John outside his "home"

Shooting the Mad Day Out

Waiting at the open gates

The gates of Cavendish are open!   Those fans are ready for whatever is going to happen next....

Greetings

Another day another car

French Interview with Paul

I found this interview in the October/November 1985 issue of the Write Thing fanzine.    It is a translation of an interview with Paul McCartney from January 1985 from a French magazine.   There is no name of the magazine or author given.   I thought it was a very interesting interview and Paul gave some answers that were different than what you typically hear from him.   Unfortunately, it has been 30 years and people still don't appreciate "Broadstreet."   Sorry Paul 

Please note that all of Paul's words have been bolded. 

French magazines January 1985

The night before I met Paul McCartney, I must admit I didn’t sleep very well.  It would be only hours before I’d meet this legendary man.   No matter how things are seen, even to a cynic , this man is a living legend.   I was nervous.   I was afraid of failing the interview, of asking terrible questions, of irritating him, and looking like a fool.   I was more than nervous.  I’m nervous when I met Springsteen or Robert DeNiro.  But Paul McCartney was one of four who completely changed me around; who changed our society, our lives, our morals and our manners.  Paul, John, George and Ringo gave us so much power.   Because of them, as a teenager I grew my hair long, was forced to leave home, and went to America to start a career.   I couldn’t help thinking of this as I went to London to meet one of the four that was so responsible for the turns my life had taken.

I entered his office and there he was.  Smiling and relaxed, charming and self confident.   I knew I would not have control of the situation.  I had an hour and 15 minutes with him and was a captive audience to his one man show.  He was like a comedian for me, doing imitations, talking about the Beatles, playing the part of each one, even imitating the Maharishi .  He even tried to imitate me.  “You aren’t offended, are you?  I often imitate people I’m with.”   I was not offended.  To be imitated by Paul McCartney is a greater honor than to be imitated by the most famous French imitators.  As for the interview, he told me only what he wanted.  if he didn’t want to reply to a question, he’d turn it into a joke, then change the subject.  And I didn’t care.  This was Paul McCartney and he could charm me.

He didn’t joke around all the time.  We started the interview by discussing his movie.  He acts in it and he wrote it.   It is a movie that failed.

“I wanted to do a movie because it was the only thing that I hadn’t done in my life.  We had very little to do with “Help” or “A Hard Days Night.”  Here I’m responsible for the script and play the lead part.  I’m sure the acting world shouted in relief when they saw the movie.  I’m certainly not a threat to any of them!  Anyway, i like the movie.  It has a lot of myself in it.  I was criticized for how simple the script was.  But the story in “Indiana Jones” isn’t exceptional.  In that they’ looking for a statue.  In “Help” we’re running after a ring.  I suppose my movie is strange because it’s not a wonderful movie.  But it’s a movie that has a certain amount of worth which will be proven in time.  “Magical Mystery Tour” wasn't’ a good movie but it’s a worthwhile film to see now because John’s in it.  In “Broadstreet” I knew I went against the golden rule of script writing.  I put in dream sequences with no explanation.  That confused the audiences of today.  But I’m sure that in a few years it will be looked at differently.

When I first started, I wanted to do a movie about someone trying to escape the fame.  It was a bit like what happened to me when the Beatles split up.  It was a terrible blow.  It was like finding out you’re unemployed.  It was depressing and I really felt useless.  I knew how the unemployed felt.  That’s the reason I said one day, “Let’s go.  We’ll be a group.  We’ll do something.”  So asked some musicians, bought a bus, and we were on the road again giving concerts.  That’s the way I am .   I’m a musician.  If I dont’ play or sing, then I’m unhappy.  And everybody wanted to talk about the Beatles.  It was awful!   I didn’t even want to think about that time.  I wanted to be treated like Paul, a musician with his band Wings.  But to the rest of the world I was still a Beatle.  It’s like the fellow who finished in the army.  I was a civilian again and I didn’t want to be called Sergeant.  That’s logical, isn’t it?

