Apple had become notorious for its 'generosity': you could walk in, and if someone liked your looks you could leave with a set of Apple albums, and without any money changing hands. Besides the drinks and dope that constituted legitimate business expenses, private cars and holidays were now being charged to the company in the well-founded expectation that nobody would notice. From mid-March, when Klein established an office at Apple's Savile Row base, the climate changed. Alexis Mardas arrived at his workshop one morning to find a chain and padlock around the door handle. He remained on salary until August, and was close enough to the Lennons to share a cruise around the Greek islands that autumn, but the days when Apple Electronics could function without a clear commercial end in sight were over.
So too was the air of suave hippie majesty that emanated from Derek Taylor's impeccably stocked press office. 'When I think of going through it all again,' Taylor said twenty years later, 'well, I could just about stand parts of it, but I couldn't stand living through the arrival of Klein. That was miserable. I've never been so unhappy. But there was no alternative that could deal with this writhing thing that was Apple, that could put it in a container and hold the lid down.' Besides Taylor's budget, more savage sacrifices were made. Ron Kass had masterminded the early commercial success of Apple Records, which in Klein's eyes made him dangerous, so he had to go. Paul's old friend Peter Asher, employed effectively as a talent scout, jumped ship, taking with him the young singer-songwriter James Taylor. The Beatles verbally tore up James Taylor's deal, which didn't prevent Klein from attempting vainly to sue him for breach of contract in 1970, when his first album for Warners became a best-seller. 'Klein was a terrible idea,' the singer recalled, 'but nobody at Apple had any business sense at all. Somebody needed to come in, and it was ripe for someone like Klein to take over.'
Among the casualties was Alistair Taylor, who had faithfully served the Beatles as a general factotum since 1962, and was, so a colleague recalled, 'a cheerful cove who knew what the boys needed'. When the axe fell, Taylor tried to speak to his employers. 'Not one of them took my call. I got excuses from embarrassed wives and secretaries. I heard nervous Beatle voices in the background. But not one of my four famous friends came to the phone. And that hurt a hell of a lot more than getting the sack.'
The group only intervened when Klein attempted to oust their two closest aides, Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans. But what really mattered to Klein was official recognition that he now controlled the Beatles and their empire. At the end of April 1969 he drew up the rough draft of a formal agreement. One of the Beatles' legal advisers said it would be crazy for any artist to sign such a deal. But he had not reckoned on Lennon's willingness to commit himself to Klein.
The contract appointed ABKCO (Klein's company rather than the man himself ) 'exclusive business manager' to Apple Corps Ltd 'on behalf of The Beatles and The Beatles Group of Companies' – a phrase that soon provoked much legal debate. Under its terms, ABKCO would receive 20 per cent of all Apple's income, before tax, and the percentage would continue indefinitely for any deals signed while the contract was in force. There were two important exceptions to this rule: Klein would not receive any portion of the Beatles' record royalties unless he negotiated a new deal for the group, and then he would only receive 20 per cent of the increased royalty, not the full rate, and he could only claim 10 per cent of the gross income generated by the Apple Records label. In return, Apple would agree to pay expenses for Klein and other ABKCO staff working on their behalf. As this deal stood, then, it was in Klein's interest to negotiate an improved royalty rate for the Beatles from EMI, and particularly to persuade the Beatles to perform in public, as often and as lucratively as possible. The contract would stand for three years, although either party could terminate it after each year, if sufficient notice were given.
On the surface Klein's percentages seemed modest: the Beatles had paid Epstein 25 per cent, for example, while Elvis Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker took no less than 50 per cent of his client's earnings. Yet there was a profound difference: Epstein and Parker had masterminded their clients' rise to fame, so their percentage rewarded their original faith and the energies they had invested. Klein was simply inheriting the most famous entertainers in the world.
