Maureen Cleave is a journalist who worked for the London Evening News and London Evening Standard in the 1960s, conducting interviews with famous musicians of the era, including Bob Dylan and John Lennon.
An interview with Lennon published on 4 March 1966 achieved notoriety when Lennon was quoted as saying that The Beatles were "more popular than Jesus now."
Cleave was a personal friend of Lennon, and is sometimes credited with part of the lyrics of "A Hard Day's Night." The story goes that when Lennon first showed her the lyrics, she said that the line "But when I get home to you/ I find my tiredness is through/ and I feel alright" was weak, and suggested instead "[…] I find the things that you do/ will make me feel all right." She was also previously believed to be the inspiration for the Lennon song "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)"; however, Cleave said that in all her encounters with Lennon there was “no pass.”
She also inspired the Private Eye character of "Maureen Cleavage."
C E min Please don't wake me up too late A min Tomorrow comes F D min G7 and I will not be late
C E min A min Late today when it becomes tomorrow F G7 C I will leave to go away G G Goodbye . . . . goodbye goodbye my love goodbye.
Leave your flowers at my door leave them for the ones who stay behind Songs that lingered on my lips excite me now and keep my love in mind + linger on my mind
As Recorded by Paul McCartney (Demo 1969)
Please don't wake me up too late Tomorrow comes and I will not be late Late today when it becomes tomorrow I will leave and go away
Goodbye, goodbye Goodbye, goodbye Goodbye, goodbye my love, goodbye
Songs that lingered on my lips Excite me now and linger on my mind Leave your flowers at my door I leave them for the one who waits behind
Goodbye, goodbye Goodbye, goodbye Goodbye, goodbye my love, goodbye
Ba da da da ba ba ba Ba ba ba ba Bam bam bam bam bam bam Ba da da da ba ba ba Bam bam bam bam Bam bam bam bam bam bam
Goodbye, goodbye Goodbye, goodbye Goodbye, goodbye my love, goodbye
Far away my lover sings a lonely song And calls me to his side Where the sound of lonely drums invites me on I must be by his side
Goodbye, goodbye Goodbye, goodbye Goodbye, goodbye my love, goodbye
Goodbye, bye bye
As Released by Mary Hopkin (1969)
Please don't wake me up too late Tomorrow comes and I will not be late Late today when it becomes tomorrow I will leave to go away
Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye, goodbye my love, goodbye
Songs that lingered on my lips Excite me now and linger on my mind Leave your flowers at my door I leave them for the one who waits behind
Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye, goodbye my love, goodbye
Do do do do do do do Do do do do Do do do do do do Do do do do do do do Do do do do Do do do do do do
Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye, goodbye my love, goodbye
Far away my lover sings a lonely song And calls me to his side When the song of lonely love invites me on I must go to his side
At their Greenwich Village apartment, John records several demos of the song 'Luck Of The Irish'. The proceedings are privately captured on a black & white 'open-reel' Sony video recording machine. Several versions of the song find their way onto this 17-minute recording which is suitably titled Luck Of The Irish - A Videotape By John Reilly. The item shows John discussing how to spell the lyrics to the song, venting his anger at the way electrical currents and film running speeds vary between England and America and announcing that John and Yoko had friends coming to dinner tonight at 6 o'clock. The footage, in which John refers to himself as Sean O'Leaham and Yoko as Mrs. O'No No, ends with the couple listening to the finished version of the song.
Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was a social and political activist in the United States who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies"). Later he became a fugitive from the law, living under an alias and working as an environmentalist following a conviction for dealing cocaine.
Hoffman was arrested and tried for conspiracy and inciting to riot as a result of his role in protests that led to violent confrontations with police during the 1968 Democratic National Convention, along with Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Tom Hayden, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner and Bobby Seale. The group was known collectively as the "Chicago Eight"; when Seale's prosecution was separated from the others, they became known as the Chicago Seven.
Hoffman came to prominence in the 1960s, and continued practicing his activism in the 1970s, and has remained a symbol of the youth rebellion and radical activism of that era.
Early life and education
Hoffman was born in Worcester, Massachusetts to John Hoffman and Florence Schamberg, who were of Jewish descent. Hoffman was raised in a middle class household, and was the oldest of three children. On June 3, 1954, the 17-year-old Hoffman landed his first arrest, being charged with driving without a license. This arrest resulted in his being expelled from his public high school, after which he attended Worcester Academy, graduating in 1955. He then enrolled in Brandeis University, completing his B.A. in American Studies in 1959. At Brandeis, he studied under professors such as noted psychologist Abraham Maslow, often considered the father of humanistic psychology. He later earned a master's degree in psychology from UC Berkeley.
Early protests
Prior to his days as a leading member of the Yippie movement, Hoffman was involved with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and organized "Liberty House", which sold items to support the Civil Rights Movement in the southern United States. During the Vietnam War, Hoffman was an anti-war activist, who used deliberately comical and theatrical tactics, such as organizing a mass demonstration in which over 50,000 people would attempt to use psychic energy to levitate The Pentagon until it would turn orange and begin to vibrate, at which time the war in Vietnam would end. Hoffman's symbolic theatrics were successful at convincing many young people to become more active in the politics of the time.
