THE BEATLES: an exciting new discovery!

As many of you will know, at the end of 1970 the moribund Official Beatles Fan Club sent its members an LP entitled From Then To You, compiling the light-hearted 'Christmas message' flexidiscs they'd received from the band every Christmas between 1963 and 1969. Though it was pressed by Lyntone (who'd also made the flexis) instead of EMI, it was on the Apple label. The earlier messages tend towards sub-Goons / Stanley Unwin jollity, while the later ones have tentative studio effects and musical content. All are irritating on repeated listens, but worth a spin for serious fans. The sleeve reproduces the front covers of all seven discs, but offers no background info. A pressing size isn’t known, but as it was never commercially available, it’s extremely rare by the standards of their other official releases, changing hands for up to £1000 in perfect condition.

Last week an eBay seller named 933gone, based in Macclesfield, UK, listed what he called a 'MEGA RARE' copy of the album, with completely different labels to the Apple release. According to him, 'APPLE DECIDED TO CHANGE LABEL FROM LYNTONE TO APPLE. HOWEVER THE LYNTONE LP WAS PRESSED IN A VERY SHORT RUN AND IS, CONSEQUENTLY, EVEN RARER THAN THE APPLE LABEL VERSION. LYNTONE LABELED RECORD WAS GIVEN AWAY TO THE FAN CLUB STAFF, THE APPLE LABELED LPs GIVEN TO FAN CLUB MEMBERS.'

This will of course come as a startling revelation to long-term Beatles collectors. Intrigued, I emailed him to request evidence for the claim. Clearly a busy man, he disregarded that part of my message, but did have time to tell me: 'This is not a bootleg - bootleg versions have brown/beige label - this one is white label... Please look at the popsike site. There you will find the exact same record and label at £220 or 298 EUROS - its not described as a fake. I am an honest bayer - not a dealer.'

So there we have it - a fascinating artefact for serious Beatles collectors to fight over. No wonder it has already attracted a £200 bid! (PS He has also yet to reply to my contention that the American version of this that he's selling is a blatant counterfeit.)

THE BEATLES, THE STONES & MARY SCRUGGS

The Stones with Sally (left) and Mary (right)

As any Beatles nut will tell you, the crowded cover of Sgt. Pepper's, photographed by Michael Cooper, includes a nod to the Stones in the form of a Shirley Temple doll wearing a knitted sweater with the words 'WELCOME THE ROLLING STONES' stitched onto it. According to Wikipedia here, this item of clothing 'was provided by Cooper's young son Adam'. In fact, it seems to have been given to the Beatles by Mick Jagger himself, an earth-shattering discovery I made as I flicked through the packed August 1966 issue of Hit Parader (actually out in June).

As you can imagine, the Stones - like all touring bands in the mid-60s - were besieged by competition winners wherever they went. Two such were Mary Scruggs and Sally Ware from Memphis, Tennessee, who got to go backstage before the band's performance at the Mid-South Coliseum on November 17th 1965. Hit Parader - writing about the event some months after the show - made it clear that the Stones were not popular with the venue:

Nonetheless, the girls managed to meet the band after winning different sections in an art contest organised by a local radio station, WMPS (the sweatshirt does not say 'WMCA', despite what practically every source says). Sally's effort was a terrible charcoal portrait of Mick:

Mary, meanwhile, went down the knitwear route. According to the article, she was '17, a Senior at Immaculate Conception High School and an officer in a local Rolling Stones Fan Club':

As the extract above makes clear, Mary gave the sweater to Mick at his request. Far from dumping it as soon as she departed (the likely fate for Sally's drawing), he seems to have taken care to bring it back to the UK, ensuring its place in history when it was photographed in glorious technicolor on March 30th 1967. 

At the close of the year, the Stones repaid the Beatles' tribute by hiding their faces in the lenticular image on the cover of Their Satanic Majesties Request. You can read all about that here. As for Mary - well, she seems to have gone on to become an elementary school art teacher, under the name Mary Anne May. You can read a little more about her here.

