An online Beatles fan club for and about Beatle fans
I loved this part of Anthology when Ringo is going to be interviewed, and Paul is behind him playing his drum kit. It reminded me of that scene in A Hard Day's Night. It also reminded me of the story of when John and Paul jammed together in 1974 (the toot and a snort sessions) and Ringo could tell that Paul had been messing with his drum kit.
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| Geoff Wonfor with George |
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| Geoff working on the Beatles Anthology |
The Long and Winding Road
By Ian Wylie
Manchester Evening News
November 23, 1995
Beatlemania is back with a vengeance with the release of a new Beatles album and a single likely to challenge for the Christmas number one spot on the charts. This Sunday, the six-part Beatles Anthology starts its run on ITV. The man who was chosen by the Beatles themselves to direct the program, Geoff Wonfor, talks about how he came to be involved.
Geordie Geoff Wonfor is in fine fettle. He even wore his Newcastle United away strip for a night out in Soho's exclusive Groucho Club. "Strolling along singing a song, walking in a Keegan wonderland." Kevin Keegan's Toon Army are top of the league, and Geoff is about to paint the world black and white.
Granada paid £5 million for the right to screen the Beatles Anthology on ITV. A lady asked TV director Geoff. "Why all the fuss?" "The hype," he replied in straight Tyne-side, "is because they're the greatest man that's ever been seen." So there pet.
There are places he remembers all his life, though some have changed. Newcastle, City Hall, 1964, is a good place to start. sipping a Becks at Bafta. Geoff recalls, "I queued for 56 hours to get a ticket to go and see the Beatles. I still got the stub." Just over a quarter of a century later, the phone rang at his dad's house. Paul McCartney was on the other end of the line. "He said they'd been looking for somebody for 20 years to direct the Beatles, and I was the man for the job. My eyes filled up. He said, 'Look, compose yourself and ring me back in 15 minutes.' I couldn't believe it."
You probably never heard of 46-year-old Geoff. At most, he's just a credit-flashing by as millions reach for the remote control. Our man worked on The Tube, left when Tyne Tees tried to make cuts, and won a Golden Rose of Montreux for a film of Nigel Kennedy's Four Seasons.
Fans who saw McCartney's first comeback World Tour have Geoff and his cameras to thank for the emotional Abbey Road medley finale. "McCartney was unsure about including it. He tells a story about this man filming at rehearsal. As they went through it, McCartney looked up and saw this guy crying and said, 'It's got to stay in the act.' It was me crying."
A pal of Linda McCartney from one of her photo exhibitions, he teamed up again with Paul for his Liverpool Oratorio, and then got the gig for the big one. Geoff has now spent four years and two months working on what ITV described as "the television event of the decade." They're not far wrong. From the opening shots of Liverpool to black and white "In My Life" flashbacks, it's hair on back of neck time for Beatles fans in over 100 countries.
"I remember McCartney once saying that he wasn't interested in the date they played Shea Stadium because any journalist could tell him that. What he wanted to know was what happened in the limo, going there and coming back."
Granada were perhaps the obvious winners in the bidding to buy up the six-part Apple production, which lets the Liverpool lads tell their own story. The company's association with the Fab Four dates back to the early days. The back of their London office looks straight down Carnaby Street. And Geoff's wife Andrea just happens to be Granada's joint managing director. It turned into a happy coincidence for the couple who live in Northumberland village and commute to London and Manchester.
Andrea, who developed The Tube and moved to Granada from Channel Four in 1993, was determined to get the Beatles documentaries. But Geoff claims having a well-connected wife won't make him rich. "She's my biggest critic. If I was to survive on her commissions, I'd have been bankrupt 10 years ago. This job has been all-consuming, and my missus has been amazing. I've only missed four weekends in Newcastle. As soon as I can pop my backside on the inner city, I'm happy," he adds.
Andrea's dad always said he wanted two things of her. He wanted her to be the first woman prime minister, and he wanted her to marry Paul McCartney. Her father, George, died in June. They played "Yesterday" at the start of the funeral in Kent and "The Long and Winding Road" at the end. "He was an absolute Beatles freak, and could play every chord on an acoustic guitar. He'd take the kids to Canterbury Cathedral and do Beatles medleys."
