Fab

by Howard Sounes

  The sound quality was poor in Hamburg, as it invariably is in sports arenas, reedy at the top and boomy at the bottom, Paul’s vocals echoing off the back rows - these seats being so far from the stage that he put his hands to his eyes, peered down the hall and asked the people down there if they were all right - and his voice sounded thin at first, like an old man’s. But as he warmed up his voice strengthened, the band complementing and covering for the star while never presuming to upstage him.

  ‘Danke schön! Guten tag, Hamburg,’ said Paul, venturing a little schoolboy German, soon reverting to English. ‘It really is interesting to be back here in Hamburg.’

  ‘What about a trip to the Reeperbahn?’ asked a fan in front.

  ‘Hmmm.’ Paul considered it. ‘Not tonight.’

  He spoke about when the Beatles first came to town, ‘when we were children’, and how they had met up with other ‘slightly older children’, name-checking old friends in the audience. In the first few rows sat Horst Fascher, Astrid Kirchherr and Klaus Voormann, little old people wrapped up warm on a cold December night. Indeed, the audience was mostly comprised of the late middle-aged, chubby, affluent and grey, glancing occasionally at their watches to make sure they didn’t get home too late. Although of an age with these pensioners, and despite his skin hanging down like the jowls of an old dog, Paul looked younger than them all, thanks principally to the art of his hairdresser. Apart from being dyed chestnut brown, his hair was so lustrous and thick these days one wondered if he was wearing a wig.

  Taking off his jacket, and rolling up his sleeves, Sir Paul also looked more than ever like a nineteenth-century mill owner. This was not a young artist who needed the audience’s approval. He was here because he enjoyed playing music and revisiting the past, and those lucky enough to have a ticket were fortunate to share the moment with him. Between songs he regaled us all with stories from the old days, like the night his mate Jimi (Jimi Hendrix, that is) played ‘Sgt. Pepper’ at the Saville Theatre, and asked Eric (Clapton, you know) to come up and tune his guitar. Everybody, audience and band included, listened attentively to an elder telling tales of a vanished age. Linda was never far from Paul’s mind. As he played ‘The Long and Winding Road’, photos Linda had taken of their Arizona ranch, including the desert trail they rode just before she died, were shown on the screens. ‘Here Today’ was performed ‘für meinen freund, John … Are you listening?’ Paul asked suddenly, glancing up at the roof as if to find his friend’s ghost sitting in the rafters. ‘Something’ was done again on the ukulele for George, while pictures of the other departed Beatle were shown. Paul held his arms up to the last picture, a huge blow-up of a young smiling George, murmuring ‘Georgie! Georgie!’ in salute. When Paul turned back, his face was wet with tears.

  With both John and George gone, and Ritchie always of lesser importance, it had fallen to Paul to carry the Beatles torch. Along with the sadness, there was a sense that he felt liberated by the fact John and George weren’t around to snipe at him any more. He could say and play whatever he liked now, including putting two Beatles numbers in his set for the first time, ‘And I Love Her’ and ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’, both of which went down a storm with the Germans even if John had mocked the latter as ‘granny music’.

  After ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Helter Skelter’, Paul informed his audience that it was time for him to go home. The Hamburgers, who’d booed two hours previously, groaned. ‘It’s time for you to go home, too,’ Paul reminded them; it was almost midnight. He thanked his band and his crew. ‘But most of all, tonight, we want to thank you,’ he said, before playing ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, segueing into ‘The End’, pictures of a sun going down on the screens as Paul sang the sublime last lines about the love you take being equal to the love you make, after which everybody exhaled a happy Ahhhhh.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.’

  As one fan remarked, ‘the best music - ever’.

  ‘Danke schön, Hamburg. We’ll see you next time!’

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  With this book I set out to write a better-balanced, more detailed and more comprehensive life of Paul McCartney than has previously been achieved. I did not have an agenda to find fault with Sir Paul, nor did I seek to glorify his career glibly. Rather I have tried to tell the epic story of his life truthfully and fairly as I have found the facts to be from studying him closely, as an entomologist might put another kind of beetle under the microscope.

  As a foundation for my work I travelled extensively, visiting the places that feature in Sir Paul’s life, collecting documentary material (family records, real estate, financial and legal papers), and conducting interviews with approximately 220 people, including his friends, neighbours, family members and fellow musicians. I also read everything in print about the musician and his close associates, and I would like to acknowledge the published sources I found most helpful.

