Beatles (48 page)

Outside NEMS and Apple, their most important adviser and friend is George Martin. But in five years his position has almost been reversed. In 1962 he was the God figure from Parlophone, the great A and R man, upon whom everything depended. Today, they depend on nobody.

George Martin left EMI in August 1965 after 15 long years. During this time he saw Parlophone saved and the profits of EMI itself soar to immense heights.

‘I never made any money out of the Beatles’ successes. I just got my same EMI salary, which I would have done anyway, as I was under contract. I never participated at all in their huge profits. I’m glad of this, because I’ve always been able to speak freely. No one could say I rode on the backs of the Beatles.

‘But at EMI everyone always thought I
must
be in on their profits somehow, through one of their many companies. And the Beatles always thought I must be OK, because EMI must be looking after me.’

During that first phenomenal year of Beatlemania, 1963, he was probably the only person at all connected with the Beatles who did not make a lot of money because of them. Dick James, their music publisher, certainly did.

In 1963 George Martin was responsible for more number-one records than any other record producer in the history of British pop music, which, admittedly, hasn’t a very long history. Most of his successes, during his 37 weeks with a number one, were by the Beatles. But he was also responsible for all the hit records by Cilla Black, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer, Matt Monro and others.

In 1964 his salary went up to £3,000 but this was as part of his contract with EMI, made before the Beatles came along. He started negotiating for some sort of incentive scheme. ‘I thought the person doing all the hard work should be entitled to some recompense. But EMI were very unhappy about this.’

So he decided to leave, which didn’t make EMI any happier either, because he took two other A and R men with him, John Burgess and Ron Richards. Along with a fourth, Peter Sullivan from Decca, they began their own company, Associated Independent Recordings, AIR for short.

It was a big chance to take at the time, as everyone told them. It was going against the traditional pattern of the record industry. Independent A and R men just need one flop to fold up completely, whereas a big record company, with a huge staff, can afford lots of flops.

But the biggest chance George Martin was taking was whether or not he could retain the Beatles. Legally, their contract was still with EMI. George Martin was simply EMI’s staff A and R man employed on Beatles records. If he was no longer on their staff and became a freelance, EMI need no longer give him any more work at all – unless
of course the Beatles particularly requested him to be their A and R man.

‘I didn’t consult the boys about leaving. I just took the chance that they still wanted me.’ Which they did. And EMI agreed. EMI still produce Beatles records, but George now looks after them, not as an EMI man but as a freelance. They have to pay him for his services, very highly. ‘I suppose now I am earning more than the managing director of EMI records.’

Today, AIR have, in their own little way, transformed the British record industry. Many of the best and most creative brains have opted out of the big corporations, selling back their services for double and treble what they got before.

In early 1968, AIR produced such artists as the Beatles, Cilla Black, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Shirley Bassey, Adam Faith, Lulu, Tom Jones, Manfred Mann and many others.

George Martin, with his 23 gold discs behind him, has at last got few financial worries. He now lives in style in a large, brand new, luxury town house near Hyde Park, and has a country cottage in Wiltshire. He and his wife Judy have a baby daughter called Lucy, no connection with ‘Lucy In The Sky’. She has a full-time nanny to look after her.

He is trying to cut down more and get on with his own composing, which slightly amuses the Beatles, as they tend to think that only young people can write pop music. He has done several film scores on his own and did most of the knocking together of Paul’s score for the film
The Family Way
. He composed the BBC’s Radio One signature tune and has contracts to do more film music.

When the Beatles’ plan, through Apple, to have their own recording studios and A and R men, gets properly organized, this might in some ways affect George Martin’s position. But whatever happens, his own company’s success seems solid enough. They have an interest in Playtape, a system which he says will one day replace gramophone records completely.

Musically, George Martin now tends to keep in the wings when they’re doing their records, as we shall see in
Chapter 30
.
They have now grown so sure of themselves as composers, and even as arrangers, that they make jokes about Big George.

