Meeting at the lecture

Press conference time again

The talented George Harrison

Look who is home!

The new couple

John

John was so gorgeous---I mean just look at him here with his records in the background just looking as adorable as he can.   Sorry----I try to be all Beatle serious, but sometimes I just have to be a fan girl.  

St. John's police assist hysterical Beatle fans.

Family outing

Faded Photographs

Playing the flute

The Lovely Mr. Harrison

I bought these beautiful photos of George from ebay a few weeks ago and I have been waiting for George's birthday to share them.   Arent they just amazing?   I think this is one of my favorite George looks.  

George and Pete

The "it" couple of the 60's

The hand-off

Remembering George's birthday celebration in India

In her book, Wonderful Tonight, Pattie talks about celebrating George's 25th birthday in India:

If it were anyone's birthday, there would be cake and a party.   At George's everyone put red and yellow paint on their faces and wore garlands of flower, and an Indian musician came and played for him.

Here on George's birthday I wanted to remember the fun birthday George had in 1968 when he was in India.  

Allen Klein--the Man who bailed out the Beatles, made the Rolling Stones and transformed Rock n Roll: A book review

When I think about Allen Klein, the first thing that pops in my mind is "Ron Decline" from the Rutles movie. In that film, Ron is shown marching around the office while people are terrified, and one person is seen hanging himself. After reading the book by Fred Goodman Allen Klein—The Man Who Bailed out the Beatles, made the Rolling Stones, and Transformed Rock n Roll—I am not sure if I hate the man, adore the man, or feel sorry for the man.

Klein had a difficult childhood. He spent most of his formative years in an orphanage and lived in poverty. It is admirable that he was able to work his way out of the difficult beginnings and become wealthy.  

Klein had a knack for finding money and for working with record companies and songwriters to find ways for them to make more money. His first client was Sam Cook, who Klein really loved. Klein worked his way up the Rock n Roll ladder but only had eyes for one band:  The Beatles.  He became the manager of the Rolling Stones, but all the while wanted the Beatles.

After Brian Epstein's death in 1967, Klein knew he finally had his chance.  Regardless of what you think about the man, you can't deny that Allen Klein was a very intelligent man.  He was crafty and smart, and he knew that the best way to get to the Beatles was to win over John Lennon first.  It was a smart move.  He tugged on John's heartstrings with his sad story of growing up; one that John himself could relate to.  He was hard-nosed and talked money to John.  Apple was in a sorry state, and someone had to bail them out.  Klein talked to John about exactly how he was going to do it.  And most of all Allen treated Yoko with respect and as an artist.

Of course, as we all know, Paul did not approve of Allen Klein and wanted his father-in-law, John Eastman, to manage the Beatles.  However, Paul wasn't totally anti-Klein at the start.  He agreed with him on several issues and liked some of his thinking, but he wanted Eastman to represent him and not Klein.  Maybe if John Eastman and not his son had come over to London to talk to the Beatles about it, things would have turned out differently.  But while John, George and Ringo all signed the contract with Klein, Paul posed for some happy photos with Klein and the others for publicity sake.

Klein helped the Beatles by firing a large amount of the staff at Apple and bailing them out, but in the meantime, he was making enemies with Mr. McCartney. The straw that broke the camel's back was when Paul called Klein and was put on hold and never got to speak to him.  Allen did this on purpose to a lot of people. Wouldn't return calls, had them wait in the waiting room and never speak to them, etc.  Paul was furious about it and never tried to talk to Allen again---always through lawyers.

And so the book takes you through Paul suing the Beatles, Klein's involvement in the concert for Bangladesh, and Klein getting into movies (including Ringo's Blindman, in which he had a cameo) and plays.   In the 1980s where, he goes to prison for 2 months and becomes friends with Yoko.

I found this book to be very interesting. It gave me some insights into a man who is part of the Beatles' story that I never really knew a ton about. However, I have no background knowledge about the record business or finances, and some of the things in this book went way over my head. I also felt like there were a lot of people for me to keep track of.  

On a side note, I have a copy of a letter written by a woman named Ruth Carter, who was a secretary at Apple, that I found in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame archives. The letter really puts Allen Klein in a bad light. The things she writes in this letter weren't in the book, and I wonder if any of it is true.

If you like to read about someone who was a shady but good businessman and about the ins and outs of the record business, then this is a great book for you.  If you just want to read about Apple Records and the break up of the Beatles, there are better books to read.

The link below is the affiliate link to Amazon, where you can purchase this book.  I get a small percentage of anything purchased through this link.  Money made from the Amazon Afflication is used to pay the annual fee to keep this site online.  Thank you for your support.  Sara

https://amzn.to/435plh8

Breakfast with the Beatles

Barbie's view of the Beatles at the Hollywood Bowl '65

I love these type of photos.   I know they are terrible and you can barely even tell that it is the real Beatles up there on the stage, but it shows you what they looked like to a fan at the concert and they give you a little glimpse of what it was like for a fan--not for someone who had a press pass and took professional photographs from the front of the stage, but for a fan that might have saved up her babysitting money and begged her Dad to take her to the Hollywood Bowl that night to see the Beatles.  

It is all relative

photo from imagecollect.com/Globe Photos

Cute photo of John with one of his relatives in Scotland on April 30, 1964.