Another one of Hoffman's well-known protests was on August 24, 1967, when he led members of the movement to the gallery of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The protesters threw fistfuls of dollars down to the traders below, some of whom booed, while others began to scramble frantically to grab the money as fast as they could. Hoffman claimed to be pointing out that, metaphorically, that's what NYSE traders "were already doing." "We didn't call the press," wrote Hoffman, "at that time we really had no notion of anything called a media event." The press was quick to respond and by evening the event was reported around the world. Since that incident, the stock exchange has spent $20,000 to enclose the gallery with bulletproof glass.
Chicago Seven conspiracy trial
Hoffman was arrested and tried for conspiracy and inciting to riot as a result of his role in anti-Vietnam War protests, which were met by a violent police response during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. He was among the group that came to be known as the Chicago Seven (originally known as the Chicago Eight), which included fellow Yippie Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger, Rennie Davis, John Froines, Lee Weiner, future California state senator Tom Hayden and Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale (before his trial was severed from the others).
Presided over by Judge Julius Hoffman (no relation to Abbie, which Abbie joked about throughout the trial), Abbie Hoffman's courtroom antics frequently grabbed the headlines; one day, defendants Hoffman and Rubin appeared in court dressed in judicial robes, while on another day, Hoffman was sworn in as a witness with his hand giving the finger. Judge Hoffman became the favorite courtroom target of the Chicago Seven defendants, who frequently would insult the judge to his face. Abbie Hoffman told Judge Hoffman "you are a 'shande fur de Goyim' [disgrace in front of the gentiles]. You would have served Hitler better." He later added that "your idea of justice is the only obscenity in the room." Both Davis and Rubin told the Judge "this court is bullshit."
Hoffman and four of the others (Rubin, Dellinger, Davis, and Hayden) were found guilty of intent to incite a riot while crossing state lines. At sentencing, Hoffman suggested the judge try LSD and offered to set him up with "a dealer he knew in Florida" (the judge was known to be headed to Florida for a post-trial vacation). Each of the five was sentenced to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.
However, all convictions were subsequently overturned by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
Controversy at Woodstock
At Woodstock in 1969, Hoffman interrupted The Who's performance to attempt a protest speech against the jailing of John Sinclair of the White Panther Party. He grabbed a microphone and yelled, "I think this is a pile of shit while John Sinclair rots in prison. . ." The Who's guitarist, Pete Townshend, was adjusting his amp between songs and turned to look at Hoffman over his right shoulder. Townshend ran with his Gibson S.G. and rammed it into Hoffman's upper middle back. Hoffman turned with mouth gaping, back arched with one hand trying to reach the injury as Townshend, disgruntled, put a hand in Hoffman's face and shoved him backwards to stage right. Townshend then said "I can dig it." The rest of the band looked at one another not sure what was going to happen next. Townshend, frustrated by the interruption, windmilled into the next song. The band regained composure and followed. After that song, Townshend walked over to Hoffman, who was sitting on the right hand side of stage with his arms around his knees. Townshend leaned over and said something to him then gave him a smack up behind the head. Townshend later said that while he actually agreed with Hoffman on Sinclair's imprisonment, he would have knocked him offstage regardless of the content of his message, given that Hoffman had violated the "sanctity of the stage," i.e., the right of the band to perform uninterrupted by distractions not relevant to the actual show. The incident took place during a camera change, and was not captured on film. The audio of this incident, however, can be heard on the The Who's box set, Thirty Years of Maximum R&B (Disc 2, Track 20, "Abbie Hoffman Incident").
According to Hoffman, in his autobiography, the incident played out like this:
If you ever heard about me in connection with the festival it was not for playing Florence Nightingale to the flower children. What you heard was the following: "Oh, him, yeah, didn't he grab the microphone, try to make a speech when Peter Townshend cracked him over the head with his guitar?" I've seen countless references to the incident, even a mammoth mural of the scene. What I've failed to find was a single photo of the incident. Why? Because it didn't really happen.
I grabbed the microphone all right and made a little speech about John Sinclair, who had just been sentenced to ten years in the Michigan State Penitentiary for giving two joints of grass to two undercover cops, and how we should take the strength we had at Woodstock home to free our brothers and sisters in jail. Something like that. Townshend, who had been tuning up, turned around and bumped into me. A nonincident really. Hundreds of photos and miles of film exist depicting the events on that stage, but none of this much-talked about scene.
In Woodstock Nation, Hoffman mentions the incident, and says he was on a bad LSD trip at the time.
Underground
In 1971, Hoffman published Steal This Book, which advised readers on how to live basically for free. Many of his readers followed Hoffman's advice and stole the book, leading many bookstores to refuse to carry it. He was also the author of several other books, including Vote!, co-written with Rubin and Ed Sanders. Hoffman was arrested in 1973 on drug charges for intent to sell and distribute cocaine. He always proclaimed that undercover police agents had entrapped him into a drug deal and planted suitcases of cocaine in his office. Hoffman subsequently skipped bail and hid from authorities for several years.
Despite being "in hiding" during part of this period living in Thousand Island Park, a private resort on Wellesley Island on the St. Lawrence River under the name "Barry Freed", he helped coordinate an environmental campaign to preserve the Saint Lawrence River (Save the River organization). In 1980, he surrendered to authorities and received a one-year sentence. On September 4, 1980, he appeared on 20/20 in an interview with Barbara Walters. During his time on the run, he was also the "travel" columnist for Crawdaddy! magazine.
