Sticky Fingers - A Book Review

I am sure many of you reading this were like me and at one point had a subscription to Rolling Stone Magazine.   And I wouldn't be shocked to learn that many of you also collected back issues of the music magazine, especially if the Beatles or John, Paul, George or Ringo were on the cover.

I had heard that the biography of the founder of Rolling Stone,  titled Sticky Fingers The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and  Rolling Stone magazine was an interesting book, especially for Beatles fans, so I thought I would give it a try.     I am an extremely fast reader but this 560-page book took me over 3 weeks to finish.   This book is "semi-authorized" in that Jann Wenner asked the author to write the book and was allowed to edit things that were about his personal life, but did not touch what was said about him professionally.

Jann Wenner (the name is pronounced "Yann" come to find out I have been mispronouncing his name wrong all these years) supposedly started R.S. magazine because he wanted to meet John Lennon.   The book starts with a wonderful story of Jann and his wife Jane along with John and Yoko watching the film "Let it Be" almost alone in a California theater in 1970.   This would be the first time John had seen the finished cut of the film and John left in tears. 

Jann was a Beatles fan and thought John Lennon was basically the Beatles and the other three really didn't matter.    He loved John so much that he put John as Private Gripweed on the cover of the first issue in 1967.  The San Francisco magazine wasn't doing well financially in 1970 and John agreed to give Jann an exclusive interview with him and Yoko to help sell more magazines (well newspapers at that time).  Part of the verbal agreement was that Jann would not use the interview outside of the confines of RS.     This was, of course, the most controversial of all John Lennon Interviews are known today as "Lennon Remembers."

Jann went back on his word and published the full interview in book form.   This made John Lennon extremely angry and he cut ties with Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine.     In the big picture, the "Lennon Remembers" interview was not a good idea all around.     Wenner didn't do well with the other Beatles either.    Paul didn't like him because he thought that he favored John too much and George didn't like him because of the infamous "Lumbering in the Material World" article about the Dark Horse Tour.      The book doesn't say anything at all about Ringo.     It amazes me that RS was able to become so big without The Beatles support.


The book goes into a lot of detail about Jann's personal life.   It paints a picture of a self-centered, party boy that was addicted to cocaine,  and treated people poorly.    He would sleep with both men and women even though he was married to Jane.    However, I guess it didn't really matter because Jane had her affairs with a variety of men and women herself.     By the time they moved the magazine from San Francisco to New York City,  the Wenner's were living a jet-set rich life and were deep in debt.    In the 1970's they loved to hob-knob with the rich and famous, even though most everyone disliked Jann (they all adored Jane).     Personally, I found this time in the 1970's to drag on and on in this book and it could have been majorly cut down.

A few interesting things:   In 1974 Jann received a Polaroid photo of John and Paul at the beach house.   The description of the photo given in the book does not match with anything I have in my files.     There possibly could be another photo from April 1, 1974, of John and Paul that we haven't seen! 

In 1977, there was a Rolling Stone 10th anniversary TV special that had a Beatles segment that is really messed up!   $100,000 was spent on this segment of the failed show and you just need to look it up on Youtube to get the full trainwreck.   People dressed up as Strawberries dancing around to a guru looking guy singing "Strawberry Field Forever??"   I wonder if John or Paul saw this mess?

When John was murdered in 1980,  Jann was devastated.  Now, John had not forgiven Jann for the Lennon Remembers book.   He purposely gave the big interview in 1980 to Playboy and made it clear to Jann that he was allowing RS to do the photos and talk to him just because he needed the publicity for Double Fantasy.  But Jann was a slick guy, and after John's death, he became friends with Yoko Ono.    He started going on talk shows and talking about his "good friend John Lennon." Jann and Jane, along with Yoko and Sam H., would go shopping for expensive furniture together, and Yoko considered Jann to be a real friend. Sean even ended up being the Godfather to one of Jann's sons.  And the John Lennon tribute issue of RS with naked John curled up to a fully clothed Yoko is one of the best-known photos and best selling magazines of all time.

1986 --  Yoko and Andy Warhol with Jann photo bombing in the background 

The book also goes into detail about Jann's involvement in the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame and how Jann lied to Paul McCartney, which is why Stella wore the infamous "about f---- time" t-shirt when her Dad finally was inducted. 

Jann was always willing to give new writers a chance and was a good businessman who made a lot of money.    He just led a crazy life with a lot of sex and drugs.  In 2014, Yoko Ono gave him a peace award in Iceland because she thought he was depressed, and that would cheer him up.    Rolling Stone has had its ups and downs over the years and has gone through so many changes, but it remains still a mainstay when it comes to rock n roll journalism.

Sticky Fingers was an interesting book, but it was a slow reader.    I would only recommend it to fans of rock and roll who are particularly interested in how this classic magazine was run.


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/49wGumd

Ball of J&Y

Ballad of J & Y

By Stuart Webin

Rolling Stone May 10, 1973

John and Yoko flew here (New York) from California on April 2^nd for a 10am news conference at a midtown municipal building.  Seated next to Leon Wildes, their immigration attorney, the Lennons announce officially their appeal of the decision by Immigration Judge Ira Fieldsteel, which put the former Beatle under a 60-day voluntary departure order in lieu of deportation, while his wife was allowed to stay in the US under application for residency.  They also announced the birth of a “conceptual country” called Nutopia, and in response to a question from the floor, John confirmed a London dispatch which announced the termination of the managerial contract between Allen Klein’s ABKCO Industries Inc. and Apple Corps Ltd., its subsidiaries and Messrs. George Harrison, John Lennon and Ringo Starr.  The 30-minute press conference ended with J&Y waving facial tissue at the TV cameras, the flag of surrender and the symbol of Nutopia.  

