McCartney Tight Lipped About His New Quartet (1971)

 McCartney Tight-Lipped About his New Quartet

By Drew Johnstone

London Express

August 20, 1971

(Campbeltown, Scotland) Beatle Paul McCartney remained tight-lipped this week about the group that he and his wife Linda plan to launch on the pop scene later this year. Paul, who is staying with his wife at their Scottish farmhouse near here, revealed this won't be a media group like the Beatles. "We're out to provide good music, and we're not caring whether the public likes it as big a way as they did the music of the Beatles."

     In a three-minute interview, while he paused with his seven-month pregnant wife as they walked to a stream in a field alongside their hillside hideaway, Paul said, "I'm still keeping the wraps on the group for the time being. I will say that the group, which I hope will make its appearance in the winter, will be out to provide nothing else but good music. It's not a planned thing. It's just a case of good musicians getting together for their own personal kicks; the Beatles are finished, and I'm not planning to revive their type of music with this group."

 McCartney refused to be drawn when asked about two American musicians, Dennis Siewell and Hugh McCracken, both from New York, who arrived in Campbelltown less than two months ago and bought a cottage near his farmhouse. Siewell, who plays the drums, and McCracken, a guitarist, arrived in the town with their wives and stayed for a month at the Argyle Arms Hotel.

     Later, they were seen on numerous occasions with McCartney and his wife. McCartney refused to reveal whether they had been rehearsing together, at either his farmhouse or the American's cottage, less than a half mile away; all McCartney would say was, "There will be four of us in the group. Linda and I will be responsible for the vocals. That's all I want to say about the group at this moment."

Press to Play

 

August 22, 1986

Is New Lennonism a Passing Phase? (1971)

 Is New Lennonism a Passing Phase?

By Chris Pritchard

The Sydney Morning Herald

August 22, 1971

    A dozen burly Scottish shop stewards were reading messages of support for their takeover of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders yards when a messenger walked in bearing a gift wrapped in cellophane. It was a bunch of red roses. A handwritten note said, "Best wishes from John and Yoko." In the next mail came a check for $2,000 --1000 each from the ex-Beatle and his wife, for the militant dockers fighting fund. 

    This week, a full-page advertisement in the semi-underground newspaper Ink reads simply, "Repression is bad for you. John and Yoko, summer 1971."

     Since John went political earlier in the year, there have been many jokes about Marxist- Lennonism. There are plenty of people who blame his metamorphosis on Yoko, but after a long chat with the pair of them, I'm convinced this just isn't fair. There are others who say that, like the days of meditation and the Maharishi, all this talk of revolution is yet another passing phase. Perhaps they are right. We can only wait and see. 

    John's conversion to hardcore left-wing politics was first made public in a Trotskyist newspaper, Red Mole. Across four pages, John and Yoko supported revolutionary struggles around the world, espousing basic working-class radicalism on the home front, and said they took their politics seriously. 

    About the same time, John's record "Working Class Hero" was released, and protesters everywhere were singing "Power to the People", a song more militant than his earlier "Give Peace a Chance." Where demonstrating crowds had a year or so before sung "We Shall Overcome" a dozen times during one protest because it was the only protest song they all knew, they now had the words and music of John Lennon. 

    If one point needs to be made, it's this: John's infatuation with Oz and the underground may well do him a power of commercial good with the youngsters who buy his records, but most of the kids don't give a jot about Clydeside and trade unions, and many of them are something boring that happens at work. No, if Lennon wanted merely to identify with the kids, he would have picked another cause. 

    The background of the four Liverpool lads who strummed together to give birth to the Beatles tends sometimes to be forgotten; they didn't starve. They weren't poor in that sense, but they were from typical working-class English homes where "money doesn't grow on trees, you know," and "take care of the pennies," are comments often heard. 

    As he put it the other day, "Judge Argyle said he wouldn't fine them (the three Oz editors), because they were too poor. But they've got rich friends. Mick Jagger has telephoned me several times, and we both want to help in whatever way we can. Whatever money is needed, we are prepared to find it."

