February 24, 1966 -
George and Pattie look tanned and relaxed after a lovely honeymoon in Barbados.
An online Beatles fan club for and about Beatle fans
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Rock and Roll Circus (2005)
Rock and Roll Circus
By Chris Nickson
Discoveries
February 2005
For many years, until its official release on video in 1996, one of the most elusive and collectible Rolling Stones artifacts was the Rock and Roll Circus show filmed over two days at the end of 1968 that had never been shown, a few pieces had teased out, such as the Who's performance, which turned up in The Kids Are All Right. For the most part, it stayed hidden away for the best part of 30 years, the holy grail of Stones fans.
More recently, it has made a belated appearance on DVD, finally coming into the digital age. But the story of the Rock and Roll Circus, both of its making and its resurrection are the stuff of music lore. It was directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who, despite his name, isn't English but Irish-American. He'd been in England for a few years, working in television and making some of the earliest promotional music films for The Beatles and The Stones. And he'd go on to direct Let It Be and the epic miniseries Brideshead Revisited, among other things.
In Britain in 1968, there had been nothing like the idea of the Rock and Roll Circus, which was conceived as a television special. There were weekly shows such as Top of the Pops. The Beatles had unveiled the enigmatic Magical Mystery Tour. And there had been a program showing the Doors and Jefferson Airplane in concert at London's Roundhouse.
"Ready Steady Go, which I directed, was the closest thing, because we were connected to the bands," Lindsay-Hogg recalls, "and because we were live, unlike Top of the Pops, it gave the bands more leeway to do the plug song and two or three others. It was a very good atmosphere. You could have people playing with each other. So it was a good feeling on that show. "
He'd come to know the Stones and was approached when Mick first first mooted the idea of a television special The Circus. Lindsay-Hogg said, "Well, it's my concept. But Mick Jagger, then, as now, was very involved in everything. So any ideas I had, I would always run by him. It was a hard thing to come up with a concept that seemed to fit their image and also the image of the kind of show he wanted to put together.
"I remember being very happy when I was doodling on a pad in their offices on Maddock Street. I doodled a circle, and I thought, 'A circle looks like a ring'. Then the title came to me before anything else, The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus. I thought there was something there. It was as unformed as that. I called Mick, but he was asleep. I eventually got him about three o'clock and told him. And he said, 'Yeah, that's as close as we've got so far. That's good.' He said to go on working on that. And asked, 'What kind of circus should it be?' I said, 'It shouldn't be a big, lavish Barnum and Bailey Circus. It should be a down-at-heel, tatty European circus with acts that are a little too old.' And he said, 'That's it!'
"He's extremely bright, and he was very, very understanding, especially since Andrew Oldham wasn't there anymore, in broad strokes of what their image was and which way to go," said Lindsay- Hogg. "As soon as we talked about the title and the kind of circus, that's when it started, and it never changed. We'd had occasional meetings with the rest of the band and all of them were there, and we talked about it, they signed off on it. But the person you mostly dealt with in those days was Mick, because he was what you'd call 'the guv'nor'. Mick, Charlie and Keith were the runners of the band, but Mick was the one who wanted to shoulder the responsibilities. Brian had fallen apart, poor boy."
The ideas came together in late October, and in December, they shot for two days, something unthinkably spontaneous by today's standards. But in that time and place, almost anything was possible, even if some ideas proved impossible. They had hoped to get the Isley Brothers and Johnny Cash, but approaches to both proved fruitless, so most of the acts were English. "The organizing wasn't difficult, oddly enough, and it was sort of enjoyable. In those days in England, everything was centralized in London. I used to think it was like the Impressionist painters in France. They came from different parts, but they all turned up in Paris. These bands came from all over, but they were all in London.