At noon they were back at their basement loft in the West Village, planning to return to California before nightfall.  They were near exhaustion having avoided sleep for about 40 hours but they said they were willing to give a 1-hour interview to comment on rumors.   Behind their yawns, the Lennons’ spirits were exceptionally high.   They were optimistic that John would be able to stay in the US beyond 60 days on appeal.  Lennon began the talk by explaining his objections to the Immigration decision:

John:  “The first mistake the judge makes is that he says cannabis resin is a narcotic, which it is  not.   Second, he inferred that perhaps Kyoko didn’t want to talk to Yoko and that she’s only called once in 1971 and at that time complained about detectives being on her tail.  What he forgot to mention was that the judge in Texas court had ordered Tony Cox to let Kyoko talk to Yoko, and he did after a lot of hassles, and through her he requested that we call off the detectives.   But it was actually the request of Tony and his wife Melinda.  We pulled them off, but with the police watching, Tony and Melinda escaped and are still in contempt of court in Texas.  We’re hoping that with the advent of Allen DeKlein, which we know was one of the major factors in Tony’s fear, we hope that Tony and Melinda will understand that that part of us has gone into the blue beyond.  This should make them feel more secure about letting us talk to Kyoko, because I know that was always hovering their minds.  

(Allen Klein commented later:  “Yoko has said that Cox was paranoid about me.  That’s all right.  I didn’t trust him either.)

RS:  Was the Kyoko matter a major factor in the split with Klein?

John:  The reason for the split were manifold and manifest, and I won’t comment on how long we had been thinking about it.  But everything was taken into consideration, so the answer to your question is yes.

RS:  Leon Wildes stated that evidence from the trial of the Scotland Yard 5, which is now going on in England, would have bearing on our case.   What is that evidence?

John:  The most important evidence is the fact that we were planted by Sgt. Pilcher.  He planted me and he also planed George.  That’s how he made his reputation and got his promotions.  But since then Pilcher and his boss Chief Inspector Kelaher have been indicted for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.  So immigration people here should be able to see that that could be resolved at any time.  And it’s not just the fact of a pardon, it’s whether or not I was ever guilty.  The law at the time of my trial said that if you owned a house, where stuff was found, even if you weren’t living there, you were guilty of possession.  Everybody was up for grabs.  It could have been the Queen, who owns half the property in London.  I can’t understand why they’re acting this way toward us.  Aren’t we the classic American success story?  The judge has this patronizing attitude toward us, like when he talked about the Committee for John and Yoko as some kind of drug culture or artists’ community that is behind us.  They never were supposed to be anything but a group of people, most of them friends of Yoko’s from a past incarnation who said they wanted to help filter information for us.  But the judge says (gruff godly voice) “Perhaps if we go for a national referendum…”  Well, we’ll play it that way if they want—make it an international referendum.

RS:  Do you think being an Ex-Beatle has helped or hindered you in the case?

John:  Well, the only way I can think that’s helped is that if we hold a press conference, people show up.  Otherwise you’d have to think of something like go naked riding an elephant with a wig and a red nose, and when people show up, say, “Hey, they are trying to throw me out.”

RS:  What can people do to help you?  Write to congress?

John:  Well, they intimating that we’re going around promoting our case, which is not what we are doing.  If the press is there, we’ll answer questions.  Since you asked casually, I’ll say yeah, people can write to Congress or write to Immigration or write to each other.

RS:  Will Paul be taking a more active interest in Apple now?

John:  Well, he’s had a very active interest all the time, which was trying to get away from it.   We’ll decide among the four of us how to deal with it.  Which is something we should have done a long time ago, but obviously que sera sera, and now is the hour.   The thing about “They’re all getting together again” came out of the fact that we all had to get together to discuss this thing including Paul’s situation sooner or later.  It just so happened that George had to be in LA to work with Ravi, and Ringo was there recording his album, so we all timed it to be there to discuss our futures.  It always seems to be in the publics' or the press’ imagination that the Beatles are getting together again, which is not in the cards, and that the Beatles getting together somehow means---because they still have this hangover that Yoko and Linda Eastman had some kind of fight, which never ever occurred—Yoko and I splitting up, and therefore retroactively somehow, Paul and Linda splitting up.  Now that’s just insane.  We broke up because we were disintegrating, and the final real break was the Klein/Eastman situation.  Our love life had nothing to do with it, because when you’re in love, and this goes for Paul and Linda, too, nothing else is really important.  I’m just sick about that bit that Beatles means John and Yoko splitting up.  Paul and I had words, and we all had words between us, but you know it was male pricks fighting, and the women were far wiser as usual.

RS:  How will Apple change with Klein leaving?

John:  Most of the Apple personnel were really ABKCO people, and they’ll probably stay with ABKCO.  We don’t have any personal resentment for Klein, and we’ll always have a soft spot for him.  It’s not personalities; it’s business.

RS:  What are your plans?

John:  I don’t make no plans.   That’s why I’m still alive.  The only performances I can see ahead will be in court. 

On the cover of the Rolling Stone

Eight Days a Week

Here is the first of two stories from 1984 told by Buddy Dresner about his time with the Beatles in Miami in 1964.  This one came from the Feb 16, 1984  (issue 415) of Rolling Stone.   Buddy retired as a lieutenant of the Miami Police in 1980 and worked in construction.    After Buddy's death some of his Beatles memorabilia was auction off and bought by the Hard Rock Cafe and can be found at various restaurants around the world. 


I was working nights.  Someone was pounding on my door at 11.  A North Miami Beach policeman said, "Get down to the station."  There they handed me an envelope.  The note said, "You will go to the Deauville Hotel and take charge of the Beatles' security."

I went up to their room, and we became friends.  I told them we would have a good time, and if they paid attention, there wouldn't by any trouble.  I told them it would be my responsibility if something happened to them.  

We used to watch T.V.  We were watching a show called The Outer Limits and I said, "If I had one of those guns, I could zap all the criminals."

Paul said, "What did you say?"

"Zap?" I said.  They never heard that word before.  I heard they put that word in one of their songs.

I also taught 'em how to fish. They wouldn't put the bait on the wouldn't take the fish off the hook, but they liked fishing.  There was a private home on Star Island owned by a policeman's wife and we hung out there.