I took that opportunity to come back to a point he’d made a moment ago.  Yes, that part of it was logical.  What I couldn’t understand was when he’d said that during the break-up of the Beatles he’d known how the unemployed felt.  You had built a fortune that protected you from all that…

I know.  Everyone says that.  “How can you talk about being unhappy with all the money you have?”  But nevertheless it’s true.  Money doesn’t mean much to me. Really nothing at all.  But I was completely unhappy.  I did nothing with my days.  I slept.  I woke up.  I went to drink in a pub and then went back to sleep.  No direction, like an uprooted tree.

He sounds like the announcer of a melodramatic soap opera; pretending to play a violin while humming a mournful melody.   Funny and flippant.  But I had to ask:  Was the break up really necessary?

Totally necessary.  We had to end.  We did what we had to do.  It’s like the army.  When it’s finished, it’s finished.  You can’t spend your whole life in the army.  We had to live our lives, follow our destiny, find our wives.

You speak of your wives.  That’s interesting because it’s always been said that they were responsible for the break-up of the Beatles.

That Beatles split up because of the Beatles.  We had reached the limit of what was possible for us.  We wanted to become famous and we were the most famous band in the world.  We needed five years to gain that success and we spent five years at the top.  The cake was left in the oven too long and it was going to burn.  It was our wives who helped us bring it out.  And you can’t condemn men for falling in love, can you?   It happened to John first.  We can’t begrudge John for falling in love with Yoko.  If I could live my life over I don't’ think I’d change one thing except the break-up.   I’d want to be able to come back and say “listen guys we’re going to split, but we’re going to do it peacefully because whether you like it or not, this business is going to keep going until the end of our days.”  And it’s true.  Last week I had to go to New York, like every year, to a meeting of all the representatives who are continuing to manage the Beatles and earning a living at it.    Our egos collided.   We had spent night after night roaring with laughter; only the four of us in cars or vans on the roads of the world.  We, who were four guys completely united and happy together, suddenly we couldn’t communicate anymore.  The break up was like the atomic bomb.  We all got grey hair.

Despite his incredible success, behind the relaxed appearance, Paul McCartney is an anxious man with little self-assurance.  He said that to me many times, and when I brought up the subject of punk music.   

I don't’ feel anymore threatened now because all my life I’ve felt threatened.  In the beginning, in Liverpool, we were anxious because of a group called Gerry and the Pacemakers.   Later on, in London, we used to feel threatened by the Dave Clark Five.  In fact, as far as I was concerned anyway, I didn’t trust anyone.  I remember one day somebody came into our office saying “Dave Clark is number one in the chart.”   There was dead silence.   It was serious stuff.   Today it makes you laugh to think that the Beatles were scared of Gerry or Dave Clark.  But we were.  Then ---this is just as ridiculous but it’s true.  I remember I was scared of Alice Cooper!   Because of all that satanic side and all that, and of the huge success he was having.  I wondered, “Is music really going in that direction?”   Then I met Alice Cooper and realized he was completely normal, just a guy with a drinking problem.  So the punks didn’t really frighten me musically.  You can’t say it was great music.  What I didn’t like was the destruction side with heroin and the murder stories with Sid Vicious.  That completely disturbed me.  When we were young our parents were afraid to see us with long hair.  Because they thought we’d associate with the scam of society.  That was a ridiculous fear.  I understand that today.  One time I saw my oldest daughter dressed like a punk and I was afraid that meant she was getting into something bad.   When in reality she simply wanted to be different.  You’re always afraid of what you don't know.  I learnt that from the Maharishi.  I learnt a lot about myself from him.

It was said that the Yogi was only interested in your money

Yeah, it was said.  But I don’t think so.  If that’s true, then what is he doing with his money?   Have you seen him dressed any differently than his white cheese bag he’s always worn?   He doesn’t have jewelry, no Rolls, no playmates around him.   If I hear that he bought Elton John’s house in Beverly Hills or that he’s got 50 ‘bunnies’ stashed away, then I’ll ask myself some questions.  But that really is not the case.  The man lives very simply.   He taught me to relax.  I stayed in India with him for a month and it was very good.