APPLE: the original logos

In December 1967 the following black and white credit appeared on the inside back cover of the Magical Mystery Tour EP set:

This seems to be the first-ever stab at an Apple logo, and Marijke from the Fool has confirmed that it was not designed by them. Perhaps worried that it looked more like a greengage, the Beatles (or, most likely, Paul) soon decided to scrap it.

The ad below appeared in International Times of January 5th-19th 1968, and shows a new design, which was designed by the Fool:

On March 23rd Disc & Music Echo announced that the image was 'the symbol of Apple, the firm run by the Beatles':

It was also used for the cloth patches sewn into many of the swingin' clothes flogged / shoplifted from / given away in in the Apple Shop (which was open for six months from December 1967). Andrew Sandoval kindly supplied this example from his collection:

However - perhaps because the Fool's effort didn't look much like an apple either - by the time the company was publicly launched in May, a more sophisticated and enduring logo had been devised by John Kosh (under close supervision from Paul, of course).

THE BEATLES IN INDIA: some rare pictures

The Beatles went to India in February 1968. Here are some rare pictures of them there (with original captions), taken from Disc & Music Echo of April 6th and April 13th 1968. I'm not sure if they've been reprinted since, but I've certainly never seen them elsewhere. No photographer is credited, incidentally. I know that gluttony is a deadly sin, but it's frustrating to think that there must have been many more taken at the same time...

Not exactly a scene from a cowboys and Indians film, but this shock picture WAS taken in India! Beatle Paul took part in a Hindu colour-throwing festival called Holi. He smeared his face - and some of the other guests' faces - with coloured powder. It makes the most shocking Beatle picture ever. 

It happened in Rishikesh a short time ago... George, Paul & Donovan help Shah Jahan, son of Indian magician Gogia Pasha, as he completely stops his assistant's pulse. The picture was taken at the Maharishi's meditation centre.

Disc's exclusive picture shows Pattie with a birthday cake given to her by the Maharishi. The Beatle, in flowing white robes, and his wife have matching garlands of flowers round their necks. 

Exclusive Disc colour picture from India of the Beatles and friends at the Maharishi's meditation centre in Rishikesh. From left: George, Paul, Shah Jahan (who entertains the star guests), Donovan, Pattie Harrison, John and flautist friend Paul Horn.

Paul, who has never gone into the sitar-playing field with quite as much energy as George, took time to brush up with a few professional lessons during his Indian trip. Paul is seen here with a look that can only be described as avid concentration giving a private recital to girlfriend Jane Asher.

THE ESCORTS: with a little help from Paul McCartney

I wrote last week that Paul McCartney's contribution to The Family Way soundtrack was 'the first solo musical project by a Beatle'. However, at much the same time he oversaw this little-known 45. The connection was with his old Liverpool friend Paddy Chambers, who'd been a member of The Big Three and Paddy, Klaus & Gibson (with Klaus Voorman). Brian Epstein managed (or mismanaged) the latter, prompting Chambers to join pop-soul combo The Escorts. From Head To Toe is a Miracles cover, uninteresting but for the fact that - as is made clear in the article below (Record Mirror, November 19th 1966) - Paul had his hands all over it, despite not receiving a credit.

PAUL McCARTNEY & The Tudor Minstrels

In the autumn of 1966 the Beatles had just finished touring, Revolver was in the shops, and the boys were having a break. George was getting to grips with the sitar in India, John was filming How I Won The War in Spain, Ringo was knocking around (and visiting John on set), and Paul was setting up house in St. John's Wood, as well as immersing himself in London's underground. He'd also let NEMS know that he would like to write some film music, so when the opportunity arose to compose for the comedy drama The Family Way, he brewed up a couple of tunes - the strident Theme From The Family Way and the pretty Love In The Open Air (click here to hear it). They were duly arranged by George Martin and recorded by studio musicians in time for a soundtrack album to appear on Decca in December. Having assured Martin that they had no intention of extracting a 45, Decca cheekily did just that, crediting it to The Tudor Minstrels (a nod to the Boulting Brothers' company, Tudor Films). By this time Martin had recorded different versions of both tracks to be released on United Artists, so the singles ended up competing with each other. Hey-ho, both flopped, as did the LP.

