PHIL OCHS, Avery Fisher Hall, New York, April 1974.

Fifty years ago this week, as Melody Maker’s man in New York, I was at the Avery Fisher Hall to review a concert by Phil Ochs, whose LA apartment I’d rented for three months the previous year. This unusual situation, about which I’ve written at some length in my forthcoming memoir, offered me a unique insight into Phil’s world, instilling in me a warm feeling towards him and his music that lingers to this day. 

    I saw more concerts than I can possibly remember while I lived in New York, and the week I saw Phil I also reviewed shows by Captain Beefheart and The New Riders, all of which can be found on the Caught In The Act pages in MM dated April 27, 1974. I saw Phil perform only twice, this concert and another in New York’s Central Park in the summer of 1975. Here’s what appeared in MM 50 years ago this week. 

The day of the protest singer is not quite over, even if his warnings were ignored in the sixties, and artists like Phil Ochs will always have a platform on which to air their leftist views and criticism of the current US administration.

Ochs gave a sell-out show at the Avery Fisher Hall in the Lincoln Centre last week and was a resounding success. He was an original New York protest/folkie when Dylan walked the streets of Greenwich Village and this alone gives him an authority that more recent protesters will never have.

Each song was linked with the kind of rap that could have him deported, but the audience lapped it up. His most damning statement – that Kennedy’s killing really was a right wing plot by the establishment – struck home harder than most of his musical offerings. 

Ochs is a shabby, portly fellow with short hair and gold rimmed glasses. He looks like an unkempt, underpaid college professor. His guitar, which he doesn’t play well, is old and battered and the strings buzz at certain frets. There’s strong chance he hasn’t re-strung it in many a year.

Looking, then, as if he’d just walked in off the street after an hour’s busking on the subway, Ochs delivered a series of songs in which the lyrics mattered far more than the vocal or musical attributes of the performer. Hard hitting lines were applauded in mid-song and there was a respectful silence so that his messages could get through. 

He’s written some pretty tunes too. He opened with his charming song about singing bells, and followed that up with a trilogy of songs written by artists who had all spent time in jail and written about the experience. ‘There But For Fortune’, his own song, was the highlight. 

Och’s protest songs sound awfully dated in 1974, however. ‘I’m Gonna Say It Now’ and ‘Outside A Small Circle of Friends’, for example, are both songs in which couplets at the end of each verse are repeated, rather like ’Blowin’ In The Wind’, in fact, and written to encourage a group of singers or the audience in a club to join in at the appropriate moment. This was all the rage 12 years ago but appears a bit dated today. 

The gold lamé jacket* appeared for an encore but there was none of the rock and roll Phil performed at the controversial Carnegie Hall concert two years ago. His voice has deepened as a result of an attack with intent to rob during his recent stay in Africa. He was nearly strangled, apparently, and lucky to escape with his life. 

Had he not escaped, the US would have lost an outspoken but sincere critic. After the show he invited one and all backstage to discuss his views, and several hundred accepted the offer.

* This was probably the same gold lamé suit that I tried on one day while I lived in Phil’s flat in LA. It was far too big for me - but it might fit me now. 

KING MOD: The Story of Peter Meaden, The Who and the Birth of a British Subculture by Steve Turner

In July of 1963 Peter Meaden returned to the UK from a sojourn in Spain to discover that his erstwhile friend and sometimes business partner Andrew Oldham had become the manager of The Rolling Stones, a group rapidly in the ascendant in the wake of The Beatles. He wasn’t pleased. Although nothing had been formally agreed, Peter believed that any enterprise in which Oldham was involved would involve him too, but there was no role for him in the management of the Stones. 

“Peter took his revenge by having 2,000 stickers made up offering the sexual services of an experienced madam,” writes Steve Turner in King Mod, his biography/appreciation of the man who turned The Who into High Numbers, “with Andrew’s business phone as the contact number, and posting them in central London public conveniences. This successfully tied up the office phone for three weeks.”