"There used to be a nightclub called the Ad Lib. You go there on a Friday night, look around, and see the banquets around the wall, John Lennon, George Harrison, two Rolling Stones, an Animal, a Kink, a Yardbird, whatever. Managers like Kit Lambert and Andrew Oldham, they were all there. So the organizing of the show, once we decided to go ahead with the Circus, was done in that little community.
"Early on, we decided on the Who, because they were great. Then, Keith Richards, like Taj Mahal, Maryann Faithful, was going out with Mick. Mick thought it would be great to have this supergroup. Originally, that was going to be Steve Winwood. He said he'd do it and think of some musicians. Once we got the idea for the Circus, things happened very quickly. Steve got kind of unavailable, too much marijuana, or whatever was going on. He didn't get his band together. Then he called up two or three days before we were supposed to do it, and sweetly said something was bothering his voice and he didn't think he could sing. That left us with the hole. Mick thought he'd call Paul McCartney first, then decided that didn't seem right in this mix; he didn't know what band he'd get together, since Keith wanted to play.
Then he thought the best person who'd lead himself to a nutty project was John Lennon. So Mick called John, and we had this extraordinary group of musicians. So the lineup was set with the Stones headlining, the Who, Taj Mahal, Maryann Faithful, the Dirty Mac, who was Lennon, Richards, Eric Clapton, and Mitch Mitchell, along with newcomers Jethro Tull. The only ones I didn't know were Taj and Jethro Tull." Lindsay-Hogg noted, "We got a lot of demos from bands. I'd seen Tull on the late-night BBC show, and I thought Ian Anderson was a really interesting performer with this crazy, insane Doctor performance. It was between them and a guitar-driven band, which Mick didn't want, called Led Zeppelin.
"And so the show, the logistics of it, principally and particularly of it being in London, got together seamlessly, compared to everything else, assembling the talent seemed easy. There was a studio to transform, circus acts to book, and they found some who were suitably down at heel, as well as the technical side, which didn't go as smoothly. "
The technical side was a little nightmare. "We'd imported these cameras from France," Lindsey-Hogg said. "We wanted to put the thing on film rather than tape. We had a wonderful DP, Tony Richmond, who went on to do Let It Be, The Man Who Fell to Earth, and pictures with Nick Roeg. I'd done "Jumping Jack Flash", but I hadn't had enough control over what the cameras were doing. The French system had film magazines on top of the cameras, but also a monitoring device that went into the control room, and you could orchestrate the shots. This was the first time it had ever been used, and it kept breaking down. We'd been in the middle of a song, and would lose a camera and would finish with the other three cameras. The magazines would have to be reloaded and we would lose another camera, and someone would come out with a screwdriver, inevitably."
With only two days really set aside for filming, they were asking for trouble. And the first piece of it came with American Taj Mahal, along with his band. He'd been refused the necessary work permit to perform in the show, coming into England instead as a tourist, where they were allowed to stay for 24 hours. The filming was done in strict secrecy the day before the other bands were coming to the set. And then there was the case of Tull. They were starting to enjoy the wave of success that had come with their debut. This was, but in the immediate wake of that, guitarist Mick Abrams had quit the band, and when they were called to appear on Rock and Roll Circus, they hadn't yet found a replacement. Salvation came in the form of a player named Tony Iommi with a Birmingham group called Earth, who, in less than two years, would be finding success under the name Black Sabbath. The only problem, as Tull frontman Anderson explained at the time, was "Our music wasn't really compatible with his playing." With no time to rehearse, Tull became one of two acts to use a pre-recorded backing track (the other was Faithful), with Iommi's guitar not even plugged in.
The day was carefully planned, but the technical hitches kept pushing stage times back and back. One highlight for the invited audience was the appearance of Dirty Mac with Lennon on guitar and vocals, Clapton on lead guitar, Richards on bass, and Mitchell from the Jimi Hendrix Experience on drums, representatives from the biggest bands in the UK at the time. After just a day's rehearsal, they produced a searing version of Lennon's "Yer Blues", then just released recently on the White Album. They veered into a 12-bar blues that was supposed to feature violinist Ivry Gitlis, but which was hijacked when Yoko Ono took the stage and began singing.