The Tudor Minstrels disc certainly makes for pleasant listening, and can be called the first solo musical project by a Beatle (albeit not actually featuring one). It carries sole writing credits for Paul, even though John helped with Love In The Open Air. Incidentally, the 45 that UA released in October 1967 to tie in with How I Won The War doesn't feature any Lennon involvement, despite being credited to his character in the film.

Here's the full story behind Paul's work on The Family Way:

Also on December 24th 1966, Eric Clapton reviewed the Tudor Minstrels' 45 thus (as part of Melody Maker's weekly Blind Date feature):

Beatles For Sale: 'a usually reliable source'

According to Record Mirror of October 10th 1964, the cover of Beatles For Sale was originally going to show the boys lighting their ever-present 'ciggies' under the Arc de Triomphe...

Family party at Sybilla's

In 1966 George Harrison decided to invest some of his Beatles hundreds in a happening new London nightspot named Sybilla's (after the 22 year-old Chicago heiress Sybilla Edmonstone), with fellow shareholders including the debauched toff Sir William Pigott-Brown and the DJ Alan Freeman. Billing itself as 'London's most civilised discotheque, where they take great pains to keep the customers in a state of elegant satisfaction', Sybilla's opened its basement door (at 9 Swallow Street, W1) on June 22nd of that year. A little over a year later, on November 1st 1967, the manager of happening new Leicester pop combo Family hosted a launch there for their debut single, Scene Through The Eye Of A Lens / Gypsy Woman, attended by George, John, and several other noted swingers. The spread below is from the short-lived Look Of London magazine. If anyone has a better scan of it, please let me know.

The captions read as follows: 1) The Family at Sybilla's 2) Champagne was served by six dolly girls, including Ingrid Boulting (left), here with Tony Hicks of The Hollies 3) DJ Kenny Everett with Tony King, John Peel and Johnny Bonding 4) Rob Townsend, The Family's drummer, with Jimmy Miller 5) Response to The Family was fantastic, as Kenny Everett's expression testifies 6) Party host John Gilbert  with Bob Reisdorff, head of Liberty Records 7) Mim Scala and Sir William Pigott-Brown with actors Iain Quarrier and Harry Baird. Previous page: rare smiles from Beatles John Lennon and George Harrison.

Beatles acetates: a nice little earner

As most people reading this will know, acetates are fragile lacquer discs that unfinished or as-yet unreleased music used to get pressed on. They were of temporary use for purposes such as reference amongst musicians and producers, quality testing for engineers, advance radio play, or publishers' demos. The point is, very few (if any) were made  for any given recording, and those that survive tend to have done so by accident. At this remove from the 1960s, collectors will pay huge sums for acetates that contain unreleased music or different mixes to familiar songs, and if the band in question is well-known, the price gets higher and higher. No artist is more collectable than the Beatles, so Beatles acetates are perhaps the most desirable of all. This is where it gets complicated. Unlike official releases, there is no way of telling how many acetates exist of a certain recording, and they're pretty easy to fake, seeing as they tended to have simple labels with hand-written or typed info, and plain sleeves. At any time on eBay these days there is a rash of potentially counterfeit Beatles acetates on sale. The main purveyor of them at the moment is based in Jordan, Minnesota. Check out his recent feedback by clicking here. That's $20,000 worth in the last month alone. Not bad, eh?

I emailed him to ask whether his astounding acetates (which span the whole of the Beatles' career) were the genuine article, and his response was as follows: "I cannot guarantee 100% that they are 1960s issues. If you have any doubts, please do not bid on them." Yet he allows no such doubt to cloud his listings - while offering no provenance for them, he simply claims they are 'RARE' and 'vintage' and on 'EMIDisc Records' (there was no such label, this was simply the brand name for EMI's blank acetate discs, which were also available for domestic use). I asked one of the world's leading rock memorabilia experts for his take on this extraordinary haul. He replied as follows: "I don't think John Lennon left these behind in Minnesota, but someone did leave a cutting lathe there, and the result is that a lot of unsophisticated people on eBay are buying worthless fakes. Unfortunately, people's desire for an unbelievable deal trumps common sense. I find that if the deal looks too good to be true, it almost always is - especially if the torrent of stuff never stops. If I thought any of it was remotely authentic, I'd be bidding on all of it, as would all the major dealers. Ridiculous stuff."

