Speaker 1: thought that's not for he's a very hard guy. He
45:12
Speaker 1: served time. He served time for manslaughter in a German prison.
45:16
Speaker 1: He's a he's a tough guy. He's a boxer. He
45:19
Speaker 1: runs a gang of bouncers and nightclub dorman meets the Beatles,
45:22
Speaker 1: falls in love like a teenage girl, absolutely falls in
45:25
Speaker 1: love with them, to the extent that he takes them
45:27
Speaker 1: under his wing. And you see, I think it's amazing.
45:30
Speaker 1: You watch the footage of their press conference, well it's
45:32
Speaker 1: not even a press conference. They get off the plane
45:34
Speaker 1: when the first the first trips of the States, you
45:37
Speaker 1: know Ed Sullivan show appearance. We're talking what February ninteen
45:40
Speaker 1: sixty four. They get off the plane and they're ushered
45:44
Speaker 1: into that airport lobby or whatever it is. The flashbulbs
45:47
Speaker 1: are going and people asking them questions. Unprepared, they just
45:51
Speaker 1: come out with this stuff. You know, they got all
45:55
Speaker 1: the jokey stuff. What did he have a her cut? Yeah,
45:57
Speaker 1: when you're gonna get her cut? Oh he had one yesterday.
45:59
Speaker 1: Oh ya, you should seen the day before. All that
46:01
Speaker 1: jokey stuff. That's now folk law. It's just them being
46:05
Speaker 1: those four lands from Liverpool off the plane. No one
46:07
Speaker 1: had seen that before in the entertainment world. Before the
46:10
Speaker 1: entertainment world, you'd had people being Elvis or whatever. It's
46:13
Speaker 1: very kind of polite and yes, sir, no sir, my
46:16
Speaker 1: manager was become Tom Parker. You know, all this very
46:19
Speaker 1: show business manipulated thing. The Beatles, no one is telling
46:22
Speaker 1: the Beatles what to say. The Beatles are come from
46:24
Speaker 1: a port city. They come from this lively culture which
46:28
Speaker 1: is all about joshing and bands and being jokey and
46:31
Speaker 1: quit waiting. And you can just see in that room
46:34
Speaker 1: the American news media is like, Wow, who are these guys.
46:38
Speaker 1: They're amazing and that goes into people's TV shows and
46:41
Speaker 1: people all over people all over America and the world
46:45
Speaker 1: get I love the bit where they do The Ed
46:47
Speaker 1: Sullivan Show, and then the Maless Brothers brilliant documentary of
46:51
Speaker 1: the first Beatles US too, with again incredible the access
46:55
Speaker 1: they got and we've got a brilliant historical record. There's
46:58
Speaker 1: a bit where the Mazles Brothers get into the Ed
47:00
Speaker 1: Sullivan recording, so they have the genius idea of going
47:04
Speaker 1: down a couple of blocks down and knocking on a
47:07
Speaker 1: door and saying, can we film have you got any
47:09
Speaker 1: kids in the lives? Can we film you? Watching the
47:13
Speaker 1: Ed Sullivan Show. And there's those three young Puerto Rican
47:15
Speaker 1: girls watching the Beatles and i'd Sullivan and you see
47:19
Speaker 1: their faces, and you can see in their faces something
47:23
Speaker 1: seismic is going on inside those girls you and it's
47:26
Speaker 1: a brilliant thinking. And that's happening. I'm in millions of
47:31
Speaker 1: households to millions of teenagers across America, and you know,
47:35
Speaker 1: America and the world they're never going to be the
47:37
Speaker 1: same again. It's a phenomenal moment. Yeah, and I love it.
47:40
Speaker 1: And the Beatles just seem to you end up starting
47:44
Speaker 1: thinking maybe there's something kind of semi mystical about the
47:48
Speaker 1: whole thing. You know, It's that it's really like that with.
47:51
Speaker 2: A little help from their friends, the Beatles and the
47:53
Speaker 2: people who made them. It's out now, just came out.
47:55
Speaker 2: I think April seventh maybe was that the release date?
47:58
Speaker 1: I think is it? Yeah? I get confused with the
48:00
Speaker 1: US and of the paperback in the paperback's coming out
48:03
Speaker 1: here in a little while and met hopefully know in
48:05
Speaker 1: how back in the States.
48:06
Speaker 2: Yeah. So people can find it wherever they get their books.
48:08
Speaker 2: Go to the usual places Amazon, places like that. Look
48:11
Speaker 2: forward to your nearest independent bookstore. Go to bookdown rock
48:14
Speaker 2: dot com to find your nearest independent bookstore. Now, Stuart,
48:17
Speaker 2: where can people find you online?
48:19
Speaker 1: Oh? You can get me on Instagram. I'm Stue mccony
48:21
Speaker 1: on Instagram. That's where I generally am. You can find
48:26
Speaker 1: me at BBC places, you know, you can find my
48:28
Speaker 1: shows at the BBC. Yeah, that's my kind of presence there.
48:32
Speaker 1: That Stue mccony at Instagram is a good place to
48:34
Speaker 1: get me.
48:34
Speaker 2: Stuart McCarney, thank you so much.
48:36
Speaker 1: Thank you. This has been great. That's it. It's in
48:46
Speaker 1: the books.