What is your favorite Beatles album?

I like them all.  We  lived through something phenomenal.  It was fun and exciting.  We were living in a whirlwind.  We didn’t realize what was really going on.  We had no idea of the power or the force that we had.  It was extraordinary.  What more can I say?

And what’s the truth behind the strange Paul is Dead Story?

Listen man, I always deny that. I’m not dead. Believe me!

He took my hand and looked me right in the eye.  I told him that I believed him.  And he seemed to be relieved.

Cyn and Jules on holiday

I wonder if this is what Cynthia and Julian were doing when John was off on tour.   Looks like they were having a nice day at the beach!

Geoge comes to Brazil

In the Kitchen

photographs by Linda McCartney

Those who want it

Listen to this Podcast!

Hello friends of Meet the Beatles...for Real!    I am here to announce that I will be on Jude Southerland Kessler's podcast on Blog Talk Radio, "The John Lennon Hour" THIS Thursday, January 29, 2015 at 8:00pm central time (9:00 eastern).    


I will be telling a few more of my favorite stories from this blog and talking about the blog as well as talking about the book I am writing.    It should be a lot of fun!    I hope all of you regular visitors here can listen to it.   If you can't listen to the broadcast live, don't worry----it will be archived and you can listen to the show anytime you want.

To listen to the John Lennon Hour, you will just need to click on this link:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/thejohnlennonhour



If you are just aching to ask me a question about this blog, please call in!   Once the show begins and you click on the above link, you will see the number to call.   And if any of you have a story about meeting the Beatles that you want to share...here is your chance!   It would be so awesome to hear from people who read this blog   (there are people that read this blog, right?)

So I hope you all remember to tune in on Thursday to the John Lennon Hour!


Peace and Love,
Sara s.

Party with the Dark Horse

I am still searching high and low for any stories, information and photos about George's 1974 concert in St. Louis.   I know there has to be people out there that have things.    But in the meantime I found this great story about when the tour came to Chicago (so close!).     It was from the April/May 1976 issue of The Write Thing.  

By Char Bass

Chicago November 30, 1974

We arrived at our hotel in Chicago around noon, Chicago time.  We didn’t have time to go to look at our suite, but they gave me the key.  Just as I got back out to the car, 3 black limos pulled up.  My girlfriend, Nellie, and I took it quite calmly.  We had planned to stay in the same hotel as George, but we had only guessed, not actually knowing where he was to stay.   We went on to the concert and the show was fantastic, even from behind the stage where our seats were.  After the show I didn’t feel let down, I was still quite up in the anticipation of something!

Photo by Tony Morelli and published by Flickr Creative Commons license

 

We went back to the hotel slowly through all the traffic, and we finally got to see our suite, and it was quite nice.  When I heard a noise outside our door in the hall, I ran to the door and looked out the peep-hole.   All I Saw was the back of the head of a man with long grey hair closing the door to his suite across the hall.  Soon we saw the limos pull up in front of the hotel again and we knew it was time for George to leave for the evening performance.  We went down to the lobby with our cameras.  No one seemed to object.  We wondered if anyone would mind us taking pictures, so I asked a man standing just a few feet away.  He replied that He didn’t care, but that they weren’t really part of the tour.  We wondered what they meant, they had on Dark Horse badges like everyone else in the lobby.  So I looked at the older man's badge to read the signature.  I just glanced so it wouldn’t be noticeable, it said Harry Harrison!   Then it hit me that was George’s Dad!   I looked up at his face to make sure, and even though his hair was much longer than I've ever seen in a picture,  sure enough I recognized his face.   Then I suddenly remembered the man I had seen in the all through the peep-hole and realized that George's Dad was staying right across the hall from us!