"I didn't even know Yoko was going to do that," said Lindsay-Hogg. Ivry, Gitlis, who was a violinist who had come over from Paris, thought he was going to play, and it would be good for him. He didn't know Yoko was going to do that, because only John and Yoko knew. He kept thinking, 'What is going on?' She kept going; he got pissed off, then resigned."
Because of all the delays, it was the wee small hours by the time the Stones finally took the stage. The crew and band were all tired, but there had been problems the night before with Brian Jones; he was barely there physically and hardly there mentally. Lindsay-Hogg recounted, "We lived near each other in Parliament Hill in Hampstead. We'd rehearsed the show and shot Taj Mahal one day, and we're going to do the whole thing the next day. About midnight, after I got in, I had something to eat, and Brian called me from up the road. He asked if he could come over. I asked what the problem was. He was very maudlin and said, 'I don't think I'm going to come tomorrow. They're being so mean to me.' I said he had to come. 'What would the Rolling Stones be without you?' I asked innocently, not knowing that two months later, that would happen. He declined emotionally and physically. Rather than fighting his depression and paranoia, he settled into it. Anyway, I persuaded him to come. He wanted someone to know he was suffering, but he was very hard to talk to. He devolved into his own world. He couldn't play much more. He broke his wrist, I think, when he was in North Africa recording Jajoukas Nomadic Moroccan Musicians.
"Because of the state he was in, he never did the exercises needed to get it strong again. He really couldn't play anymore, and that was a symptom of where he was psychologically." He did remain for the whole thing, although he was related to a very much secondary role, with Richards taking all the solos and Jones contributing minimal rhythm guitar, a little slide, and some maracas, looking plainly uncomfortable and out of it.
Finally, though, the Stones began to play. "Everyone was there by noon, and we did the player's entrance. Mick and the Stones were acting as hosts until they got on stage at two in the morning. The Stones had done a full day's work at the time they got on stage. Well, with various takes, Mick wasn't satisfied, so we did five takes of "You Can't Always Get What You Want," or whatever.
"By the time we got to the song we'd been looking forward to, which was "Sympathy for the Devil", it was four in the morning. They hadn't only been drinking tea and taking aspirin, and were all not at their best. We did one or two takes, and it was all going downhill. We weren't together musically. The camera crew was exhausted. We had a meeting me, Mick, Jimmy Miller and Sandy Lieberson, who was the producer. We thought about going home and coming the next night around nine, but by then the overages would have cost as much as rental charges, as we'd already spent. We decided to do it one more time. The Mick did this extraordinary performance. He made them. One of his gifts is his willpower. He told the band they were going to do it, and they did."
Eventually as December 8, 1968 had become 5am December 9, it was all done. Audiences and musicians went home to their beds and kept the show as a memory. But Lindsay-Hogg went to work on editing. "Even though there was no immediate BBC interest, I was an advocate for finishing it, editing it and putting it out," said Lindsay-Hogg, "but in January, I'd gone off to do Let it Be but we had a rough cut screening with Mick and Keith and Alan Klein and me.
"While they professed to like it in general, they weren't happy with themselves. I can't remember if they'd got rid of Brian by then, or about to, also, they did think the Who were very good, but they were very critical about themselves and very tough-minded about what they do. They just thought they could maybe do better. So the idea was to regroup in the spring with Mick Taylor and do the Stones somewhere. The idea was we'd go to Rome and shoot in the Coliseum and edit it onto the other footage. I was against it because it seemed like a very big stylistic goof. They just released "Honky Tonk Woman", and they wanted to put that in the show. Then, overnight, the permit to shoot in the Coliseum fell through. The papers had got wind of it and complained, and there was some worry about the amount of amplification making the Coliseum fall down. So then there was no Coliseum. Mick went off to do Ned Kelly.
