Looking down

 

George's last photo (possibly)

 October 2, 2001 

The Official Opening of Apple Studios

 

September 30, 1971 

The watchful eye of the manager

 

Farewell to India for now

 September 29, 1966 

Sleepy Travelers

 

On their way from New York City to Miami, Florida 

Got a train to catch

 

George stops for a spot of tea

 

Nowhere Man (1996)

 

Nowhere Man 

By Art McCulloch

Daily News

September 22, 1996

    Sound engineer Howie Nicol's proudest possession is an award for his work on the Beatles' Anthology home video, currently selling in stores for a staggering $150. But behind the inscription on the little brass statuette lies the secret story of his dad's brief, but heady days as the fifth Beatle.

     It should have been Jimmie Nicols' ticket to ride. As the Beatles prepared to fly out on a 50-date tour, Ringo Starr collapsed with tonsillitis and was taken to the hospital. The band needed a replacement, a fifth Beatle, and they chose Nicol for 10 glorious days in the summer of 1964. 

    He joined the band for the start of their first world tour. Sitting shyly behind his drum kit, Nicol became the only outsider to play live with the Beatles as part of the band after they became famous. The fans screamed at him and tried to touch him. His face was in every newspaper and on all the TV screens, but not for long. Within a year, he was bankrupt. His marriage had collapsed, and he was on welfare. 

    Today, the forgotten Beatle lives with his second wife in a tiny apartment in London, eking out a living as a carpenter. The three surviving Beatles enjoy lives of luxury, but for Nicol, the glory days are gone. He no longer even owns a drum kit.

     "While I was with the Beatles, John had told me that I was a better drummer than Ringo, but that I'd miss the boat. When Ringo rejoined the band in Australia, and I was on the plane back home, I just felt like a bastard child sent back from a family that didn't want me," he says.  

    "My treatment by the fans was like night and day. The day before I was a Beatle, no girl would look at me. The day after, when I was in my suit and riding around in the back of a limo with John Lennon and Paul McCartney, they were all dying to touch me.

     "When the fans forget, they forget forever. After the Beatles, I played on for a few years, but then dropped out of music. Things didn't go well for me. It's a period of my life that I just want to forget about now. I mean, when you played with the best, the rest are just the rest."

     Despite this praise, Nicol insists, "I'm not and have never been a Beatles fan." The 30 years since his brief experience of fame has left their mark on Nicol. Now, age 57, with his thinning hair, stooped shoulders, missing teeth, and scruffy clothes, there is nothing to remind you of the smiling young man with the tight suit and the mop-top haircut. 

    The irony of Nicols' story is that the man who called him into the Beatles' lineup, their legendary manager Brian Epstein, is also the man who destroyed him. Epstein wanted a drummer who looked the part, but would mime his drumming, to tape recordings of Ringo playing to preserve the Beatles' unique sound. 

    What Epstein did not want was a musician with an established reputation, but what he got was a musician with principles. Nicol, who was working with Georgie Fame when Epstein called him, insisted on playing and refused to mime. Epstein was furious and spread the word to the world of promoters and booking agents that Nicol was trouble.

     Nicol, who was then 25, recalls when that call came through from Epstein. "I went to his office, I just couldn't believe it when he told me he wanted me to play for the Beatles. I was stunned. All the Beatles, with the exception of Ringo, who was already in the hospital, were there to meet me. I shook hands and told them how much I admired them, which I think embarrassed them a bit.

     But throughout it all, they were all very nice to me. Next on the agenda was money. I got very worried when Epstein started talking to me about money. They paid me $500 for the gig and a signing bonus. When John said, [Good God, Brian, you'll make him crazy,' I thought it was all finished. But then he said, 'Give him $20,000.'  Everyone laughed, but that night I couldn't sleep. I was a Beatle!"

    He was measured for his Beatles suit and had his hair cut into the trademark mop top. His five-year-old son Howard ran round to the neighbors, crying, "My dad's a Beatle!"  The next day Nicol was on a plane to Copenhagen for his first concert on the historic tour.  "It was fantastic. The best thing about being a Beatle is that you can have anything you want. Paul was not always the clean-cut person people thought he was, and John drank a hell of a lot. And although everyone thought George was shy, he loved to party all night with the rest of us."

     Nicol inadvertently made a lasting contribution to the group. Hunter Davies, a Beatles biographer, recalls after every concert, John and Paul would go up to Jimmy Nichol and ask him how he was getting on. All that Jimmy would ever say was, "It's getting better." It ended up becoming a joke phrase for the band. It stuck in their minds and later inspired the song "Getting Better" on the Sgt. Pepper album. It was in Melbourne that reality caught up with Nicol. Ringo had rejoined the band at the airport. Jimmie Nicol sat alone, waiting for the flight that would take him home to obscurity. 