I took 'em to the first drive-movie they went to.  Gave them their first grilled cheese sandwich.  I had 'em over here for supper.  They drank Scotch with warm Coke.  Paul would eat dessert before the main meal.  I said, "You can't do that in America.  You gotta eat the salad first then hit the steak and potatoes."

The fans tried everything in the world to get into the hotel.  I had to set up booby traps.  Exit doors would open into the hallways.  I put chairs behind the doors.  Once, forty kids charged.  I was standing outside the door, all by myself.  I said, "Hold it there.  You're all under arrest.  Just stop right there.  Wait for the car.  They turned and ran.  I was more scared than they were!"

The Beatles had good times.  We went to the Deauville nightclub.  At night I did bed checks.  Would you believe?  I had about 23 or 24 policemen working for me.  I said, "Whoever lets 'em out, I have to answer to the chief." 

I would leave for home at 2:30 or 3:00 a.m. then set my alarm for 6.  It wore me out after a couple days, so I said, "Hey George, you got a roommate?"  He said, "I was wondering why you didn't stay."   I moved in.

Once I told them, "You guys better save your money.  I don't think you're gonna make it."  They would needle me saying, "Why don't you go out and get a real job?"  I said, "I'll get you jobs as taxi drivers."

There were no women in the rooms, no drugs--no way, shape or form.  Only Scotch and Coke.  That's a fact.  These were the straightest, cleanest kids.  I swear on it.  It was like taking care of a younger brother.

After they went back, they send me some snapshots.  Then I was supposed to go see 'em in Jacksonville when they came back later, but I had to work.

Ticket to Ride

Another story from issue 415 of Rolling Stone magazine from Feb 16, 1984.  This one is about Carol Gallagher, who was the flight attendant on the flight from New York to Miami in 1964.  She is the girl who is seen holding a huge box of chocolates in a heart box. 


It was driving my car home from the beach.  I heard on the radio that The Beatles would be coming to Miami on National Airlines Flight 11, and I said, "Oh my God, that's my flight!"

I went bananas because I was madly in love with them.  I say MADLY in love with them.  I was 22 years old, a normal Beatles freak.  The flight was two weeks away at that point.  It was the roughest two weeks of my life.  I was worried sick about my hair -- Is my hair fixed?  Typical fan reactions.   The day before the flight, my supervisor called me and said they would definitely be on the flight and did I think I could handle it?

The day of the flight got very calm, my hair turned out good, my face didn't break out.  At Kennedy, we went down to the gate lounge.  We waited and waited and all of a sudden, there they were.  They floated in with a million reporters.  I was just stunned.  They were just the most gorgeous, fabulous men I'd seen in my life.  They didn't call them the Fab Four for nothing.

The public relations people propped me on the pane steps with a big box of candy and took all these pictures.  Somehow, we managed to get everybody on board.  It was a two hour flight.  They were very, very excited except for John who was very quiet.  Sat in the last row with Cynthia.  The rest of the Beatles spent most of the flight autographing stacks and stacks of photographs.  They weren't impressed with themselves.  I remember Paul asking me, "Do you think anyone will be in Miami to meet us?"

As we approached Miami, Ringo insisted on putting on a life jacket and looking out for sharks.

When the Beatles deplaned, they just popped into a few limos and left.  There were thousands of people there. The poor fans didn't get to see much.  I went home.  It took me about three days to simmer down.  I was very excited about it for a long, long time.

I've just seen a face

As I continue to dig through the files to figure out who was there and what happened during the Beatles 1st U.S. visit, I found issue #415 of Rolling Stone magazine (February 16, 1984) which celebrated the Beatles 20th anniversary.   Inside of it there are many, many stories of folks who were "there."   I am going to reproduce a few of them for your enjoyment.   The first is a girl named Caroline Marsh who was able to have a brief conversation with George shortly after he arrived in America.

Caroline is the girl holding the George photo

I've just seen a Face
From Rolling Stone issue 415

I came down ahead of time and was staying with a friend of mine.  It was Saturday (sic) morning.  They were giving a blow-by-blow account of the Beatles arrival on the radio.  I thought to myself, "Gee, I think I'll go out to the airport and see them." 

I got to the airport, took one look at the crowd and said, "Oh dear.  I can't deal with this."  I got into a taxi and said "Take me into town."  The driver said, "Are you coming from seeing the Beatles?"  I said, "there are too many people out there."  He said, "Look around -the Beatles are right next to you." 

And there they were.  four big, black limousines with a Beatle in each.  At the stoplight, the driver said, "I'll start from the back, and you tell me which one to stop at."  I saw the one with George Harrison and told him, "Stop here!"

Our conversation was published in the New York Herald Tribune because their reporter, Tom Wolfe was in the limo with Harrison.

Caroline:  How does one go about meeting a Beatle?
George:  One says 'Hello.'
Caroline:  Hello.  Eight more will be down from Wellesley.

The Beatles were very important to me.  I was a nice, ordinary girl.  They changed my life.  I had considered going to law school, but it seemed awfully uninteresting compared to rock and roll. 

The Beatles made me realize anything in life was possible. They were just so far out of my realm of experience.  It was as though they were from another planet.  It was as though there is life somewhere else.

(Marsh got a job at Mercury Records instead of going to law school.  Then she worked as a publicist for Traffic, The Spencer Davis Group and Cream.  She is now (1984) an editorial assistant at Pantheon Books in New York.)

Dave Morrell: Part 2 - The Rolling Stone story

This is how I first read about Dave Morrell and his amazing story of meeting John Lennon.   It was in the 1984 issue of Rolling Stone magazine that commemorated the Beatles 20th anniversary of coming to America.   That issue features a lot of information about younger Beatle fans, and this story about Dave really stuck out to many people.

Photo from the Rolling Stone article

Photo Dave Morrell took of John (and a little bit of Yoko) during one of the Immigration hearings.