This is but one of many entertaining yarns in this unusual book. The first 133 pages of King Mod comprise a well-researched, eminently readable and heavily illustrated biography of Meaden, opening with his birth in 1941 and covering his entire life, with and without The Who, up to his death by his own hand in 1978. The next 80 pages are given over to an unabridged transcription of the series of notable interviews that Turner conducted with Meaden, beginning in May, 1975, initially for A Decade Of The Who, a songbook with additional editorial features published in 1977, though the interviews that appeared therein were drastically reduced. Further extracts from it were subsequently published in NME, then in A Sharper Word, an anthology of Mod writing that came out in 1999, and six years later in an NME Originals magazine on Mod. 

        The heart of the book, the interviews with Meaden, reveal him to be as garrulous as he was fascinating, and in King Mod they are published in their wild and wonderful entirety for the first time. They emphasise not just Meaden’s utter dedication to the Mod cause – and impeccable taste in all things Mod – but his chaotic nature, his inability to focus, how his enthusiasm invariably trumps reality. Extensive footnotes help make sense of it all, not least because some of what Meaden says seems well OTT to me – like 50,000 fans trying to get into a Who gig in Brighton in 1964?  

Of all the characters that fell under The Who’s spell in the early sixties, none paid a higher price for their devotion than Meaden, King Mod to his admirers. You can read about him in the early pages of Who biographies, that period when under his influence they called themselves The High Numbers and recorded ‘I’m The Face’, their very first single, but after that he more or less disappears from the picture, ousted by Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp who gave him £500 to go away. The truth is he probably never had a written agreement to manage them anyway. He simply ‘advised’ them after an introduction via his hairdresser. He certainly wasn’t a businessman, as the book makes clear. But The Who, and Pete Townshend in particular, never forgot Meaden’s early contribution to their image and, along with later manager Bill Curbishley, did their best to help him in the mid-seventies, by which time drugs, notably LSD, had taken their toll on his already fragile psyche. 

It’s an Icarus-like tale. Like a few other enlightened pioneers of the post-war generation, Meaden escaped his provincial, deathly colourless, family life but flew too close to the sun in his quest to discover its converse, influencing the zeitgeist as he travelled yet somehow losing the plot when confronted with everyday life. 

        The book closes with a heartfelt postscript that places Meaden’s accomplishments, such as they were, in context, not just in his lifetime but how Mod continues to influence popular music. The interview, Turner believes – and I agree with him – is a significant cultural document. “It gives an unprecedented look into the mind of a man who was the most influential mod in the early-to-mid Sixties,” he writes, “and who managed for the first time to forge a link between important British youth subculture and what was to become a major rock band.” 

        Essential reading if you really want to understand where The Who came from. And, by the way, Oldham must have forgiven him for that telephone number prank as he’s contributed a foreword to King Mod. 

MORE MM SINGLES REVIEWS

As I wrote in my introduction to the Melody Maker singles reviews of mine that I posted a few days ago, it wasn’t often that this job fell on my plate but it happened again in late 1975 while I was in London between stints in the US, and for a few weeks too. So, since that post seemed to go down well, here’s another of my singles reviews, from the issue dated September 27 that year, with a few big names. 

        I seem to remember that my merciless dissing of Peters & Lee inspired a few angry letters to MM because one half of the duo, Lennie Peters, was blind. The tone of the letters suggested that because of this he and Dianne Lee were beyond criticism and that I was a heartless bastard destined for eternal damnation. I disagreed. Physical disadvantage is unfortunate but did not confer an obligation for positive reviews in MM, or anywhere else for that matter.

Although there was no compulsion on the part of MM’s singles reviewer to predict whether a record would be a hit or a miss, for interest’s sake in this post I’ve added some hindsight facts and figures culled from The Complete Book of the British Charts that reveal whether I was right or wrong in my predictions. 

