Denny Seiwell - The Best and Worst of Times - A Book Review

Paul with two of his favorite drummers:  Abe and Denny S. 

Paul and Denny recording Ram 

 

While I was at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame a few weeks ago, I picked up a signed copy of Wings' first drummer, Denny Seiwell's biography.   It was a pretty quick read (180 pages), and I found it very heartwarming, inspirational, and informative. 

Denny was a successful drummer prior to joining Paul McCartney in Wings.  He did a variety of jingles and sessions for all styles of music.  The one thing he did prior to Wings was play the drums for songs from Schoolhouse Rock!  Yes -- that is Denny Seiwell playing drums on "Conjunction Junction."  

Denny tells the story of how he auditioned for Paul and Linda and began working with them on what became the Ram album.  From there, he was asked to join Wings, and of course, he couldn't say no to the opportunity to be in a band with a Beatle, so he and his wife moved to Scotland and started rehearsing and recording with the new band, Wings. 

I appreciate how candid and honest Denny was about the challenges and struggles he faced being in Paul McCartney's band.  He didn't sugarcoat the experience, but he also didn't just talk about the negative aspects.  I enjoyed reading the excitement of that first Wings University tour and the humor in the first drug bust.  

Denny wasn't making money to make ends meet with Wings and made the decision to quit right before the band left for Lagos to record Band on the Run.  After that Denny went into a depression and turned to alcohol while still working as a Session drummer in California. 

The rest of the book is the story of Denny's recovery from alcoholism and how he basically turned his life around.  I found it to be very inspiring.  As part of doing the 12 steps, Denny decided to reconcile with Paul McCartney for quitting Wings.  The two of them were never on bad terms to begin with, but there was much left unsaid.  After the reconciliation from Denny writing Paul a letter, they have spent time together.  Last year Denny went to see Paul and the band rehearse for the Got Back tour and had the opportunity to play drums with Paul once again.   

I won't go into the entire story but it was so sweet and was an amazing way to end the book. 

This has been one of the best books I have read in quite a while.  I would recommend it to anyone who appreciates Wings.

It was a beautiful holiday

 

We Shall Return McCartney Vows (1976 Chicago)

 

We Shall Return McCartney Vows

Lynn Van Matre

Chicago Tribune

June 3, 1976

    "Some people," Paul McCartney was saying, with a look of puzzlement, "seem to think this is some sort of farewell tour. This is our first tour. We'll be back."

     The tour in question, of course, is McCartney and Wings' current extravaganza, marking the first time in 10 years that the ex-Beatle has appeared in the United States. 

    "All I remember about the last time we played Chicago," he recalled, "was seeing the Stockyards." The scene then was the International Amphitheater, and the band he played with was the Beatles. This time around, the scene was the Chicago Stadium, where McCartney and Wings had just wound up the second of three nights of sold-out shows that began Monday. The crowd, blessed out by more than two hours of music, was slowly filing out of the stadium with die-hard McCartney fans hanging around the gates, hoping for a glimpse of their hero.

     Backstage, McCartney and Wings, keyboard player, the woman he calls his "friend and Mrs"., otherwise known as Linda, had exchanged their stage duds for more casual jeans and cowboy boots. Settling down on the couch in their dressing room, the two chatted and bantered briefly about the tour, their music, and the Beatles.

     The rumor had been rampant that there was a possibility of John Lennon showing up to share the stage with Wings at one of their shows. The man who once collaborated with McCartney on some of the Beatles' best songs has yet to materialize. 

    "Well," said McCartney, "we saw John before the tour started in New York. Shared a cup of tea with him in his kitchen."

     "Japanese tea", Linda elaborated, taking her eyes from The Tonight Show in progress on the dressing room color telly. 

    "Yes, Japanese tea," Paul confirmed. "Anyway, we left it that if he feels like turning up any place along the way, fine, but it's no big number. We won't be hurt if he doesn't make it. Actually, anyone could turn up: Ringo, George, Mayor Baba..."

     "Even Jesus," Linda put in.

     "She's just having a bit of fun with you," Paul said. "The thing is, if any of them showed up, it'd just  mean people would start talking again about us reuniting," and as McCartney keeps saying when asked about that very possibility, "You can't reheat a soufflé."

     Actually, he and Wings are doing very nicely on their own, thank you. So far, the band has been snaring deservedly rave reviews for their shows, which amount to bang-up celebrations of rock and roll, and are musically a far cry from their records, which frequently have been marred by too much slick sweetness and vapidity.