"Then a year went by, and they went off to do another tour. One of the things that happened was that there were lots of rock and roll projects in those days, and everyone had lots of ideas. So if a project lost momentum, it could end up in a drawer for a while. It looked as if Let it Be would lose momentum because Allen [Klein] was using it to negotiate a better movie or record deal. So a year had gone by, and it was still in a very good rough cut stage. It was all in the cutting room. Then the Stones decided we should close the cutting room and bring all the cans of street footage to Maddox Street. My feeling was that not much was going to happen then. For tax reasons, the Stones went to France for a year. They didn't need these really nice offices, and they got a much smaller office. They couldn't fit the 35 cans of film in the new office, so Ian Stewart thought maybe someone might want it. And he took the cans of film to his house in the country and put them in his barn for safekeeping. He didn't tell anybody he'd done it. He was smart enough to know that one day someone would want everything to do with the Rolling Stones.
"Over the years, because I did some videos with the Stones, I would say, 'What happened to the Circus?' And they would say, 'I don't know,' and life had moved. Then Stu died in the late 80s, when Cynthia, his widow, went around the property. She found the cans of film in the barn. She got in touch with someone. Eventually, Allen Klein heard about it. He had a contractual thing with the Stones that he owns, or co-owns, all the pre-1970 stuff. He thought it should be reconstructed, and he got all the footage, which was hard because a lot of it had gone missing. When Jeff Stein made The Kids Are All Right, he'd taken the Who's bit. So that wasn't there. It had ended up in a vault in Teddington. So it took a lot of sleuthing work by Allen and Robin Klein to even get it in a semblance of what it was.
"The reason it's out isn't that Allen thought it would be good, but because of their hard work. It was released at the New York Film Festival in 1996 and did very well; now it's out on DVD with commentary. I think it would have been great if it had come out at the time, but seeing it so much later, it has a real different kind of value, certainly because what's happened to some of the people, also with music having changed so much. Anyone of whatever generation who sees it gets a full jolt of how good the bands all were at their peak. It was the great lost work, and quite obviously still fresh.
In Lindsay-Hogg's memory, even down to the regret, "I didn't have a documentary camera backstage. I remember when the cameras broke down, and I went back to the dressing room to tell them the delay would end. They're musicians, and they're sitting around the room all playing with kitchen utensils, guitars or singing Doo Wop songs. They were rivals, but they were all very close. Each one wanted to be the best, but they were very close to each other. They all had similar backgrounds.
I remember talking to Lennon, and the first song he liked was on radio Luxembourg called "Sha-Boom" by the Chords. None of the bands liked the music of their parents. I wish I had a camera in the dressing room."
While it was never thought of at the time, it was about the only thing that was missing in one of those strange twists, the show that vanished again returned, even winning a prize at the New York Film Festival. It captures a more innocent time when the music meant more than chart positions and record sales. For Stones fans, it remains one of the prizes, even though it's widely available.
What the Other Beatles Really Think of Paul McCartney (1971)
Let's take a look at what the UK papers were saying about the Beatles 55 years ago. (George was not having a good birthday)
What the Other Beatles Really Think of Paul McCartney
By Sketch Reporter
The Daily Sketch
February 24, 1971
A High Court judge heard yesterday what the other Beatles think of Paul McCartney. John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr were given written evidence on the third day of McCartney's bid to break up the group and have a receiver brought in to act as financial caretaker.
Mr. Justice Stamp was told that the Apple base was in chaos after the death of manager Brian Epstein. "It was full of hustlers and spongers," said Lennon. Two company cars disappeared, and the firm was found to own a house which no one could remember buying, but Paul opposed the appointment of Allen Klein, who later restored order. Klein, an American, dismissed incompetent staff, stopped lavish hospitality, and sent the Beatles regular bank statements. Lennon's statement said.