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: ‘Born To Run’ (CBS). I joined the ranks of converted Springsteen writers in Norfolk, Virginia, two years ago after seeing a stunning concert full of energy and enthusiasm that had been sadly lacking of many acts I’d seen. Like many, it took a live show to become fully aware of his talents as the first two albums, though good, never lived up to the promise of the man himself. This is the title track from his third album and it’s a knockout, an unbelievable riff leading into Bruce’s hoarse vocals that speak with all the urgency of the committed artist. Listen to that break after the solo about two-thirds of the way through: perfect use of dynamics, a key change and a rocket-propelled take-off back into the song. This must be a hit; it’s already one in the US. 

[‘Born To Run’ wasn’t a hit until a live version reached number 20 in the UK charts in 1987, by which time Bruce could sell out Wembley Stadium three nights in a row.]

ELTON JOHN: ‘Island Girl’ (DJM). A thudding bass riff opens this new single from Elton which, like many of his songs, seems fairly innocuous at first but grows on the listener after a few plays. It’s a jumpy soul rocker in the tradition of ‘The Bitch Is Back’ with gutsy lines: “She’s black as coal but burns like a fire, she wraps herself around you like a well-worn tyre.” There’s a rather curious steel drum solo towards the end which seems to have been mixed down rather low, but the overall effect is a vast change of mood from Elton’s last single, ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’. The B-side is on interest to Eltonmaniacs: his version of ‘Sugar On The Floor’, a slow and quiet Kiki Dee song which has Elt as his most expressive. The A-side is from EJ’s forthcoming Rock Of The Westies album. Good or bad, it’ll still be a hit, but this one deserves to be.

[Number 14 in October ’75, disappointing by Elton’s standards.]

SPARKS: ‘Looks, Looks, Looks’ (Island). Sounds more like Manhattan Transfer than Sparks who adopt a big band approach to this dated sounding single that fits snugly into the novelty bracket. One could imagine Fred Astaire tripping along to the horn solo, and Ginger Rogers encouraging the Mael brothers from the gallery. A bit too gimmicky for my taste but probably a hit since their following seems among the most loyal around. 

[Reached number 26, low for them at the time.]

FRED ASTAIRE: ‘The Wailing Of The Willow’ (UA). And talking of Fred Astaire, here he is, with a new single in the Perry Como/Bing Crosby mould. He hasn’t the voice of his contemporaries but I’ve been impressed by his casual acting style in recent movies. Strictly for the over fifties I’m afraid. A miss.

[Failed to chart. As for movies, I was probably thinking of The Towering Inferno.]

MELANIE: ‘You Can’t Hurry Love/Mama Said’ (Neighbourhood). A curious single from Melanie, blending the Holland-Dozier-Holland hit with a song I haven’t heard before that segues very conveniently. Despite the odd choice of material, the Melanie vocal cords ring out unmistakably but I fear that her following in this country has waned of late and there aren’t enough fans desperate to pick up this record. A miss.

[Failed to chart. The original, by The Supremes, reached number 3 in 1966.]

JACKSON FIVE: ‘Forever Came Today’ (Tamla Motown). Internal squabbles, record company problems and the group’s decision to abandon a British tour to avoid any recurrence of the Cassidy-crush situation have all contributed to a certain loss of favour for the Jackson Five whose musical ability always overshadowed their rivals, the Osmonds. In the US their popularity is still high but here new heroes seem to have snatched their crown. Unfortunately, I can’t predict a comeback on the strength of this single which has none of the immediacy of their earlier efforts. A reasonable toe-tapper, orchestrated and adequately produced, but Michael Jackson’s voice is sadly missing due, presumably, to nature, and with it has gone the J5’s essential trademark. With competition at its height, I must be pessimistic. A miss.

[Failed to chart, a disappointment no doubt.]

RAY STEVENS: ‘Indian Love Call’ (Janus). Stevens drops his novelty bag for a lush ballad which, I suppose, is meant to be taken seriously. Alternating between falsetto and tenor and swamped with back-up vocals, he plummets to new depths. A waltz schmaltz of no distinctions whatsoever and a huge miss to boot.

[Reached number 34.]