Emil Richards, George with Harold and Pete earlier in the tour

Now the problem was to get Nellie to realize this without saying anything, but while I Was trying to signal her I realized that she was trying to tell me something too.  She got me to look at the man we had questioned earlier, and then I recognized him as George’s brother, Pete!  So then with us both knowing about both men, I started a conversation with Mr. Harrison.  I asked how long the tour was and about his grandchildren, Leslie and Gordon (George’s sister Louise’s children) when I had ;met ten years before.  I told him about Leslie being too little to write at the time, but still wanted to sign autographs like her mother;, and so had drawn a picture of her Uncle George for us.  Mr. Harrison made some reference to Pete, mentioning that he was George’s brother, and was a bit surprised to see that we had recognized both of them.  I made some kind of remark to him about being in Suite 7B and he looked at me rather suspiciously, but I explained that we were in 7A and that I had seen him leave his room.  I asked them if it would be all right if I took their picture and they said, “sure,” so Nellie stood with them and I got a photo of them.  They decided to go to their car then, but Mr. Harrison said that he would see us later as they left.

Photo by George Tebbins

Soon someone asked us to leave the lobby, to go outside.   We didn’t have our coats.  it was cold, windy and spitting snow outside, but out we went so we could get pics of George.  They moved us behind the limo and I couldn’t see over the car well enough, so I stood on a little cement thingy.   I took one picture of George as he came out the door and then as he came closer to the car I began to feel the effects of his presence.  He looked at me strangely. I figured it was the camera and all the noise it made.   But as I got it focused and he was looking straight at me, and when i didn’t take it, he stood there for a few seconds and stared at me, and turned his head a little to the side in wonderment, but I just could not move.  As soon as he got into the car, I came back to my senses.

Later at dinner, I remarked to Nellie, half kidding, that I wished they would hurry up and invite us to the party, cause I Was getting tired.  Well as we were in the hall after trying to unlock our door, Mr. Harrison poked his head out of the door and said, “Would you girls like to go upstairs and see what’s going on?”  Now what do you say to that but Yes!  He added that Pete would take us up, and Pete appeared out of 7C.  it was unbelievable. 

So off we went and when we ended up in 22B, I remembered a girl in the lobby with the name tag Chris O’Dell (Ah, ha Miss O’Dell, I thought) who had been given room 22B.  Anyway George was not there, so Pete told us to sit down and he went to look for him.  He came back and got us a drink and said that George would be there in a little while.  So we sat there trying to calm down.  As I listened to what Pete was telling us, I became slowly aware, as if waking up, of a familiar voice in the room, and then I realized that voice, and gorgeous accent, could only belong to George.  Nellie said that I really jumped, and searched the room with my eyes quickly for him.  Fortunately, he had his back to us, so he didn’t see my reaction, but he was only about 7 feet away.  He had on green corduroy pants, slightly flared, and a green sweater with a V neck and no shirt on under it.  it had long sleeves which he kept pushing up a bit.  I got to see his earrings for the first time, very small and gold, and since he had no shoes or socks on, Nellie noticed that he is flat-footed.  

I really have very little idea what order things happened in while he was in the room. I’ll just try to tell about my observations of him as best I can.  Although I didn’t know then who she was, Olivia was there.  He kissed her just after they came into the room, and before he sat down.  When he decided to sit down, he looked around the room and found one of the chairs around the table empty and he sorta dove at it as if it were going to get away.  Bear brought him a plate of food from the kitchen and some wine and yogurt.  He  picked at the food more than he ate, but he really seemed to like the yogurt.

Well, then George stood and talked to someone at another table.  I could only hear parts of what he was saying, but I can’t repeat any of it, cause I heard his voice and accent, but not really the words even when it was audible.   He couldn’t stand still though, first he’d lean on the table, then on the chair and for a while he even stood down on his knees and talked.  Then he talked to another person and where he stood blocked the entrance/exit to the room.  That wouldn’t have bothered us normally, but we had had a lot to drink (water and tea as well as the alcoholic drink Pete gave us) and we really wanted to get to the bathroom.  The problem was that to get the bathroom, we would have to have moved George.  So we just sat there.