I also asked another expert - one of the best-known collectors in the US - for his take, and this is what he wrote back. "I can't recall anyone in the history of eBay offering so many Beatles acetates. To me the labels look wrong, and of course the discs aren't hard to make (after all, they made mono record cutting machines for home use in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, so there are still a lot out there). Assuming for a moment that they're all real, though, it's gotta be a damn short list of people that would have been in possession of all these, right? Like George Martin - but then, he was a tape man. So maybe someone like John Peel. But would he have had the early ones as well as the later ones? Whoever it was, if they had that many Beatles acetates, you'd wonder why they're selling them to an eBay dealer now, and you'd think they would also have some by associated acts like Gerry & The Pacemakers and Cilla Black, who are of course a lot less interesting to collectors."

I'm not going to accuse this seller of cheating his customers, but I am going to say that if these are real, the story behind them is guaranteed to be one of THE greatest record-collecting tales of all time, maybe the greatest... Perhaps he can post a comment here and tell it? In the meantime, this eBay thread makes for intriguing reading:

http://forums.ebay.com/db1/topic/Music-Musicians/Fake-Beatles-Acetates/5100029595

Their Satanic Majesties & The Fab Four

Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released on June 1st 1967, in the most elaborate sleeve of any rock album up to that point. Though cut-outs of the Rolling Stones weren't included, an oblique tribute was paid by the inclusion of a Shirley Temple doll wearing a jumper that has 'THE WMPS GOOD GUYS WELCOME THE ROLLING STONES' knitted on it. Six months and many tribulations later, the Stones finally released their own psychedelic album, Their Satanic Majesties Request. Not to be outdone, they had an amazingly expensive lenticular sleeve produced, with art direction by their chum Michael Cooper. Buried in the blurry image are the moustachioed heads of the four Beatles, but they're nigh-on impossible to spot, so I thought I'd spoil the fun:

John Lennon: LP winner!

One of the joys of old music papers is chancing upon revealing interviews that have barely been seen since their first appearance. It's especially interesting to find a Beatles one, of course, and here's a corker. Written by the late Ray Coleman, it appeared in Melody Maker of April 10th 1965, and catches the great man during the filming of Help! (then labouring under the working title of Eight Arms To Hold You), as he began to shed his moptop image and project a more complex public persona. Indeed, it was in April 1965 that he first took LSD (in coffee spiked by his dentist). There are numerous intriguing insights in the piece, but I won't pontificate about them here. One point, though: there's a reference to Lennon carting 'huge box full after huge box full of LPs into the lounge'; I recently spoke to Barry Miles, who told me that Capitol sent all four Beatles every new single and album in the US top 200 every single week throughout the 1960s, without fail...

The Beatles - 'all set to go-go-go!'

I find the short window between The Beatles’ regional and national success very interesting, and thought I'd post here the numerous references to them in the first issue of Beat Monthly (later Beat Instrumental), dated May 1963. The magazine catches them at the odd point between mega-stardom and a gig sheet that included The Riverside Dancing Club, Tenbury Wells and The Merseyview Pleasure Grounds, Frodsham. The 60s were well underway, but not yet swinging. Artists like Karl Denver, Acker Bilk and The Bachelors were still forces to be reckoned with, and reading the mag one can palpably sense the musty theatres, motorway service stations and cheap hotels that still defined the Fab Four's world. 