PETERS & LEE: ‘The Crying Game’ (Philips). This pair, with whom I have little patience, have contributed not one jot to the progression of British music but have nevertheless chalked up a few hits with their Butlins Holiday Camp act and music. This, like their others, is a sentimental weepie taken at snail’s pace and is thoroughly disposable for its typical blandness and general lowest common denominator appeal. Enough… and probably a hit as these things, regrettably, are out of my hands.

[Failed to chart. How disappointing! The original, by Dave Berry, reached number 5 in 1964.]

MFSB: ‘Let’s Go Disco’ (Philadelphia International). It doesn’t take a degree in contemporary music to work out that this is an instrumental aimed directly at the disco market where it will probably score as a dancing number. In the cold light of day, however, it’s rather tame listening, a forgettable tune played at a monotonous pace, with a repeated chant of ‘Let’s go disco’ at irregular intervals. A miss.

[Failed to chart, though a number with the same title, by Real Thing, reached number 39 in 1978. Trivia note: The bass player in the Real Thing’s touring band, John Tilley, was an old schoolfriend of mine.]

BILLY JOEL: ‘If I Only Had Words To Tell You’ (CBS). It is not only consumers who receive poor quality records, but reviewers too, so I’ll take this opportunity to slag off the CBS quality control department for allowing this lump of vinyl to find its way out of the factory. Not only is it seriously warped but the hole in the centre is so big the record spins on an irregular axis. Discordant piano chords abound and the unfortunate Joel sounds like he’s imbibed a potent Indian curry on top of several pints of strong draught beer. Any intelligent comments on his new single are therefore out of the question but I might add that I liked ‘Mr Piano Man’. No excuses CBS, you’re caught red-handed. For Billy’s sake I can only hope this is an isolated pressing and thousands haven’t rattled off the production line in this condition.

[Failed to chart. Billy’s chart career in the UK didn’t get going until 1978.]

ALLEN TOUSSAINT: ‘Soul Sister’ (Reprise). Allen Toussaint’s recent contributions to the music business have been justly lauded in often glowing terms and it’d be nice to see him in the British chart with this medium paced, immaculately produced piece of soul. Very smooth and silky, though a little more urgency would drive the song along better. Unfortunately, I can’t be optimistic. A miss.

[Allen Toussaint never reached the UK charts.]

BARRY MANILOW: ‘Could It Be Magic’ (Arista). Manilow, a pianist, singer, arranger and composer of jingles for American television, was Bette Midler’s musical director until Clive Davis signed him to Arista and notched up the company’s first big hit with his version of the old ‘Brandy’ hit which was retitled ‘Mandy’ for no apparent reason. I can’t see him repeating his success here, especially with this very slow tune which seems to get slower the longer it spins. Straight ballad over piano with built-up production reaching dramatic crescendo in the usual MOR fashion. Miss. 

[A miss on release but reached number 15 when it was reissued in 1978.]

MELISSA MANCHESTER: ‘Midnight Blue’ (Artista). Another Clive Davis prodigy and there’s more hope here, although Ms Manchester ought to be seen live to be fully appreciated. At the piano, her red hair flying, she’s dynamite, but on record much of her charisma is lost. This is a pleasantly attractive song with a repetitive sing-along chorus that could catch with the right airplay. Perhaps a hit. 

[Perhaps not. Never reached the charts.]

THE PLATTERS: ‘Only You’ (Contemporaries). The Platters are another Fifties group whose many personnel changes have resulted in several acts calling themselves The Platters appearing in various parts of the world at different times. Their original hit was the lovely ‘Smoke Gets In Your Eyes’ in the late Fifties but this one appeared with some success almost two years later, and represents a fine vocal performance and flawless production on a standard song. With oldies of doubtful distinction hitting the charts these days, one can only hope that a distinguished recording like this will follow the same path. It is, incidentally, the same song recorded recently by Ringo Starr. 

[No chart action on this reissue but it reached number 5 in 1956 as a double A-side with ‘The Great Pretender’ and then again – as I state – in 1957 when it reached number 18 in its own right. Covered by loads of acts.] 