    His manager announced to the world that he would be starting up his own band,: "He's a big name now. He's not just a 10-day wonder." Unfortunately, that's exactly what Nicol turned out to be. His band, the Shub Dubs, waited for bookings, but the calls never came. 

    Despite Lennon's plea to pay him more, he had made less than $4,000 from his work with the Beatles. He ended up joining a spoof act called the Spot Nix, and while on tour in Mexico, he met and married a Mexican Indian girl, Josephina. When he left the Beatles, Epstein and the band had given him a joke retirement present, a gold watch. In Mexico, Nichols smashed it in anger and resentment at fate and Epstein, as Nichol struggles to find carpentry work, the ex-Beatle insists, "I have thought about cashing in on it from time to time, but I don't want to upset the Beatles."

     The final irony is that Paul McCartney met Howie Nicol during the recording of the Anthology documentary. He told him how much he wanted to see Jimmie again and suggested Howie ask Jimmie to appear in the program, but the answer was no. What Howie didn't tell McCartney, says one of the people who worked on the documentary, was that Jimmie wants nothing to do with the Beatles. Those 10 days had ruined his life. He wished it had never happened

Golf carting around Friar Park

Photo taken by Klaus Voormann 

 September 2001 

Tour Operators (1991)

 Tour Operators

By Doug Vaughn

Newsday

September 23, 1991

    If you are thinking that there is any love lost between Eric Clapton and George Harrison, you are wrong. When Clapton stole Pattie Boyd away from Harrison and then married her, even the most jaded type shook their heads.

     Most people recall the story through Clapton's impassioned love plea in "Layla." Still, Clapton and Harrison have managed to be civil to each other and even plan to tour together in the near future. 

    When asked if this put a strain on their friendship, Clapton tells Jim Henke that indeed it has in the upcoming issue of Rolling Stone. "Unbelievable ... it's still there. It has something to do with the way we wind up each other. I mean, there's always a little barbed comment somewhere in any conversation. I mean, that's devastated all three of us. It was fun at the time. It really was like one of those movies where you see wife swapping... Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. But it took years, and it'll never go away. 

    "The way we think and feel about each other. I'll probably get my knuckles wrapped for talking about all this. I'll go home, and I'll see George, and he'll go, 'Oh, running off at the mouth again?'"

     So will Clapton play "Layla" when touring with Harrison? "Yeah, that's always been a bone of contention. Every time I play it, and he's in the audience, I've always wondered what the hell goes through his mind. But I don't know. We've got a sense of humor about it."

Yeah Yeah Yeah Beatles Will Get Back Together Says Paul (1991)

 

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah Beatles Will Get Back Together Says Paul

No Writer Listed

San Antonio Express - News

September 22, 1991 

    It's been a long and winding road, but the three surviving Beatles will finally get together again. Take Paul McCartney's word for it. 

    

    After 21 years of hopeful rumors, McCartney says he is on the verge of teaming up once again with George Harrison and Ringo Starr to make Beatleful music together.

     "We all had a massive falling out over money after John died," He says, "but recently we have secretly and quietly become mates again. George, Ringo and I have met for tea and dinner several times, and I am not ruling out the remaining Beatles getting together again."

     George Harrison, however, has been singing a different tune. "As far as I am concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead.," He snipped. 

    All the same, Paul has the reunion scenario mapped out in his head. "We will most likely be brought together initially by our documentary project," He predicts. "It's an idea I've had to get all our private footage of the Beatles together and turn it into the Beatles story. We all have a lot of footage that is historical and hysterical!

     "It may be possible now for George and I to write together and perhaps rework some Beatles songs or compose new ones. We might sit down with just a guitar and a bongo drum, and if anything comes out of that, it might be the start of something fab."

George and Pattie in India

September 1966 
 

Beatle Gets Lesson on Indian Instrument (1966)

 Beatle Gets Lesson on Indian Instrument

Associated Press (Bombay)

September 20, 1966

    A lot of people in Bombay take lessons on the sitar, a stringed guitar-like instrument. Nothing unusual about that, but the plucking gets newsworthy when one of the pupils is named Sam Wells. Who is Sam Wells? He is an Englishman who generally goes around as George Harrison, the quiet Beatle. He is staying at the Taj Mahal Hotel under the assumed name while he studies the sitar.