Reminder:  THIS PHOTO COMES FROM IMAGECOLLECT AND SO I PAID FOR IT TO BE ON THIS BLOG.  IT IS AGAINST THE LAW FOR YOU TO SHARE IT ON FACEBOOK, FLICKR, TUMBLR, ETC. ETC. ACCORDING TO THE AGREEMENT I SIGNED WITH IMAGECOLLECT.   JUST ENJOY THE PHOTO FOR YOURSELF.   

Bring back the Beatles

Here is a fun bumper sticker from my collection.   Being a bicentennial baby, I have always been drawn to things from 1976, and so I just had to have this bumper sticker in my Beatles collection.     Looking back, I guess most of us agree that it is a good thing that the Beatles didn't get back together in 1976, but man it sure would have been exciting!

The steps

Interviewing the boys

Paul in profile

The silly couple

Alone on the platform

Cyn is standing there thinking about how her marriage is over.....so sad.

James Paul McCartney in Nashville

photo by Fred W. Arnold 

James Paul McCartney in Nashville

By Fred w. Arnold

Strawberry Fields Forever Issue #11 (1974)

Nashville, Tennessee is actually two capitol cities in one location.  Besides being the state capitol of Tennessee, it’s also the country music capitol of the world.  But when James Paul McCartney and Wings arrived here in mid-June it had little to do with the fact that Nashville was the state capitol of Tennessee.

“The main purpose of our visit was to practice,” said Paul,” and just rehearse with the band which we did every day.  But after we got here we decided it would be silly not to record as well.”

The McCartney entourage (which included Paul, Linda, Stella, Heather, Mary, managers and the then-Wings lineup of Denny Laine, Jeff Britian, and Jimmy McCulloch) stayed at the Curly Putnam place, so thirty miles from the center of town.  For the $2000.00 per week rent they paid, Curly provided two houses, a lake, several horses, and complete use of his 133-acre ranch.

During free time they toured Opryland (a gigantic amusement park, much like Disneyland but with country music as its theme), swam, rode horses, Paul tired out his new Honda, Linda shopped; but what they enjoyed doing most was—going to the drive in movies!

It wasn’t all fun, though; Paul spent lots of time in the recording studio too:

“…everybody’s talking ‘bout the president,
Let’s all chip in for a bag of cement,
 I took my bag into the grocery store
The prices were higher than the time before,
Old man asked me, what is it for.
Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go take me down
To Junior’s Farm”

Paul and Jimmy traded off lead licks on this one, a rocker called “Down on Junior’s Farm.”  Next they did a ballad called “Hey Dilla”, slow and soulful with excellent background harmonies by Paul and Linda.

A country and western number followed, usual only because it had already b een recorded by Paul and Linda in Paris under their “Suzi and the Red Stripes” pseudonym.  It’s called “Wild Prairie.”

“Well I was born in Arkansas, yes I was born in Arkansas,, yes I was born in Arkansas and I ain’t going back, no I ain’t going back, going back no more.  Well I was born in Arizona and when I was only three my mother took me in the saddle and rode the Wild Prairie, Wild Prairie, and we rode the Wild Prairie.”
 

“Send me the Heart that you broke” was next and this may be one of the finest country and western songs recorded in years.  Paul and Wings get into some real downhome Nashville pickin’ and grinin’ complete with Nashville cats and pedal guitars!

One of the highlights of the Nashville sessions in fact, had to be when two of Nashville’s heaviest cats, Chet Atkins and Floyd Cramer, showed up to jam with Wings.  Together they did an instrumental piece called “Eloise” which was written by Paul’s father some 30 years ago!  Musicians at this session included Chet and Floyd, Wasser Clements on fiddle, Lloyd Green on Pedal guitar, Bobby Thompson on piano, and Paul on bass and washboard!

The same lineup also recorded “Sally G.” although they did have the added help of the singing Cates Sisters. 

“I ran my eyes across her as she sang ‘A tangled Mind.’  I used to love her sweet guitar.  And they call her Sally, Sally G. Why do you do what you do to me.”

And so Paul McCartney becomes the second Beatle to record extensively in Nashville (Ringo recorded “Beaucoups of Blues there and album that really knocked out the critics!)  The working title of the album just competed is “Cold Cuts”, although tentative plans right now call for the album not to be released in the near future,  if at all.  Paul wants the follow-up to “Band on the Run” to be just as fine musically and just as successful so unfortunately we may never hear these sessions.

A personal note:  meeting James Paul McCartney was, for me, a super thrill.  Paul said at his only press conference that, “Tennesseans are real downhome folks.”   I found him and Linda to be downhome as well; they were both warm, friendly people who always had time to answer a question or sign an autograph (usually with a small picture after their names).

And I’m proud to say that they’ll be taking a little bit of Nashville home with them too.  Just as they’ll be leaving a little bit more of themselves with us!  How do I know they’ll be taking home some Nashville?  Because I watched them coming out of Soundshop Studios one evening and singing Gordon Lightfoot’s “Sundown” with Paul strumming his newly acquired acoustic guitar and Linda signing in her newly acquired southern accent!

Enjoying the Beatles

You interview John and get Yoko too

Penny Lane Set

Drinking buddies