SAM & DAVE. ‘Under The Boardwalk’ (UA). My favourite Drifters hit that was actually covered by the Stones on their second album and turns up here by the legendary Sam & Dave whose identity has been a matter of debate before now. Not a bad stab at this venerable classic but I’d prefer the Drifters’ original which evokes all the atmosphere of the seaside in two minutes of absolutely masterful technique and atmosphere that inspired Guy Paelheart and Nik Cohn to create their Rock Dreams book last year. Perhaps Atlantic will oblige with the original if chart action is imminent. 

[Failed to chart. I still have my original copy of Rock Dreams, acquired in 1974. Wonderful book.] 

BUDDY MILES: ‘Rockin’ And Rollin’ On the Streets Of Hollywood’ (Casablanca). Not, as might be imagined, a rock and roll song at all but a straightforward lump of funk from the lumbering drummer of dubious reputation. Plain and direct, but too samey to get anywhere in the market for which it was produced, or anywhere else for that matter. A Miss.

[Failed to chart.]

BILLY SWAN: ‘Everything’s The Same’ (Monument). A re-write of ‘I Can Help’ from Billy Swan whose album earlier this year was one of my favourite plays at the time. An apt title, indeed, for the backing track is in the same rockabilly style as his previous hit and the singing style is far too familiar. The girly backing vocals remove the crisp edge of his earlier hit and introduce a disappointing element of MOR commercialism towards the end. A miss. 

[Failed to chart]

JOHNNY NASH: ‘Let’s Be Friends’ (CBS). Not as strong as ‘Tears On My Pillow’ but the same commercially orientated reggae formula, spoilt a little by the whistling chorus line. Easy-going, understated and laid back in the extreme. Nash has hit on a style that the public obviously likes. Another hit methinks. 

[Reached only as far as number 42, a bit of a set-back after his number 1 with ‘Tears…’]

NEW POP SINGLES - Reviewed by Chris Charlesworth

 

I wasn’t often called upon to do the singles reviews for Melody Maker. It was Chris Welch’s job and he had an idiosyncratic style that seemed as if he didn't take the job too seriously. However, he must have been on holiday 51 years ago this week as my by-line appears above them in MM dated April 14, 1973. There was a small room adjacent to the main office that was set aside for ‘listening’, and I would have sat in there one afternoon that week alongside the office record player, a pile of 7” singles and an old manual typewriter, playing the records and thinking up what to say about them. 

Here’s what I wrote:

FREE: ‘Travelling In Style’ (Island). A track from Free’s last album Heartbreaker, and a rather low-key song for Free to release as a single, though the group probably had nothing to do with its release. Paul Rodgers’ inimitable voice sings rather lazily over acoustic and slide guitars with a honky-tonk piano in the background. I can’t see it doing too well as most Free fans will have the album by now.

THE SURFARIS: ‘Wipe Out’ (Paramount). Re-release of a golden (?) oldie instrumental which every budding guitarist in the world flexed his fingers to around 1963. A ridiculously simple number with a break every other bar for a drum roll between the straight 12-bar melody line. A hit in 1963 but today? I doubt it. Of interest to collectors only. 

WIZZARD: ‘See My Baby Jive’ (Harvest). Roy Wood comes up with a mock Spector production that will doubtless sweep the country within days. It deserves to. If Dave Edmunds can get away with it on a total rip-off basis, then Roy Wood’s original composition, with the Suedettes on backing vocals, should clock up plenty of sales. A good catchy pop song which is good value as it lasts one hell of a long time. Roy Hollingworth tells me he was at the session when it was mixed. B-side is ‘Bend Over Beethoven’, Wood’s answer to ELO, a turgid instrumental and not much of an answer.

JOHNNY JOHNSON AND HIS BANDWAGON: ‘Give Me Your Love Again’ (EMI). The usual formula of brassy soul from Johnny Johnson who seems to have a hit every six months and then vanish into thin air until his next record is released. It’s a Mitch Murray/Peter Callander pop song with all the ingredients to warrant a series of plugs on Radio One, at least two appearances on Top Of The Pops and, if lucky, a Tony Blackburn record of the week. A hit.