On Wednesday 7 May 1969 Klein, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Ono met EMI executives at Lincoln's Inn to discuss where the Beatles' royalties should be paid. EMI insisted that they would retain the money until the dispute with NEMS was concluded. After lunch Starkey joined his colleagues. Klein and his lawyer were asked to leave the room while the managerial contract was discussed. The Beatles took advice from a lawyer acting on behalf of all but McCartney, and also a legal counsel. At this stage none of them queried the percentages, let alone the intention to appoint Klein manager. The deal was agreed in principle, and then Klein and his lawyer Harold Seider were invited to rejoin the gathering while minor changes were negotiated, with Harrison and McCartney the most vocal of the four musicians.
Thursday morning brought another legal conference, at which the group's advisers inserted an extra clause, effectively transforming the contract from a binding deal into a basis for further discussion. Lawyer Peter Howard took this revised document to Lennon at Apple, explained why it had been changed and obtained his signature. Howard then drove to Harrison's home in Esher. Meanwhile, Lennon had visited Klein at the Dorchester Hotel and proudly showed off the revised deal he had signed. Klein retorted that the agreement was now meaningless – nothing more than a piece of paper. 'I was not prepared to accept a document in this form,' he recalled, complaining that its effect was 'to make it doubtful whether the contract would be binding'. He phoned Howard to say that he would only sign if the new clause were deleted and replaced by something that affirmed the binding nature of the deal.
With typical ebullience, Lennon completely changed his mind and supported Klein's view. He spoke briefly to Harrison, who declared that he also preferred Klein's revision. At this point the saga nearly slipped into farce, as Howard discovered that he had left behind the document that Lennon had signed at Apple. Fortunately, Harrison agreed to sign a carbon copy. Before he did so, he felt obliged to tell McCartney what was happening. But he was unable to get through. McCartney had changed his phone number and neglected to tell the man who had been his friend since he was 15 years old. So Harrison felt he had no alternative but to sign. Howard then drove to see Starkey at his home in Elstead. Like Harrison, Starkey agreed to sign whatever Lennon had approved.
Alone of the three Beatles, however, Starkey seems to have made some attempt to wrestle with the financial implications of the contract. Suppose Klein negotiated a more lucrative recording contract for the Beatles, he said, and received his 20 per cent of the increased royalty. Wasn't there a danger that he could also claim 10 per cent of the entire royalty when it arrived in the coffers of Apple Records? Howard admitted that the current wording was ambiguous, but reassured Starkey that both sides had agreed verbally that the Beatles' royalties would not qualify as part of Apple Records' income. The lawyer also advised Starkey, as he had his colleagues, that it was possible – more than possible, in fact – that McCartney would choose not to sign the deal.
Starkey told him that wasn't a problem: he, Lennon and Harrison wanted the American to manage them, and McCartney could look after himself.
There were now two versions of the document: one signed by Lennon alone, the other by Harrison and Starkey. So Howard returned to London, where Lennon was waiting in Klein's hotel room. Lennon added his signature to the carbon copy, and so did Klein. Eventually, in the early hours of 9 May, Howard's arduous day of negotiations came to an end. The document was now legal, but for one thing: it needed to be officially ratified by the Apple board of directors.
Around twelve hours later all four Beatles assembled at Olympic Studios in south-west London, as Glyn Johns made another forlorn attempt to salvage their January recordings. But the session quickly dissolved into a fractious busines
s meeting. 'It was like a divorce,' said original Beatles press officer Tony Barrow, 'where you don't like what the lawyers are doing, but you have to go along with it. Lots of rash things were said and done on both sides.' As McCartney testified later, 'It became clear to me that the other three had already signed the agreement on the previous day without my knowledge.' He was informed that he wasn't told because he had not bothered to give his colleagues his phone number. Neil Aspinall and Peter Howard listened as the four men argued. McCartney recollected that he disagreed with the percentage Klein was being offered: 'I said, "He'll take 15 per cent. We're massive, we're the biggest act in the world, he'll take 15 per cent." But for some reason the three of them were so keen to go with him that they really bullied me and ganged up on me.' Crucially, though, McCartney did not reject outright the idea of being managed by Klein; he merely wanted his lawyer, who was not present, to draft a rival agreement.