     "Yeah, I know a lot of critics haven't liked our records," Paul admitted. "Lightweight music, that's what they've called it. I can tell the difference in our playing live and our playing on the records, though. It's true. The thing is, when you make a record, you're putting the music down on vinyl forever, making a statue, as it were, encasing it in cement. On stage, we're just throwing the music into the air, letting it happen. The pressure's off a little.

     "I don't get overly angry at what the critics have said about our records. Well, sometimes it does bother me a little, but there's nothing I can do about it anyway. At least until the next album. There's nothing to do now but enjoy the tour."

     "And punt," Linda added, lighting a cigarette. "Yeah, punt," McCartney repeated. "They've been giving her a little bit of trouble about her hands," he said with a good-humored glance at his wife. "Some reviewer from Rolling Stone wrote that when Linda stands downstage for the song "My Love", she looks funny standing there with her hands on her hips for the whole number. So, for Monday night's show, she took her hands off her hips for a while, and he wrote that she looked fidgety. Maybe she should just stick her hands in her turnips."

    Turnips? "Turn ups," spelled out McCartney, gesturing toward the rolled-up cuffs on the couple's jeans.

     "I like to fidget," Linda explained. 

    "We're just having some more fun with you," Paul said.

     "I'm really not all that nervous on stage," Linda clarified the burning issue. "Not anymore."

     During their show in Chicago, which wound up Wednesday night,  the McCartneys chose not to stay in a hotel. Instead, they rented a private home for themselves and their children. "I don't know exactly where it is," said Paul. "Someplace outside the city-- in the country, and the fresh air. We haven't really been doing much while we've been in Chicago. We went horseback riding one afternoon with the kids, and that was nice. Mostly, we've just been hanging out."

     Plans call for the McCartneys and Wings to wind up their current tour on June 23 in Los Angeles. Every concert along the way is being recorded with an eye toward a possible live album.

    " As soon as this tour is over," McCartney said, "We'll put on our little tin hats and get to work sorting through all the tapes. If we get enough good stuff, we'll release."

Suiting the Beatles and the Stones (1966)

 

Suiting the Beatles and Stones

No writer listed

The Runcorn Guardian

June 2, 1966

    "All four Beatles have changed so much in three years."

    "Mick Jagger is very funny about his shirts."

     "I've been responsible for some of the most outrageous clothes seen this century."

     Those were among the revealing comments passed at the London workshop of Alfred Maron, Duggie Millings, and Philip Stevens. Between them, they satisfied the suit-and-shirt whims of many of the show-business elites, including the Walker Brothers, Roger Moore, and PJ Proby.

     The next fashion surprise could be the kitchen towel look, unless designer Paul McCartney comes up with something first! Chelsea boutiques may capture Britain's dedicated followers of fashion, but it is Soho's alleyway tailors whose styles tempt the stars. These dressers of the show business elite, including Duggie Millings, who makes suits for the Beatles, Tom Jones, and Chris Andrews,  Alfred Maron, who serves Roger Moore and the Shadows. And Philip Stevens, whose shirts are worn by the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and PJ Proby.

     "It all started with Adam", joked Duggie Millings. "I was making suits for Adam Faith when the Beatles asked him if he knew a tailor. That was when they had just started, and I have been making their clothes ever since. I have made all their stage suits for them, 12 different designs over the past three years.

    "They no longer come in for fittings as we have all their measurements, though John sometimes calls if he's putting on a bit of weight." Often Duggie drives to the Beatles' homes to fit their new suits before the final stitching, and he still charges no more than he did when John, Paul, George, and Rinko called for their first stage suits, the famous Beatle Jackets, early in 1963.

     "I make this a rule", says Duggie. "My prices are the same for everybody. I sell my suits for between £35 and £40, no matter who the customer is. I don't try to push the price up just because I know they can afford to pay more."

     While we were talking, Duggie was finishing a tweed sports jacket for Billy Fury. "He's changed a lot," said Duggie. "Very conservative dresser now, used to be a rocker, but Billy has dropped all that. You'd be surprised how many people's tastes change once they become successful. When Tom Jones came to see us, he only wore those short box jackets. Now his coats are longer. Adam Faith always has black suits now, and Chris Andrews is also very somber. That boy is no mug. He used to be a tailor's cutter himself, so he knows whether a suit is good or not. Chris likes silk suits in the ordinary three-button style, but he's also had a Chesterfield overcoat from us. It cost him £35 10 s.

     "Any time now," exclaimed Duggie, "Paul McCartney will come in with some design for new suits. He designs all the Beatles' stage clothes now."

