McCartney Shuts Off 'Non-Beatles' (1966)

 McCartney Shuts Off 'Non-Beatles'

By Hunter Davies

The London Sunday Times

September 28, 1966

    Paul McCartney was in his new mansion in St. John's Wood. He lives alone. A Mr. and Mrs. Kelly look after him. Nothing so formal as a housekeeper and butler. Their job, he says, is just to fit in. 

    The house has a huge wall and an electrically operated black door to keep out non-Beatle life. Inside, there is some carefully chosen elderly furniture. Nothing flashy or even expensive-looking. The dining room table was covered with a white lace tablecloth, very working-class posh.

     McCartney, along with John Lennon, is the author of a song called "Eleanor Rigby." No pop song of the moment has better words or music. 

    "I was sitting at the piano and I thought of it, just like Jimmy Durante. The first few bars just came to me, and I got this name in my head: Daisy Hawkins picking up the rice in a church where a wedding has been. I don't know why.

     "I can hear the whole song in one chord. In fact, I think you can hear a whole song in one note if you listen hard enough. But nobody ever listens hard enough. Okay, so that's the Joan of Arc bit. I couldn't think of much more, so I put it away for a day. Then the name Father McCartney came to me, and all the lonely people. But I thought people would think it was supposed to be my dad sitting knitting his socks. Dad's a happy lad, so I went through the telephone book, and I got the name, Mackenzie.

     "I was in Bristol when I decided Daisy Hawkins wasn't a good name. I walked round looking at the shops, and I saw the name Rigby. You got that? Quick pan to Bristol. I can just see this all as a Hollywood musical. 

    "Then I took it down to John's house in Weybridge, we sat around laughing, got stoned, and finished it off. I thought of the backing, but it was George Martin who finished it off. I just go bash bash on the piano. He knows what I mean. 

    "All our songs come out of our imagination. There never was an Eleanor Rigby. One of us might think of a song completely, and the other just adds a bit, or we might write alternate lines. We never argue. If one of us says he doesn't like a bit, the other agrees. It just doesn't matter that much. I care about being a songwriter, but I don't care passionately about each song. 

    "'Eleanor' is a big development as a composition, but that doesn't mean 'Yellow Submarine' is bad. It was written as a commercial song, a kids' song. People have said, "'Yellow Submarine?' 'What's the significance? What's behind it?' Nothing. Kids get it straight away. Kids have got it. It's only later they get messed up.

     "I tried once to write a song under another name just to see if it was the Lennon-McCartney bit that sold our songs. I called myself Bernard Webb. I was a student in Paris and very unavailable for interviews. The song was "Woman" for Peter and Gordon. They made it a big hit. Then it came out it was me. I realized that when I saw a banner at a concert saying 'Long Live Bernard Webb.'

     "We need a properly controlled experiment to find out how much our names really mean now, but I can't be bothered. I can't really play the piano or read or write music. I've tried three times in my life to learn, but never kept it up for more than three weeks. The last bloke I went to was great. I'm sure he could teach me a lot. I might go back to him. It's just the notation, the way you write down notes. It doesn't look like music to me. 

    "John's now trying acting again, and George has got his passion for the sitar, and all the Indian stuff. He's lucky, like somebody's luck who's got religion. I'm just looking for something I enjoy doing. There's no hurry. I have the time and the money. 

    "People think we are not conceited, but we are. If you ask me if I wrote a good or bad song, I'd be thick to say bad, wouldn't I? It's true we're lucky, but we got where we are because of what we did.

     "The girls waiting outside-I don't despise them. I don't think fans are humiliating themselves. I queued up at the Liverpool Empire for Wee Willie Harris's autograph. I don't think I was being stupid. 

    "I can go out and around more than people think without being recognized. People never really believe it's you. They don't really expect to see you in the street, so you can get away with it.

    "I think we can go on as the Beatles for as long as we want to. Writing songs, making records, we're still developing. I've no ambitions-- just to enjoy myself. We've had all the ego bit, all about wanting to be remembered. We couldn't do any better than we've already done, could we?"