Beatlemania 1995 was officially launched this week with ITV's British Premier of "Free As A Bird." Unless you've been rolling stones in Azerbaijan, you know, it's the first new Beatles single for 25 years, and features the voice of John Lennon.
Tonight, the three surviving Beatles can be seen together again in ITVS's premiere of the "Real Love" video; their other new single release. Volume One of the three Beatles Anthology CDs, is now on sale. Albums and singles are set to top the Christmas charts. Global supplies of shrink wrap are all but exhausted. They don't paint the fourth rail bridge anymore. They just make Beatles anthologies out of stacks of unseen home movies and long-forgotten film.
Mr. Wonfor is part of a mini Geordie mafia who were given the job of putting together the TV story of The Beatles from birth to final split in 1970. 50-somethings Paul, George, and Ringo were interviewed up to eight times a piece for the six hours which British TV viewers will see up to Christmas. Murdered Lennon is heard through his many radio and TV interviews.
Geoff confesses that the euphoria of getting the call from McCartney soon turned into sleepless nights over the scale of the terrifying task ahead. "I can't tell you how many miles of footage we had to go through, but if you think that the outtakes of Let It Be is 2000 cans alone..."
Youngest daughter Sam, 20, helped preserve his sanity, especially before robust twist-and-shout phone calls with McCartney. "She'd say: 'Dad, obviously don't shout at him, but if he shouts at you, try and get what you want.'" People think he might be a soft touch, but if a little arse needs kicking, he's your boy. "Yes, we've had some heavy phone calls. But the good thing is, he is a very strong man. Even the barneys we've had. He's been very constructive. He lets you at least have a shout, and then you get on and go and have a drink."
The nation will judge the final results on Sunday night. Some may even shed a few tears as The Beatles get back to where they once belong. Geoff admits, "I'd love to see it, but I don't think they'll ever get back together. I don't think necessarily that would be a good idea. If you watch the Anthology, you actually realize that no one person was responsible for them breaking up. They couldn't stand the pressure. It had to self-destruct. There's no way four people could have withstood it any longer. I thought that going back in time, reliving it, was going to be disappointing, but when you listen to the tracks, there's still fantastic melodies and lyrics, beautiful to hear which can stand anywhere."
If anybody's expecting to see World in Action, forget it. This is a celebration of the biggest band in the world. So roll up. Roll up for the Beatles magical history tour. Step right this way, because in our lives, we've loved them all.
ABC's 'The Beatles Anthology' is the Ticket to Ride for Band's Fans
By Douglas Durden
Richmond-Times Dispatch
November 18, 1995
Where were you when you first saw the Beatles? I was glued to the Family TV set for the band's American debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. The next day, I was so hoarse from screaming that I had to stay home from school.
Who was your favorite Beatle? Paul, John, sometimes George. If there was a Ringo phase, I don't remember it.
These are defining questions for a generation that was conquered by the British Invasion, first by The Beatles, later by many groups who existed only as trivia questions.
Now it's members of that generation who will flock to ABC's three-part Beatles Anthology, airing at 9 p.m. tomorrow, Wednesday, and Thursday on Channel 8. It's all here from the early years in Hamburg and the Beatles' 1964 arrival in New York -through their musical growth that never stopped, to the breakup of the band in 1970 .
The Beatles Anthology may have less appeal for twenty-something viewers, the all-important demographic group whose knowledge of the Beatles is secondhand, but the program does come equipped with a gimmick. The three-part documentary told by the Fab Four themselves through miles of interviews also includes two "new" Beatles songs, thanks to the magic of remixing and Yoko Ono's permission.
In deference to the Beatles Anthology Volume One being released next week, those songs were not included in review copies of The ABCs TV special. "Free as a Bird" will air on the first night, "Real Love" will air on the second night.