The Beatles are Stuck With Hide-and-Seek (Cincinnati 1966)

 

The Beatles Are Stuck With Hide and Seek

By Dale Stevens

The Cincinnati Post

August 20, 1966

    The Beatles are trapped in stardom, and for me, looking back at every interview I've done with popular performers who no longer are free to walk down a quiet street, I have to wonder if the English boys sometimes feel they've given up more than the money has given them. Privacy is a wonderful thing. You lose it in the glow of such phenomenal success. Your best fan becomes your worst enemy. A group of people who love you becomes a mob. Love becomes violence, so the Beatles can't stick their head out of their hotel door. The police escort becomes a way of life. Many a star has told me he or she would rather have the privacy and not quite so much stardom, but by then it is always too late, and thus beside the point. 

    Point is, how now do you handle the fans who have gone berserk with their affection? In the case of the Beatles, the answer has been the will-of-the-wisp tactic, a frantic game of hide-and-seek, in which the yare always wins. They hide, as it were, to keep fans from getting hurt. Somewhere there must be a dividing line, an illusory, indefinable line between being fair to your fans and getting yourself or your fans torn apart. On the one side of the line is the obligation to give something in return to the people whose dollars have literally bought stardom for you; you cannot then turn your back on them completely in the name of safety. And yet, the other side of that line is mayhem for such an act as the Beatles. They appeal mostly to the younger audience, and the girls who scream at them would trample each other if they thought they actually might touch a Beatle, so the Beatles are virtually forced to hide away, to stay away, to run as briskly as possible to the stage with police on each side of them, and be spirited away in whatever trickery is needed after it's over. Are the Beatles overprotected? Do they cheat their fans of a fair chance to look or shake hands? It's easier to touch President Johnson than the Beatles, and the Beatles are quick to agree.

     But while Paul McCartney will admit overprotection, he and the other Beatles insist that one, it's the idea of their management, and two, it's necessary to protect the fans from themselves. I wasn't the most popular person in the Beatles' dressing room when they were at Crosley Field over the weekend, but I held my own in some feverish discussions with McCartney, Ringo Starr, and the Beatles' press boss Tony Barrow. When I said they are overprotected, Ringo said. "No, I don't think so. They just want to touch us. But when it gets into 1000s of people, it's dangerous, you know. It's as much for their protection as ours."

     McCartney made the point that as artists, it isn't their job to organize police control. But when I said they were being overprotected, he said, "Oh yes, that's the truth of it-the whole truth."

     Tony Barrow, as part of the management team, wouldn't quite agree with my contention that the Beatles are overprotected by their paid advisers. "There is a minimum," he said, emphasizing the word minimum, "of three organizations: the Beatles, police, and the promoters." By which McCartney quickly added, "And in all that were very insignificant in that lot, were where organization is concerned, we don't organize any of it." 

    What it all boils down to, as insider's note, is that McCartney, Ringo, John Lennon, and George Harrison are tightly controlled by their personal manager and co-owner, Brian Epstein. The Beatles would rather run into a crowd and shake hands, as Ringo told me they sometimes do. Epstein merely has to sit them down and give them the instructions, and his reputation for shrewd brilliance can be seen in the way. The Beatles obviously follow his directions. "That's why we have management," Ringo said to me. "We just do our job. We don't have anything to say. It's all organized for us. Without the protection, we'd never get a show done." But Lawrence Olivier and Frank Sinatra don't cloister themselves so extremely; they can go out. Ringo replied, "They're not pop stars. I've never seen 5000 people queued up to see Frank Sinatra around his hotel."

    The difference Ringo believes is the teenage audience for pop stars, and that's the way he wants it. "It's the young audience I like. They're nearer to us than older people are, you know, in age, thinking no, in the way they are. This generation, we're a part of this generation, and anyone over 35 is the last generation. And I like staying with our generation. It's better than the last one. I'm not saying you don't like the Beatles. A lot of older people do; I've had letters from people of 68 or 86, you know."