Beyond Beatlemania by Brant Mewborn

David Morrell will never forget the night he got to "turn on" a Beatle. It was October 4, 1974, a cool autumn evening. And there, on a bed in his East Fifty-second Street apartment, was John Lennon, sprawled alongside Derek Taylor, the former Beatle press officer, and Mike McGear, Paul McCartney's brother.

"What have you got?" John asked
"I think it may be something you've never seen before" said the lanky, longhaired twenty-one year old Morrell. There was a hushed air of anticipation as Morrell and his seventeen year old sidekick, Ron Furmanek, got into action. They set up a 16-mm film projector and aimed it at the white shade drawn across the expensive penthouse windows.

The movie that unreeled seemed anything but shocking or explosive; four moptops vainly trying to outscream an army of tonsil-baring teenage girls was an all to familiar memory, and the select audience was only mildly amused. Then suddenly, something unexpected happened. As John huddled with Paul and George around one microphone, their harmonies on "This boy" soared above the pandemonium. By the time the cinematic John began belting out his plaintive solo in the song's middle eight, the ex-Beatle had jumped from the bed to sit cross-legged on the floor, gazing up slack-jawed at his younger self.

"Wow," he said, slumping backward as the lights finally went up.

The party had just begun. For the next few hours, the two Beatlemaniacs delved into their suitcase of memorabilia and regaled their hero with obscure Beatles tapes, newsreels and photographs. After they'd exhausted their supply of treasures, John turned the tables. He took the boys out onto the balcony and pointed to a spot over the skyline where he had recently sighted a flying saucer. Then leading through the rest of the apartment, he showed them his original drawings for the sleeve art of his just-released album, Walls and Bridges, before rummaging through his bedroom closet and emerging with a large envelope.

"I've lived all over," John said "I don't carry a lot of things around in a trunk. You see my walls, there are no gold records. I don't have my Beatles guitars. But I do have one thing with me." And from an envelope within the envelope he pulled an acetate of the Beatles performing "How do you do it?" It was the unreleased non-Beatles song that George Martin had the group record as a follow up single to Love me do in 1963. The public got to hear it only by Gerry and the Pacemakers because Jon came up with Please please me instead.

It was incredible," Morrell says. "John was such a Beatle fan himself that after we turned him on with our stuff, he wanted to turn us on too."

David George John Morrell (his real given name) was a pioneer in what has since become a big business of collecting Beatles memorabilia. Today the collectors can essentially be divided into three distinct groups: those with money, those without money and those to whom virtually everything the Fab Four touched is simply priceless.

The well to do group might be found on New Bond Street in London, placing bids at Sotherby's auction galleries on memorabilia ranging from a gold record of Abbey road (sold for $4000) to the nineteenth century piano on which Lennon composed "a Day in the life" ($12, 500). The primary buyers, says Sotheby's, are American, Japanese and British; the material put up for sale is often form the Beatles' friends or the odd thief. Last year, Sotheby's pulled from the auction block a gold LP for Band on the Run that rightfully belonged to Paul McCartney

The group of collectors at the lower end of the income scale can generally be found at the various Beatles conventions and festivals held each year around the US. While these fans gather to discuss the joys and minutiae of their favorite band, the emphasis is more often on commerce than commentary. What you find, for the most part, are outrageously inflated prices for items that were once available at your local Woolworth's. The by-word of these conclaves might well be caveat emptor; fraudulent pieces are said to be rampet and authenticity is often in doubt.

The final grouping tends to scorn the pretenders in the other categories. These men and women traffic in those things that were never intended to see the light of day: unreleased song and album tapes, diaries, unpublished writings and clandestine films. At times, their relentless pursuit of such things has unearthed material even the Beatles didn't know existed; at other times, their detective work has been, shall we say, extralegal. While some collect solely for the sake of collecting, others, such as David Morrell, have loftier goals: sharing aspects of the Beatles legacy with the band's millions of admirers around the globe.

You won’t' find Dave Morrell at Beatles conventions. The sort of rarities he trades in, recording demos, outtakes, recorded conversations and interviews is a highly confidential business.

"It's sort of cloak and dagger," says Dave, "but the dagger is made of rubber." Dave is more forthcoming than most collectors. Driving from Manhattan to his home in New Jersey, he launches into a dissertation that's underscored by a demo of McCartney singing "Come and get it" (a hit he composed and produced for Badfinger) blaring from the car's cassette deck. According to Dave, the sources for this kind of material are the Beatles' assistants, the most notorious being a Lenono staffer who stole some of Lennon's tapes and diaries in 1981; recording studio personnel, including some well-known producers, and even the Beatles friends and fellow artists. Like a chain letter, an item is passed from collector to collector. All this activity inhabits a rather gray legal area, but it’s done privately and not distributed in quantity for commercial gain. Unfortunately, though the copying of tapes is nearly impossible to control, so they sometimes filter down into the hands of bootleggers."

"It a shame, “says Dave, having switched cassettes to a very rare acoustic folk version of Lennon's "Watching the Wheels" "I hate bootlegs. It's not what collecting is about. None of us wants that to happen, 'cause then the recordings are no longer an exclusive and their quality is very poor."

Another collector, who claims he's had tapes stolen only to see them surface on bootlegs, puts it more bluntly: "Anyone who would prostitute his hobby is not a collector, he's a crook." And Dave agrees, although he says that in his discussions with Lennon, the ex-Beatle had a liberal attitude toward bootlegging and got a kick out of them. Indeed Dave maintains that Lennon was the source of a major Beatles bootleg, Get Back to Toronto. It seems he gave a journalist a test pressing of the unembellished, pre Phil Spector Let it Be LP, and it was eventually broadcast around 1970 for NY's WBAI radio benefit, which was taped off the air and bootlegged. "I think," says Dave, that Lennon felt "Well this is the Beatles raw--let the world hear it."

There have been hundreds of lesser-quality bootlegs since then, and the latest is due any day now: a pirated recording of last summer's show at Abbey Road Studios, which features a moving, acoustic rendition of "While my guitar gently weeps" and the recently discovered "Leave my kitten alone." The underground buzz credits the album to an enterprising visitor who slipped through the metal detector security with a plastic tape recorder.

