“It’s all nihilism, man,” John said about the bag-in, the bed-in, and the record credit. To my mind smoking a cigarette at the ceremony in Gib while Yoko fidgeted was not enough nihilism. Living in sin with Yoko instead of running around Europe looking for some preacher/ship’s captain/justice of the peace to get a wedding certificate was more nihilistic. John sidestepped the issue neatly by saying, “Yoko gave me the inner strength to break up my other marriage—my real marriage—to the Beatles.”
It was during his long, hermitlike exile in Scotland that the rumors about Paul being dead started to surface, then to circulate widely. They had started when an anonymous caller named “Tom” had telephoned a Michigan disc jockey, John Small on WKNR, sounding very knowledgeable about “Paul’s death” and offering many clues. He didn’t say that he had found these clues in Northern Star, a campus newspaper. His real name turned out to be Tom Zarski, a student at Eastern Michigan University. John Small thought it was all nonsense, but as a hoax, he and a couple of other deejays decided to perpetuate it for fun and to get a lively on-air debate going. They never really expected it to take off in such a dramatic way.
Our phones started to ring off the hook. Journalists wanted to interview Paul. The office refused to say where he was—and in fact, most of the time, we simply didn’t know. He had dropped off the radar. He and Linda would be walking the hills, giving birth, growing vegetables, writing, sailing on fishing boats to the lonely offshore islands, contentedly learning how to be a family. However, the rumors grew. People started to look for “signs” in the strangest places. Paul was photographed wearing a black carnation when the others had red (the florist had run out of red). On the shoulder of his uniform on the Sgt. Pepper album sleeve was patch that said OPD. The fans said it meant “Officially Pronounced Dead”—in fact, it was a uniform badge that Paul picked up in Ontario that stood for “Ontario Police Department.” He walked across the famous zebra crossing on Abbey Road in bare feet while the others wore shoes (it was a hot day and Paul liked to walk around bare-footed).
The death-theorists dug deeper and examined everything for “clues.” There was a coffin on the sleeve of Sgt. Pepper and a guitar made of flowers; song lyrics were dredged through, like the Bonzo’s song “Death Cab for Cutie” which, so it was said, described the fatal accident in which Paul had died. He died on November 9, 1966. He was buried on September 27, 1968. A double had been brought in to be Paul.
The rumors flourished and grew more ridiculous. It didn’t help that Allan Klein, who was in New York, encouraged them when he saw how sales of old Beatles records suddenly took off in America. It has long been said by faded rock stars: “You’re worth more dead”—and this certainly proved it. Derek Taylor telephoned Klein and told him that he would appreciate it if Klein could deny the rumors, but Klein seemed to find it amusing. He laughed and said that it didn’t hurt sales.
When Paul checked in one day, I said, “We have to do something to scotch this. Can you come down so we can hold a press conference, and so people can see you?”
Paul sighed. “I can’t be bothered. It’s all so silly. Why won’t they leave me alone?”
I said, “Well, we have to do something.”
Paul said, “Look, Tone, do whatever you think is best.”
Well, I took that as carte blanche to be creative, but first I discussed it with Derek Taylor and a couple of others while we sat around late one afternoon, relaxing over a couple of drinks. Pretending to be Paul, something I was able to do given that we were born within a mile or two of each other, I telephoned Richie Yorke, an English deejay we knew on CING-FM, at Burlington Ontario, and said, “This is Paul McCartney. As you can hear, I’m alive and kicking.”
It certainly caused a reaction, but one I didn’t expect. The short interview shot around the radio stations like bush fire, and two of the stations, WKNR—the station that had originated and perpetuated the hoax—and one in Miami, submitted the tape to scientific voice recognition analysis. Professor Oscar Tossey of Michigan State University concluded that the voice on the tape was not Paul’s, as did Dr. Henry M. Truby, director of the Miami University’s language and linguistics research laboratory. “I hear three different McCartneys,” said Dr. Truby.