     As for the protection fuss, when the Beatles left, newsmen were waiting at the plane door at the airport ramp Saturday morning, John Lennon later told Walt Turner of WSAI. "It might have been 18 seconds, as the paper said, but you want to praise the police for their speed and efficiency, not shout at us. We have no control. We sit on the plane. The order comes. 'All right, Beetles, off the plane.' The car's waiting at the bottom of the ramp. We leap off the plane, go clunk down the stairs. We just zoom in, do what they tell us. Jump in the car. They say 'come along. Side here. Dive into that door.' Click, click, and you're in your bed. You know."

     McCartney, referring to the five Lexington, Kentucky girls who wanted to give the Beatles $367 worth of flowers, said the Beatles would have stopped had they been told. "We tried to, but those girls just jumped on the car, without an explanation. This is what happens. The whole business is so organized, even subdivided, sublet, that for an instant, all that Manila stink we got into was because exactly that one thing we didn't know about it."  The police said, "Get in that car', and so we got in. So that's the protection bit."

     Their contract stipulates they won't sign autographs, and for every other kind of request, they can fall back on the oldest dodge in show business: You'll have to see my manager. The truth, it is the kind of protection the really big stars must have, because as their management says, it's not a matter of making things safe for the Beatles, but safe for the people.

Beatles Colossal Brush Off Disappoints Fans (Cincinnati 1966)

Photo by Gordon Baer

 

Beatles Colossal Brush Off Disappoints Fans

By Dale Stevens

The Cincinnati Post and Times Star

August 20, 1966

Idols fly in, snub crowd, and vanish in 18 seconds

    Well, John, Paul, Ringo, and George-they say you're nice guys, but as far as I'm concerned, you're not. Even Frank Sinatra, at his saltiest, doesn't treat people the way you do. The Beatles, the English rock and roll group that has become the biggest hit in the history of show business, rolled into Lunkin Airport at 2:45 a.m. today. They preferred to stay over here overnight rather than in Memphis, where last night they did two concerts. From the door of the plane, past the waiting reporters and photographers, it took the Beatles a snappy 18 seconds to get into a limousine and away. 

    Their management, which apparently is more concerned with secrecy than courtesy, condescended to let the Beatles' car drive within the fenced-off area, so the 150 fans beyond the fence could wave, but standing within the fence were five young girls from Lexington, Kentucky, who had spent $367 on four floral horseshoes and wanted to hand them to Lennon, McCartney, Starr, and Harrison. 

    The limousine didn't stop, but Jan Greer, an 18-year-old Lexington student, got a grip on the window and tried to hand her carnation horseshoe to Paul McCartney. The 60 flower horseshoe split in two. Jan fell to the ground, bumping her head and rumpling her clothes, and away sped the Beatles, whose sole tribute to their followers and press was a collection of sincere, rehearsed smiles. 

    Afterward, the Kentucky girls insisted they didn't blame the Beatles. They still hoped to be able to present their flowers to the boys. They even vowed to buy another bouquet to replace the one lost in the motorcade. Jan, distraught, embarrassed, and sad because the Beatle car hadn't slowed down to less than 25 miles an hour, said she had said something stupid like "I love you" to Paul McCartney through the limousine window before falling. 

    Jan's friends are Linda Simmons, 19; Carol Lester, 18; Bonnie Sharp, 16; and Brenda Snowden, 16. Linda and Carol are secretaries in Lexington. For weeks, they had taken a few dollars from their salaries to pay for the flowers. The other girls, still students, had to save from their allowances for the $367, which included $20 to get the flowers here by refrigerated truck so they wouldn't wilt. Each horseshoe held five dozen carnations, one natural red, the other sprayed purple, blue, and green. Each horseshoe was three feet high, about half the size of a regular one used to crown winning horses, according to the florist who delivered them. And though the girls were permitted inside the runway fence, there was no guarantee they would be able to get their flowers to the Beatles. 

    They still had only words of love for the Britons after their brush-off. The newsmen had no such praise. All were miffed at the idea that the Beatles didn't even pause for a decent photo or as much as one question; the rush was put on by their management, of course, but it seemed a gross show of disrespect for the professional press to show up at the inconvenient middle-of-the-night arrival. 