Documentary is probably the wrong word for this Apple produced event, since the people providing the documentation are the people being profiled. Given that we are talking about four of the most important people in the 60s? (Well, two and a half), That's not such a bad idea. Which would you rather hear some omnipotent narrator tell us that the Beatles were influenced by American rhythm and blues, or a Beatle proclaimed that "When I was 16, Elvis, what was happening --a guy with long, greasy hair, wiggling and singing 'Hound Dog'."?
The interviews, some conducted as late as this year, covered decades and changing points of view. Events alter, depending upon who is doing the reminiscing; the differences among the four men are what made the band what it was and led to the breakup of the Beatles. Those differences still show today. Ringo Starr, the earthy pragmatist, talked about the early days and the fact that every time a song moved up on the charts, "We'd have a celebratory dinner. If you look at the Beatles, in the first 18 months, we ballooned up because we were eating all this food. This is when I discovered smoked salmon."
On the opposite end, John Lennon was the thinker whose razor-sharp humor found targets early on, "The people in the cheaper seats clap their hands." He instructs his audience at a Royal Command performance in 1963, "and the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry. "
George Harrison provides the poignant insight. "I always felt sorry later for Elvis, because there was only one Elvis; no one else knew what he felt like. But for us, we all shared the experience. We were tight."
Paul McCartney can't say enough nice things about John, but make sure he gets his due. "I think the thing that impressed him the most was that I knew all the words to an Eddie Cochran song," said Paul of his initial meeting with John in the 50s.
Unlike most music specials that concentrate on music groups in concert only, the Beatles Anthology is full of old newsreels plus home movies. That means you get to see not only the first appearance of these youngsters from Liverpool on The Ed Sullivan Show, but also their first trip to Miami and their retreat to Rishikesh, India, with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Numerous Beatles songs are featured in their entirety. It's one thing to hear "She Loves You". It's quite another to see it as it was performed 31 years ago.
And even if you think you've heard it all, there's more-- like John's and Paul's first recording session, which included Buddy Holly's "That'll be the day", or Paul explaining that "Hey Jude" was written for young Julian Lennon, whose dad had left him his mom for Yoko Ono.
In covering the Beatles from 1960 through 1970, The Beatles Anthology also covers the band's five movies, proving the Beatles were visual as well as musical innovators. John, Paul, George, and Ringo had their MTV long before anyone had dreamt of music videos.
But you won't see this life beyond the Beatles. This is the Beatles Anthology, not the story of Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, or George Harrison. Yoko Ono exists solely as the wedge between John and the rest of the group. Linda McCartney is the woman who married the last Beatle bachelor, not a future member of Wings. Ringo does not go on to star in Caveman, and George does not become a movie producer.
For six hours, during the three anthology collections, the Beatles are together again, whatever differences they may have had in the past, the remaining Fab Three looked down that long and winding road with fondness and sentiment. Ringo says, "We were four guys who really loved each other."
By Peter Grant
Liverpool Echo
November 18. 1995
Ladies and gentlemen, will you welcome four lads from Liverpool, a quartet of Scousers who continue to shake, rattle and rule the world. The Anthology is their story.
"We thought it might be good from the inside out rather than the outside in", said Paul McCartney.
Ringo Starr says, "I enjoyed telling the story. It brought back a lot of good memories and gave me the chance to hang out with Paul and George again."
And as for George Harrison, "It was fun. It was good because enough time has gone between 1969 and now."
More than 25 years ago, John Lennon said "the dream is over", but on the television screens, the nasal sounds and sharp humor of the mop tops is very much alive. The dream goes on. The biggest band the world has ever known and will ever know are back in a six part documentary. It is the television event of the decade, a lovingly created account by The Beatles, BY the Beatles.
Series director Geoff Wonfor told the Echoes Get Back Special: "Questions put to John in the past are on archive footage. So what we did was put them to the three other Beatles.
"It starts with their Liverpool childhood and into when the Beatles split. Their home movies have never been seen before and are just fantastic. Everyone will have the chance to rediscover the band. They were so tight, and some of the harmonies were breathtaking."
The driving force of the Anthology is one dedicated man, who Beatles producer George Martin says deserves the title of "fifth Beatle", Neil Aspinall. Neil personifies loyalty, a keyword in the Beatles bibliography from Brian Epstein onward.
