by Tony Barrell
There was still a great deal of confusion about what was and what wasn’t happening. As far as some people on the project were aware, Get Back was all over. “I remember getting home one night after the day’s shoot,” says Paul Bond, “and the phone rang and it was the producer saying the boys had all split up and its all over, the job’s off – ‘We’ll pay you to the end of the week, and thanks very much. Goodbye.’ That was a terrible blow.”
* From At The Apple’s Core by Denis O’Dell with Bob Neaverson.
* Also known as ‘Child Of Nature’, this would eventually evolve into ‘Jealous Guy’ on his Imagine album.
* More famous for later creations such as Thunderbirds.
* The Singing Nun was a holy woman from Belgium, a member of the Catholic
Dominican Order who had enjoyed a huge hit with the infectious song ‘Dominique’ in the early sixties.
CHAPTER THREE
The Basement Tapes
George Harrison’s departure from The Beatles – though it wasn’t permanent, lasting less than a week – was a significant factor in the sequence of events that led up to the rooftop concert. If he had remained in the group, seen the Twickenham sessions through to the end, and been more favourably disposed towards plans to perform one or more concerts in a specially selected location, then the story of The Beatles in 1969 could have been very different.
It wouldn’t necessarily have been better; there was always the prospect that the big concerts in Tunisia, Libya, the Grand Canyon, the Roundhouse, the Houses of Parliament or wherever would not have been entirely successful. For their last ever paying concert, at Candlestick Park in 1966, there were thousands of unsold tickets and empty seats, and the show was marred by the winds that often blew in from the nearby San Francisco Bay. As it was, The Beatles left us with a unique valedictory event – an unexpected “happening” that went down in history.
When George reunited with the rest of the group on Wednesday, January 15, he was in a strong position. The bond between him and his fellow Beatles was still solid; they had missed him and his playing, and he was an integral part of the group as far as their public image was concerned. The Beatles were and always would be John, Paul, George and Ringo. George was therefore able to lay down some conditions before he became a Beatle again.
During a meeting lasting several hours, he insisted that they jettison their plans for a live show in front of an audience, and that they decamp from Twickenham Studios to their own basement studio at Apple to make an album – to which the rest of the band agreed. The cameras would be rolling again, but this time they would be filming The Beatles making the record.
The idea of a climactic show wasn’t completely dead: there was still the possibility that they would film an audience-free performance for the enjoyment of television viewers. But there would be no sunset show in the desert to a worshipful multi-ethnic crowd, no triumphant return to the Liverpool stage and no big event in a flour mill by the River Thames. Mal and Neil wouldn’t be flying to Africa the next day to visit one of the likely amphitheatres, as they had originally planned.
Michael Lindsay-Hogg, for one, was disappointed. “We came close to doing the Tunisian trip. And I think we would’ve done it – perhaps not quite as ambitiously as taking the boat – if George hadn’t said no. It would have been an extraordinary event if George hadn’t put the kibosh on it.”
Thousands of fans were crestfallen too. Three young women from North Shields penned a heartfelt “open letter” to The Beatles Book Monthly: “We have just heard that your long-awaited ‘live’ concert appearance has been scrapped for good. Just how much are faithful Beatle fans expected to take? We’ve stuck up for you through thick and thin, even though we haven’t always agreed with you… We thought we were getting compensation for waiting so long for your third film, which still hasn’t been started yet, but it appears that the waiting has to go on. Yes, we know we had ‘Yellow Submarine’ – and we all enjoyed it – but it wasn’t you was it? Oh! we’ve had some great albums too, for which we are grateful, but we still yearned to see you live (if we were lucky enough to get tickets) and if not at least we would have seen you via our TV sets.
“We have been faithful followers now for 61⁄2 years and intend to stay that way, to the lovable boys who revolutionised the pop-music world, who showed people that pop-artistes really do have talent and that long hair is not a sign of stupidity.” The trio signed off with the peevish question: “Is this sudden disappointment a symbol of your gratitude??”