"Paul always made things as difficult as possible for Klein," said John Lennon. "The other contenders for the job of manager had been his father-in-law, Lee Eastman, and Eastman's so,n John. John Eastman was an inexperienced, confused, and hysterical young man, and his father was quick-tempered and abusive.
"The obstructions and difficulties that made for Klein made George and I decide to sack them as our solicitors, "Lennon continued. "Paul's criticisms of Klein may reflect his dislike of the man, but I don't think they are fair. Klein is certainly forceful to an extreme, but he does get results. He doesn't show discord between us.
"Records were selling well, and there were higher royalties than before Klein reorganized the Beatles. Paul acted selfishly and unreasonably. He was being wise after the event and saying that in 1968, musical differences between them became more marked from our earliest days, George and I on one hand, and Paul on the other had different musical tastes. Paul preferred pop-type music, and we preferred what is now called underground."
"Squabbles with Paul flared into a bitter row on the film set of Let It Be," said George Harrison. "Paul, as the leading composer of the group, had always adopted a superior attitude towards his music. To get a peaceful life, I always let him have his own way, even when it meant that songs I composed were not recorded, but I was having to record his songs and put up with him telling me how to play my own instrument.
"Matters came to a head," he said, "in a dismal and cold film studio in Twickenham. When we were in front of the cameras, Paul started getting at me about the way I was playing. I decided I had had enough and told the others I was leaving the group."
. He was persuaded to return after Paul agreed not to try to teach him how to play. Of the Klein- Eastman affair. George said, "Paul seemed to have a totally closed mind and would not give Klein any fair opportunity."
"Paul always wanted his own way," Ringo Starr declared. "He was the greatest bass guitar player in the world, but also very determined."
Ringo said that when it was decided that Paul's solo album, McCartney, should be delayed because of his own solo LP, Sentimental Journey, and the group album, Let It Be he went to see Paul. "To my dismay, he went completely out of control, shouting at me, prodding his fingers toward my face, saying, 'I'll finish you now,' and 'you'll pay!'" Said Ringo, "He told me to put my coat on and get out. I did so." Ringo added that he was "shaken."
"While I thought that Paul had behaved like a spoiled child, I could see that the release date of his record had a gigantic emotional significance for him." As a result, the release dates were altered with difficulty. Ringo's evidence ended, "My own view is that all four of us could even yet work out everything satisfactory."
The Last Time They were Pictured Together
By Shaun Usher
Daily Sketch
February 24, 1971
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| Photo by Monty Fresco |
"Yesterday", Paul McCartney's hauntingly nostalgic song titled fits this exclusive picture of the Beatles last informal board meeting. It happened nearly 18 months ago at John Lennon's £125,000 mansion near Sunningdale Burkes.
Top people have a phrase for such moments--- a golden oldie. Paul, Ringo, John, and George sat around a plain wood table on ornate but uncomfortable antique chairs. John, from habit, sat at the head, enjoying the only chair with arms and Paul's beloved sheepdog, Martha, roamed restlessly, a non voting observer at the gathering.
The four spent a few minutes discussing songs and discs. Then the Apple overlords meeting ended.
George to fight ban on driving.
George Harrison is appealing against the one month driving ban imposed on him yesterday. Mr. Martin Polden, defending,lodgedthe appeal immediately after the disqualification was announced at London's Wells Street Court.
Harrison, whose record, "My Sweet Lord", is top of the pop charts, was banned from driving a car three times into a policeman's legs. He was also fined £25 with £15 cost after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to a charge of driving without reasonable consideration.
Mr. Polden said the Beatle had been caught in a busy traffic junction. He was in his wife's white Mercedes and slowly drove three times into the legs of the officer who banged on the roof of the car in a bid to stop him. He did not know he had touched the officer and was not capable of driving deliberately into a police officer and causing him hurt. He took the whole business impassively, rather than arrogantly.