In 1987, Hoffman and Jonathan Silvers wrote Steal this Urine Test, which exposed the internal contradictions of the War on Drugs and suggested ways to circumvent its most intrusive measures. He stated, for instance, that Federal Express, which receives high praise from management guru Tom Peters for "empowering" workers, in fact subjected most employees to random drug tests, firing any that got a positive result, with no retest or appeal procedure — despite the fact that FedEx had chosen a drug lab (the lowest bidder) with a proven record of frequent false positive results.
Back to visibility
In November 1986 Hoffman was arrested along with fourteen others, including Amy Carter, the daughter of former President Jimmy Carter, for trespassing at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The charges stemmed from a protest against the Central Intelligence Agency's recruitment on the UMass campus. Since the university's policy limited campus recruitment to law-abiding organizations, Hoffman asserted in his defense the CIA's lawbreaking activities. The federal district court judge permitted expert witnesses, including former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and a former CIA agent who testified about the CIA's illegal Contra war against the Sandinista regime in Nicaragua in violation of the Boland Amendment.
In three days of testimony, more than a dozen defense witnesses, including Daniel Ellsberg, Ramsey Clark, and former Contra leader Edgar Chamorro, described the CIA's role in more than two decades of covert, illegal and often violent activities. In his closing argument, Hoffman, acting as his own attorney, placed his actions within the best tradition of American civil disobedience. He quoted from Thomas Paine, "the most outspoken and farsighted of the leaders of the American Revolution": "Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generations which preceded it. Man has no property in man, neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow."
As Hoffman concluded: "Thomas Paine was talking about this spring day in this courtroom. A verdict of not guilty will say, 'When our country is right, keep it right; but when it is wrong, right those wrongs.'" On April 15, 1987, the jury found Hoffman and the other defendants not guilty.
After being found not guilty, Hoffman prepared for a cameo appearance in Oliver Stone's anti-Vietnam War movie, Born on the Fourth of July. He essentially played himself in the movie, waving a flag on the ramparts of an administration building during a campus protest that was being teargassed and crushed by state troopers.
The movie was released on December 20, 1989, more than eight months after Hoffman's suicide on April 12, 1989. At the time of his death, Hoffman was at the height of a renewed public visibility, one of the few '60s radicals who still commanded the attention of all kinds of mass media. He regularly lectured audiences about the CIA's covert activities, including assassinations disguised as suicides. His Playboy article (October, 1988) outlining the connections that constitute the "October Surprise" brought that alleged conspiracy to the attention of a wide-ranging American readership for the first time.
Personal life
In 1960, Hoffman married Sheila Karklin, and they had two children: Andrew (b. 1960) and Amy (1962-2007), who would later go by the name Ilya. They divorced in 1966.
In 1967, Hoffman married Anita Kushner. They had one child, america Hoffman, deliberately named using a lowercase "a" to indicate both patriotism and non-jingoistic intent (america later took the name Alan). Although Abbie and Anita were effectively separated after Abbie became a fugitive starting in 1973 and he subsequently fell in love with Johanna Lawrenson in 1974 while a fugitive, they were not formally divorced until 1980.
His personal life drew a great deal of scrutiny from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. By their own admission, they kept a file on him that was 13,262 pages long.
Death
Hoffman was 52 at the time of his death on April 12, 1989, which was caused by swallowing 150 Phenobarbital tablets. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1980; while he had recently changed treatment medications, he had claimed in public to have been upset about his elderly mother, Florence's, cancer diagnosis (Jezer, 1993). Hoffman's body had been found in his apartment in a converted turkey coop on Sugan Road in Solebury Township, Pennsylvania, near New Hope, Pennsylvania. At the time of his death, he was surrounded by about 200 pages of his own handwritten notes, many about his own moods.
His death was officially ruled a suicide, but many who knew him believed that the overdose had been accidental. As reported by The New York Times, "Among the more vocal doubters at the service today was Mr. Dellinger, who said, 'I don't believe for one moment the suicide thing.' He said he had been in fairly frequent touch with Mr. Hoffman, who had 'numerous plans for the future.'"
A week after Hoffman's death, one thousand friends and relatives gathered for a memorial in Worcester, Massachusetts at Temple Emanuel, the synagogue he had attended as a child. Senior Rabbi Norman Mendel officiated. Two of his colleagues from the Chicago Seven conspiracy trial were there: David Dellinger and Jerry Rubin, Hoffman's co-founder of the Yippies, by then a businessman.
As The New York Times reported: "Indeed, most of the mourners who attended the formal memorial at Temple Emanuel here were more yuppie than yippie and there were more rep ties than ripped jeans among the crowd…."
The Times report continued:
Bill Walton, the radical Celtic of basketball renown, told of a puckish Abbie, then underground evading a cocaine charge in the '70s, leaping from the shadows on a New York street to give him an impromptu basketball lesson after a loss to the Knicks. 'Abbie was not a fugitive from justice,' said Mr. Walton. 'Justice was a fugitive from him.' On a more traditional note, Rabbi Norman Mendell said in his eulogy that Mr. Hoffman's long history of protest, antic though much of it had been, was 'in the Jewish prophetic tradition, which is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.'