Farewell to India for now

 September 29, 1966 

When the Rackets Move In (1971)

 

When the Rackets Move In

By Fred Sparks

The San Francisco Examiner

September 28, 1971

    One day early this summer, Ringo Starr walked into a music shop in London and asked for the Beatles' album Live at Shea. Recognizing Ringo, the sales clerk asked, "How come you're buying one of your own albums?" Ringo replied, "Because it's not my album. I never heard it."

     When the Beatles appeared at Shea long ago, the concert was illegally recorded, and a bootleg record was made and sold. The Beatles got zero.

     Another currently best-selling bootleg original is Bob Dylan's Great White Wonder, made from tapes stolen from his home in Woodstock, New York. 

    Stores around the world are selling copies of popular tapes, cassettes, and records, costing rock musicians and record companies in the U.S. alone an estimated $100 million annually in lost royalties and sales. 

    New York's assistant district attorney Roy Colts Sr. showed me perfect counterfeits of John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band and the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar seized in raids on 14 Manhattan stores, some of them "reliable" retail outfits. One of the biggest U.S. bootleg operations is in New Jersey and is dominated, according to my police sources, by former members of the mafia family headed by Joseph Colombo Sr., who was gunned down at a New York rally early in July.

     The underworld hard sell is occasionally used. A New Jersey syndicate salesman called on a Lower Manhattan music store proprietor and offered him bootlegged Jesus Christ Superstar albums. "Okay, I'll take 1000," said the merchant. "But we've got you down for 2000," said the salesman, his voice hard. The proprietor snapped, "The hell with you! I won't take any." The thug pushed the merchant into a small bathroom in the rear, knocked him down, and kicked him brutally. Then he shoved his head in the toilet bowl, face down, and almost drowned him. 

    The former Beatles can afford to lose a few dollars to a bootlegger. They've all become multimillionaires in the last decade, the Rock Decade. Just 10 years ago, on November 9, 1961, in a poorly lit club in Liverpool called the Cavern, Brian Epstein, who ran the record department of his family's department store, discovered the Beatles playing their brains out. 

    Later, Epstein recalled, "There was quite clearly enormous excitement. They seemed to give off some sort of personal magnetism. I was fascinated." Brian Epstein signed up as the Beatles' manager. A few months later, he got Parlophone in London to let them record "Love Me Do" with "P.S. I Love You" on the flip side; the record went up the chart like a moon rocket, and the money flooded in. 

    When the Beatles and rock first revolutionized the music business, small record companies mushroomed in England and America, needing only one hit to make big money. They gave these jockeys cash to play the records -- Payola.

     One DJ told investigators that though his salary was $850 a month, his rent was $400. Furthermore, he ran two fancy cars. "How is that possible?" He was asked. The DJ replied, "In my business, the salary is unimportant. Many disc jockeys pay the stations for the privilege of working there. Besides my $ 850-a-month salary, I receive checks each month from 12 record companies totaling about $2,000."

     Payola was not then illegal; it is now. But Federal Communications Commission investigators say payola is more widespread now than before, though seldom in cash. Curry Grant, a Los Angeles record promoter, told the FCC that gifts to DJs include food, clothing, auto paint jobs, and crates of records they could sell. 

    In San Diego, a disc jockey was invited by a record company to a party in a hotel suite; he was told to come without his wife. When he arrived, the DJ was given cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and a stunning blonde. 

    England is the same. Scotland Yard is now investigating a sex for plugs system. The Yard moved after a newspaper exposed an attractive female recording artist as the operator of a call girl ring on behalf of a record company. It was alleged this girl supplied willing young ladies to BBC producers and executives in return for airtime. Not long ago, according to printed reports, two men from the BBC spent the night with two hookers, but still did not play the record requested. A week later, they called for a return engagement. The madam told the girls involved to be straight on the line with them.  "They'll either play the record, or there'll be no more scenes coming their way."

     Besides probing payola, Scotland Yard detectives, headed by Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Booker, are checking 350 record shops to see if pop charts are rigged. Britain's leading music journal, Melody Maker, said there are a lot of unscrupulous men in the pop business. 