By this time Klein was at London airport, where he was about to board a plane for New York under the impression that the negotiations were over. He was paged and called to a phone, where he heard Lennon tell him, 'Paul's making trouble. You have to come back to Olympic.' So Klein returned to the studio, where he explained to McCartney that the ABKCO board insisted that he obtained the Beatles' approval that day. This was merely a tactical move: Klein had single-handed control over ABKCO. McCartney told his colleagues that he would present them with an alternative document to sign on Monday, and the other Beatles agreed that if they preferred his version, they would sign it. But, with the innocence of rich young men, they insisted that the document they had already signed should be ratified by the Apple board. McCartney objected, and was told, 'Well, we'll do it without you.' 'They couldn't,' he insisted years later, but the minutes of the board meeting that followed proved otherwise. Officially only three directors were required to form a quorum, and just before 8 p.m. on 9 May 1969 Aspinall, Lennon and Harrison signed a resolution noting that the agreement with Klein had been ratified, and was now binding on the Beatles, their company and their new manager. With a final fierce exchange of words, the Klein faction exited the studio, leaving McCartney to face the reality of his separation. He wandered through the Olympic complex and stumbled across the American rock musician Steve Miller. After McCartney had poured out his troubles, Miller suggested that work might distract him from his rage. So McCartney thrashed his drums while Miller recorded a song with the symbolically appropriate title of 'My Dark Hour'.
Regular legal missives were exchanged over the next few weeks. One side insisted that neither
McCartney nor any of his companies could be held to an agreement he hadn't signed; the other conceded that Klein did not seek to manage McCartney as a single artist, or any companies that he solely owned, but that the deal was binding for Apple, as it had been signed by the requisite number of Beatle directors. It was like two colour-blind men arguing about a rainbow: destined to end in disharmony. From this point on McCartney rejected Klein and all his works, while Lennon, Harrison and Starkey stayed loyal to their financial guru. As Apple aide Tony Bramwell noted, 'Allen Klein had achieved his ambition of managing the Beatles, but in doing so, he blew them apart.' There were still – just – four members of the Beatles in May 1969. But the unity that had sustained them for the previous decade had vanished forever.
Chapter 3
Why will people underestimate the Beatles and refuse to take them seriously? They're not four little boys who don't know what they are doing, they're four grown men. If all this business happened to anyone else, no one would take any notice of it. But because it's the Beatles, everything they do is magnified.
Allen Klein, July 1969
The girls who lived on the steps of Apple's office at 3 Savile Row – the Apple Scruffs, as George Harrison immortalised them – were old enough to have fallen for the Beatles in 1963. They no longer screamed when they saw them, as they would have done when they were twelve. Their trademark was a cool demeanour: only newcomers acted like the teenyboppers that the Scruffs had once been.
Their younger sisters accepted the Beatles as a fact of life, but beards and dour faces made the former Fab Four unlikely objects for pubescent ardour. The pre-teens of 1969 had idols with smoother faces: Davy Jones of the Monkees, Andy Fairweather-Low of Amen Corner, Bobby Sherman and Oliver. That summer, the airwaves were dominated by 'Sugar Sugar', a candy confection prepared by producers who predated the Beatles, and credited to a group who existed only as cartoon characters.
Between 1965 and 1967, pop had become a playground for musicians eager to expand their imaginations with psychedelic drugs, Eastern spirituality and an array of 'high art' influences that stretched from T.S. Eliot to Charles Ives. But in 1967, between the Monkees' calculated recreation of Beatlemania and the release of the Sgt Pepper album, pop split into two ideologically divided streams – one aimed at its traditional market, of kids from eight to fifteen, the other targeting precocious teens, students and young adults, who preferred music that was serious and progressive, but still hissed with the spirit of rebellion.
The Beatles were still unchallenged as the most popular musicians in the Western world; via illicit dubs and cross-border radio, they had even reached behind the Iron Curtain. But their appeal was now balanced precariously between the audiences for pop and rock. McCartney songs such as 'Hello Goodbye' and 'Get Back' retained enough naive enthusiasm to attract the pop children, but few pre-pubescent fans could identify with the darker corners of their White Album. Neither could the parents and grandparents who had tapped their feet to 'A Hard Day's Night', but who had been alienated by the symbols of the Beatles' current lifestyle – drugs, police raids, meditation and full-frontal photographs. Even the dependably attractive Paul McCartney had abandoned his British girlfriend and married an American.