The largest crowd they played for

 

George wears his favorite coat

 

Interview with Long John Wade (1965)

 Interview with Long John Wade

Beatles Unlimited (Local Beatles Fan newsletter)

February 1965 - Volume 1 No 1

    Hey Beatles fans! Here's an interview with the only radio personality to make the entire American tour with the Beatles, Long John Wade of WDRC Hartford, Connecticut.

 Q: Which Beatles struck you as being the most quiet? 

A: The quietest?  George.

 Q: Will you please describe the Beatles in your own words?

 A:  John's loud. Ringo's more or less quiet --usually sits in the background, except when he opens his mouth; it's usually something funny. George is quiet. Period. He doesn't laugh as much as the rest. Paul is the friendliest. He seems to be the most amiable. You know, not necessarily that the others are not friendly. He just outwardly acts like that. 

Q:  Did you attend all the press conferences?

 A:  Yes.

 Q: Could you tell us offhand which was the most interesting one? 

A: Well, there was an interesting one in Canada because in Vancouver, they televised the whole thing live. They had TV cameras all set up there, so that was interesting. The first ones were the most interesting because they asked all the questions. Then they got boring after a while because the same questions were asked over and over. The New York press conferences were exciting because there were more people there, and it was a bigger room and a bigger hotel. And of course, they all had the TV cameras set up there, but still the same questions.

 Q: How many others besides yourself were with the official Beatles troupe?

 A: Mainly entertainers, which included the Righteous Brothers, the Exciters, and one of the Exciters' mothers, who acted as a chaperone because one of the Exciters is under 18, and Jackie DeShannon. I think the plane averaged 38. This included the hostesses, the representative from the airline, Kappy Ditson, who arranged all our accommodations-- our travel arrangements, limousines, and whatnot. As far as radio or press people, there were five from England, all from newspapers, of course. One of them was a photographer, and then there were two freelance photographers who joined us in Las Vegas. One of them was Ron Joy, who I became very friendly with.

Q: Did you take any pictures yourself? Did you bring a camera?

 A:  I took some, but I had tape recorders and everything else with me. That was a mistake because I took them to too many places. That was bad because the Beatles don't like to see a microphone around. They're very wary of that sort of thing.

 Q:  Did having two Johns confuse matters any? That is John Lennon and yourself?

 A: Well, there were little funny things like I'd say "Hi, John", and he'd say "Hi, John." I'd say "How are you John?" and he'd say "Fine John." It'd go back and forth like that, and so on. 

Q:  What did they call you, Long John or John Wade? 

A. The Whisperer mainly. 

Q:  Oh, why was that?

 A:  Well, because I was always whispering in people's ears, you know, the interviews were going on and the microphones were on, and I didn't want to be heard, so I'd whisper, and somebody -- Ringo, usually--- would go, "Pssssssst, psssssst, pssssst.  Here's Whisperer Wade. Psssssst Pssssst!" And then near the end of the trip in Kansas City, when Paul autographed that picture of me he drew, he signed it "John Fixer Wade."

 Q: Why was that?

 A:  Well, for other reasons that I won't explain. 

Q:  Did you see the Beatles in between the shows backstage? 

A:  Yeah. Did you hear my tape of Paul doing opera in the shower? That was just fooling around between shows.

 Q:  How did they dress usually? When they weren't in the public eye that is. 

A:  Well, not sloppily, but casual. Ringo wore these big 16th-century puffed-sleeve shirts, very billowy and loose. And John would wear a turtleneck, usually black, sometimes a light color, with a sports jacket over it. He bought a red-and-white striped shirt one time. It was pretty loud.

 Q: Do they like American styles, or would they rather wear English clothes? 

A:  Well, they're not too conservative.

 Q. How did they compare in height to you? (Long John is well over six feet.)

 A:  Oh, short, a lot shorter than you'd imagine, except John.

 Q. Really?

 A: Oh yeah, they're about five foot seven or five foot eight. Really very short. Ringo is shorter than you are.

 Q. He is?

 A:  Stand up........... Well, he's about your height.

 Q. I thought John was about five foot 11 or six foot. They seem so tall.

 A:  That's with their boots on. They're really very short. You'd be surprised.

 Q:  Have you read John's book In His Own Write? 

A:  Yeah, parts of it, but you've got to stick with it and really think about it. It's better, of course, if you know, in the past, what he's reflecting upon. 

Q. Do they quote from it at all? 

A. No.

George, John & Yoko

 

September 6, 1971 

The 33 1/3 days

 

Stand By Me

 George and Ringo with Ben E. King