Monday, February 23, 2026
George, Ringo and Roy
Ringo and George with Roy Gerber, who worked with General Artists Corporation during the 1964 tour.
The Wings jacket
If you watched the Man on the Run documentary at the theaters over the weekend, and stayed until after the credits, you would have seen this sweet little interview with Paul where the director of the film shows Paul some memorabilia from his Wings days. One of the items shown was this Wings jacket that Paul wore in concert. Paul tried it on and it was a tad snug, but it fit him. After scouring photos of Wings from 1972-1973 for over an hour I spotted one concert photo of Paul wearing the jacket! I thought you'd like to see it. Anyone know the venue?
Multi-Media McGear (1974)
Multi-Media McGear (O.K. Mike?)
No writer listed
Ray Hammond (editor)
Beat Instrumental
October 1974
The first time I saw Mike McGear was around 1963 in the basement of a Liverpool furniture store that had permitted a number of Liverpool poets and musicians to take it over for poetry and jazz night. There just on the crest of fame were Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, John Gorman, Brian Patton, and a tall blonde lad. "That's Paul McCartney's brother," said someone, pointing.
"Did you see me getting up on stage?" asked Mike, looking back over an 11-year-old gulf. "That was my very first time on stage. Did you laugh? There I was, standing with my piece of paper in my hand, shaking, but I found that the people liked the comedy thing I was doing. It was then I realized, 'oh, so they're just people, there's nothing to be frightened of."
That was the beginning of Mike's collaboration with Gorman and Co. in the music/poetry/comedy band Scaffold, which, riding on the crest of the Beatles' fame, brought Liverpool humor to every corner of Britain and to some unsuspecting audiences abroad. It's difficult to think what an American audience could possibly have made of their first enormous hit, penned by Mike, "Thank U Very Much". It even baffled a lot of Britons, including our kid, brother Paul, who didn't believe it set a chance on the charts.
"Paul and I have always been brutally honest with each other. He said, 'Don't put that out as a single, the public won't get it. They won't understand.' And I said, 'Well, you've got your opinion, and I've got mine. It's going ahead.' He replied, 'Well, I think you're stupid. It's going to be to your detriment', as I was determined to carry on with it.
"He helped in the production, which is why that record got a bit more in the production than there is normally on our records. He's got a very good head for music. When the record was a hit, all he said was, 'All right, mate, I was wrong.'"
Of course, there was always a bit of friendly rivalry between brothers, but it must have been terrible having one as famous as Paul. After the initial glow of basking in the shadow of McCartney's fame had died down, it must have been very difficult for McGear to shake off all the tags and be accepted on his own merit, instead of being accused of letting Paul help him along. "I suppose in the first days of Paul's success, I did feel a bit under his shadow," Mike confessed. "It's quite a cross to bear having a famous brother. You get a bit bored with the tags, but then the same sort of thing often happens in families. Lots of people feel under the shadow of an older brother or sister.
"You have to say, 'I'm not just Paul's brother, I'm me.'" Was it Paul who inspired Mike to write in the early days? "No, I never wrote at all when I was a kid; our kid had all that wrapped up, going round everywhere with his guitar and things."
Was Mike ever actually jealous of his brother? "No, why should I have been? When the Beatles started getting really successful, Brian Epstein said to me, 'Do you want to be a pop star?' And I said, 'Brian, my dear, you must be joking.'"
When you talk to Mike, it's as if you're on stage with him and he's including you in his comedy act. He talks, not so much in a string of words, but in a series of scenes. In fact, it's very hard to put down on paper exactly what the man says, just because he is so expressive. Everything is accompanied by gestures, movements, changes of accent, and intonation.
Yet initially, the words"show business" were anathema to him. Instead, he wanted to go to art college, and ended up at the point where he joined Scaffold --as an apprentice hairdresser! "I certainly didn't intend to be a pop singer, in a way, but I got interested in the theater side of it, sketches and things, and it was very satisfying. And I went off on that tangent while Paul did his music."