He was posthumously awarded the Courage of Conscience award September 26, 1992.
Portrayals
Hoffman's life was dramatized in the 2000 film Steal This Movie, in which he was portrayed by Vincent D'Onofrio.
In the 1975 work The Illuminatus! Trilogy, Hoffman briefly appears, having a discussion with Apollonius of Tyana.
In the 1987 HBO television movie Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8, Hoffman was portrayed by Michael Lembeck.
He was portrayed by Richard D'Alessandro in the 1994 movie Forrest Gump speaking against "the war in Viet-fucking-nam" at a protest rally at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool facing the Washington Monument.
Hank Azaria's voice is heard as the animated Hoffman in the film Chicago 10.
Sacha Baron Cohen has been cast as Hoffman in the film The Trial of the Chicago Seven.
Ray Connolly (born 1941 in Lancashire) is an English novelist, screenwriter and journalist.
He is perhaps best known for writing the screenplays for the films That’ll Be the Day and the sequel Stardust and for his biography of John Lennon who he was waiting to interview when he died.
He was born and brought up in Lancashire and attended the London School of Economics where Mick Jagger was a fellow student and he read social anthropology. He then interviewed sixties pop stars for the London Evening Standard.
He has written numerous newspaper articles for The Daily Mail, The Sunday Times, The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Observer.
In addition to his biography John Lennon 1940-1980 he wrote the introduction to The Beatles Complete Songbook and The Compleat Elvis.
His novels include Girl Who Came To Stay, Sunday Morning, Shadows On A Wall and most recently Love Out Of Season.
He also wrote and directed the feature length documentary entitled James Dean: The First American Teenager and his television scripts have included Lytton's Diary and Perfect Scoundrels.
You just showed me what might be the front and back album photos for the record you're putting out of the music you and Yoko composed for your film Two Virgins. The photos have the simplicity of a daguerreotype. . . .
Well, that's because I took it. I'm a ham photographer, you know. It's me Nikon what I was given by a commercially minded Japanese when we were in Japan, along with me Pentax, me Canon, me boom-boom and all the others. So I just set it up and did it.
For the cover, there's a photo of you and Yoko standing naked facing the camera. And on the backside are your backsides. What do you think people are going to think of the cover?
Well, we've got that to come. The thing is, I started it with a pure . . . it was the truth, and it was only after I'd got into it and done it and looked at it that I'd realized what kind of scene I was going to create. And then suddenly, there it was, and then suddenly you show it to people and then you know what the world's going to do to you, or try to do. But you have no knowledge of it when you conceive it or make it. Originally, I was going to record Yoko, and I thought the best picture of her for an album would be her naked. I was just going to record her as an artist. We were only on those kind of terms then. So after that, we got together, it just seemed natural for us, if we made an album together, for both of us to be naked. Of course, I've never seen me prick on an album or on a photo before: "Whatnearth, there's a fellow with his prick out." And that was the first time I realized me prick was out, you know. I mean, you can see it on the photo itself - we're naked in front of a camera - that comes over in the eyes, just for a minute you go!! I mean, you're not used to it, being naked, but it's got to come out.
How do you face the fact that people are going to mutilate you?
Well, I can take that as long as we can get the cover out. And I really don't know what the chances are of that.
You don't worry about the nuts across the street?
No, no. I know it won't be very comfortable walking around with all the lorry drivers whistling and that, but it'll all die. Next year it'll be nothing, like miniskirts or bare tits. It isn't anything. We're all naked really. When people attack Yoko and me, we know they're paranoiac. We don't worry too much. It's the ones that don't know, and you know they don't know - they're just going round in a blue fuzz. The thing is, the album also says: Look, lay off will you? It's two people - what have we done?
Lenny Bruce once compared himself to a doctor, saying that if people weren't sick, there wouldn't be any need for him.
That's the bit, isn't it? Since we started being more natural in public - the four of us - we've really had a lot of knocking. I mean, we're always natural. I mean, you can't help it. We couldn't have been where we are if we hadn't done that. We wouldn't have been us either. And it took four of us to enable us to do it; we couldn't have done it alone and kept that up. I don't know why I get knocked more often. I seem to open me mouth more often, something happens, I forget what I am till it all happens again. I mean, we just get knocked - from the underground, the pop world - me personally. They're all doing it. They've got to stop soon.
Couldn't you go off to your own community and not be bothered with all of this?
Well, it's just the same there, you see. India was a bit of that, it was a taste of it - it's the same. So there's a small community, it's the same gig, it's relative. There's no escape.
Your show at the Fraser Gallery gave critics a chance to take a swipe at you.
Oh, right, but putting it on was taking a swipe at them in a way. I mean, that's what it was about. What they couldn't understand was that - a lot of them were saying, well, if it hadn't been for John Lennon nobody would have gone to it, but as it was, it was me doing it. And if it had been Sam Bloggs it would have been nice. But the point of it was - it was me. And they're using that as a reason to say why it didn't work. Work as what?
Do you think Yoko's film of you smiling would work if it were just anyone smiling?