Neil, their former road manager, became head of Apple in 1968. His original documentary concept, The Long and Winding Road, was shelved. Now Neil is executive producer of The Beatles Anthology, which is broadcast on Sunday, November 26, on the ITV network.
Says Neil, "I said to Paul, George, Ringo, and Yoko, 'Let's do it'.
"I realized that the one thing we had that no one else had was access to interviews with the three surviving Beatles and all John's interviews with Yoko's consent."
Even with a production team of 10, the mammoth task of researching nearly 10,000 pieces of footage and music was no mean feat. "The project contains new songs featuring all four Beatles", says Neil. "It was always one of Paul's things, that if they were going to do it, it would be nice if they could somehow do some new music, even if it was only incidental music, to go behind a piece of footage."
And that developed into "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love", which is a real bonus for everybody.
So, ladies and gentlemen, will you climb the helter skelter for a magical history tour? Beatlemania is back.
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With the news of the Beatles Anthology re-release coming in November, I thought it would be interesting to see how the Beatles Anthology was reported prior to the release 30 years ago in 1995.
Beatlemania Macca Style
By Eamon Carr
Dublin Evening Herald
September 28, 1995
It had to happen sooner or later; someone had to excavate the vast treasure trove of unreleased Beatles recordings that filled the vaults of the recording company EMI.
However, John Lennon fans are worried that Paul McCartney is a dominant partner in the task force behind the impending Beatles blast. Those who remember the duo's vendetta are uncomfortable with Paul's role in the upcoming release schedule that's certain to put the fab three and a ghost at the top of all our Christmas charts.
You don't have to have been a Beatles fan to have known of the rancor that existed between the two former partners following the group's split in 1970. Now, 25 years later, the Beatles are back. November is Beatle month. That's when Beatles people get the first three album installment of a new nine-album, Beatles Anthology. That's when "Free as a Bird" will pour out of almost every Beatles station on your Beatle dial.
The track, a John Lennon demo tape, has been lovingly restructured as a Beatles performance with his three former chums and Beatles producer George Martin [sic] grafting contemporary accompaniment on the dead Beatles' old tape. Wild, huh?
This sort of electronic trickery is not new. Don't forget, awards were showered on Natalie Cole for duetting with her deceased dad a couple of years ago. What was positively eerie about that technological miracle was a video that implied they were communicating with some psychic, astral image machine. No one's saying whether there are any such sensational surprises in store in the new six-part TV documentary, The Beatles Anthology, the final episode of which will be screened on Christmas Day.
In the mid-70s, The Clash sang, "Phony Beatlemania has bitten the dust. " Well, I've news for Joe Strummer. Beatlemania is about to be given a whole new lease of life, only this time around, it'll lack the spontaneity, the hilarity, and the cultural impact of the movement which shook the 60s. It's all very well digging out a few old tunes which were passed over the first time around, no doubt they'll sound chirpy enough when tidied up and given a new sonic sheen, but this concentrated marketing campaign lacks the stumbling naeitivy and handy amazement of a bunch of Scousers who couldn't believe their luck in the 60s ss month after month, country after country fell into their blitzkrieg bop.
As long ago as 1984, EMI had prepared Sessions, an album of alternate versions of old Beatles favorites. It was the Beatles themselves who put the block on the album's release. As Ringo said, "I always felt that what we put out was what we thought was the best."
Today, Paul McCartney is excited by the re-release project. "It's like being archaeologists," he explains. "Finding tracks that we didn't remember recording, uncovering songs that we didn't want or thought weren't good enough. But now, of course, after 30 years, they don't seem too bad at all."
Chart dominance will, no doubt, consolidate the Beatles reputation with the younger generation, and a generation who hearing tunes their parents like, can have no inkling of the seismic effect those songs originally had on a society which still lived in the debilitating shadow of a couple of World Wars.
Fab Paul will no doubt welcome a re-evaluation of his contribution to Western civilization. Despite being one of the richest men in Britain, he's still considered by many as a smiling Music Hall act who writes lightweight jingles, while Lennon was portrayed as the tortured avant-garde artist who lacerated his soul in public.