    Some people are reaping rich rewards by getting in the charts unfairly. I asked a U.S. record company executive if American hit charts are rigged. "Well, certainly people are trying to rig them," he said. "There are certain retail outlets that are called each week by the charts as to what their bestsellers are. Some of the record companies' representatives around the country go into stores and say, 'Look, when they call you, report our product. Here's 25 free albums, 50 free singles.'"

     "If you get somebody who's a little shady, you get reported. They have to use judgment, though. It's got to be a record that's selling, if not selling well enough to be reported as a bestseller."

     While only a small percentage walk a snaky line, I'm convinced the pirates and rock have easy pickings. Davy Jones of the now disbanded Monkees once had four different managers and agents. One day, Jones showed his contract to a lawyer. After reading them, the attorney shook his head, whistled, and said, "Mr. Jones, according to these papers, your representatives have a right to collect 120% of your earnings."

     The Monkees made millions for two years. Their TV show got top ratings. The money rolled in. Now broke in London, Davy sighs. "I haven't been exactly starving, although the icebox has been empty a few times. I was sold down the river. I was too busy performing and let other people handle my affairs. They helped themselves."

     Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane is another case in point. "We've made millions of dollars," Miss Slick told a writer, "but we're terrible about business. We have no idea how much money has been taken from us by managers, and sensitive advisers and crooks."

     Then there's Noel Redding, who was with the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Redding recently said, "We were really earning big money, or so we thought. For a one-night stand at Madison Square Garden, we were told we earned $105,000, but I never had a penny of it. I've already sold my Rolls Royce, and at the moment, I'm earning $12 a night working occasionally in pubs."

     Even the Beatles have management problems. Earlier this year, after examining the Beatles' books, London's High Court Justice Stamp said one manager had taken more than 1.2 million dollars in excess of commissions. 

    In Nobodies, a Greenwich Village bar where rock musicians hang out, I was told that the most outrageous swindles take place when groups are on the road. A rock veteran described a typical situation. One night when a group was playing a Midwestern city, he said the local promoter and the group's road manager handled things at the box office. The gross came up to about $100,000, of which the group was supposed to get 40% or $40,000. These two men each put up $10,000 apiece in their pockets and told the group the gross was $80,000. The musicians were cheated out of $8,000. They got $32,000 instead of $40,000. 

    There may have been violent disputes over money during concert tours in Melbourne this summer. When Britain's Manford Mann group was touring Australia, a couple of unknown men broke into tour manager Bob Foster's hotel room and gave him a terrible beating. His life was threatened, and the tour was canceled. Back in London, the group's general manager, David Joseph, told the press there were suggestions that Foster had stolen a couple of $1,000 notes. That's all rubbish, of course. 

    When Epstein made his historic visit to the Cavern Club, each Beatle was making $20 a week. Times have changed. A couple of years ago, George Harrison received a $226,400 royalty check. He slipped it into a drawer in his bedroom. Six months later, reaching for a handkerchief, George found the check. He had forgotten all about that $226,400.

I never noticed...

 

As much as I have watched Yellow Submarine and looked at photos from the Beatles cameo at the end of the film, I never noticed that Ringo is wearing the pinstriped stage suit from the 1966 tour.  

Sleepy Travelers

 

On their way from New York City to Miami, Florida 

Got a train to catch

 

Laurie and Paul

 September 28, 1981 

Concentration

 

Grey Hair Hasn't Stopped Him (1986)

 

Meet The Beatles Who Has Put Out His 15th Solo Album

By Kurt Loder

Viva Magazine

September 28, 1986

    It is Monday in London, two days before the royal wedding, and Soho Square is filled with flowers, sunshine, and fresh-faced young tourists. Some loll on the grass, sharing joints; others peer up expectantly at the etched glass windows of an Art Deco-style townhouse across the street, where, in an airy third-floor office, Paul McCartney presides over the bustling affairs of MPL Communications, the company that manages the professional projects of the singer and his wife Linda. 

    McCartney is in from his country home in Sussex, where he has a brand-new state-of-the-art recording studio to promote his latest LP, Press to Play. It is the 15th solo album he has released since he announced the breakup of the Beatles back in 1970, and the years are beginning to tell. His hair is mostly gray these days, but he's as buoyant as ever, bubbling with enthusiasm. 