Yes, it works with somebody else smiling, but she went through all this. It originally started out that she wanted a million people all over the world to send in a snapshot of themselves smiling, and then it got down to lots of people smiling, and then maybe one or two and then me smiling as a symbol of today smiling - and that's what I am, whatever that means. And so it's me smiling, and that's the hang-up, of course, because it's me again. But they've got to see it someday - it's only me. I don't mind if people go to the film to see me smiling because it doesn't matter, it's not harmful. The idea of the film won't really be dug for another fifty or a hundred years probably. That's what it's all about. I just happen to be that face.
It's too bad people can't come down here individually to see how you're living.
Well, that's it. I didn't see Ringo and his wife for about a month when I first got together with Yoko, and there were rumors going around about the film and all that. Maureen was saying she really had some strange ideas about where we were at and what we were up to. And there were some strange reactions from all me friends and at Apple about Yoko and me and what we were doing - "Have they gone mad?" But of course it was just us, you know, and if they are puzzled or reacting strangely to us two being together and doing what we're doing, it's not hard to visualize the rest of the world really having some amazing image.
International Times recently published an interview with Jean-Luc Godard . . .
Oh yeah, right, he said we should do something. Now that's sour grapes from a man who couldn't get us to be in his film [One Plus One, in which the Stones appear], and I don't expect it from people like that. Dear Mr. Godard, just because we didn't want to be in the film with you, it doesn't mean to say that we aren't doing any more than you. We should do whatever we're all doing.
But Godard put it in activist political terms. He said that people with influence and money should be trying to blow up the establishment and that you weren't.
What's he think we're doing? He wants to stop looking at his own films and look around.
Time magazine came out and said, look, the Beatles say "no" to destruction.
What would you tell a black-power guy who's changed his head and then finds a wall there all the time?
Well, I can't tell him anything 'cause he's got to do it himself. If destruction's the only way he can do it, there's nothing I can say that could influence him 'cause that's where he's at, really. We've all got that in us, too, and that's why I did the "Out and In" bit on a few takes and in the TV version of "Revolution" - "Destruction, well, you know, you can count me out, and in," like yin and yang. I prefer "out." But we've got the other bit in us. I don't know what I'd be doing if I was in his position. I don't think I'd be so meek and mild. I just don't know.
God is a concept by which we measure our pain I'll say it again God is a concept by which we measure our pain
I don't believe in magic " " " " i ching bible tarot hitler jesus Kennedy budda mantra gita yoga kings Elvis Dylan Beatles
I just believe in me and that's reality (Yoko and me).
As Released by John Lennon (1970)
God is a concept by which we measure our pain I'll say it again God is a concept by which we measure our pain
I don't believe in magic I don't believe in I-ching I don't believe in Bible I don't believe in tarot I don't believe in Hitler I don't believe in Jesus I don't believe in Kennedy I don't believe in Buddha I don't believe in Mantra I don't believe in Gita I don't believe in Yoga I don't believe in kings I don't believe in Elvis I don't believe in Zimmerman I don't believe in Beatles I just believe in me Yoko and me And that's reality
The dream is over What can I say? The dream is over Yesterday I was the Dreamweaver But now I'm reborn I was the Walrus But now I'm John And so dear friends You'll just have to carry on The dream is over
Edward Hunter Davies (born 7 January 1936) is a prolific British author, journalist and broadcaster, perhaps best known for writing the only authorized biography of The Beatles.
Early life
Davies was born in Johnstone in Scotland to Scottish parents. He considers himself Scottish. For 4 years his family lived in Dumfries until Davies was aged 11. Davies has frequently quoted his boyhood hero as being football center-forward, Billy Houliston, of Davies' then local team, Queen of the South.
His family moved to Carlisle when Davies was 11 and he attended the Creighton School in the city. Davies lived in Carlisle until he moved to study at university. During this time his father, who was a former RAF pay clerk, developed multiple sclerosis and had to retire on medical grounds from a civil service career. Davies joined the sixth form at Carlisle Grammar School and was awarded a place at University College, Durham to read for an Honours Degree in History, but after his first year he switched to a general arts course. He gained his first writing experience as a student, contributing to the university newspaper, Palatinate. However after completing his degree course he stayed on at Durham for another year to gain a teaching diploma.
Writing career
After he left university Davies worked as a journalist and in 1965 he wrote the novel Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush that was quickly made into a film. He raised the idea of a biography of The Beatles with Paul McCartney when he met him to discuss the possibility of providing the theme song for the film. McCartney liked the idea of the book and advised him to obtain the approval of Brian Epstein. He agreed to it and the resulting authorized biography was published in 1968. John Lennon mentioned in his 1971 Rolling Stone interview that he felt the book was "bullshit."
In 1972 he wrote what is widely regarded as one of the best ever books about football, The Glory Game, a behind the scenes portrait of Tottenham Hotspur. He also wrote a wry column in Punch called "Father's Day". In 1974 he was sent by the Sunday Times to look at a comprehensive school in action. He wrote three articles and then stayed on at the school – Creighton School in Muswell Hill, North London, now part of Fortismere School – to watch and study through a year in its life. The result was a book, the Creighton Report, published in 1976.
Davies has also written a biography of the hill walker Alfred Wainwright, and many works about the topography and history of the Lake District.
In children's literature, he has written the "Ossie," "Flossie Teacake" and "Snotty Bumstead" series of novels.