  More books have been written about the Beatles, probably, than any act in show business. Hunter Davies’s The Beatles, first published in 1968, retains its interest, as does Philip Norman’s 1981 history Shout! It is, however, the reference books by Mark Lewisohn that stand apart for the author’s fastidious attention to detail, with his The Complete Beatles Chronicle (1992) being the Bible of Beatles reference. Despite the fact that it glosses over or misses out important parts of the Beatles’ story, the Beatles’ Anthology - by which I mean the documentary series and the companion book published in 2000 - is also an invaluable record of the band members’ thoughts and recollections. Regarding magazines and fanzines, I turned repeatedly to Melody Maker in the UK and Rolling Stone in the USA, while Paul McCartney’s own Club Sandwich was a useful resource.

  Several previous full-length biographies have been written of Sir Paul. Aside from Barry Miles’s very good 1997 book Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now, none are of much note, and despite its undoubted strengths, not least as a record of the artist’s views on every aspect of the Beatles’ story, Many Years from Now is mostly a book about the Sixties. It is also a partisan book, written in close conjunction with and indeed vetted by its subject. Working without Sir Paul’s cooperation, I have striven to create a more impartial biography that is also broader in scope, taking equal account of the artist’s time in the Beatles and his life during the decades that have followed. For this reason Fab is divided into two halves, with the second part of the book telling the story of his adventures since 1970.

  I am grateful to the following people for giving me information: Jane Abbott (formerly Brainsby), Linda Aiello (née Magno), John Aldridge, Carlos Alomar, Lord (Jeffrey) Archer, the late Al Aronowitz, Anthony Bailey, Geoff Baker, Marty Balin, Christine Barnwell, Tony Barrow, Bob Bass, Sid Bernstein, Roag Best, Douglas Binder, Jamie Black, Kate Black, Tony ‘Measles’ Bramwell, Geoffrey Brand, Al Brodax, Peter Brown, Yolanda Byrne (née Ventre), Ian Campbell, Howie and Sheila Casey, Clem Cattini, Natalie Clark, Maureen Cleave, John Coates, Mary and Rory Colville, Bob Cote, Alastair Cousin, Rosemary Crouch, Carl Davis, Rod Davis, Len Deighton, Prince Stanislas Klossowski ‘Stash’ de Rola, Ken Dodd, Joe Dolce, Barbara Doran (née Eves), John Duff Lowe, Geoff Dunbar, Michael Eavis, Dudley Edwards, Ron Ellis, Royston Ellis, Geoff Emerick, Eldon Erwin, Bernie Evans, Horst Fascher, Mark Featherstone-Witty, Brenda Fenton, Iris Fenton (née Caldwell), John Fenton, Danny Fields, Bill Flanagan, Joe Flannery, Herbie Flowers, Ray Fooks, Bruce Forsyth, Frank Foy, Steve Gadd, Johnny Gentle, James ‘Brickhead’ Gillat, Brian Gregg, Brian Griffiths, Adrian and Evelyn Grumi, Jim Guercio, Rosi Haitmann (later Sheridan), John Halliday, Colin Hanton, Ian Harris, Bill Harry, Billy Hatton, Jann Haworth, Peter Hodgson, Derek Holgate, Steve Holley, John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins, Philip Howarth, Erika Hübers (née Wohlers), Edward Hunter, Frank Ifield, Neil Innes, Ian James, Glyn Johns, Mickey Jones, Laurence Juber, Susan Justice (née Aldridge), Alfie Karmal, Norman Kauffman, John Kay, Paddy and Lyn Kearney, Gibson Kemp, Astrid Kirchherr, Barbara Knight (née Wilson), Marijke Koger-Dunham, Al Kooper, Jonathan Kress
, Bettina Krischbin (née Hübers), Denny Laine, Carla Lane, Veronica and Bob Languish, Sam Leach, Sir John Leslie, Sir Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Andrew Loog Oldham, Graham Lowe, Barbara Lyon (née Lunt), Doug Mackenzie, E. Rex Makin, Imelda Marcos, Gerry Marsden, Lilian Marshall, Salvatore ‘Pico’ Martens, David Mason, David Matthews, the late Victor Maymudes, Joan McCartney, Henry McCullough, Jim ‘the Rock’ McGeachy (Senior) and his son Jimmy, John McGeachy, Robbie McIntosh, Ian McKerral, George McMillan, Barry Miles, Fiona Mills, Elliot Mintz, Maria Mohin, Paul Morrisey, Billy Morton, Brian Moses, Kate Muir, Len Murray, Bill and Maggie Nelson, Mike Nesmith, Dr Roy Newsome, Ann Nicholson (née Ventre), Steve Nieve, Frieda Norris (née Kelly), Steve Norris, Ray O’Brien, Boston O’Donohue, Richard Ogden, Hugh Padgham, Dick Page, Major Peter Parkes, Eryl Parry, Graham Parting-ton, Tom Pickard, Charlie Piggott, Ian Pillans, Simon Posthuma, Claude ‘Curly’ Putman Jr, Lord (David) Puttnam, Joe Reddington, Ruth Reeves (née Lallemann), Gillian Reynolds, Mike Robbins, Brenda Rothwell, Willy Russell, Lord St Germans, Sir Jimmy Savile, Nitin Sawhney, Helga Schultz, Denny Seiwell, Brian Sewell, Ravi Shankar, Gene Shaw, Tony Sheridan, Jane Shevell, Don Short, Anthony Smith, Murial Smith, Sir James Douglas Spooner, Philip Sprayregen, Alvin Stardust, Eric and Gloria Stewart, Alda Lupo Stipanoe (and family), Hamish Stuart, Pauline Sutcliffe, Wolfgang Suttner, Sir John Tavener, Marga and Ted ‘Kingsize’ Taylor, Peter Tomkins, Pete Townshend, Isabel Turnbull, Walter van Dijk (and his mother Jeann), Janet Vaughan, Peter Vogl, Lisa Voice, Jürgen Vollmer, David Waite, Edie Warren, Donald Warren-Knott, Peter Webb, Nat Weiss, Kevin Wheal, Andy White, Gaz Wilcox, Beverly Wilk, Allan Williams, June Woolley, David Young, Youth and Debra and Sherry Zeller.