"It's funny, but a lot of black artists get more respect as they get older," he said at the time of the release of Flowers in the Dirt. "I think a lot of us white artists would like that too"
As he prepared to go on the road at the time, he admitted that his Rupert Bear and Frog Chorus work had substantially altered people's perception of him as a rock and roller. "I don't see myself as this nice chap balladeer," He insists. "After all, I did Sgt. Pepper, The White Album, and so on. All really experimental albums in their own way." But people persist in their evaluation of McCartney as the chirpy individual who penned "Michelle my belle", while Lennon, the experimental one, was groaning about "yellow matter custard dripping from a dead dog's eye."
Mind you, worldwide sales of Beatles music is still phenomenal, and McCartney's "Yesterday" is the most played song in history. Other songwriters may envy his talent, but Paul was mystified when he knocked out a melody with the word "scrambled eggs". "It was so complete", he says, of the song that became one of the biggest earning songs of all time. "It sounded like a tune I must have heard before. I couldn't believe I'd written it."
Twenty-five years after they split up, the Beatles are the biggest-earning musical act in the United States. So far this year, they've grossed $130 million, which is $9 million more than the Rolling Stones, who have been touring on a wave of hype and corporate sponsorship. For long before they recorded "I want to be your man", the song Lennon and McCartney wrote especially for them, the Stones have played second fiddle to the Liverpool lads.
An echo of this north-south rivalry can be detected in the current Oasis-Blur feud; both bands and their contemporaries, Supergrass and Cast, as well as more established acts such as Squeeze and Crowded House, owe an obvious debt to the Beatles' influence.
The timing of the new Beatles Bonanza seems militarily precise. At the end of last year, we were treated to a double CD of live performances recorded for the BBC. The unique selling point of these recordings was that they were unadorned, audio variety representations of what the Fab Four sounded like at the time, minus the screaming hordes. The package sold out immediately. EMI's failure to correctly anticipate demand left many executives red-faced. They're unlikely to botch the launch of this new three-album set, after all, the three remaining Beatles have spent two years readying material for public consumption, and fans are already placing their orders for the latest installments in a saga that spans the generation gap.
As the market is flooded with Beatles tributes, including an album of their songs covered by country stars, another one covered by jazz artists, and yet another bizarre novelty featuring barking dogs, the world might just be ready for a rave remix of "All I Want for Christmas is a Beatle."
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Baby Boomers Remember Growing Up with the Fab Four
By Patti Lanigan
The Brattleboro Reformer
November 27, 1995
The first time the Beatles performed on The Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964, Beth Johnston captured the Fab Four in photographs she took of the television screen with her Brownie camera. Watching with her grandmother, she now says she was fairly subdued, but inside she felt just like the girls in the studio audience who were screaming, crying and swooning.
My whole life began to rotate around the Beatles after that", the Saco woman recall. Now, 25 years after the group broke up, 15 years after John Lennon's death, and just in time for the holidays, The Beatles are invading America again. This time, America is ready.
Newcomers to Beatlemania and longtime fans like Johnston were prepared to preserve every second of a heavily hyped three-part ABC anthology that aired last week. They're prepared to purchase reissued videos and a double CD, Beatles Anthology, featuring previously unreleased songs, including one in which Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr play and sing along with a track Lennon recorded years ago on a demo tape.
The videotape programs and new recordings will be added to personal collections of Beatles albums, memorabilia, ephemera, and stories about growing up and growing old with The Beatles and their music.
Johnston, a 43-year-old Saco mother of three, who works part-time in cable television, remembers forming a Beatles fan club in North Carolina with six of her friends. They held a birthday party on each of the Beatles' birthdays. McCartney was Johnston's favorite, so she threw the Paul party. "He is and was a literally gorgeous guy", she says, with the kind of girlish giggle that emerges when a woman who was a teenager in the Beatles' heyday remembers the one who made her heart throb. With Paul McCartney, it was love at first sight. "I really always felt he had a romantic center and a good heart," she says.