As a ghostwriter, he has worked on the autobiographies of footballers Wayne Rooney, Paul Gascoigne and Dwight Yorke. The Wayne Rooney biography led to a successful libel action in 2008 by David Moyes, the manager of his former club, Everton. Moyes magnanimously donated the awarded six figure damages to the club's charity. He has also ghostwritten politician John Prescott's 2008 autobiography, Prezza, My Story: Pulling no Punches.
He writes a football column for the New Statesman magazine which is written in his trademark humorous, irreverent tone. A compilation of these articles was released as a book, The Fan, in 2005 by Pomona Press. Davies writes "Confessions of a Collector" in The Guardian's Weekend color magazine.
Football fan
Hunter Davies has regularly stated that the first football team he supported was when he lived in Dumfries, Queen of the South F.C.
From moving to Carlisle aged 11, Davies next adopted English Football League club Carlisle United F.C. He is Vice President of the Carlisle United Supporters Club London Branch. Long time resident in London, Davies' third adopted team is Tottenham Hotspur. In international football Hunter Davies supports Scotland.
Personal life
Davies is married to the writer Margaret Forster and their daughter Caitlin Davies is also an author. He is also a keen collector.
Selected works
* Here we go 'round the mulberry bush (1965) * The Beatles, (1968) * The Beatles, (1978), McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-015463-5 * The Beatles, (2nd Revised Edition, 1985), McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-015526-7. * The Creighton Report: A Year in the Life of a Comprehensive School, (1976), Hamish Hamilton. ISBN 0-241-89412-3. * Come On, Ossie! (1985) illustrator Malou Bonicos. Bodley Head Children's Books: ISBN 0-3703-0895-6. * Ossie Goes Supersonic (1986) illustrator Malou Bonicos. Bodley Head Children's Books: ISBN 0-3703-1007-1. * Ossie the Millionaire (1987) illustrator Malou Bonicos. Bodley Head Children's Books: ISBN 0-3703-1111-6. * Wainwright: The Biography (1995), Michael Joseph. ISBN 0-7181-3909-7 * A Walk Round The Lakes, (2000), Orion. ISBN 0-7528-3390-1. * The Quarrymen, (2001), Omnibus. ISBN 0-7119-8526-X.
Additional bibliography
* The Other Half * The New London Spy * The Rise and Fall of Jake Sullivan * I Knew Daisy Smuten * A Very Loving Couple * Body Change * A Walk Along the Wall * George Stephenson * William Wordsworth * The Grades * Father's Day * A Walk Along the Tracks * Great Britain: A Celebration * Flossie Teacake's Fur Coat * Snotty Bumstead Collection * A Walk Around London's Parks * A Good Guide to the Lakes * The Joy of Stamps * Back in the U.S.S.R. * Beatrix Potter's Lakeland * My Life in Football * In Search of Columbus * Striker * Hunting People * The Teller of Tales * Living on the Lottery * Born 1900: A Human History of the Twentieth Century - For Everyone Who Was There.
(1) Asked a girl what she wanted to be She said baby can't you see I wanna be famous, a star of the screen But you can do something in between
Baby you can drive my car Yes I'm gonna be a star Baby you can drive my car And maybe I'll love you
(2) I told that girl that my prospects were good And she said baby it's understood Working for peanuts is all very fine But I can show you a better time
---- Baby -------- etc.
(3) I told that girl I could start right away But she said listen to me I've got something to say Got no car, and it's breaking my heart But I found a driver and that's a start
---- Baby --------- etc.
Beep Beep yeah
As Released by the Beatles (1965)
Asked a girl what she wanted to be She said baby can't you see? I wanna be famous, a star of the screen But you can do something in between.
Baby you can drive my car Yes I'm gonna be a star. Baby you can drive my car And maybe I'll love you.
I told that girl that my prospects were good 'n' she said baby it's understood Working for peanuts is all very fine But I can show you a better time.
Baby you can drive my car Yes I'm gonna be a star. Baby you can drive my car And maybe I'll love you.
Beep beep mmm beep beep yeah.
Baby you can drive my car Yes I'm gonna be a star. Baby you can drive my car And maybe I'll love you.
I told that girl I could start right away And she said listen babe I've got something to say I got no car and it's breaking my heart But I've found a driver and that's a start.
Baby you can drive my car Yes I'm gonna be a star. Baby you can drive my car And maybe I'll love you.
In the town where I was born Lived a man who sailed to sea And he told us of his life In the land of submarines
So we sailed into the sun Till we found the sea of green And we live beneath the waves in our Yellow Submarine
We all live in a Yellow Submarine look out Yellow Submarine Yellow Submarine
Paul McCartney
Second Manuscript (1966)
And our friends are all aboard Many more of them, live next door and the band begins to play ta-da-ra-ra bum ti bum ta-ta
John + Paul
And we live a life of ease Everyone of us has all he needs X Disgusting!! See me.
As we live a life of ease, Every one of us has all he needs Sky of blue, and sea of green in our Yellow Submarine
We all live in a Yellow Submarine
As Released by the Beatles (1966)
In the town where I was born Lived a man who sailed to sea And he told us of his life In the land of submarines.
So we sailed on to the sun Till we found a sea of green And we lived beneath the waves In our yellow submarine.
We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine. We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine.
And our friends are all aboard Many more of them live next door And the band begins to play.
We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine. We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine.