    The medium-sized contingent of police, who were to guard the Beatles from possible overzealous fans, didn't have much to do at either Lumpkin or Vernon Manor Hotel because of the bewitching hour schedule. Barely 35 fans were at the Vernon Manor, evenly divided between teenage girls and fellows with hair as long as the Beatles' trusses. The Beatles and their group of about 65 people, managers, booking agents, international press, and supporting acts are housed on the sixth floor at the suburban hotel. Vernon Manor was sold out for the occasion. Some of the people staying there are believed simply to be in the same building with the Beatles. 

    Three cars were supplied by Stillpass Mercury for the motorcade, but owner Joe Stillpass laughingly denied he might later take one of the cars apart to sell it piece by piece. In the past, such items as bed sheets have been sold by the square inch once they had accommodated the Beatles. This scene this time was nothing like the 1964 Beatles' arrival, but the frenzy then was aided by their daylight landing. It doesn't signify any shift in sentiment by their followers. In 1964, almost 13,000 attended the Cincinnati Garden Show.

    Tonight, about 18,000 are expected at Crosley Field, and last night the best advance planning probably belonged to the two girls who showed up at the baseball park after the stage had been installed near second base. They chipped away part of the stage timbers for souvenirs, then kissed the infield dirt by the handful, replacing it near the stage steps in hopes the Beatles might walk on their kisses.

     That was precisely the atmosphere expected by Tom Dixon, Cincinnati police captain who headed the squad at Lunkin and Vernon Manor this morning. He said his men were prepared for anything, even the remote possibility someone might want to harm the Beatles. But his main job, he said, was to protect them from their followers. Kisses, he indicated, are more of a threat than killers. It must be true, for the limousine parked behind the Vernon Manor at 3:30 a.m. bore the script written on the dusky trunk, "Hi Ringo," and "I love you, Paul, and the dirty fingers belonged to Charlene Drescher of 1621 Pelham and Pam Kruger of 5832 Kennell, unlike the press, their adoration knows no bounds, and they do not insist upon professional conduct, and that, as I say, is show business.

Paul and the fam in Holland

 August 19, 1976 

Din of Iniquity to Some Thrill More Than 20,000 (Memphis 1966)

 

Din of Iniquity to Some Thrill More Than 20,000

By Edwin Howard

The Memphis Press

August 20, 1966

    The songs are ended, but the melee lingers on. The melee is Beatlemania, and if anything, it's worse today because 20,128 Memphisians, Mid Southerners, and hundreds of Outlanders have now actually seen and sort of heard the Beatles like in person.

     For five hours yesterday, the swinging Liverpudlians and their fellow travelers, the Ronettes, the Cyrkle, the Remains, and Bobby Helm [sic] turned the Colosseum into a den of iniquity, in the opinion of another 8000 Memphisians and Mid-Southerners who attended a religious rally at the auditorium protesting Beatle John Lennon's recent alleged anti-Christian statements. Another 600,000 or so Memphisians stayed away altogether, perhaps expressing the opinion that what the Beatles brought to Memphis was a DIN of inequity. 

    Whatever it was that emanated from that seven-foot-high Colosseum platform, it certainly, in the words of another British entertainer of some years ago, "split the ears of the groundlings, who, for the most part, are capable of nothing save inexplicable dumb shows and noise." One of the first aid men was offering earplugs to special duty policemen before the first show and finding several takers.

     Actually, Beatle music can be quite pleasant if you can hear it, but the crowd of 12,539 at last night's performance effectively drowned them out even with their Super Beatle Vox guitar amplifiers turned up full blast. Their "Yesterday" is as haunting a ballad as even an old fellow of 40 could wish. "I Want to Be Your Man" has a fine driving rhythm, and they're first-rate musicians, but the consistent obbligato of screams from the Beatles' entrance to their departure from the stage 40 minutes later made it hard to tell one tune from another. 

    Among the others were "Paperback Writer", "Nowhere Man," "If I Needed Someone", "What Can the Matter Be," and "I Feel Fine." The show was an hour and 35 minutes old before the Beatles were introduced by MC Johnny Dark of WMPS, George Klein of WHBQ did the honors at the 4o'clock show, attended by 7589. 