The furor that started was astonishing. This was irrefutable proof that Paul was dead! Finally, Derek Taylor issued a somewhat ambiguous statement purporting to come from Paul: “I am alive and well and concerned about the rumors of my death, but if I were dead, I would be the last to know.” But still the rumors grew and Derek issued a statement of his own: “Paul refuses to say anything more than that. Even if he appeared in public, it wouldn’t do any good. If people want to believe he’s dead, then they’ll believe it. The truth is not at all persuasive.”
The rumors were finally laid to rest—as much as any conspiracy theory is ever laid to rest—when Life magazine sent an intrepid reporter and photographer to Scotland in search of Paul. They trekked across a couple of bogs and finally found their quarry tending vegetables. Paul was very annoyed and threw a bucket of water over the reporter. He retreated indoors, but emerged shortly with Linda, Heather and baby Mary. Aware of the damage his display of temper might cause, sheepishly he apologized and offered a short interview and a couple of photographs in return for the film in the camera that showed him throwing the water. The subsequent photograph, showing the family group with Paul holding their bonny new baby—the first time she had been photographed—and Heather defensively clutching a shepherd’s crook, made the front cover of Life. There were a couple more nice photographs inside, with Paul, who undeniably looked like himself, explaining how he really did want to be left alone. But even with that evidence many people still thought that Paul had a double and the rumors still persisted. That tape of me impersonating Paul is used all the time as ultimate “proof” by the rumormongers, which just goes to show that silly people are silly people.
30
On their return from their bizarre honeymoon, the first of their very public bed-ins for peace, held in the Amsterdam Hilton, John and Yoko got me to help do the soundtrack to the Two Virgins film, such as it was, and their “Smile” film thing. I call it that because it wasn’t really recognizable as a film. It was nothing but that slow motion of John’s face.
There was however, a connection in the title with the Beach Boys’ legendary, lost Smile sessions. The work was done in their “Good Vibrations” period, which all the Beatles were almost obsessed about. They played their Beach Boys albums and listened repeatedly to the harmonies, discussing how they could achieve a similar sound. I went on tour with the Beach Boys, and ironically learned that they all, particularly Brian Wilson, idolized Paul. He was always asking me about him. At the time, surfing music was terminally uncool. I thought it ironic that these two groups had so much admiration for each other and each didn’t really know it. I also found out that Brian Wilson had tracked down Norman Smith, the Beatles’ first sound engineer at Abbey Road to work for him. Norman said, “Surely you want their producer, George Martin?” Brian replied, “No, Norman, I can produce. What I need is their sound!”
Shortly, Paul went to Los Angeles to work with Brian on their new concept album, Smile. Everyone who heard it said it was highly original and stunning, but it disappeared and became the thing of legends. They said they lost the tapes on the way to the pressing plant. However, it is more likely that Brian lost the plot and didn’t finish it. It remained in the sandbox until 2004, when he and Van Dyke Parks completed it and Brian performed it in concert. And at last it has been released as a studio album.
George didn’t come in to town very much during this period. He had gotten into the habit of being reclusive. Unlike the other Beatles, Ringo was very organized, with a nanny and a secretary. His social life was very full and busy but we didn’t see much of him. He and Maureen moved in glitzy circles with a coterie of exotic and beautiful people. We called their crowd “the Dorchester Mob”—the Dorchester being a grand hotel in Park
Lane, where women in couture gowns arrived in Bentleys and Rolls Royces and danced to an orchestra in the grand ballroom. He also went to different clubs than we did, very toffee-nosed places and private Mayfair gambling joints where you had to dress in evening clothes to get through the door, like Les Ambassadeurs and the Saddle Room. Occasionally, I went to Les Ambassadeurs because I sometimes enjoyed putting on a dinner suit, and they served an excellent steak au poivre. On the whole though, we stuck to the Scotch and the Bag.
There was a nervous mood at Apple now, with everyone looking over their shoulders in case the axe descended on them. Before, the atmosphere had been easy-going. With Klein there, it became like George’s song, “Sour Milk Sea,” a place no one wanted to be. Previously, we had always wandered into meetings, been a part of everything. Photographs from pre-Klein showed a typical Apple board meeting, with everyone lying about the floor of the large boardroom, which wasn’t furnished with anything other than beanbags. After Klein, we couldn’t just wander round like before. It became a closed-door environment. Conspiracy, rumors and secrets flourished. We furtively looked over our shoulders, waiting for the chop, which Klein unpleasantly promised would come. A gloomy and highly suspicious atmosphere took over. No one turned on and tuned in anymore. The only people dropping in were accountants and lawyers.