Soon enough George went back to his chair, and when he did, this weird girl came parading in.  She had on a black ballet body leotard, instead of a body shirt, and for a skirt she had on 2 hot pink chamois sewn together at the sides.   The back one was long and the front one was short and the sides were split all the way up.  She also had on a gold chain, belt, black hose and big platform shoes.  She came in and walked right up to George and said, “I met you five or six weeks ago, and I just came up to say hello.”  George looked up to her face and just said, “Oh...hullo,” as if he hoped that would satisfy her and she would go away.   So she goes on to ask him about the meaning of the OM and while they talk he carefully keeping looking at her face until he just had to look at her outfit.  He glanced down quickly and then even faster he looked back up and then very carefully looked somewhere else altogether then her face even, until she decided to go.  By the way, he explained that the 3 part of the OM stands for creation, restoration and destruction and the (: part is the sun and the moon.  During this time I had looked over at George to find him looking at me a couple times.

George sat there telling something to a person in a chair to the far left of us, but as I listened and looked at him, he talked to this person and never missed a word, but he stared straight into my eyes the whole time.  I was completely frozen.  He told about his guitar strap breaking on stage and how when he realized it was letting go, he stuck his foot out to catch the guitar on his shin.   All I could think of is that he is the only one I know that would deliberately get hit on the shin.  He must have realized what was happening to me, cause he stared into my eyes once more after that, and sure enough, the results were the same.    Olivia came over once and asked us if we wanted anything to eat and then right before he left he stood about 3 feet away from us and leaned over the coffee table in front of us to get some matches from Pete and I remember he said, “I thought he was crackers.”  but I don't’ know who he was talking about.  Then I heard him say that he was going to bed, and I looked up to see him with his arm lightly around Olivia’s waist and they said goodnight to everyone .  I felt a desperate urge to do something drastic to keep him there, but I suppressed it and just smiled.  We talked to everyone there for awhile and then we went down to Pete’s room and played cards for a little while before going back to our room.  The next morning we wrote a note to his Dad, thanking him and Pete for asking us up, and we put my beloved OM pendant in it, asking him to give it to George.  Dumb me, I didn’t have it with me while George was in the same room.

To describe George, I can say that i was really shocked at how thin he is.  His face looked just about like I expected, but thinner.  His hair was so fluffy and nice, but his eyes were what I really noticed.  They were so deep brown!   Most people when you look at their eyes you see the white around the color, but when you stare into George's eyes you just see deep brown and a lot of emotion.  It’s really a shame his eyes don’t photograph the way they really look.  If they did, I don't’ think anyone would have ever noticed Paul’s eyes even as gorgeous as they are.

I feel bad sometimes that I didn’t talk to him, but then I think about the girl in the pink chamois skirt and what fool she made of herself, and then to the fact that I wasn’t prepared for the meeting and really couldn't think of anything meaningful to say and I just remember George’s own words, “Silence often says much more, than trying to say what’ s been said before. “  And I know he is right.  

A laugh a line with Lennon

Family outing

Got his attention

Another day at the races

Ringo with the 70s look

Full on photo

I posted this photo before, but it was a cropped version.   This full photo is worth sharing because you can see that John has his hand around this young lady's waist!  

Wonderful Tonight

Beautiful Boy

These are such nice photos.  John was such a loving father to Sean.   In 1976, I would imagine that you didn't see a father carrying his baby in one of those wraps like what John is wearing.   

Backstage with the boys

Alfie party

Love from a Ringo fan

The Beatles have left the building

The thing that stands out about this photograph for me is the school girl fans in the background, peeking their faces out to see the Beatles.  

A meeting with the press in Germany

Moved like Macca

photo by George Tebbins

The Prince's Trust

These three photos were taken by babgreeb fattkat and posted here under flickr creative commons

College girl

Here is a girl in her college dorm room at some university in Illinois in 1969.   What a groovy pad!  Love the White album photos around the window. 

Hello Mate!

Some fan snaps from Ringo's stop-over in San Francisco on his way to Australia to meet up with the rest of the band.     You can read more about this in this article that I wrote for this blog. 

The place is surgin' with girls

Just look at that grin on John's face.   Who is luckier, these girls or these two Beatles?

The exit for Bangladesh