    After eight years of largely lackadaisical releases on Columbia, he is back with Capital, the Beatles' old label, and he seems serious about rehabilitating the somewhat tattered artistic reputation. Although he has ambitious plans for the future, McCartney cannot ignore his celebrated past and the persistent tug of his emotional undertow. Will he ever again be seen as the sweet light that illuminated the Beatles 20 years ago? The subject seems open for discussion. 

Q:  On your new album, there's an almost punkish song called "Angry." It's not an attitude usually associated with Paul McCartney. What are you angry about? 

A. Well, the same things a lot of us are angry about.

 Q: Traffic jams, stuff like that? 

A: Well, there's that-- the day-to-day p____ offs. But I was thinking more about British trade unions withdrawing coal when there's old ladies dying, and we kind of just go, "Yeah. Well, the union's got a right," and Britain's attitude toward apartheid at the moment, which is just so crazy. I mean, still after all these years of Martin Luther King and everything, they're still buggering around with black and white? It's so insane. Couldn't they just wise up? But there's Maggie saying "We don't need to do sanctions." while everybody else, all the civil rights groups, are saying, "But you do"

 Q: What about sensationalism in rock and roll, the alleged surfeit of sex and violence that many of the music critics seem to find these days? Do you worry that your children are being influenced by this sort of thing? 

A:  No, I think they're into pretty good music, actually.  Simple Minds, Dire Straits, Tears for Fears, stuff like that. I've never tried to favor anything because I figured I wouldn't have liked my dad to sort of tell me to like Elvis, you know. It would have put me off a bit. 

Q: Are you familiar with the PMRC in the States, the group of Washington wives who want ratings for pop records?

 A:  Oh, the lyrics thing?  Uh, I kind of see their point. You know, I think there is a point. Like with newspapers, researchers want to censor stuff. I don't really think you ought to, but let's say a really great group emerges, and you tend to think they'll be heavy metal. Although that's probably heavy metalists to say (laughs,) and say they were advocating, I don't know, ----killing ----Satanism, and they came out with a really great album and turned a lot of people onto Satanism. There's got to be a point where you're going to say, "Look, guys, we're all for artistic freedom, but maybe we don't want to be the devil trampling along America at the moment." I mean, what would you do? I don't know.

     I think censorship's very dangerous. I think, in a way, that it doesn't really hurt to have someone keeping an eye on all this stuff-it's not a bad thing to have watchdog groups. You just mustn't let them get too much power.

     Q: In a more positive vein, you've actively supported other causes you believe in, such as Live Aid.

     A: I'm not a great joiner, but I do support a lot of things. I supported Amnesty International for a while, and of course Live Aid obviously was a great thing. 

Q: Critics may be pleased by the harder pop sounds oppressed to play. Some of the tracks have an almost experimental tilt to them.

A: The funny thing is, there was a time when I was the avant-garde one in the Beatles around the time of Sgt. Pepper's, 'cause that album was largely my influence. I thought of the idea, the concept of pretending we were another group. I was trying to get everyone in the group to be sort of farther out and do this far-out album. John was living out in Weybridge with his wife and child at the time, and I was being a bachelor in London, living on my own, going to the theater, checking out International Times, Allen Ginsberg. It was a pretty rich period. 

    I used to make 8mm home movies and show them one frame at a time. Flick, flick, flick, which made them last about an hour when they should only have been 10 minutes. You know, I remember showing them to Antonioni. I think he was in town filming Blow Up, and Keith Richards. We had some nice evenings, quite stoned evenings, I must admit. Just watching these movies, I still have them, and I was into Stockhausen, and I used to make a lot of home tape loops and just send them to friends for like a buzz. I remember saying to John once, "I'm gonna do an album of this and call it 'Paul McCartney Goes Too Far,' and he said, 'Yeah, you got to do it, man.' So I was the one who introduced John originally to a lot of that stuff. In fact, not many people know this, but Yoko came to my house before she met John. There was a charity thing. It was rather avant-garde, something to do with John Cage or something, and she wanted lyrics, manuscripts. I hate to tell you, but I really didn't want to give her any of my lyrics, you know, selfish or whatever, but I just didn't want to do it. So I said, "But there's a friend of mine who might want to help, my mate John."