Dick James, their music publisher, has no such ambivalent position. His relationship with them is purely business, though they are very fond of him.

Dick James is, on paper, a millionaire, thanks not simply to the Beatles, but also to the fact that he built up his firm so well and attracted many other artists.

Today, his one-room office days are far behind. He has his own posh block of offices in New Oxford Street – Dick James House, no less. The ground floor also contains a branch of the Midland Bank. Very handy. From this building Northern Songs, Dick James Music and many other companies operate. He now has a staff of 32 people and 6,000 square feet of office space on four floors.

Dick James still has a lot to do for the Beatles, plugging and selling their records. He says no one is so good that the release and promotion of their work doesn’t need to be properly worked out. But his main job is collecting their royalties. It’s up to him to fight for good terms, even though many percentages are laid down by agreements in the trade.

When they brought out their
Magical Mystery Tour
records, in a unique package, of two extended players inside a book, he had to do a lot of haggling with EMI over what their royalties would be for that. This entailed endless discussions over fractions of a farthing. Multiplied by millions, fractions of a farthing matter.

Dick James has also branched out, as most of the old sheet music people have had to. He now does every aspect of record work, even hiring recording studios and producing his own records, then leasing them to the big companies to sell. Like George Martin, he was enormously affected by the Beatles and then went on to make his mark in his own part of the show-business industry.

The Beatles’ personal buddies are all Liverpool lads like themselves. Many people have appeared or been connected with them
at different stages of their lives, but only one or two have retained links. Alex Marda, the electronics expert, Robert Fraser, the art gallery owner, and Victor Spinetti, the actor who was in their film
Help!
, are still friends, but most people are dropped completely once any contract is finished, such as the making of a film or a record. Even when they’re looking for someone new to do something, they tend to dig out an even older mate from the past, such as Pete Shotton.

Pete Shotton was John’s best friend from the age of about three. They were the bad lads at Quarry Bank together. But Pete went into the police force from school and lost contact with John. He gave up the police after three years, realizing that it was completely against his nature, and drifted into a series of dead-end jobs, such as looking after a café that went bust.

In 1965, when Pete had no job and no money, he met John again by chance in Liverpool. John said he would back Pete in any enterprise he wanted to start. ‘I was on holiday in Hampshire when I noticed this supermarket on Hayling Island. I liked the look of it. So John bought it for me to run. It cost £20,000.’

On the face of it, John was taking a big chance, investing so much money in Pete, with no proof of his competence, more the opposite if anything. But Pete managed the supermarket for almost two years, very successfully, making good profits. He increased its value and expanded it to include a menswear department.

‘If John hadn’t come along then, I might have ended up a crook. This is what John says he might have ended up himself. I had no money at all. I was getting into lots of shady deals and meeting bad people through the cafés.’

In the autumn of 1967, John asked Pete to leave the supermarket in Hayling Island – Pete’s mother took it over as manager – and come up to London to work for Apple. He opened the first Apple Boutique, in Baker Street, and became the manager.

Terry Doran, another Liverpool friend, is also employed by Apple. He runs their music publishing department. Terry was originally in Brian’s Liverpool circle, but got to know the others from the earliest days. When their success started, Brian set
Terry up with his own car firm – he’d originally been a car salesman in Liverpool. This was called Brydor Cars (after Brian and Doran). It sold cars to the Beatles, among others, but eventually closed.

Alistair Taylor, who was with NEMS (the shop) in Liverpool and then with NEMS Enterprises (the show-business agency) and witnessed the original Beatles’ contract, is now also working for Apple as office manager.

John’s other childhood friend, Ivan Vaughan, is not employed by the Beatles in any way, but is still a close friend. He went to school with Paul, and it was he who introduced Paul to John and his Quarrymen skiffle group. He is now training to be an educational psychiatrist.