If the spirit of adventure had deserted The Beatles, it was present in spades on the other side of the Atlantic. On the same day that the group came to their new agreement, three Americans began their preparations for one of the greatest missions ever undertaken by humankind. Neil Armstrong, Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin and Michael Collins went into training for the Apollo 11 mission, the first manned landing on the moon. The three astronauts began a gruelling regimen of 14-hour working days that would continue for six months, right up to the day before the launch. They would go over the mission plans and work inside simulators for the various modules involved. Collins spent much of his time inside the Command and Service Module simulator, preparing him for his orbit of the moon while his colleagues did the more glamorous work down on its surface. Armstrong and Aldrin endured many hours in claustrophobic conditions in the Lunar Module simulator, rehearsing the historic landing they would make in July.
These being the days of the Space Race, the Russians were about to achieve a cosmic first before the Americans bagged the moon. January 15 was the day they launched Soyuz 5, and on the following day it would dock with its predecessor Soyuz 4 in orbit around the Earth. This would be the first time that humankind had docked any manned craft out there in space, and the first time that people had transferred from one craft to another in space. And they threw in a space walk for good measure.
Back on Earth, The Beatles were looking forward to using their new recording studio for the first time. This was the much-touted multi-track facility created for them by their house inventor, Magic Alex. George, who was particularly in awe of Alex’s creations, took the engineer Glyn Johns to inspect the new studio. Glyn was horrified at what he saw. The recording console, he decided, “looked like something out of a 1930s Buck Rogers science fiction movie”. There were several small speakers positioned around the walls – presumably one for each track of the recording system. When The Beatles gave it a try, the results were appalling.
Dave Harries remembers that he had to do some technical tinkering, using power amplifiers from EMI, before the desk was vaguely usable. “It was a shame, because it had some good ideas: instead of having swivelling needles for the sound levels on the tracks, it had oscilloscope metering, which you get on desks nowadays. But it was wired up wrongly and had the mains on it, which made it hum. The Beatles did a session on it, then listened to the results and walked out.”
The whole studio was a technician’s nightmare. Because it wasn’t properly soundproofed, it was recording all kinds of noise in addition to the music they were trying to lay down. Sound was going into an old fireplace and reverberating up the chimney, and echoing behind some old oak doors. Apple staff could be heard walking across the ground floor above, and even fragments of their muffled conversations were going down on tape. The basement boiler that heated the building was now inside the studio, and the noises it made became part of the cacophony. It could be turned off, but in January that would have made for some chilly working conditions.
The Beatles quickly realised that if they were going to record here they needed some equipment that was up to the job, so George Martin arranged for some to be borrowed from EMI Studios in Abbey Road, including two four-track mixers. Dave Harries and another engineer, Keith Slaughter, collected the gear and painstakingly set it all up in the basement. They were assisted by a junior technician from EMI who was recruited in a hurry: Alan Parsons. “I couldn’t believe it – there I was. One day I was making tea
at Abbey Road, and the next day I was working with The Beatles at their studio.”
Although The Beatles were inactive as a performing unit while they waited for their studio to be fixed, a flurry of press stories brought them back to the public’s attention. Their sudden change of plans had caught Melody Maker on the hop: the paper went on sale on Thursday, January 16, with an outdated front-page story claiming that “A one-hour documentary film of the Beatles in the recording studios is currently being shot at London’s Twickenham Studios, where The Beatles are rehearsing the songs for their projected live concerts.” Derek Taylor was quoted as saying: “It’s never been done before. There’s never been a film of The Beatles actually at work. It’ll all be there – the work, the breaks, everything. When the shooting is finished and the thing’s been edited it will be offered for sale to world TV companies.” Taylor said the concerts planned for Saturday the 25th would not take place, but there would be a performance of some kind. “The only thing I can say now is that it will take place, perhaps abroad.” Asked about the rumoured North African amphitheatre gig, he replied: “There may now be some truth in this. It’s an idea around at the moment, to do the shows abroad and take the fans along. It would certainly be expensive, but an idea is to run some form of competition and take the winners.”