     Duggie's main rival is pint-sized Alfred Maron, who has his workshop next to the famous Flamingo Club. Maron, just five feet two inches, and well known as a character actor, usually stands at his tailor's bench in a long, badly fitted gray jumper and old slacks. 

    He admitted, "I've been responsible for some of the most outrageous clothes seen this century." His clients include Roger Moore, Acker Bilk, Patty Klaus and Gibson, Hank Marvin of the Shadows, Matt Monroe, and the Koobas. "Remember those flowered pattern trousers, the Koobas wore? Well, that was my idea. Ridiculous, wasn't it? But you wait until you see our next outfit for them: suits made from kitchen towels!

     "And those waistcoats, and bowler hats, Acre Bilk, and his band, like? We started them too. One of our best ideas, I think. 

    "Hank Marvin has been coming to me for years. You see that camel Chesterfield coat there with the yellow silk lining? Well, we've just made that for Hank. That's going to cost him something," joked Maron, who resets many of his customers in the film and television studios when playing one of the old lag roles in which he specializes.

      Above his shop is the workshop where Philip Stevens hand-tailors shirts for many of the top British and American stars. His only big competitor is Esquire of Glasgow. 

    Stevens, a handsome 28-year-old Italian, works in two tiny attic rooms. His wife operates an old treadle sewing machine. His name, hardly known outside the entertainment business, apart from a few famous politicians, draws customers such as the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Tom Jones, the Everly Brothers, PJ Proby, and the Small Faces. 

    "How did I get the Beatles custom?" asked Stevens. "Well, when they went to Duggie Millings for their first suits, he sent them to me for shirts, and they've been coming ever since.

     "Paul and George come here most. Paul likes blue shirts with long, soft button-down collars, but George chops and changes. His favorite is a pink-and-mauve denim with black buttons and a soft button-down collar. 

    "All four Beatles have changed so much in the past three years. They have become much smarter and choose their shirts now to go with their suits. Before they were made to go with jeans. Paul even designs his own shirts and often sends me sketches, and I make them up from that, but I don't see much of John. He always wears those roll-neck jumpers."

     His other clients include the Walker Brothers, who are having shirts made in many different colors with 42-inch sleeves and wide padded shoulders, and PJ Proby, who went to Stevens for his long open-thigh length stage shirts. 

    The Stones go mainly for check shirts, any color, any kind of check. Mick is very funny. He insists that the shoulders of a shirt fit like a well-made jacket, and of course, he's right

Michael Caine's birthday party

 

La Bonne Auberge

 

La Bonne Auberge restaurant in Antibes, France July 1972.

(Found on the Beatles Books Podcast X page)

Yoko Ono's Films Are Funny Buzz-Ness (1971)

 Yoko Ono's Films Are Funny Buzz-Ness

By Les Wedman

The Vancouver Sun

June 4, 1971

(Cannes)      John Lennon may be a better singer than Yoko Ono, but she makes better films than he does. His Apotheosis drew catcalls when it was shown at the film festival here, but her offbeat The Fly was greeted with applause. 

    Yoko claims she makes films in order to"change the world", but it seems hardly likely that The Fly will do that. Lennon obviously has nothing as lofty as that in mind. He says he was happy that the two short films were seen here during the festival, because "otherwise they'd only get shown at home, wouldn't they?"

     He admits he doesn't know much about filmmaking, and what he has learned so far he has picked up from Yoko, who, incidentally, looks better in the flesh than she photographs. Her idealism, however, is the same. 

    She said she doesn't believe that films should cost a lot of money to make, not when there are "so many starving children in the world". And she advises young filmmakers to cut expenses by using "out of date film and out moded equipment." She made The Fly for less than $150.

     "We don't all believe in the Hollywood type thing", Lennon said. And then his wife expressed interest in helping others to make movies. Lennon interjected with, " We're not a walking charity, though people should help themselves, and I only help people who appeal to me personally."

     Apotheosis describes the ascent of a balloon above an English village, and much of it is nothing but masses of white clouds. Said Lennon, "I couldn't direct it once they got way up there."

     Yoko's The Fly, shot mostly in close-ups, explores every-- but every --part of a nude woman asleep on a bed. Finally, the fly is joined by others, and they all take part in a tour of discovery. 

    How were the flies kept from flying away? And how could the girl remain perfectly immobile throughout what is actually a beautifully done, if meaningless, movie? 

    Yoko said they tried honey on the girl's body, along with sugar and water, but both were too visible, so they used a tranquilizing gas. "Both the flies and the girl were stoned," Lennon said.

     He said he has no plans for another film. The reaction to Apotheosis was what he expected: "half angry, half hysterical, and that's fine."  If he ever makes another film, Lennon said he probably won't use actors. "I don't know what actors are; that would be a lot of work, and I like to do things easily."