The Beatles’ two closest, ever-present and most important helpers and buddies are Neil and Mal. Neil (or Nell) Aspinall was their first road manager. Mal Evans joined them later, after a spot of bouncing at the Cavern club. Both, alone, were their road managers during all their big tours round the world.

Even in those days, they didn’t like the term road manager. They did anything and everything. Now that they don’t tour, it is even less applicable. Their relationship with the Beatles is very subtle, almost medieval. They are paid retainers, they do humble fetching and carrying, yet there is no master-servant relationship. They’re just mates, who happen to get paid for being mates, whenever or wherever any Beatle decides he wants a mate.

Mal is big and well built, very bland and good natured, solid and sensible. Neil is smaller, slender, clever and outspoken. He would obviously be prepared to give it all up any time and just leave, if there was ever a serious disagreement. He does say no if he doesn’t want to do something, though he could only think of one time when he said he didn’t want to go anywhere. This was when John said he would be coming with him to Spain for the filming of
How I Won The War
. In the end, Neil gave in and went, hanging around the set for days, so that John would have someone to talk to afterwards, apart from the actors, with whom they didn’t have much in common.

Mal, on the other hand, with his years of doing a regular job, sees everything as part of his job and has no complaints about anything he has to do.

‘In America we were constantly being asked, “What will you do when the bubble bursts?”’ says Neil. ‘It never worried me then and still doesn’t. I’ll be doing something else, that’s all. I’ve no idea what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. It never worries me.’

When the touring came to an end in 1966, they had a less strenuous life. But during recordings or TV or film work, Mal and Neil still go back to the old routine, getting them to and from the studios and making sure the instruments and equipment are ready.

They both follow Beatle fashion, growing moustaches and long sideboards when the others did, or wearing long neckerchiefs. They are completely part of the group. They look and talk the same.

When the Beatles are not recording, then Mal and Neil’s life is much more irregular with long periods of doing nothing, but they are always expected to be on call. ‘We’re supposed to take alternate weeks, but we just both always seem to be around.’

When any of the Beatles individually has to go somewhere on his own, Mal or Neil accompanies him. Neil went with John on his film. Mal went with Paul to the USA to see Jane and with Ringo to Rome for his film. In February 1968 he was the one who went with them to India to see Maharishi.

They also do a lot of work liaising between the Beatles and people like Dick James, especially Neil. It’s his job to make sure the words of a song are written down correctly and get sent to Dick James. They also help out sometimes by actually playing maraccas, triangles or anything else. John often asks Neil for ideas for the last lines of songs. They both appeared in
Magical Mystery Tour
. Mal was one of the five magicians. They write regular Beatle chat for
Beatles Monthly
. Mal is also a good photographer.

Neil is a bachelor and lives in a large luxury flat in a new block of flats in Sloane Street, opposite the Carlton Towers Hotel. He spends some of his spare time painting, a hobby he shares with the
Beatles. He has a piano in his flat, though he can’t play, with a piano exercise book opened at the second lesson.

For a long time, Neil was slightly underused – after all, he has more O levels than the rest of them put together – just because the Beatles valued him so much at what he was doing already. But since 1968 he has been director of Apple Corps, the central organization run by the Beatles, which looks after all their Apple branches. He has a large plush office in Wigmore Street where he sits in executive style.

Mal, who is married with two children, shared Neil’s flat for a long time when they first all moved to London, commuting to Liverpool when possible. In 1967 he bought a house in Sunbury and moved in with his family. He chose the house to be within reasonable distance of the homes of John, Ringo and George. He has also now got an executive position – as manager of Apple Records.

What Mal and Neil have never been able to understand is the marvellous image the Beatles have always had. ‘It wasn’t really Brian’s doing,’ says Neil. ‘He did make them smarter, put them in suits and got organized. But they’ve always come across as being so good and kind and nice, when they’re not particularly, not more than other people. I think people
wanted
them to be like that. Fans made up the image for themselves. I don’t know why. That’s just what the fans wanted.