The two brothers seem extremely different in personality. Perhaps that's why McGear's determination to follow his own ideas, and not join with Paul or follow in his footsteps, has brought him to the point where he is completely accepted in his own right. Changing his name from the family one to McGear was a first step in this direction.
Yet he and Paul are still very close with the friendly rivalry and intuitive sensitivity about each other that is only found within families. He has worked closely with Paul on his new solo album (the title hasn't been decided upon at the time of our interview), and he found that working together was entirely easygoing. "I think it was because we are brothers, and being brothers, we are a darn sight more honest with each other than people are in normal working relationships, but it was very rewarding as well."
As well as Mike asking Paul's opinion on his music, it turns out that the rules are frequently reversed, with Paul asking Mike's opinion, which, as they are so honest with each other, sometimes leads to awkward situations.
"When I know my opinion is not going to be a good one, I just keep quiet, and he knows, I mean, it can hit a bit hard when someone's putting their whole thing into something and really believes in it, and the other person doesn't like it.
"Like that 'Helen Wheels' single, I went down to the studio, and there they were, Paul and Wings all dancing around. Paul was saying, 'Isn't it great?' And bopping up and down. And I just had to sit down and say nothing, because it did absolutely nothing to me. It was a nice little pop tune, but not where the man's head is at all. He's a very clever boy, so to waste it on that seemed a shame."
Has Paul been a lot of help to Mike as far as writing and constructing songs is concerned? "No," replied McGear. "He's always done his songwriting and left me to mine. You know it's often quite tough." For instance, on that Antitree iron business I told you about, one thing I wanted to know for years was to what this expression actually referred. But Mike was giving no secrets away. "If I was to tell you, I'd have to tell Harold Wilson. I learned from a very authentic source that he was literally ringing round everyone saying, (he adopts a flat Wilson accent) 'for God's sakes, what's the Antitree iron?'"
Although Mike has become well known as a humorist, his new album shows very little of the comic side of his nature. "That's where Paul and I are different. He's always done his thing, and I've always been basically comedy. But this record is basically serious, serious pop, if pop could be serious."
He has also been working on the new Scaffold album, which will probably be released later this month or early next. So he certainly hasn't stopped writing humorous material. He is very optimistic about its success. "We've been working on it in AIR London, producing it with a friend of mine, John Meganson. It's the best album Scaffold have ever done. Already, the B side of the new single, which will be out a few weeks before the album, is so good that it should be an A side. It's called 'Pack of Cards', based on that old song, 'Deck of Cards' that Wink Martindale one, and it has Zoot Money doing impressions of WC Fields!"
In spite of his current enthusiasm over Scaffold, it was only their sudden hit with "Liverpool Lou" that brought him back to work with them again after a rest period, and filled him with the determination to see them doing the kind of things he thinks they ought to do, such As a Monty, Python, type of TV show.
Although he may be about to embark on a dazzling solo career, he wants to combine this with Scaffold. "Although doing it will require careful planning. I believe in Scaffold. I always have, and hopefully I always will. They are a unique thing, a unique thing, but the only way I'm going out on the road is when they're solid, secure, and things are definite. There's an agent coming to see me tonight about dates and things.
"Scaffold have been through some bad times, and that's why things in the future have got to be a progression, because before we were regressing and playing to smaller and smaller places. That is what led to the situation that night in Manchester last year, where I jacked it all in. I said to myself, 'Forget it. I've had 10 years of all this', and I gave it up for eight months."
So what brought him back after this momentous decision, doing the album with our kid ? "The Scaffold single 'Liverpool Lou'. I became involved in all this madness again, but it's easier this time. I can see it for its madness and be more objective."