Tales of such shenanigans don't really rattle Dave's antennae these days. But while unpacking trunks of memorabilia in the suburban home that was once a Beatles shrine in his more manic days, he remembers how he used to have the Beatles grapevine growing out of both ears. "I had to know about every new thing," says Dave, "and I had to get everything, one way or another."

"You've just won Mayor Lindsay's legs!" These were among the first words John Lennon ever uttered to Dave Morrell. This is important. This is history. And Dave has it documented on tape. It was the summer of '71 and John and Yoko were mystery guests on Howard Smith's call in talk show on WPLJ-FM New York. Like any fan worth his weight in Beatles bubble gum cards, Dave immediately soused out the situation, plugged in his tape machine and telephoned in to join the fun. For his effort, John proclaimed that Dave had won the aforementioned prize. Spurred on by this off the wall on the air exchange, the teenager wrote to Smith, saying he had happened on to some early Beatles recordings he wanted John to identify. The response was as swift as it was surprising. Smith arranged for Dave to play the tapes for John at the studio where he was producing the David Peel album The Pope Smokes Dope.

The tapes in question were actually cuts that Dave had recorded from one of the earliest Beatles bootlegs called Yellow Matter Custard. "You might say I bluffed my way in," admits Dave, "because it was a record that anybody could get. But I can honestly say I was the first person to play it for John Lennon. And he was totally knocked out. He identified them as the Beatles audition tapes for Decca. We later learned that they were really from BBC broadcasts of the same period. But John was so excited that he later told Howard on the air that he was sending copies to the other Beatles. He was very gung ho."

Dave had fully expected the bum's rush from Lennon. But as it turned out, Peel had to interrupt the recording sessions; as astonished Dave and his girlfriend, Mary Ellen (fellow fan and eventually wife, who married her collection to his) stayed and entertained John, Yoko, Smith and the studio staff with their bag of Beatles memorabilia. In return for Dave's tape, John sent for one of his "butcher cover" albums, which he signed for Dave with an autograph on the front and a sketch on the back. Naturally, it's the crowning glory of Dave's collection.

It was as if Dave had received the godfather's blessing. The 18 year old college dropout took this red letter event as a sign to quit his job as stock boy in Paramus and to continue his collector's quest with an added impetus, to track down artifacts and tapes that even a Beatle would find interesting.

The self-appointed scout was well prepared for his mission. Since age 11, Dave had steeped himself in Beatle lore. Whether it was the movies he shot with his home movie camera of the band's appearance on Ed Sullivan, or the photos he took at Shea Stadium (using his binoculars as a telephoto lens) he had to have it all.

These scratchy, grainy mementos from adolescence gave Dave bargaining power with the network of collectors that soon developed through his celebrity as "the world's leading Beatlemaniac" a title Howard Smith conferred upon him in an article in the Village Voice. Soon, he was overwhelmed by the hordes of Beatles freaks crawling out of the woodwork and heading his way. The weirdest case was that of a Beatlemaniac's mother who wanted to touch him because he had met John Lennon. The nicest was a precocious 14 year old named Ron Furmanek, who expertise nearly matched his own; they teamed up to spread the gospel with one of the first collectors' newsletters, Beatles for Sale. And the most intriguing response was from a mysterious man who lured Dave to Connecticut promising to screen an amazing 35mm film of the Beatles' first concerts in America. It was amazing. So was the price: 10,000 dollars for the negative, $800 for the print. Dave knew he was in over his head, but he knew he was in.

High from spearheading a revival of Beatlemania, Dave entered a short but frenzied period of obsession that he now looks back on with something less than pride. Usually accompanied by a could Beatles pals, he'd loiter outside John and Yoko's Village apartment, waiting to exchange a few remarks with the godfather and turn him on to a new acquisition. Or, decked out with camera and tape machines, he'd play reporter and interview John as he emerged from his immigration hearings downtown. He even managed to crash the party following Lennon's One to One benefit concert at Madison Square Garden. Dave and Ron became more aggressive New York versions of the female "Apple Scruffs" who kept vigil at Apple's home office in London. Befriending the small, laid back Apple crew on the 41st floor of 1700 Broadway, they insinuated their way into the closest approximation of paradise they could imagine--a storage room brimming with Beatles records, tapes, films, photos and a wealth of promotional gadgets.

Things were pretty hunky-dory in fan land until one day, as Dave and Ron were boarding the elevator, Apple bound, "an arm reached in and pulled back the doors," relates Dave, "It was John with Yoko. It was incredible. We were wired to the teeth with hidden mikes and recorders and we pressed all the buttons so the elevator would stop at every floor from one to forty one! “Then they launched into their collectors' spiel. But no, John didn't need any more copies of "She loves you" in German. And no, this bootleg of "Have you heard the word" was not really the Beatles--it was a fake, a hoax. And why was the elevator stopping at every bloody floor! When it finally reached the destination, the boys didn't have the nerve to follow John and Yoko.

Dave came to a sobering realization. Among fans, there are echelons, and the fans who haunt doorways and pull elevator pranks are several notches below those who receive a special audience with their idol, something Dave had already done. Dave decided to wait for his next invitation.

It would be two years before it came. By that time, Dave was a promotion man at Warner Bros. Records. During one crazy week in October, while working with Derek Taylor on a Mike McGear project, Dave found himself with Ron in Lennon's apartment, turning him on with their latest finds. The next day Dave took a copy of the oldie "Just Because" to the Record Plant so John could learn the song's lyrics to lay down his final vocal track for the Rock n Roll album. And a few days later, as John's 34th birthday celebration, Dave gave John an Elvis button. Dave of course, can show you photos of John wearing that button on several other occasions.