Klein wanted everything to go through him. He didn’t want anyone having close personal contact with the Beatles in case they whispered treacherous advice in their ears. Brian had been exactly the same, possessive, not so much with the money, but with his boys. Brian fancied himself as an artistic peer of the Fabs and there were dollops of sexual longing and angst thrown in for good measure. One of Klein’s first actions was to fix a time-and-motion study to see what we all did—except for the Fabulous Four, of course.
First of all, there was an official employee head count—who does what? who gets what?—which was pretty stupid because after NEMS and Brian I couldn’t ever remember getting a pay slip, let alone paying National Insurance. It was like going into an American restaurant but getting, “Hi, my name’s Kevin and I’ll be your time-and-motion person today. I’ll be following you around all your working day. Okay. Now tell me, what are you doing right now?”
“Right now? Well I was thinking about going down the pub.”
“Oh.”
“Or, possibly, John might turn up in a minute and sit on the edge of my—”
“This John? What does he do? What’s his job?”
“He sings a bit. Anyway, as I was saying. He might be a bit bored and he’ll perch on my desk and say, ‘Hi Tone. What yer doin’?’ and we’ll go off to Kilburn to see Mick and Keef and watch them do their dru—”
“Mick? Keef? I see. And which bit of the Apple do they work in?”
The chap who was assigned to me gave up after about four days of falling out of the Scotch of St. James at three or four in the morning. He couldn’t handle it. Nor could I really, but I was determined to give him a run for his money—or Apple money, as it was paying his fee. Before he disappeared from my life he typed out a quick memo, which he left in the typewriter. It read: I don’t know what Tony Bramwell does but I’m very tired and I’m going home now. In all probability, I will not be back. I added, Get back Jo-Jo at the bottom of his note and left it there for weeks. He never did.
I think the guy they put on Jack Oliver lasted for an even shorter time. What none of these statisticians appreciated was that when you’re talking to deejays and music people, or meeting flying rock stars who sleep a good part of the day, the only time you can do this is after midnight in a club or restaurant. How do you separate rock ’n’ roll time from normal time? To the T & M people, I was having fun. But it was my job to do that. If the bottom line shows that you’re selling a lot of records by doing what you do, then don’t tinker with it. It’s already fine-tuned.
I was close to Ron Kass. At the time we were both “bachelors,” recently out of long-term relationships. We’d team up to go to industry functions and lunches during the day. More frequently, we’d meet up in the evening at Tramp, and go on to dinner and then we’d go club hopping. Through Ron I got to know Joan Collins, who became his wife, and Joan’s sister, Jackie. I worked on promoting the music for two of the films made from Jackie’s books, in which Joan starred: The Stud and The Bitch. Both of them were filmed in England and notable for poor scripts but a vast quantity of beautiful girls and nudes. Pan’s People danced in one and Joan, who was fabulously glamorous, appeared in many scenes wearing black corsets and stockings.
The real fun we had was an antidote to the vile atmosphere at the office. Because of my friendship with Ron, Klein didn’t want me around; he hated Ron, who was honest. Klein wanted to get rid of everybody so he could cook the books and milk the company dry. He spent his days conspiring about how to get rid of us, whispering about everybody behind their backs to John and George, who thought he was some kind of New York financial genius. Ringo was rarely around and so cannily managed not to get embroiled, which was his style. He always took what he needed without hurting anyone’s feelings. He sidestepped trouble. But for the rest of us, it was a strange and unsettling time.