McGear has also written a book for children about yet another bear to share the nursery bookshelf with Paddington, Rupert, and Winnie the Pooh. "It's sad, really. When the book first came out, it was during all that business over Oz and Rupert, so my poor little Roger Bear got lost in all the troubles. All together now... 'ahhhhhh!'
The book is now being reissued to coincide with the release of the album. Mike also did the illustrations. "Oh, there's no end to this man's talent!,"He joked. "Multimedia Mcgear, there's your title!"
If the album takes off as well as it might, with the heart, with the hand of McCartney resting heavy upon it, in the form of co-written songs, arrangements, vocals, and instrumental backings by Wings, plus session people like drummer Gerry Conway, it will still be quite a time before we see the solo McGear take to the road.
"The only time I'll perform in this country, apart from with Scaffold, that is, is when I've got the people I want with me. Gerry Conway, who's just got back from a worldwide tour with Cat Stevens, has already phoned me to ask me what I'm doing.
"You see, there's certain killer people, amazing musicians, who are friends as well, and when I've got them, I'll go on the road. I can't tell you their names at the moment, but only when they are available, only when I can play them the full screw on top artist can pay to his so-called backing group. Will I go on the road. But they won't be a backing group -- they'll be like traveling with my friends.
A Delray Beach Woman's Rock n Roll Journey (2019)
A Delray Beach Woman's Rock n Roll Journey with the Zombies and the Beatles
By Larry Aydlette
The Palm Beach Post
March 20, 2019
February 1964. "The Ed Sullivan Show." America melts down at the sight of John, Paul, George, and Ringo. And when the Beatles go on tour, King is determined to see them. But she's crushed: they're not coming anywhere near her hometown of Grand Forks, North Dakota.
Fortunately, King has a mother every teenager dreams about. She promises to take Nancy and her 18-year-old sister anywhere the moptops are playing. The closest date turns out to be in Vancouver, British Columbia on Aug. 22. Nancy immediately springs into action, writing the Beatles' record company in Los Angeles and getting the band's North American itinerary, including their stay at the Edgewater Inn in Seattle, Washington, for a show the day before.
Mom promptly books them into the same hotel. (These Kings did not mess around.) In the lobby, Nancy overhears men with British accents. She chats them up. One is a reporter for the Liverpool Echo named -- and we're not kidding -- George Harrison.
He calls the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein and vouches for King. After the Seattle show, only one girl can go up to "meet the boys," so her older sister Carolyn relents (which is a pretty good IOU for a sibling to possess).
And so...
"Brian answered the door and Paul was behind him."
For about 30 minutes, it was King, the Beatles, Epstein and the Liverpool reporter in a hospitality suite. She talked mostly to Paul McCartney and George Harrison, "who couldn't have been nicer. John (Lennon) totally ignored me. Paul eventually took me over and introduced me to John, who made some comment about the black hills of Dakota."
Ringo Starr came out from a shower and "he showed me all the rings on his fingers and where he got them." McCartney offered her a cigarette. She declined. They all signed her paperback copy of a novel based on "A Hard Day's Night." She told Paul her favorite Beatles song was "Do You Want to Know A Secret?" He modestly admitted the lyrics were pretty good.
The band discussed a recent prediction from horoscope queen Jeane Dixon that the Beatles' plane would crash on tour. "I remember John saying, 'When your time comes, there's nothing you can do about it,'" King said. "He was philosophical."
And then it was over. King returned to her room -- and burst into tears. What was she going to do with the rest of her life now?
"I was up crying all night, saying, 'I can't believe my dream came true.'"
The next morning, a puffy-eyed King had her picture taken with Epstein. The Vancouver concert was "anticlimactic," she remembered. "They were a little speck on the field, you couldn't hear them, the girls were screaming so loud."
But back home, she was an instant celebrity, Grand Forks' lone link to Beatlemania. The local paper wrote about her. She was invited to gab about George's eye color and Paul's hair on air. And she soon had a gig interviewing British Invasion bands for her hometown radio station.
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