     Q. So you were the catalyst for John and Yoko's relationship? 

    A. Well, I don't know that, but I kind of put her on to John, and then they really hit it off. It was like a wildfire, you know. John was certainly in love, um, a little insecurely in love because he warned me off Yoko. Sort of said, "Look, no, no," because he knew I was a bit of a ladies' man; I like the girls, no doubt about that. And I said, "Yeah, okay." I mean, I wasn't about to anyway, but he didn't know that.

 Q. You became involved with Linda Eastman instead. Has it been difficult to sustain such a controversial union over the last 16 years?

 A:  Well, we've been up, we've been down, we've been in love, we've been out of love, we've been every which way, you know. It's certainly not been as idyllic as it looks on the surface. It's a real marriage, believe me, as real as any other marriage. The bottom line is that we love each other, and what's more, we like each other. It sounds corny, but what else can I say? 

Q. Thinking about you and Linda and John and Yoko inevitably recalls the end of the Beatles. After all this time, the cause of the group's breakup still seems murky. What really happened?

 A. The actual story in my mind is that it was all getting a bit sticky during the White Album, and Let It Be was very sticky. George left the group then, and so did Ringo, but we managed to patch that back up. The dates are all purple haze to me, but at some point after Let It Be was finished, and about the time I was wanting to put the McCartney album out, we had a meeting at the Apple offices, and it was like, "Look, something's wrong. We've got to sort it out." I had my suggestion. I said, "What I think we ought to do is get back as a band. We get as the little unit we always were. I think we ought to hit small clubs and do a little tour." I just wanted to learn to be a band together again, cause we'd become a business group. We'd become businessmen, so that was my big suggestion. And John looked me in the eye and said, "I think you're daft. In fact, I wasn't going to tell you, but I'm leaving the group." To my recollection, those were his exact words, and our jaws dropped. And then he went on to explain that it was rather a good feeling to get that off his chest.  A bit like when he told his wife about a divorce, that he'd had a sort of feeling of relief, which was very nice for him, but we didn't get much of a good feeling.

     At first, we agreed not to announce it, but after three or four months, I got more and more guilty about people saying, "How's the group going?" When we sort of knew it was probably going to split up, so I did a kind of dumb move in the end. And when I look back on it, it really was. It looks very hard and cold, but I was releasing the McCartney album, and I didn't really want much press for it. So I told a guy from the office to do me a list of questions, and I'll write the answers, and we'll print it up as a pamphlet, and just stick it in with the press copies of the album. The questions were quite pointed, and it ended up sounding like I was announcing that the Beatles had broken up. John got quite mad about that. Apparently, this is one of the things he said really hurt him and cut him to the quick. Personally, I don't think it was such a bad thing to announce to the world after four months that we'd broken up. It had to come out sometime. I think maybe the manner of doing it I regret now. I wish I had been a little kinder with the other's approval, but I felt it was time. 

Q: Did it sadden you to see Lennon subsequently drift off into heroin addiction? 

A: Yeah, I really didn't like that. Unfortunately, he was drifting away from us by then, so none of us really knew. He never told us. We heard rumors, and we were very sad. But he embarked on a new course, which really involved anything and everything, because John was that kind of guy. He wanted to live his life to the full as he saw it. He would often say things like, "If you find yourself at the edge of a cliff and you wonder whether you should jump off or not, try jumping." And I'm afraid I would always say, "No, man, I'm not going to jump off a cliff. I don't care how good it is".

Q: But you eventually did try LSD?

 A: Yeah, finally. In actual fact, it was because John had done it by mistake one evening. We turned up for a session at Abbey Road, and he thought he'd taken a pep pill, speed or whatever, to sort of wake him up for the evening. But it turned out to be acid. He had a little pill box, and he had taken the wrong pill. This was around the time of Sergeant Pepper, but we didn't get a lot done that night. John came over and said, "Geez, I'm tripping," and we all went, "Ah, okay, keep cool, lad. Now, is this a good place to be tripping?"He said, "No, not really." So I took him home, and that was my first trip that night because I figured, you know, I can't leave this guy on his own. He was all aumummum. 