There was disturbing news in other papers. Disc & Music Echo published Ray Coleman’s recent interview with John Lennon, making a bold display quote out of his statement about Apple, which was heavily condensed as: “Apple is losing money. If it carries on like this we’ll be broke in six months.” The Daily Sketch had an inaccurate report about George and John’s Twickenham altercation, in which Michael Housego wrote: “The awful tension of being locked up in each other’s lives snapped the other night at a TV rehearsal and Beatles John and George swung, at very least, a few vicious phrases at each other.” The reporter said he was aware that The Beatles “have been drifting apart as buddies, seeking strange new thrills, and frankly, getting on each other’s nerves”. He continued: “The activities of John Lennon and his Japanese girl friend Yoko Ono are in the public domain and it has not helped the others to rebuild the team as a friendly foursome. Lennon is completely immune to their criticism and there’s not the slightest doubt in my mind that if he feels like taking his clothes off for the public again, he’ll do it.”
Both reports were sources of annoyance to The Beatles. John’s loose words about Apple not only incensed Paul, but they pricked up the ears of the American businessman Allen Klein, who had been angling for a way into The Beatles’ business for a while.
The Daily Express weighed in, bringing the fight story and the Apple story together in a report that denied the veracity of both, and quoting George as saying: “Apple has plenty of money – we all have. When John said we were losing money, he was talking about giving too much away to charities. We have been too generous and that’s got to stop. The so-called punch-up between John and myself? There’s no truth in it. We are still good friends.” Ringo agreed that the punch-up didn’t happen: “I was there when it was supposed to have taken place. It’s quite untrue.”
That Friday saw the release of the group’s latest album, though its status as a new Beatles album was questionable. Yellow Submarine, the record of the film, included four substandard new songs, packaged with the title track (originally on Revolver), ‘All You Need Is Love’ and chunks of incidental music composed by George Martin. Critics complained that it was a heavily padded contractual-obligation long-player that could have been a decent four-track EP.
The following day, The Beatles’ past came back to haunt them. Having filed a lawsuit against them claiming defamation of character, their former drummer Pete Best settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of money. During an interview with Playboy magazine in 1965, John and Paul had recalled how Ringo would fill in on drums when Pete was absent – which was true – but they had angered Pete by suggesting his absences were due to a pill-popping habit.
Not everybody was aware of the negative publicity The Beatles were attracting at the start of 1969. On Sunday, January 19, Cliff Richard made a telling public statement about the group. The pop star was singing hymns and discussing his Christian beliefs in front of hundreds of people at a church in Edinburgh when he suddenly declared: “The Beatles are very successful artists, and yet they are not successful in life. The Beatles do nothing but chase around the world after a dream, and they must now realise that their Maharishi just doesn’t help them at all. I think they are looking for what Christians have found.”
Aside from the fact that this was essentially just one religion knocking another, Cliff was behind the times. The Beatles’ big Indian adventure had ended more than nine months before, and the last thing they could be accused of doing now was a “chase around the world”. This statement from a music-business contemporary reveals just how low The Beatles’ profile had become after they tucked themselves away for the Get Back sessions. Then again, some Beatles fans thought it was sour grapes because the group had long ago toppled Cliff from his dominant position as the UK’s number one pop act.
The next day saw the inauguration of Richard Nixon as president of the USA. “I shall consecrate my office, my energies, and all the wisdom I can summon, to the cause of peace among nations,” he vowed. He said he could see “the hope of tomorrow in the youth of today”, adding: “I know America’s youth. I believe in them. We can be proud that they are better educated, more committed, more passionately driven by conscience than any generation that has gone before.”