  Thank you additionally to the following individuals and organisations for help and advice: Abbey Road Studios; Rebecca Chapman at the British Society of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA); Lt Deanna Coultas of the Tucson, AZ, police; Caroline Cowie at the National Union of Teachers (NUT); Geoff Garvey for Sussex research; Matthew Davis for translating in Hamburg, and Harald Mau for being our Hamburg guide; Dr Bob Hieronimus for Yellow Submarine help; Spencer Leigh at BBC Radio Merseyside; Ken McNab for Scottish connections; Pete Norman for Heather Mills and the Old Liobians for Liverpool Institute information. Particular thanks to Kevin Roach and Andy Simons at Liverpool Record Office; also to Richard Farnell at Liverpool City Council; Edda and Heidi at the Hans Tasiemka Archives; and the staff of the British Film Institute, the Barbican and Guildhall libraries, the British Library/British Newspaper Library, and New York Public Library. Thank you also to my editors, Natalie Jerome at HarperCollins in London; Ben Schafer at Da Capo in New York and Tim Rostron at Doubleday Canada; to Nick Fawcett and Helen Hawksfield who worked on the copy-editing of Fab; and to my agents Kate Lee at ICM in New York and Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown, London.

  SOURCE NOTES

  Some shorthand forms are used in these notes. Paul McCartney and other key characters are referred to firstly by their full name, then by initials. So Paul McCartney becomes PM, John Lennon JL, etc.

  When referring to the Beatles’ Anthology , I indicate in parenthesis whether I mean the documentary, book or CDs (and their liner notes).

  Justice Bennett’s March 2008 High Court judgment in the divorce of Sir Paul and Heather Mills McCartney is ‘the Bennett judgment’.

  The Times is the [London] Times.

  1: A LIVERPOOL FAMILY

  Paul McCartney (PM) quote - ‘They may not look much …’ - Sunday Times magazine (9 June 1991).

  Liverpool history: I consulted Liverpool 800 (Belchem) and Liverpool (Sharples). Thanks also to Richard Farnell at Liverpool City Council.

  McCartney-Mohin family history: author’s discussions with relatives including John Aldridge, Ian Harris, Susan Justice (née Aldridge), Joan McCartney (quoted), Maria Mohin and Mike Robbins (quoted); the 1911 Census; records of birth, death and marriages; Up the Beatles Family Tree (Humphrey-Smith et al.); Thank U Very Much (Mike McCartney) and The McCartneys: In the Town Where They Were Born (Roach).

  All Mike Robbins quotes to the author.

  Jim played ‘until his teeth gave out’: PM in the Anthology (book).

  Jim meets Mary: The McCartneys: In the Town Where They Were Born (Roach).

  Air raids: the booklet Air Raids on Liverpool, Liverpool Record Office.

  Parents marry: marriage certificate.

  Sectarian problems: Liverpool 800 (Belchem).

  Ringo Starr (RS) quoted from the Anthology (book).

  PM born: birth certificate.

  PM baptised: church records at Liverpool Record Office.

  Mike McCartney’s birth: birth certificate.

  Relations with brother: author’s interviews.

  Speke history: The Illustrated History of Liverpool’s Suburbs (Lewis). Thanks also to former Joseph Williams pupils Barbara Doran (née Eves), Marjorie Knight (née Wilson) and Barbara Lyon (née Lunt).