Q: Your apparent preference for marijuana has made many headlines over the years. Do you still indulge?

 A. I don't talk about stuff like that no more. It's too crazy. Where I was lucky was with my avoidance of heroin. I went through most of the other stuff, and I had a friend in the '60s who was getting into heroin. He said to me, "Man, the thing about heroin is that it's okay as long as you've got the money to support the habit.  There's no problem as long as you can pay, and you're not likely to have a problem with that, so it's cool."But something in my brain went ding. A little light went on, and I said, "No, this is wrong." So I was very lucky. 

Q: After John Lennon conquered his drug problem, did the two of you finally patch up your personal relationship? 

A.We were submerged in business troubles at the time. There was incredible bitterness. At one point, to get some peace in the camp, I told my lawyers I wanted to give John an indemnity he had been seeking against a certain clause in one of the Apple contracts. I said, "Somebody's got to make the first move. I'd love to be the voice of reason here." I happened to be on my way to the Caribbean, so passing through New York, I rang John up. But there was so much suspicion, even though I came bearing the olive branch. I said, "Hey, I'd like to see you," and he said, "What for? What do you really want?" It was very difficult. That was about the strength of our relationship then, very very bitter, and we didn't get over that for a long time. But thank God, at the very end, we suddenly realized that all we had to do was not mention Apple if we phoned each other. We could talk about the kids, talk about his cats, talk about writing songs. The one paramount thing was not to mention Apple. So then the last couple of phone calls we had were getting very nice. I remember once he said to me, "Do they play me against you like they play you against me?" Because there were always people in the background pitting us against each other, and I said, "Yeah, they do. They sure do." That was a couple of months before he.... It's still weird even to say before he died. I still can't come to terms with that. I still don't believe it. It's like you know those dreams you have where he's still alive, and then you wake up and go, "Oh," it isn't pleasant

    . A lot of the accusations John made in public were slightly wild. I mean, maybe we should have taken to Yoko a little better. I often do feel not too clever about not taking to her because we didn't get on too well. She was very different from anything we encountered. A lot of people still find her a little difficult to take. I figure, well, he loved her, so it's nothing to do with me. I should respect her through him, and I felt that I tried to do that, but we were being so set against each other that his unreasonably bitterness was almost inevitable. I think it's such a pity he felt that way, but the bottom line is we loved each other, and I'm glad to be getting back to some semblance of sanity with George and Ringo now. We can meet and hug and say we love each other, you know. 

Q. Might the three of you ever record together again? 

A. I don't know. I'd like to, but it's a touchy affair. I think all of us, rather than get the world's press on our backs, would rather just play that aspect down for now. But I'd like to.

 We were talking about doing a Beatles movie a couple of years ago, slinging in home movies and old outtakes, adding narration, the definitive Beatles story. We are going to call it the Long and Winding Road. We asked Dick Lester to direct it, but he said: "No one would be interested." Two months later, the Complete Beatles came out on video, and it's still in the video charts. So Dick was wrong. There's quite a big market, and we have all the Let It Be outtakes, and I have a beautiful piece of footage from that Dezo Hoffman photo session with the Beatles on the beach in old-fashioned bathing suits. It's fabulous because John is doing this beautiful Charleston, which his mother taught him how to do. I'd still like to do that movie.

 Q: Whatever may happen, will you be leaving the gray in your hair? It looks very distinguished

. A: Yeah, I'm leaving that. When you're past 40, the game is up. You know, my wife actually likes it. Ringo told me off about it, though. He reckoned I have to color it. I think he's kind of gaging himself by how old I look. Like I make him feel old if I look a bit old, but what the hell, you know? This is life. We're all getting older every second. My main thing is just to try and enjoy it, and I'm very surprised to find that more often than not, I really do.

A Night at the Museum

 September 27, 2026 -- Paul and Nancy with George Lucas at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, California