(Full speed ahead, Mr. Bosun, full speed ahead. Full speed ahead it is, Sgt. Cut the cable, drop the cable. Aye, Sir, aye. Captain, Captain.)
As we live a life of ease Everyone of us (everyone of us) has all we need (has all we need) Sky of blue (sky of blue) and sea of green (sea of green) In our yellow (in our yellow) submarine (submarine - ah ha!)
We all live in a yellow submarine A yellow submarine, a yellow submarine. We all live in a yellow submarine A yellow submarine, yellow submarine. We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine. We all live in a yellow submarine Yellow submarine, yellow submarine.
John and Yoko had a 51-minute meeting with the Canadian Prime Minister, Pierre Trudeau, in Ottawa. Trudeau had earlier said: "I don't know about acorns, but if he's around, I'd like to meet him. He's a good poet." Afterwards John said: "We spent about 50 minutes together, which was longer than he had spent with any head of state. If all politicians were like Trudeau there would be world peace."
When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide Where I stop and I turn and I go for a ride Till I get to the bottom and I see you again - yeah, yeah, yeah.
A - do you, don't you want me to love you? I'm coming down fast but I'm miles above you Tell me, tell me, tell me, come on tell me the answer Well, you may be a lover, but you ain't no dancer. (Helter skelter, helter skelter)
A - will you, won't you want me to make you? I'm coming down fast but don't let me break you Tell me, tell me, tell me the answer 'cos you may be a lover, but you ain't no dancer. (Helter skelter, helter skelter)
Look out helter skelter, helter skelter, helter skelter - oh.
Look out 'cos here she comes (heh heh heh).
When I get to the bottom I go back to the top of the slide And I stop and I turn and I go for a ride And I get to the bottom and I see you again - yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, do you, don't you want me to make you? I'm coming down fast but don't let me break you Tell me, tell me, tell me your answer 'cos you may be a lover, but you ain't no dancer. (Helter skelter, helter skelter)
Look out helter skelter, helter skelter, helter skelter.
Well, look out helter skelter. She's coming down fast Yes she is, yes she is. Coming down fast (oh can you hear me speaking - ooo)...
... Ah (how was that?) I got blisters on my fingers!
Geoffrey Emerick (born 1946 in London) is a recording studio audio engineer, who is best known for his work with the Beatles' albums Revolver, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles and Abbey Road.
Emerick first started working at EMI at the age of 15, as a assistant to Norman Smith. However the first album he did with the Beatles working as main recording engineer was Revolver, and "Tomorrow Never Knows" was the first track he worked on, after having taken over the engineering duties from Norman Smith who became a producer.
It was Emerick's innovation to record John Lennon's vocal through a Leslie speaker on that song, to get the ethereal sound Lennon wanted. He received Grammy Awards for the engineering of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road. Emerick, like Beatles producer George Martin, brought an adventurous and experimental attitude to his work.
His post-Beatles career included work with Paul McCartney (including Band On The Run [which netted Emerick another Grammy], London Town, and Flaming Pie), Elvis Costello (for whom he produced Imperial Bedroom and All This Useless Beauty), Art Garfunkel, America, Supertramp, Cheap Trick, Nazareth, Split Enz, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Ultravox, Matthew Fisher's first solo album "Journey's End," and Jeff Beck, as well as Nellie McKay's critically acclaimed 2004 debut CD Get Away from Me. He was the sound engineer on Robin Trower's most popular album Bridge of Sighs, and credited by both Trower and producer Matthew Fisher for that album's acclaimed sound.
In 2003, he received his fourth Grammy, this time for lifetime Technical Achievement.
On the April 3, 2007 it was announced that Emerick would be in charge of a re-recording of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by contemporary artists, including Oasis, The Killers, Travis and Razorlight. Emerick used the original equipment to record the new versions of the songs, and the results were broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on the June 2, marking the album's 40th anniversary.
This video shows a series of clips related to Ringo's sessions with producer Chips Moman in 1987. First, the pair record a video tribute for guitarist Pete Drake; then, Moman stages a protest against a local newspaper in support of Ringo, in hopes of bringing him back to finish the album. The paper had published an article by Rheta Grimsley Johnson which read in part: "The other three Beatles were not just better looking; they were accomplished musicians. Ringo's songs were comic relief...an aging Beatle is yesterday's news." Ringo never finished the album and two years later successfully obtained an injunction against the album's release. Ringo recalled of the sessions: "We would send out for wine or else there would be tequila there or cognac or whatever anybody else felt like drinking. There was always plenty of alcohol on the premises. Certain nights we were all under the influence..."
Malcolm 'Mal' Evans (27 May 1935 – 5 January 1976) is best known as the road manager, assistant, and a friend of The Beatles.
In the early 1960s, Evans was employed as a telephone engineer, and also worked part-time as a bouncer at the Cavern Club, where The Beatles performed. Their manager Brian Epstein later hired Evans as their assistant road manager - Neil Aspinall was The Beatles' first road manager. Peter Brown, one of Epstein's staff, later wrote of Evans as "a kindly, but menacing-looking young man" - Evans was tall and heavily-built - and states that he was also employed as the band's bodyguard. Evans contributed to many Beatle recordings, and appeared in some of the films they made. The Beatles stopped touring in 1966, but Evans carried on assisting the band and working with them in the studio.