     Accepting a compliment on his own acting and Richard Lester's How I Won the War, Lennon said it was interesting to see how a director works, but having to perform is not rewarding enough. "It wasn't worth it. If Yoko asked me to be in a film, though, I would do it." He said he has a secret wish to be a comedian (actually, there's nothing secret about it), so he would like to do a comedy. 

    "This is the age of making films without money," said Yoko. "Let's go on making lots of films and changing the world with it," she concluded.

     Lennon had the last word. "Yoko made another movie called Bottoms, which had a cast of 200, and that only cost £50  to make." That wasn't a world-shaking film either,

The Thrill of a Lifetime (written in 1976 about 1964 tour)

 

The Thrill of a Lifetime

By Jack Thomas

The Boston Globe

June 2, 1976

    In every life, there are moments of extraordinary pleasure that we cherish above all others. Those few vivid seconds when life seems perfect, and we are lost in a special memory that not even time can tarnish. The Beatles sang sweetly about such moments. "There are places I remember all my life, though some have changed, some for better, some forever, some are gone, and some remain."

     Paul McCartney's recent visit to Boston recalled such a moment in the life of an Auburndale teenager who was driven to ecstasy 12 years ago when she kissed Paul McCartney. It is still the happiest moment of her life. 

    The city was excited on September 11, 1964, because the Beatles were giving their first concert in Boston. Those were happier days. We were still recovering from the shock of John Kennedy's assassination, but the agony of the Vietnam War, the trauma of the race riots, and the murders of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were still in the future. 

    Tickets for the concert had long been sold, and dozens of teenage girls had written to the Globe for help in obtaining tickets. The Globe obtained a ticket and signed me to take 14-year-old Debbie Chase to the concert to write about her experience. The Beatles held a press conference early in the evening at the Madison Hotel, and security was exceptionally tight. Indeed, they made a point that teenage girls were to be excluded, but we were able to fast-talk our way into the press conference with the promise that Debbie would stand quietly and inconspicuously at the back of the room.

     That was naive of me. I should have known that the kind of girl who wore her hair long and loose because McCartney liked it that way would never stand quietly and inconspicuously at the back of the room, no matter how sternly I admonished her. Surely enough, midway through the press conference, when I wasn't looking, she stepped over the television cables and headed for the front of the room, where the four Beatles sat behind a table.

     "God", I thought, "we're both going to be thrown out on our ears, and the story will fall apart." But before the security guards could stop her, she was standing in the bright lights between George Harrison and Paul McCartney. Her eyes were wide, her face was flushed, and her hands were shaking.

     McCartney turned, offered his hand graciously, and said, "I'm pleased to meet you." He must have felt the coldness of her hand and realized she was shaking because he touched her arm assuringly and said, "Hey, you'll be all right then." With the television cameras whirling and me scribbling madly in my notebook, she leaned down slowly and kissed him on his right cheek. There were about 40 reporters and photographers in the room, and they watched silently, choosing not to interrupt a tender moment. 

    When she arrived at her seat in Boston Garden, a preliminary rock group was singing. Debbie sat down and screamed as loudly as she could, "I just kissed Paul McCartney!" That threw two sections on the south side of the lower level of Boston Garden into a dither. Dozens of teenage girls yelled, leaped in the air, pounded their chairs, and lunged at Debbie to touch her. It took two plainclothes Boston police officers and a state trooper to restore order. 

    Debbie sent a thank-you letter a few days later. "You have made my fondest dream come true," she wrote, "and I don't know how I will ever be able to repay you. At school on Monday, the kids came up to me and congratulated me, and either shook my hand, so they could say they shook the hand that shook the hand of Paul and George, or they kissed my lips, so they could say they kissed the lips that kissed Paul McCartney. I can hardly stand to hear one of their songs or see a picture of them, because I get this really weird feeling inside, and I almost start crying for no reason at all. "

    The incident happened a long time ago, as the Beatles said, "Yesterday, when all our troubles seemed so far away." Today, Debbie Chase is 26, single, living in Cambridge, happy, in love, and working as a box office manager for a rock music promoter. 

    "How long ago was that?" She asked yesterday. "Wow, 12 years ago. Well, I still love the Beatles, but it's not nearly the way it was. No one could have been more excited than I was that night. I was really shaking. If it happened today, it wouldn't be the same. I had laryngitis from telling that story, over and over.  "You know, that was the happiest moment of my life," she said, "and it probably always will be."

So happy together

 

Smiling Brian