MATT MONRO: ‘I Am In Life’ (Columbia): The one-time bus driver with the pint-sized frame warbles through a nice straight ballad with all the charm of Frank Sinatra. Come to think of it, he sounds remarkably like Frank Sinatra too. Too old fashioned to make it in the current hectic hit parade race.

LOGGINS AND MESSINA: ‘Thinking Of You’ (CBS): Here’s a touch of class. Loggins and Messina harmonise beautifully over slide guitars and country rock. Their two voices have an early Everly Brothers air about them, and the song rips along in fine style. A hit single would bring Loggins and Messina to a whole lot of people so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. 

CLODAGH RODGERS: ‘Carolina Days’ (RCA): This song was written by Marmalade’s Junior Campbell and marks a departure from the sing-along type of Eurovision material that Clodagh has been saddled with for most of her career. Pretty, catchy and could be a hit.

BLOODSTONE: ‘Natural High’ (Decca): I always thought Bloodstone were a bunch of loud rock and rollers and with a title like this I expected an ear-shattering experience. However, it turns out to be a quiet, tasteful song in the Curtis Mayfield vein. It’s a track from their album of the same name which hasn’t been released yet so it acts as a good trailer. Lovely singing and a great arrangement. 

ARSENAL FC: ‘Good Old Arsenal’ (Pye). The Arsenal footballers yell along to Rule Britannia, substituting loyal slogans about Charlie George for the bits about ruling the waves and never being slaves. As a confirmed Leeds United supporter, I really cannot bring myself to comment favourably on this offering. Seriously though, I am of the opinion that footballers should stick to playing football and leave records to musicans.

FLO AND EDDIE: “Flo And Eddie Meet The Wolfman’ (Reprise): I’m not too sure whether this has been sent into the MM office for a serious review or to give us a giggle. The record – both sides – consists primarily of an interview between those loveable cuddly turtle Mothers, Marc Volman and Howard Kaylan, and whether it’ll be on sale to the public is debateable. However, it’s a bundle of fun and is packaged in the best singles sleeve I’ve ever come across. There’s also a little music included but it’s so short it’s hardly worth a mention. 

ISAAC HAYES: ‘I Don’t Want To Be Right’ (Stax). With his size and bulk, it never ceases to amaze me that Isaac Hayes hasn’t a more powerful voice. This record disappointed me – there’s none of the funky guitar that took ‘Shaft’ into the charts; instead there’s a rather limp Isaac singing a ballad over brass backing. Rather disjointed, too.

STEELY DAN: ‘Reelin’ In The Years’ (Probe): There’s hope yet. Steely Dan comes up with the best single I’ve heard this week. Good, intricate vocal harmonies, clear, precise guitar work and a commercial enough song to break the charts. Probably not commercial enough for Radio One, though, which will doubtless halt its progress but I’m keeping my fingers crossed. 

BARRY BLUE: ‘Dancing (On A Saturday Night)’ (Bell). Barry Bell collaborated into the writing of ‘Sugar Me’ for Lynsey de Paul, co-wrote most of the songs on her album and now comes up, surprisingly enough, with a song written by the same young lady. It’s a catchy, poppy offering that stands a good chance of reaching the dizzy heights of the top ten. 

THE PIONEERS: ‘At The Discotheque’ (Trojan): Perhaps Led Zeppelin doing reggae has finally put the seal of approval on this style of music. This is a pretty standard reggae offering extolling the local discotheque and expressing the hope that a certain young lady will be there at the necessary time. 

CLIMAX CHICAGO: ‘Shake Your Love’ (Harvest). Bo Diddley rhythms from Climax Chicago and not too hot either. Monotonous, messy and I’d have expected better from a band that has been around as long as they have. Try substituting the words ‘Shake Your Love’ for ‘Not Fade Away’ and you’ve got the general idea.