    The crowd was patient and responsive to the preliminary performers, of whom the Cyrkle, a clean-cut American group, seemed to me to score the highest. Negro singer Bobby Helm [sic], formerly of Nashville, got a good round of cheers for his current hit, "Sunny." But all this was as the whisper of a laconic mute to the bedlam that greeted the Beatles' mere appearance, let alone performance. A single word from John, Paul, or George, (Ringo just sat there grinning and drumming) was enough to send the constant fortissimo of audience approval crescendoing into ear-shattering shrieks of pure ecstasy. 

    The audience toll was rather less than one might have expected. Only six girls passed out and had to be taken to the aid station during the two shows. The first customer of the day, about 1130 a.m., was a girl with a purportedly twisted ankle. When a friendly aid man said he'd have to tape it and send her home, she got up indigently and walked out without a trace of a limp.

     Shortly after the Beatles appeared for the evening show, a firecracker exploded on the main floor, and Julie Wilson and Nick Isch, both 16, of Bates, Mississippi, were rushed out and to the aid station by police. Julie had a laceration on her leg from the explosion. Nobody seemed quite sure whether the pair had set off the firecracker themselves, or someone else had tossed it from above. There was a bomb report during the afternoon show, but the bomb seen under the stage turned out to be a resin bag. 

    Like everything else connected with the Beatles' ten-and-a-half-hour sarjoun in Memphis, the 7p.m. press conference was an instance of organized pandemonium. It was certainly no place for a newspaperman. Most of the press seemed to be teenage girls representing this or that small-town weekly or radio station, and the crying crush occasioned by the Beatles' appearance was enough to make an old news hand tear up his press card. 

    A few cogent questions were asked and coolly answered. Lennon, asked about the rash of Beatles record bans following Datebook magazine, quoting him as saying the Beatles are more popular than Jesus, and said, "I don't mind people banning our records or not liking them. That's their right to ban them or not play them or play them, but a lot of the banning seems to have been for publicity. They seem to be lifting the bans now because they've got their publicity, but they still seem to need to play our records. "

    Asked if he had mentioned religion in his two published books, Lennon said, "Yes, there's a little on religion in both, and people could make more of them than anything in that magazine, because I'm as serious about my writing as anything. It's not flippant."

     On why they didn't come to Memphis to record one of their albums earlier this year: "Little things kept getting in the way, like money. We wanted to come. A couple of tracks would have been much better if we had come. We wanted Steve Cropper, a guitarist for Booker T and the MGs, to A&R direct the session. He's the best we've heard."

     On why John is going to be in a movie, How I Won the War, by himself without the others: "Because this fellow rang me up and said, 'You want to be in a movie by yourself without the others?'"

     On the Bible Belt:  "We've never heard of it before we came. It's just a tag like the Mop Top Four. It doesn't really mean anything."

     The Beatles departed Memphis at 12:12 a.m. today on their chartered American Airlines Electra for Cincinnati. They and their troop took $71,957.60 with them. 65% of their shows. 110,704 gross. The Memphis promoters, Early Maxwell Associates, paid all Memphis expenses out of the remaining $38,746.40. About 50 fans were at the airport, at the Air National Guard gate, to see the Liverpool Longears off. Two carloads made it onto the runway, but were chased off by security police. Well, that's Beatlemania for you. Hair today, gone tomorrow.

Show by The Beatles is a Scream (1966 Memphis)

 

Show By The Beatles is a Scream

By Thomas BeVier

The Commercial Appeal

August 20, 1966

     Emily Strider, hands folded, face emotionless, and sweet 16, yawned as the Remains bounced their music, with the help of seven amplifiers, off the walls and ceilings of the Colosseum. And then it happened: the Beatles pranced on stage in their gray mod suits with red vertical stripes and abbreviated jackets. Emily, who drove to Memphis early yesterday afternoon from her home in Charleston, Mississippi, started to cry. Then she started to scream. Then she started shaking her head wildly and pounding her knees with her fists. It was a commentary on uninhibitedness. Just sort the sort of thing Jerry Leighton had been talking about earlier when he was trying to figure out the difference between a nickel and a quarter.

     Leighton is a disc jockey from England who is traveling with the Beatles on their tour of the United States. His is a "pirate station", one of several that operate on ships off the English coast because commercial stations aren't allowed in England. "The Beatles are a phenomenon", he said, in the studied accent of a true Englishman. "I asked them once how it felt to be a phenomenon. They said it didn't feel anything."