But the consciences of many young Americans that day drove them to protest against their new Republican president. Thousands of demonstrators took part in a “counter-inaugural ball” in Washington, DC, setting up a green-and-white circus tent near the White House and swearing in a pig as their commander-in-chief. A London newspaper reported that “President-elect Nixon’s motorcade into the heart of Washington had to be diverted when hippies threw nails across Independence Avenue and caused a traffic jam… Club-wielding police moved in on horseback, cracked skulls and repelled bands of rebels.”
There were violent protests in Oxford that day, too, for a different reason. Enoch Powell was booked to speak at the city’s town hall that evening, addressing members of Oxford University Conservative Association, and police intervened when pro-Powell and anti-Powell factions clashed outside the building. Socialists and anarchists marched through the city centre, chanting “Disembowel Enoch Powell!” According to The Daily Telegraph, “About 1,000 anti-Powell marchers, many of them students, linked arms and charged a three-deep cordon of 100 policemen at the town hall entrance. The cordon frequently bent under the weight of wave after wave of chanting, flag-waving demonstrators, but the line held as police helmets were sent flying.” The “Rivers of Blood” politician was meanwhile escorted into the building via a side entrance, and after speaking he left by a back door as the scuffles continued.
When the Get Back sessions resumed in their new location on Wednesday, January 22, the atmosphere among The Beatles became less strained, partly because Apple’s basement studio was a more intimate and friendly space than the cavernous studio in Twickenham. Paul Bond remembers being pleased to resume work on the production. “It had obviously been a wise decision to move,” he says. “It certainly felt a lot cosier at Apple, and it was more sensible that they were working there. I always liked to get in early to the studio, because I had to load the films, get the cameras and stuff ready. And George was the only one who was ever there before me. He used to get in very early, and he’d be sitting there playing his guitar, practising and writing. And I’d make a cup of tea for him and a cup of tea for me.”
When The Beatles assembled on that first day in the basement, they discussed some recent press stories, including the negative reports written about them. Cliff Richard’s swipe at the group was dismissed by Ringo as “only Cliff doing his bit”, but they were irritated by the Michael Housego article in the Daily Sketch, and
John wondered if they could sue the reporter for libel. They laughed at a Daily Telegraph story highlighting public ignorance of current affairs. Asked in a survey about the identity of U Thant, some people had replied that he was “a pop singer” or “a submarine”. In fact, U Thant was the Burmese diplomat who had now been secretary-general of the United Nations for more than seven years.
The atmosphere was further improved at the sessions by The Beatles becoming a quintet, with the unexpected addition of American keyboard player Billy Preston. Around mid-January, George remembered seeing Billy at the Royal Festival Hall four months before, and entertained the notion that he might make a valuable addition to The Beatles’ sound. George had no idea where Billy was at that time; he might well have been back home in California. But it just so happened that Billy had been recording a special concert for BBC television on Sunday, January 19, at the Talk Of The Town, in the Hippodrome in London’s West End, and he was also appearing on Lulu’s TV show the following Saturday night.
“I knew Billy was in London,” says Chris O’Dell, “but I’m not sure how – I think I was in touch with his agent. And I said something about Billy one day, and George said he’d like to see him. So I organised for Billy to come to Apple.” He duly arrived soon after the group began their sessions in the basement, smiling his winning gap-toothed smile, and joined in on electric piano.
This was canny thinking from George, who knew that groups of well-acquainted people are much better behaved in the company of a relative stranger. The Beatles were aware that if they carried on bickering, individual members – particularly John and Paul – would give a negative impression of themselves to their new recruit. As George recalled years later, “He got on the electric piano, and straight away there was 100% improvement in the vibe in the room.” George Martin called him an “emollient”.
Bringing another musician in to play with The Beatles was a courageous move, perhaps reflecting George’s increase in power after rejoining the group on the acceptance of his conditions. His confidence would also have been boosted by the fact that he had pulled a similar move successfully four months before. When Eric Clapton had come to play on ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, George had noticed the effect on John, Paul and Ringo: “It made them all try a bit harder; they were all on their best behaviour.”