A FOOT IN COLDWATER: ‘In My Life’ (Island). This week’s winners of the unusual group competition are a Canadian band which is unusual for Island who specialise in British acts. This is an acoustic ballad that builds up for five minutes until a whole orchestra join in for the last verse. Average to good. 

TREMELOES: ‘Ride On’ (Epic). Rock and roll in the Status Quo style from the Trems who have obviously abandoned their instantly commercial sound. But there isn’t half the guts that Quo inject into their stormers. There’s an unusual guitar break in the middle but the track would be so much better if played faster. 

HOT BUTTER: ‘Percolator’ (Pye). It never ceases to amaze me how some acts can just repeat a record as their follow-up in the hope that it will achieve the same success as its predecessor. Here, Hot Butter serve up another Moog offering which sounds pretty much the same as ‘Popcorn’ but with the addition of an orchestra. While the melody changes slightly, the backing riff is identical. 

LITTLE RICHARD: ‘Tutti Frutti’ (Specialty). Talk about a blast from the past – I can remember purchasing this record at the ripe old age of 11 and playing it on a wind-up record player. It was a 78 in those days and the record was on the brown and silver London label. Now it’s on Specialty, the original American label, and it’s one of a batch of oldies released as single that are now collectors’ items – or were until this lot arrived in the shops. In the same series we have ‘Lawdy Miss Clawdy’ by Lloyd Price, ‘Justine’ by Don and Dewey, ‘I’ll Come Running Back To You’ by Sam Cooke (what a great singer he was), ‘Bonie Maronie’ by Larry Williams and a host of others. They’re all released through the Sonet company. I can’t see today’s record buyers lashing out their money on these singles, but they might serve a purpose in showing where it all came from in the first place. 

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE: THE END OF THE BEATLES – An Oral History By Those Who Were There by Peter Brown and Steven Gaines

NDAs – non disclosure agreements – were invented during the 1980s to protect trade secrets, principally in the mushrooming tech industry, but it wasn’t until quite a bit later that celebrities from all walks of life saw them as a means of preventing dirty laundry from being washed in public. Nowadays, if you get a job working for a family like, say, the Beckhams or the Osbournes, it’s a pound to penny you’ll be asked to sign one for neither David nor Victoria nor Ozzy nor Sharon want anyone to know what really goes on behind closed doors. 

        They certainly weren’t an issue when Apple insider Peter Brown got together with author Steven Gaines to write The Love You Make, their best-selling 1983 biography of The Beatles. It followed close on the heels of Shout!, Philip Norman’s breakthrough book on the group, thus losing some of its shock value, at least in the UK, and while Norman’s book was marginally more literate, Brown and Gaines’ book was more eye-opening. Both books opened the floodgates to other revealing biographies of rock stars and probably motivated some to consult their lawyers about NDAs. 

This new book by Gaines and Brown is a selection of faithfully transcribed interviews with three of the Beatles and over thirty others who were close to them, from the beginning to the end, and while the lion’s share of the questions and answers deal with the group’s demise, herein lie many tales not told before, almost all of them revealing, though some are questionable and others conflicting. Recollections of events vary and memories fade but many interviewees confirm the generally accepted notion that The Beatles lost their way after the death of manager Brian Epstein. Reading between the lines, however, the book goes further, suggesting that this event was crucial to everything that followed, as responsible for their ceasing collective endeavour as the arrival of Yoko or Linda or Allen Klein, or Paul’s need to dominate, or John’s lethargy, or George’s frustration, or any other of the innumerable factors that observers have claimed laid them to rest. Who knows how history might have been reversed had Epstein survived the accidental overdose that killed in him in August 1967?

Gaines and Brown were certainly industrious in their research for The Love You Make, and they somehow managed to snag Paul, George and Ringo, all of whom knew the interviews were to form part of a book. It seems from the transcripts that they conducted many of the interviews together, with Gaines asking most of the questions and Brown nudging things along with a comment here and there that could only have come from an insider. 