Klein’s tentacles were long. He tore everything apart. Within a few months of him taking over, I was the only member of the old staff left in the company. Derek Taylor went to California again. Alistair Taylor and Peter Brown resigned. Ron Kass was fired and replaced by Jack Oliver, which was a strange appointment, considering how junior Jack’s position was. It was probably intended as a slap in the face for Kass, to snow how unimportant his position was. Until his promotion, Jack had been hired as Terry Doran’s assistant in Apple Publishing, with responsibility for “Foreign.” To his bewilderment, he was suddenly appointed head of Apple Records but at a far lower remuneration than Ron had received. But Jack wasn’t allowed to do anything because Klein rushed around, trying to do it all. He had set up a system of cutouts, hiring a cardboard army with a single agenda: to report directly to him. It was only after Klein had fired everyone that his T & M people discovered what we did. It was everything that the people he fired used to do, and what Klein was unable to do.
Many things slipped through the net in Klein’s reign, including a big stage musical that ran and ran for years. The first big musical in London after Hair was Jesus Christ Superstar, the first of a dynastic series of musicals from Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. Jesus Christ Superstar was brought to Apple as a new project because Ian Gillan from Deep Purple sang on the demo and another friend, Johnny Gustafson, the bass player from Liverpool’s the Big Three, played on it. I can remember hearing it around the building at the time, with everyone singing snatches of the very catchy big theme song. But it was Robert Stigwood who ended up producing it. (Not everything Stigwood touched turned out golden. In 1979 he produced the infamous film version of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, which starred people like Peter Frampton, Steve Martin, Alice Cooper and the Bee Gees—but, believing that Americans couldn’t understand English accents, he used George Bums to do the narration. The fans loathed it and the movie bombed so badly that the video wasn’t released until 1997.)
I’ve always thought that when Klein threw Peter Brown out, Peter must have popped the tapes in his briefcase when he cleared his desk and took them with him to Stiggie’s place on the basis that there wasn’t a lot of interest in them at number 3 Savile Row. If he did, he was right. In fact Peter Brown is still Andrew Lloyd Webber’s PR man in the States. If Klein had kept his eye on the ball and hadn’t been too concerned with feathering his nest, Apple could have signed Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice up and produced all their other big musicals after Superstar, like Evita, Cats and Les Miserables. I was at Polydor after Apple and ironically, I promoted Cats, Starlight Express, Tell Me on a Sunday and Song and Dance. I did a lot of work for Andrew, which in the way of promotion mostly involved taking people to lunch. I was out every day at London’s top restaurants with journalists and radio and TV people. I don’t
know how I managed it. Sometimes we’d start off at Andrew’s wine cellar—one of the best in London, given his hobby of attending the top wine auctions—and then we’d go out. Yes, it was fun, but sometimes fun can be hard work if there’s little respite.
I have been asked many times why it was that the Beatles didn’t just hire an office manager to handle their business affairs and pay him or her a salary. It would have made sense. But it never occurred to them. They just went blindly on, trying to find someone to replace Brian, like it was some kind of law. They seemed to think that they had to have a manager, to whom they had to give 25 percent of their gross income, or they’d be arrested or drummed out of the Brownies.
Even without the Beatles, Apple was a very successful record and music publishing company. All it needed was a good office manager to run things and do some pruning. Everything needed to be trimmed, including such lunatic expenditures as Yoko’s caviar and the lavish gourmet lunches with the finest wines that Peter Brown and Neil Aspinall had served up to them each day, cooked by Sally and Diana. Many people believed—because of the myths about the breakup of Apple, widely reported in the press, by way of the pastiche band The Rutles (a send-up of the Beatles by some of the Monty Pythons), and inaccurate little documentary films—that Apple was broke, or that all the money was given away. This simply wasn’t true. It was, and is enormously successful despite the astronomical 95 percent tax they paid. The visible problem was that there was no control at all over expenses.
We used to go to clubs like the Revolution or the Speakeasy and I, or whoever was there, would sign the bills. I suppose they would be sent to Apple to be paid, and I suppose they might have been paid. There were no credit cards then and nobody in their right mind was going to take a check, so you signed for things and an account was sent in to GHQ. This of course led to an enormous amount of abuse. Half the “in scene” in London signed for everything, from clubs, restaurants, taxis, and stores, and said they were Apple. The bills just kept coming in and someone paid some of them—then they probably went to lunch and signed for it. So it goes and so it went.
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