  Inspiration for ‘Mother Nature’s Son’: Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now (Miles).

  Mary resigns job: The McCartneys; In the Town Where They Were Born (Roach).

  Thanks to the current resident of 12 Ardwick Rd, Liverpool, who did not wish to be named.

  Jim McCartney’s phrase ‘Put it there’: Club Sandwich # 52.

  Will Stapleton story: thanks firstly to a McCartney relative who wishes to be anonymous (includes recalled dialogue). The story of the SS Apapa is substantiated by reports in the Liverpool Evening News (11, 12 and 14 Oct. 1949 ; also 3 Nov. 1949); The Times (12 Oct. 1949); and the Manchester Guardian (12 Oct./24 Nov. 1949). I also consulted family records to establish the link between Stapleton and Edie McCartney. Many thanks to Kevin Roach at Liverpool Record office for helping me find related press reports.

  Will at Scargreen Avenue: Kelly’s Street Directories.

  McCartneys get their TV: Thank U Very Much (McCartney).

  Coronation prize: Liverpool Record Office; and the original essay.

  The Liverpool Institute: thanks to old boys Bernie Evans, John Duff Lowe, Ian James (quoted), Billy Morton and Steve Norris (quoted). The author visited the school and consulted the admissions register and other documents. Thanks also to the Liobians.

  Arthur Askey: Liverpool 800 (Belchem). Thanks also to Peter Hodgson.

  PM on his schooldays: documentary film Echoes (MPL, 2004).

  Macca nickname bestowed: Thank U Very Much (Mike McCartney). In this book, PM’s brother spells the nickname ‘Maca’, but it is commonly expressed as Macca.

  Neil ‘Nell’ Aspinall: Liverpool Institute admissions; Fifty Years Adrift (Taylor).

  PM meets George Harrison (GH): I Me Mine (Harrison); GH quoted from the Anthology (book).

  Description of 20 Forthlin Road: author’s visit to what is now a National Trust property, the accompanying guide book, author’s discussions with the caretaker John Halliday and neighbours.

  Mary McCartney quote - ‘Nothing, love’ - Thank U Very Much (Mike McCartney).

  Death of Mary McCartney: thanks to Mike Robbins and Joan McCartney (both quoted); also death certificate.

  2: JOHN

  PM hears his father cry: Anthology (book).

  Swapped his trumpet: PM on the South Bank Show (Jan. 1978). Also a 1964 interview with Beat Instrumental, reprinted in The Beatles Book (Feb. 2001).

  Skiffle/learns guitar/2006 auction of guitar: author’s interview with Ian James (quoted).

  Attends Donegan concert at Liverpool Empire: PM in Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now (Miles) and Liverpool Evening Express (5 Nov. 1956).

  First record bought: the Anthology (book).

  Billy Morton quoted from author’s interview.

  First song written: Club Sandwich # 41.

  John Lennon (JL) background: author’s interviews; John Lennon: The Life (Norman) [including Mimi’s affair and quote about Elvis]; Up the Beatles’ Family Tree (Humphrey-Smith et al.); author’s visit to Mendips; also the National Trust booklet about the house, from which I quote Aunt Mimi, ‘John, you
r little friend’s here.’

  Daily Howl extract: the Anthology (documentary).

  The Quarry Men: author’s interviews with Rod Davis (quoted), John Duff Lowe and Colin Hanton (quoted). Background: The Quarrymen (Davies) and the Anthology (book).

  Scout camp: Thank U Very Much (McCartney).

  Butlin’s: author’s interview with Mike Robbins.

  Early girlfriends: thanks to Marjorie Knight (née Wilson) and Ann Nicholson (née Ventre [quoted exchange with PM]).

  Sex: Ian James interview; and Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now (Miles).

  Bill Harry quoted from author’s interview.

  Tony ‘Measles’ Bramwell quoted from author’s interview.

  John Duff Lowe quoted from author’s interview.

  Conversation between PM and JL about poster: recalled by Colin Hanton to author.

  Making the shellac disc: author’s interviews; PM quoted from Anthology (book and liner notes to CD Vol. 1).

  Death of Julia Lennon: John Lennon Encyclopaedia (Harry); and the Anthology (book).

  PM writes ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’: quoted from the Anthology (book).

  Hanton quits band: author’s interview (quoted).

  GH leaves school: I Me Mine (Harrison).

  The Casbah: author’s visit and Beatle! (Best [also Best background]).

  PM meets Dot Rhone: Rhone to the Daily Mail (11 Oct. 1997).

  Stuart Sutcliffe: The Stuart Sutcliffe Retrospective (University of Liverpool, 2009); author’s discussion with Pauline Sutcliffe and her book The Beatles’ Shadow.