        There are heroes and villains among the interviewees, and more fun is to be had with the latter. Alexis ‘Magic Alex’ Mardas, a conman who snared John, comes across as not just dislikeable but dishonest to boot, Klein was “a bully and all-round shifty character… he even looked like a crook, sloppy and fat,” according to Brown – and a lengthy interview with him does little to dispel this portrait – while Vic Lewis, who promoted Beatles tours abroad, was more concerned about getting his share of the box-office than the hostility The Beatles faced on their calamitous visit to Manila. “Did you get the money?” Lewis repeatedly asked a clearly traumatised Epstein as their plane took off. “Vic Lewis leaned over me and tried to slap Brian in the face,” writes Brown. “I grabbed him away and forced him down the aisle.” 

There are some unlikely heroes, Epstein’s long serving and ill-served assistant Alistair Taylor, Apple records boss Ron Kass and poor, innocent Cynthia Powell, among them. As for the other wives, Maureen Starkey, Mrs Ringo, seems bemused by everything that happened while Pattie, sweet as she is, comes over as rather naïve. Linda is absent, as is Jane Asher, Paul’s sweetheart during the frantic years, nowadays the only Beatle insider never to have uttered a word about what it was like or how she felt to be at the centre of the tornado. 

        Those willing to comment suggest Epstein’s troubled sexuality was at the heart of his neurosis, not to mention his lingering guilt at allowing millions of dollars in merchandising income to slip through his fingers. There are several illuminating accounts of the trouble in Manila, George’s being the best, but his interview dwells a bit too much on his inner light. Paul is lucid, if a trifle calculating, while Ringo comes over as the matter-of-fact, cuddly Beatle that we always knew him to be. “[We were] still the best band there ever was,” he concludes. 

Nevertheless, we can be thankful that NDAs weren’t commonplace at the time Gaines and Brown embarked on The Love You Make. If they had it wouldn’t have been written, and neither would this illuminating follow-up. The 340-page book is an easy read, illustrated with eight pages of pictures from Brown’s archives but is not without the odd error. 

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It’s a Saturday and the weather is friendly in St John’s Wood today which means that plenty of people are walking in the footsteps of The Beatles at the Abbey Road zebra crossing, the most popular pedestrian road crossing in the world. It was raining a couple of days ago so there weren’t that many but when the sun is out – here it comes, little darling – the tourists gather together in groups before walking across, often four at a time, lingering in the in the middle, their hands outstretched, while a friend or relation takes their picture, just as photographer Iain Macmillan did on August 8, 1969, as John, Ringo, Paul and George – in that order – crossed over from west to east at 11.35am in the morning.

        Since 2010 we’ve been able to watch them, and every so often, when I’m a tad bored, I click on to the website to watch them. “The Beatles crossed the road several times,” reports Mark Lewisohn is his Beatles Chronicle, “while [Macmillan] took several shots, a friendly policeman obligingly holding up traffic. Paul chose the best of the six later that day.”

A glance at the website tells me that since 2010, when the EarthCam was installed just north of the crossing, almost adjacent to the entrance gate to the studios, 53 million viewers have observed what I was watching a few moments ago. There’s no tally of the number of Beatle tourists who’ve crossed over, of course, but this YouTube link – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwXKJHgRM50 – reveals that among them fairly recently was Paul himself. Dressed in black trousers and a white shirt, his jacket carried casually over his right shoulder, he arrived from the Grove End Road side, failed to observe his kerb drill and paused midway across the oblige someone with a camera. When he reached the other side, his presence had been noted and by the time he reached the Abbey Road studio gate a decent sized crowd was in pursuit, rather like the Pied Piper of Hamelin, all of them cheering him – and a few screaming – as he made his way into his place of business.

The fortuitously located traffic island at the end of Grove End Road offers the perfect spot for those with mobile phones to snap their friends following in the Beatles footsteps. I find it quite addictive to watch it and here’s the link:  https://www.earthcam.com/world/england/london/abbeyroad/?cam=abbeyroad_uk 

Maybe you will too.