I've never concerned myself with Lennon's politics or his personal life." says Dave, fiddling with the tape deck that's been blasting out one ear-opening rarity after another. "I've only concerned myself with his music. You see, everything I did to get what I have was done out of some basic instinct to preserve pieces of history. The Beatles themselves were too busy living it to collect it. And the people working for them were too careless or unorganized to realize the worth of what they were entrusted with. But the fans and collectors knew. We always knew. So I have no regrets. Now I see myself as more of a Beatles curator than a collector."

Beatles curators of Beatles archives for Beatles scholars? Dave's face is one big grin, but he's dead serious about the archives: a nonprofit collection of Beatles tapes, films, videos, photos, periodicals and documents that would be open to fans, musicologists and culture historians. For starters, he says, he could use his own collection, and he definitely has the goods. Above all, there are the tapes: priceless unpolished and spontaneous performances, like Lennon accompanying himself on guitar on "Grow old with me" (a version of which is on Milk & Honey) and "You've got to serve yourself" (never released in any form); or the approximately 80 hours of outtakes from the Let it Be movie soundtrack. To complete the archives, Dave says he'd call a grand summit meeting of top Beatles collectors and ask them to donate materials.

Obsessions do indeed shape professions. After years of hyping artists for the likes of Warner Bros, RCA and Arista, Dave has landed feet first at Capitol. It is of course, the U.S. label responsible for bring the Beatles sound to the New World for the past 2 decades and a fitting place for a grown up Beatlemaniac.

"You know," Dave says, "when Sgt. Pepper came out in '67, I was so bummed out. I couldn't deal with the fact that the Beatles were never gonna play live again, that they were wearing mustaches and burying the old moptops. I couldn't grow up. And after they broke up, I was always dreaming they'd get back together. But I finally realized how selfish that was. Now, it means more to me to talk about what kind of person John Lennon was rather than what type of shoes he had in his closest. I couldn't sit around with my collection gathering dust, with the blinds closed, shutting out reality, trying to keep time at a standstill. My windows are open."

Then he pauses, with a quick glance down and smiles, "But I'll probably die with my Beatle boots on."

The cover of the Rolling Stone

So it isn't a fan photo, but I think it is pretty neat anyhow.

10 years without George

First I want to say that I purposely waited until late in the day on November 29 to post my tribute in memory of George. I did that because while I know that George passed away on November 29, 2001, it wasn't until the morning of November 30, 2001 that I heard the news. As I have said in the past, the day I learned of George's death was my last day working at a job that I was anxious to leave. I had quit on September 12, 2001 after realizing that life was too short to be stuck doing something you dislike. But this particular job had a 2 MONTH notice (instead of the traditional 2 week notice) and with my accumulated sick days and whatnot, November 30 was my last day. On December 1 I was going to venture out into a new phase of my life. Somehow George's death at that particular moment of my life made me think about how George also was going onto his next phase of the cycle of life.

Having a Beatles blog, I felt like I had to do something great in honor of George. "People expect it, Sara", I was telling myself all day. And I had a few different ideas. I looked for letters from fans written after his death and found very little. The photos I personally took of the George Harrison memorial wall at Beatlefest in 2002 didn't look as great as I remembered them.

Words cannot express how I feel about George. George isn't my favorite Beatle. I have jokingly referred to him as "my fourth favorite Beatle." Because I love and adore George Harrison, and he is one of my favorite musicians ever. I think George would have found that to be a funny statement. It actually angered me that after George's death people that I know were never fans started calling him their favorite Beatle. But now, 10 years later, I don't care.

Anyhow....I am leaving you with some excerpts from a Rolling Stone magazine article written in by Fred Goodman along with two fan photos, one of which was taken by Lizzie Bravo and the other I think was taken by Cathy Sarver (although I might be incorrect about that one.)

Das and Goswami, the Krishnas who prayed and kept him company till the moment of his death, say Harrison's humor was intact until he died. 'There was some great jokes,' says Das. 'He's always been a super comedian.' 'He faced the end with great humor and courage,' said Dr. Lederman, who treated Harrison. 'He believed that death is part of life and had no fear of death. sometimes it made those around him uncomfortable. But he was totally fearless about it.


In early November Harrison received treatment on Staten Island. Throughout, he remained in good spirits, even working on "Brainwashed". And it was there on November 12th that he shared a final reunion with his former band mates, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney. According to the British tabloid, Sunday People, Harrison was in high humor throughout lunch, recalling early adventures from their days together, including how he had thought he fellow Beatles were asleep when he lost his virginity in their shared Hamburg hotel room, only to have them cheer and clap when he had finished. Starr, who had flown in from Boston, where his thirty-one year old daughter is being treated for a brain tumor, left after lunch when Harrison went for treatment (and we all know what was shared between Ringo and George at that moment, especially after seeing the Harrison documentary this past October) but McCartney insisted on remaining, spending the rest of the afternoon with the Harrisons. "It was a spirited affair," said Lederman, "not a somber one. There were lots of laughs and lots of fun. There were tears, but George remained very much a man of dignity. At the end, after both Paul and Ringo had left, he was fine and calm. He was a very happy man. This meeting meant so much to him."

Apple Scruffs come to dinner

As I have mentioned before, I am trying my best to do research on the famous Apple Scruffs. I have learned a lot and debunked a lot of myths that I once believed about them. However, they remain to be a mysterious bunch. (Not that I blame them...) I recently realized that Rolling Stone did an entire article about the Apple Scruffs in the December 24, 1970 issue. I have every issue of Rolling Stone from 1967-2007 on my computer, so I found the R.S. article on the Scruffs and read it. Then I remembered that I had read something in Carol Bedford's book about it. I guess they were misquoted in this article and it isn't that great of an article. But nonetheless, I spend most of my evening typing this all out, so I am posting it. Here is what it says in Carol's book about the article.

In November, George arranged an interview for Apple Scruffs with Rolling Stone magazine. We were surprised, to say the least, but Terry told us George thought the world should know about 'the world's most loyal fans.' Apparently, Rolling Stone were intrigued about us. They had heard George's song about us and wanted to know who or what we were.