     With help from the Yankee Press, Leighton was able to figure out how to operate the cigarette machine, and just then Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, walked by. "Give me two seconds," he was asked. "Two seconds. My life is spent giving people two seconds," he said. 

    His quick comment was that yes, the Memphis performance is very important to us, because of the John Lennon comment that the group is more popular than Christ. The Ku Klux Klan made its opinion known by picketing at the Southern Avenue entrance to the Colosseum grounds. The sheets and hoods lent an incongruous touch to the stream of bell-bottom trousers, paisley shirts, and high-heeled boots worn by the Beatles' faithful who filed by. There were 7,589, mostly girls and almost all teenagers, at the first performance, and another 12,539 at the second. 

    You couldn't hear the Beatles for the screaming. Before they came on stage, there were threats that anybody leaving his seat would be thrown out. It worked, and Early Maxwell, Memphis promoter of the show, was glad. "This was a real test," he said. "I've never had so much security (80 policemen) at an event; not even Bob Hope.

     Security started at 1:45 p.m., when the chartered American Airlines Electra with the Beatles and their entourage touched down on the military side of the airport. Only 10 Beatle Bugs managed to slip by guards. One, Charles Hardy, 19 Of 4931 Montgomery, even infiltrated the press corps and got a hurried, almost legible autograph from Paul McCartney for his persistence. 

    One of those meeting the plane was a harried man of about 45 from Washington.  He was Campbell Bowles, the group's advance man. "No, you can't ride in on the bus with them," he said. "No, we don't allow exclusive interviews. Yes, I am tired." Someone asked him his opinion of the Beatles and their music. "No comment," he said sharply.

Beatles Ask 'High Priest' For a Few Words of Grace (Memphis 1966)

 Beatles Ask 'High Priest' For a Few Words of Grace

By William Norton

The Commercial Appeal

August 20, 1966

    "Say the blessing, John," said a member of the Beatles' entourage. John Lennon bowed his head and muttered something about Memphis, Tennessee. Those sitting closest to him laughed. The Beatles and members of their entourage were eating in a locker room at the Mid South Coliseum between their two performances here yesterday.

    Neither the Beatles nor other members of their party realized that the waiter pouring coffee was not a waiter at all. I had slipped on a white coat and slipped in with the regular crew from Monty's Drive-In, which was catering the affair. The call for the blessing was one of the few references to the controversy caused by Mr. Lennon's statement recently that the Beatles are more popular than Christ. Most of the conversation centered around music, mostly their own. 

    There was even a reference to Memphis's own Elvis Presley. "He's in the middle of it all," said George Harrison, in a thick British accent; his comments implied that Elvis was sitting back, enjoying the current boom in rock and roll. 

    Mr. Lennon, the most talkative member of the British quartet, seemed quite relieved to have just finished a press conference. "Some people just have to have an explanation," he said, obviously referring again to the religious controversy. The Beatles' lack of appetite indicated that they are not completely immune to the pre-performance jitters experienced by almost every entertainer. John Lennon drank cups of half coffee and half milk. Paul McCartney ate a baked potato, and Ringo Starr had only a few bites of salad before leaving the room.

     George Harrison and most other members of the party ate heartily of a meal consisting of roast beef, baked potato salad with choice of dressing, and custard pie. When he finished his meal, Harrison propped his elbows upon the table, began picking his teeth, and listened to the conversation. The foursome were dressed in sports coats, slacks, and casual shoes. Lennon sported a pair of yellow-tinted steel-rimmed glasses.

     Most of the musical conversation centered around the Beatles' own compositions. "I think some of the old ones will be around for a long time," said Brian Epstein, manager of the group. "For instance, I think 'I Want to Hold Your Hand ' will always be around. 

    Mr. Lennon made a comment about recordings of Beatles compositions made by pop orchestra groups. "They like it the way they do it," he said. "But when it comes to the way we do it..." 

    As the Colosseum began to fill again, the Beatles and members of their party left the room to prepare for another performance.

You Must Be There Too!

 

August 19, 1961