The hope of one day meeting McCartney burns like an eternal flame in Johnston's heart. In London eight years ago, she left a letter at his office, saying she would like to meet him. When they toured about five years ago, she attended six shows and even rushed the stage at one. "I got out of my seat and got within 25 feet of him before the guard said, 'Get out of here. " she says. "I was just so completely excited, I almost missed the experience of standing near him."
Irene Halasz, who grew up in Saco, got closer. For starters, she was one of the 55,000 who actually saw the Beatles live at Shea Stadium in New York in 1965. She and her sister Cindy ordered tickets months in advance from The Beatles fan club and sweet-talked their mother into letting them go down by bus and stay in a hotel.
"People were screaming and making a run for the stage. The woman in front of us took her clothes off," she remembers. "Maybe she thought she would catch their attention. We were so far up they probably couldn't see her."
The 48-year-old South Berwick resident was a 16-year-old Thornton Academy student when she made the journey to the Big Apple to see the Fab Four. "They brought the Beatles in and took them out by ambulance. The concert was unbelievable. There was so much emotion. It was probably the most wonderful experience of my life." She says they even played her favorite song "Yesterday."
A year or two later, in London, Halasz, no older than 18, bumped into her favorite Beatle, McCartney, on the street. I remember saying, "I love you. I think you're wonderful," She recalls. "I think I was standing there with my mouth open. He was really friendly."
Halasz heard the news of Lennon's murder at home after working all day at Zayre's in Waterville. "I called my best friend, who knew I was a Beatles freak. He drove up from Portland. I just didn't want to be alone," she says.
Tuesday, when the new CD went on sale, Halasz now, the manager of the Navy exchange at Portman Naval Shipyard in Kittery planned to snag a copy to add to her collection of Beatles records.
Robert Stone was more aggressive than Johnston or Halasz at trying to meet McCartney. The 44-year-old English teacher, who lives in Lebanon, says that the summer before his senior year at Nasson College, he hitchhiked around England and Scotland.
Along with youths from all over the world, he hung out around Apple Records until he met a receptionist and got McCartney's Scotland address. He hitchhiked to Scotland and walked from a nearby village to what he describes as the "long and winding road" to the farm. When he walked into the yard, he says, a lady with long blonde hair came out and crossed her arms. "I told her I flew from the States and hitched up from London and asked if Paul was around. She said he was horseback riding, and I shouldn't wait." Stone says he respected her wish to be left alone. Asked her to tell Paul "Stoney says, Hello" and walked back up the hill where a young woman he met on the long and winding road was also hoping to meet McCartney, who was watching. "She started jumping up and down and pointing," Stone says. Paul McCartney rode into the yard on a horse with his English sheepdog, Martha, who inspired the song, "Martha My Dear". He and Linda went walking arm in arm into the house.
"My life had been fulfilled", he says, adding that he measures his early life by what was happening with the Beatles and that he always favored Paul. Revolver and Yellow Submarine are his favorite albums, and he treasures his Beatles lunchbox, Yellow Submarine posters, and reel-to-reel tapes of recording sessions. Most of all, he treasures a rock he took from McCartney's yard.
Seeing film clips of English girls going crazy over the Beatles on the Jack Parr Show mystified Joe Pfrangle, a 44-year-old postal worker from Wells. "It was nothing I'd ever seen," he says. "When the British Invasion first came, I thought the Beatles were a little too scruffy. I was a Dave Clark Five man." But the Beatles' music won him over and made him a fan for the rest of his life. "They were the only ones from the get-go playing their own music", he says, "music rooted in early American music by Elvis Presley. Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Carl Perkins."
The fact that new fans are sprouting all the time testifies to the Beatles' appeal and longevity.
May 24, 1995
Just like the olden days -- Paul is photographed walking into Abbey Road Studios to work on a Beatles album.
Joe Wisbey posted this photo in the "Nothing is Real" group on Facebook along with the information that Geoff Wonfor, who directed The Beatles Anthology, has passed away. The Beatles Anthology is still a masterpiece as far as I'm concerned. Sorry to hear that he is no longer with us.
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| I HATE the yellow submarine animation in the sequence--but I couldn't leave this great shot of Mal out! |