Firstly, here's the feature about them in the magazine. Mostly it's bland press-release fare, but there's an interesting pledge from Ringo that they have no intention of leaving Liverpool, and it's of note that he's the spokesman here, having only joined the band in August 1962:

Given that the magazine had apparently promised to feature them every month, The Beatles unsurprisingly wished it every success:

The pop news (covering March and early April) intersperses titbits about Tony Meehan's shoes, Bert Weedon's tunings and Acker Bilk's real name (Bernard) with reports that The Beatles plan to form a publishing company with Brian Epstein (misnamed Billy here), that George Martin is impressed by their innovative approach in the studio, that there's talk of erecting a statue of Epstein in Liverpool, and that the band is 'fantastically popular' in Germany:

The 'New Discs' page and chart neatly illustrate the tension between the old and the new, with records by The Beatles vying with outmoded efforts from Bert Weedon, The Ventures, The Spotnicks, Karl Denver, The Bachelors and others. At this time The Beatles still had one foot firmly in the old-school showbiz camp, and (As David Gell's review points out) Please Please Me - released on March 22nd, barely a month after its sessions had ended - contained such square numbers as Chains, Boys and A Taste Of Honey (which presumably went down a treat on the local ballroom circuit):

The letters page contains an encomium from their fan-club secretary, Bettina Rose, who had apparently been told by them that Beat Monthly was 'this fab new magazine', while to its right is a 'Popularity Poll' (you can guess who went on to win it). 

The competition prize was to spend 'A DAY WITH THE FABULOUS BEATLES':

(I have looked in subsequent issues, and there was, sadly, no follow-up feature.) Towards the back of the magazine came the gig listings, covering mid-April to mid-May, well before Beatlemania struck:

And, finally, the back cover finds the quartet posing moodily in and around a phone booth; before long they would be out of their shabby jackets and ties and in Epstein's regulation Beatle suits. 

Please Please Me hit #1 in May, after which things would never be the same for them (or pop) again. It's worth noting that the quartet were as surprised by their huge success as anyone – as George commented in Derek Taylor's brilliant Fifty Years Adrift: "From our point of view, The Brook Brothers and Peter Jay were The Big Time. To us, they were the established stars doing the big theatre circuits, with their managers and London agents and the television bookings and all that, while we were the jokers in the pack, really - the Fab Scruffs who came in from nowhere."

Derek Taylor: Fifty Years Adrift

Being what you might call a Beatles fan, I have read what I can only describe as a number of books about them. But until a couple of weeks ago one had always eluded me, and many others beside: Fifty Years Adrift, by the late Derek Taylor - one of the very few insiders whom all four of 'the boys' liked and trusted. As such 'Degs' (as they called him) had remarkable access to them for much for the 1960s and beyond, making it a key read for Beatle nuts. Sadly, however, only 2000 copies were printed in 1984, and quickly sold out. A lavish production aimed squarely at collectors, it has never been available since, and when copies occasionally surface they fetch well into four figures. It's magnificently produced and bound, to be sure, with plenty of woodcuts, rare photographs and ephemera breaking up the dense text. But the real pity of its rarity is that Taylor's writing is so enjoyable. A true fan of The Beatles, music and life itself, his enthusiasm, wit and warmth consistently communicate themselves, and because he was clearly a fastidious sort, his recollections are sharp and beautifully articulated.

Anyhow - here are a couple more titillating pictures of the book itself (as ever, click to enlarge):

And here's the flyleaf (signed by Taylor) and the foreword (signed by George Harrison, with whom Taylor had a special affinity):

And, for trivia gimps, here's the original promo flier for the book:

Taylor was born on May 7th 1932 in Liverpool, and grew up there, attending Calday Grammar School and becoming a journalist on The Hoylake & West Kirby Advertiser in early 1949. The book brilliantly evokes those far-off days of boozy local news-gathering, as well as his National Service, and his excitement becomes palpable when he joins the national press and enters what he calls 'the cradle of the sixties', as tastes and fashions began to change following the austerity of the post-war years.