Margo, Jill, Lucy, Wendy, Cathy and I went to Andrew Bailey's apartment on a rainy night. We sat on the floor around a coffee table facing Andrew and Richard DiLello., Apple's photographer. We chatted for a couple of hours, trying to explain the Apple Scruffs.

The article came out a couple of weeks later. They took our conversation and either cut it short, so that what appeared seemed out of context, or they simply and bluntly misquoted us.

On Monday, George came out of Apple. He asked me how the interview had gone.

"They misquoted us," I told him.

"Now you know how it feels," George snapped.

Apple Scruffs Come to Dinner

"I’ve watched you sitting there
Seen the passers by all stare
Like you have no place to go
But there’s so much they don’t know
About Apple Scruffs"
From George Harrison’s album All Things Must Pass

By Andrew Bailey

London-“We were standing outside Abbey Road Studios at 6 o’clock on a Saturday morning,” Margo said on the night the Apple Scruffs came round for dinner. Not all 16 Scruffs made it through the rain, but the six who did arrive brought wine and looked happy. Margo, who works for Apple as a tea girl, recalled how they first heard George’s dedication to the Scruffs, which appears on his new album. “Mal Evans came out of the studio and told us to come in and listen to something. It was so beautiful. We didn’t know what to do and we cried. After they played the song we filed out into the rain again. I remember that night …. We took an old-fashioned Beatle blanket with us, the sort with pictures in the corners.”

The Apple Scruffs really started ages ago but the dozen and half girls who spend most of their non-working hours keeping an eye on all Beatle activity only organized themselves into an exclusive “freemasonry” about a year ago. Then they started producing their own monthly magazine, The Apple Scruffs Book. Besides hanging around on the steps of Apple headquarters in Savile Row the Scruffs do duty outside any studio where there is a Beatle at work.

Of course there are other dedicated Beatle fans who go through the same motions as the Scuffs. Fans who travel to Savile Row to catch a glimpse of a Beatle on his five-yard dash from the heavy white front door of Apple to the waiting car, or just to soak up the Beatles vibes, pay homage, wonder at it all. But there is only a handful of genuine Apple Scruffs.

Carol, who first caught the bug watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show back home in the States, describes in a breathy rush her first confrontation with her feeling for the cuddly foursome. “Well, you go to their concert when they come to your city, don’t you, and I’m standing there with my brother and he says now Carol you aren’t going to scream are you and I say you’ve gotta be kidding what do you think I am and then it just comes out and kept on getting louder like a snowball growing. And now you just can’t decide one day to throw away all your Beatle photos and everything. Anyway this is what I want. Some girls may be in love and going to get married. Well, right now … maybe it fills a “gap.”

Fills a gap between what, is asked. Another Scruff, Kathy, made of less dreamy stuff than Carol, puts up her defenses. “That’s too easy an explanation of what the Scruffs are about.” Speaking for the first time, Jill says in a small voice, “It’s the thing itself, kin its own way, that’s important.”

The Scruffs are sick of glib explanations. “One paper called us nuns,” says Wendy. A nice idea that in principle; a group of girls “married” to four saints from Liverpool. It fits in with a piece in the Scruffs magazine which listed losing one’s virginity as a reason for quitting the Scruffs. “Some of the original Scruffs have left, to get married, “explained Carol. “Tina, Lizzie, Joan…” She trails off. “Look we know that none of us is ever going to marry a Beatle, so forget that idea.”
“And don’t,” warns Chris, darkly “write any of that crap about ‘mother instinct.’”

Viewed from the steps of Apple the world’s a different place. It’s a good day when you get an unexpected smile from a visitor to Apple. It’s a bad day when the tourist points at you and snidely shouts, “They went out the back door.” It’s a normal day for the Scruffs to work at their regular jobs, maybe manage an hour outside Apple during the lunch break. It’s a special day when one of THEM is in the building. A recording session could mean an all-night sitting.
There are veteran Scruffs of seven years’ standing and some newer recruits. Most have been through the standard fan routine. “We’ve all done the Liverpool pilgrimage bit,” says Wendy.
They are older now, past that sort of thing. Their collection of Beatle goodies – guitar strings, sheets, cigarette ends, toys, cups – are a reminder of those days.

They don’t fully deserve the “scruffy” tag but they are a little proud of not being part of the West End mod-fashion rat race. That’s children. “We used to actually dress up to go to EMI studios but what’s the point. By 7 o’clock the next morning your face has black lines across it form the mascara.”

“It used to be a big thing if you waiting around somewhere for really long periods,” says Margo, “we used to say, ‘Wow it’s been 19 hours and I’m fagged out.’ Like the last day they were doing the White album they went in at teatime and came out the following lunchtime. And I don’t think they even saw us. Paul fell down the steps … they were in the front two rooms and John kept looking out and laughing. We were happy to have done 18 hours, we were so proud of it. And then everyone else got hold of the idea and made a big thing of it. And of course, really it’s just a load of bull.”

Someone wrote that to be a scruff you had to put in a certain number of hours before being eligible. ‘We just said that for a laugh,” says Chris, sounding weary of being misunderstood. “We’re getting a little sick of people now…”

The worst date on the Apple Scruffs calendar was the day Paul got married. “Out of all the Apple Scruffs I’d day that 90 percent were for Paul in the beginning,” says Margo, “it’s still the same now underneath. Everyone like John, but Paul…”

Then what?
“Paul got married. You know, we could sense the end of the Beatles coming. It was obvious form the individual attitudes. We could tell form their expressions as they went in and came out. You could tell.”

They went to Paul’s house the day they heard he was going to get married. They wrote about it in their magazine. Linda arrived at Paul’s house, which was surrounded by photographers and reporters. The Scruffs stood in front of the house, easy targets for the cameras searching for fans weeping at the news of Paul’s forthcoming marriage.