Within the culture of rock, which treated its heroes as seriously as any students of literature or art, the Beatles occupied an ambiguous place. They were still the stuff of legends, but they no longer led a generation or formed its taste. Famous for as long as most rock fans could remember, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starkey seemed to share little with the pilgrims who flocked to vast outdoor festivals such as Woodstock. The Beatles had intended Apple as a bridge between them and their audience, but its failure as an idealistic enterprise – already apparent before the arrival of Allen Klein – merely widened the divide. If rock fans wanted to feel at one with their heroes, they looked elsewhere – to the brazen vulnerability of Janis Joplin, the enigmatic presence of Bob Dylan, the confessional openness of Crosby, Stills and Nash, and the Rolling Stones, who were accepted as the most perceptive guides to the treacherous currents now flooding through the counterculture.
So what were the Beatles in the summer of 1969, except a phenomenon that sold records in suitably phenomenal quantities? It was a question that clearly puzzled and concerned John Lennon. 'He has refused to become the prisoner of his special talent as a musician,' observed critic Leslie Fiedler, 'venturing into other realms where he has, initially, at least, as little authority as anyone else.' Yoko Ono encouraged him to explore every possible mode of creative expression, from filming his penis in a state of mild excitement (Self Portrait) to fiddling with the dial of a radio and calling it music ('Radio Play'). He immersed himself in her vision of art as a state of heightened existence that deserved constant documentation. In December 1968 Lennon and Ono had appeared on the stage of the Royal Albert Hall in London, doing and saying nothing while enveloped in a black bag. This was 'bagism', an Ono concept enabling total communication, the couple explained, because it hid the individual and thereby undercut any kind of prejudice (except irrational dislike of people in bags). The event was filmed, and the Lennons' silent act of performance art thereby became a second artwork as part of a documentary; and then a third, as the London Arts Lab filmed the Lennons watching their bagism footage – a process that could have been continued ad infinitum and ad nauseam.
Such solipsistic art could never
touch anyone who wasn't already captivated by Lennon's fame. Of the four Beatles, he was in most danger of alienating himself from his public. To his credit, he soon realised that self-centred art wasn't enough. To be worthwhile, art had to reach a global audience and change lives, the way that the Beatles' music had once done. In 1968 Lennon had declared his ambition to 'package peace in a new box'. In 1969 he and Ono opted not to sell peace, or preach it, but to become its human incarnation. They would sing, talk and breathe nothing but peace; they would take their message to the world, and war would inevitably end, 'if you want it', as a poster event would proclaim.
Their honeymoon bed-in was merely the beginning. Now they intended to carry the message of peace to the heart of the US antiwar movement. They embarked with Derek Taylor on a transatlantic liner and, barred from entering the US by Lennon's recent drugs conviction, headed for the Canadian city of Montreal, an hour's drive from the US border. Once again they donned their pyjamas and entertained press representatives from across North America. 'For hours, they would do nothing but interviews about peace,' recalled Gail Renard, a local teenager who talked her way into the Lennons' suite. 'I asked John, "What do you do when everyone goes home?" He said, "Tiredness and loneliness, my dear." He was only half-joking.'
Writing about 'Revolution' a year earlier, Lennon couldn't choose between his visceral urge to overthrow the 'system' and his fear of physical injury. Now, he declared, 'We believe violent change doesn't really accomplish anything in the long run, because in the over 2,000 years we've been going, all the violent revolutions have come to an end, even if they've lasted 50 or 100 years. The few people who've tried to do it our way, unfortunately, have been killed, i.e. Jesus, Gandhi, Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The way we might escape being killed is that we have a sense of humour and that the worst, or the least, we can do is make people laugh.'
You Never Give Me Your Money: The Battle for the Soul of the Beatles Page 11