Derek Taylor, 1964

As I have mentioned, although he was guilty of the cardinal sin of being 'old', Taylor fell for The Beatles the moment he saw them (at the Manchester Odeon on May 30th 1963, supported by Roy Orbison), and his love for them, their music and what they represented is a constant theme of the book. Here he describes his feelings in the pub immediately afterwards (to another, less enthusiastic hack):

Before long Taylor had persuaded his boss at The Daily Express to run a weekly column by George Harrison, but ghosted by him. This was something of a coup for the paper, and Brian Epstein was sufficiently pleased with the results to ask Taylor to ghost his memoirs, A Cellarful Of Noise, and to become his personal assistant. Taylor then served as press officer for The Beatles' first US tour in the summer of 1964, and the book offers fascinating insights into the white heat of Beatlemania - not least of all in the form of itallicised interjections by George. Here are a few examples:

The book is full of little insights into the world of The Beatles, written with sympathy and scrupulous fairness - which isn't to say it's anodyne, simply that Taylor understood the pressures the four were under, so his judgement of their actions is never harsh. Here's a touching passage about John:

Following one row too many with Epstein (whom he liked greatly but found exasperating, not least of all because of his inability to comprehend his need to spend time away from the Fab Four and with his wife and children), Taylor upped sticks to California, where he and his growing family lived the good life as he became Hollywood's most immaculately hip PR man, serving stars like The Byrds, The Beach Boys, Paul Revere & The Raiders and Chad & Jeremy, as well as underground heroes such as Captain Beefheart and Harry Nilsson. This period is dealt with in vivid detail, with plenty of trivia to entertain fact-hounds like me (did you know that Roger McGuinn's parents were the authors of a best-selling guide to child-rearing entitled Parents Can't Win?). At this time he also filed a weekly column for Disc & Music Echo, which is terrific reading if you ever find a copy, and wrote for underground rags like the enigmatic Royal's World Countdown.

A business card reproduced in the book

In the spring of 1967 Taylor was one of the principal organisers of The Monterey Festival, though he had yet to take LSD himself, being relatively slow fully to embrace the psychedelic lifestyle of his clients. Here's a (somewhat repellent) drawing he solicited from The Beatles for use in the official programme:

Happy though he was in LA (where he eventually became A&M's in-house publicity boss and an avid consumer of LSD and dope), he was lured back to the UK in the spring of 1968, when all four Beatles conference-called to beg him to become press officer for their exciting new venture, Apple. The dream swiftly curdled, as we all know, but his nostalgia for what briefly was and what could have been is plain. By this time The Beatles were pulling in different directions, and could be obnoxious. Here's an interesting snippet about Paul:

He also reproduces some intriguing paraphernalia from his sojourn at Apple, including documents relating to concepts I'd never heard of, such as a proposed Apple school ('John requested that all the arts, including music, dancing, theatre and films should be in the school timetable', runs the relevant memo. 'The art of propaganda in the advertising field must also be taught. With regard to religious teaching, all aspects must be dealt with - e.g. Gods of other countries... Games and physical exercise will be encouraged, but not enforced. No physical discipline of any kind... John stated that all attempts should be made to open the school by September.') And here's George on The White Album (note that he doesn't capitalise it...):

Taylor also reproduces some interesting recommendations made by the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson regarding The White Album (dated October 24th 1968), including white double-decker buses to drive around London. Sadly, this never happened - as Richard DiLello writes in his terrific Longest Cocktail Party:

Another of J. Walter Thompson's suggestions indicates that The Beatles were well aware from day one that numbering the sleeves was a canny marketing ploy:

Though Apple ended in tears, Taylor expresses no bitterness over his experience, and is at pains to emphasise how unfairly The Beatles (especially John, of course) were treated by the media as the era of the malleable moptops receded into the distant past. Here's an amusing little note he found on his desk at Apple one day:

Following the collapse of The Beatles, Taylor went on to work at Warner Bros. for a number of years (where he produced Nilsson's 1973 A Little Touch Of Schmilsson In The Night LP). Having conquered his alcoholism - which he describes candidly - he became a full-time writer in the 1980s, collaborating with Harrison on I Me Mine, amongst other things, before returning to Apple in the early 90s to oversee the marketing of The Beatles At The BBC, The Beatles Anthology and their remastered catalogue. A heavy smoker for many years, he died of lung cancer aged only 65 on September 8th 1997. Reading his book felt like spending a few evenings in the company of a lovely new friend - and, even better, one that would never tire of talking about The Beatles. It's hard not to emerge convinced of what a decent, intelligent and entertaining chap he was, and it's a crying shame that this terrific record of his life and times is (and seems likely to remain) unavailable to the vast majority of Beatles fans.