“In a moment of temper we pushed the gates open. They slammed hard. Back and forth. It was very quiet. Linda appeared at the doorstep, “Would you mind closing the gates,” she said, in the most ridiculous London accent. “Yes” we shouted. Then down the steps she came, smiling at the photographers and then closed the gate quietly. The reporters’ faces were a funny sight.
“As soon as she’d gone in we pushed the gates open again and she came out – faster this time – and she slammed them closed; but they sprang open, so embarrassed in front of us, she had to walk back and close them again. She got to the top of the steps and the gate flew wide, but at that moment Mr. Beatle himself arrived in Peter Asher’s car, so what with us trying to close the gate again, Linda on the other side (knowing Paul had just arrived) trying to pull them open, and Paul trying to get to the gates and photographer /reporters asking questions … Paul finally got behind the gates and asked everyone to wait a few minutes. He went in, then came back out again – he’d changed into a pink jumper – there must have been 20 to 30 reporters asking questions plus taking pics, we just stood to one side of the gate and couldn’t hear much of what he was saying, only that everyone would have to get here early to catch him. L.N ran off down to the end of the road, a couple of others followed. C. asked if it was tomorrow. He said, “Not while Bessie’s here (meaning the press), and we were satisfied that he’d see us later. The reporters looked at us puzzled, but they had got what they came for and were happy.

“Half an hour later it was very quiet, except for a few sobs, and then we decided that we had to see him just once more. We opened the gates and walked slowly in. Someone rang the doorbell. Waited, no one came, rang again. Rang again. Paul answered. We just stood there. God what do we say? “Yes, what do you want?” he said, as if we’d just come to borrow sugar. C. ran out. Someone asked if it was tomorrow, and he said, “Tomorrow.” It went quiet again.

“What’s this – Heartbreak Hotel? What do you think I am a 26 year old queer never to get married? Oh, stick around kids!” We just looked at each other. Oh God, Paul, what have we done now. All we wanted to do was stand there and talk awhile. What was the point in shouting at us like that? We stood there, tears falling but there was no sound.

“He reappeared at the door –with his coat on. We were embarrassed now, he could see our tears. He started talking about anything but nobody was listening much. He led us to the gates and talked with us for about an hour. He talked and talked. He said he couldn’t understand women, and how the news would go down in America, how the girls over there would react. Then he proceeded to talk about us and our rival groups and how, whenever he does something we don’t like, he gets the foreman coming up and telling him off. It was all true. He’d cheered us up and we were soon laughing at his jokes and his way of saying things.

“We talked for ages; most of it has been forgotten, small things. He said he loved Yoko, and how he never liked her at first and how different everything seems now, with John and the others – and he also said he’d marry us all – if the law would let him!

“He had to go in. Linda kept looking out of the window. It was obvious she was annoyed. We were much happier now, we learned a great deal that night.”

Linda hasn’t been forgiven. In most issues of the magazine, there are below the belt digs at her. The rest is filled with gossip, press clippings, replies to letters, competitions, cartoons, cracking jokes (Driver to garage mechanic: Have you got a foot pump? Why have you got flat feet?), explanation of Scuff language (I don’t care mean I DO care), a memorium to Mal Evan’s budgie, quotes, popularity polls of the Apple Scruffs.

Derek Taylor, The Beatles press officer (observed by a Scruff to “only come in on Thursdays to pick up his money but more recently coming in early every day”) reckons that the Scruff magazine saved Apple a lot of work. “When the Beatles Monthly packed in, “he explains, “we thought about producing a successor. But the Scruffs have done it for us. Their game is knowledge and expertise. They’ve built up a reservoir of love and malice. I’d hate to see them fall apart by becoming completely respectable. They miss very little of what goes on in Apple. They can polish or demolish your image.”

During the tourist season the front of Apple can become surrounded by a swarm of multi-national Beatle fans. They seem to come in waves. A week of Swedish. A day of Icelandic. A heavy gathering of Italians. Two chicks from the States over to spend a month on the steps, becoming desperate towards the end of their stay for somebody to talk to. Day-Trippers. Temporaries. Then an overdose of noisy French and German kids.

Jill remembers one nasty encounter. “There was this boy called Klaus who decided he wanted to kiss George. George came out of Apple and had to leap back about six feet. The French and Germans get violent. A lot of the blokes who come around are queer.”

But not Tommy, the only official boy Scruff. He’s still talked about. An American who got drafted from Savile Row to Vietnam. There are other male guest Scuffs like Derek Taylor, Mal Evans, Jack Oliver, Peter Brown (the Apple hierarchy) and then there’s Prince Charles and even Prime Minister Edward Heath. Ringo paid their 60c entrance fee.

The Scruffs annoy many of the tourists-fans. “They think we are in the way of them taking photos, “says Kathy. “One time he had an argument. One bloke grabbed an iron bar. We tend to think that everyone else should behave like we do.

“We are trying to protect the Beatles in a way. Like by pointing out to someone about to pop off a flash bulb in Ringo’s face that he has to drive away immediately and his sight might be impaired. But then they turn nasty and act like they are jealous. You’re got to be cool and sincere to be a Scruff. Out of hundreds we’ve whittled the true ones to just the present few.”
The night the Apple Scruffs came round for dinner started to wind up. Some had talked too much. Others said too little. One of them said, “We were dreading coming here tonight for one reason. We thought you were going to turn round and say, “Why do you do it?” Everyone asks that. And you just can’t explain it. They call us nuns, teenyboppers, groupies. Only a few can understand us. Derek and George – and Paul at one time. Paul probably more than anyone else. Most people think we’re frustrated in some sense.”

They aren’t frustrated, abnormal. Just lost their way in time a little perhaps.
“When we see them come out after a hard night at the studio we have sympathy with them. You think ‘Ha (sigh) here he comes.’ We all have the mother instinct but you should hear us swear if they don’t come out.”
Margo said, “To be a good Scruff you have to be two-faced. We call the hell out of them if they are away somewhere and then act all sweet when we see them.”
“It’s like a wife saying to a husband ‘you goddamn bastard, why aren’t you here….”