Evans was killed by police on 5 January 1976 at his rented duplex in Los Angeles. Officers were called when neighbors reported Evans and his girlfriend having a loud, drunken quarrel. Police believed that the air gun Evans was holding was a firearm, and shot him dead. Evans was cremated on 7 January 1976 in Los Angeles, and his ashes were sent by post back to England, but were lost.
Early life
Details of Evans’ early life are unknown, apart from his birth date. No book has been written about him although he wrote his memoirs, Living The Beatles' Legend, from which extracts were released on 20 March 2005. Anything known about him starts in 1961, when Evans married a Liverpool girl, Lily, after meeting her at a funfair in New Brighton, Merseyside. Gary Evans, their first child, was born in the same year The Beatles were the house band at Liverpool's Cavern Club when Evans first heard them perform during his lunch break. He was then living in Hillside Road, Mossley Hill and working as a telephone engineer for the Post Office. He became a committed fan, even though his musical hero at the time was Elvis Presley.
He first befriended George Harrison, who put forward Evans' name to the Cavern Club's manager, Ray McFall, when he needed a doorman. The 27-year-old Evans was accepted — even though he wore thick-framed glasses — mainly because of his burly 6 ft 6 in frame, which was an asset when holding back the numerous fans at the Cavern's door, and later as an unofficial bodyguard for them. He was later nicknamed the "Gentle Giant" and "Big Mal." In 1962, Evans wrote that it was "a wonderful year", as he had Lily (his wife), his son Gary, a house, a car, and he was working at the Cavern club.
The Beatles
Three months after starting at the Cavern Club, Evans was hired by Brian Epstein as a road manager. Evans and Neil Aspinall’s duties were to drive the van while the band were on tour, set up and test the equipment, and then pack it up again. The Beatles were being driven back to Liverpool from London by Evans through heavy fog on 21 January 1963, when the windscreen was hit by a pebble and cracked, so Evans had to break a large hole in it to see the road ahead. This was in winter, so The Beatles had to huddle up in the back with a bottle of whiskey and try to stay warm in the freezing temperatures.
Evans had many other duties. As well as acting as a bodyguard, he was sent to buy anything they needed, such as suits, boots, meals, or drinks. If Lennon said "Socks, Mal," Evans would have to rush to a local Marks and Spencer store and buy six pairs of cotton socks for him. In 1967, Evans wrote in his diaries that he "bought Ringo some undies for his visit to the doctor." The Beatles started their first European tour in January 1964, and Evans was allowed to take his wife and son with him, but was involved in a "big punch-up" with photographers in Paris whilst protecting them. Epstein’s associate, Alistair Taylor, once asked him why he was driving an Austin Princess limousine, rather than a Daimler, a Bentley, or a Rolls-Royce. The Beatles were forced to choose an Austin (as Evans explained) because they had tested every car to see how wide the doors would open as they (literally) had to "dive into the car" to escape their fans.
The Beatles were introduced to cannabis by Bob Dylan in New York in 1964, and Paul McCartney remembered asking Evans "again and again" to write down McCartney's newly found cannabis-influenced thoughts about life by repeating "Get [write] it down, Mal, get it down!" Evans was as affected by the drug as everybody else, so took a very long time to find a pencil and a piece of paper. The next morning Evans gave the sheet of paper to McCartney, who noted that McCartney had dictated: "There are seven levels!" (of life, as he later explained). The Beatles attended "The Night of 100 Stars" at the London Palladium on 23 July 1964, and during the show Evans constantly supplied them with whiskey and Coca-Cola, which he delivered to them balanced on an old, wooden oar he had found backstage.
The Beatles were assisted by Evans on their American tour when they played two shows at the Hollywood Bowl in the summer of 1965. Epstein arranged for them all to have a four-day rest in a luxurious horseshoe-shaped house on stilts in Benedict Canyon off Mulholland Drive in Los Angeles. They spent their time there smoking large marijuana joints, and Evans and Lennon swam in the large outdoor swimming pool with cigarettes in their mouths, to see who could keep them alight the longest. After recording sessions in London, Lennon, Harrison, and Starr would be chauffeured back to their houses in the “stockbroker belt” of southern England, but Evans, Aspinall, and McCartney would drive to a late-night club to eat steak, chips, and mushy peas. The Bag O'Nails nightclub was one of their favorites, at 8 Kingly Street in Soho, London, as it also presented live music. In his memoirs Evans wrote: January 19 and 20: "Ended up smashed in Bag O'Nails with Paul [McCartney] and Neil [Aspinall]. Quite a number of people attached themselves, oh that it would happen to me... freak out time baby for Mal." In July 1966, The Beatles toured the Philippines, and unintentionally snubbed the nation's first lady, Imelda Marcos. After the snub was broadcast on Philippine television and radio, all of The Beatles' police protection disappeared. The group and their entourage had to make their way to Manila airport on their own. At the airport, road manager Evans was beaten and kicked, and the band members were pushed and jostled about by a hostile crowd. Once the group boarded the plane, Epstein and Evans were ordered off, and Evans said, "Tell my wife that I love her." Epstein was forced to give back all the money that the band had earned while they were there before being allowed back on the plane.
The Beatles' last concert was at Candlestick Park, San Francisco, on 29 August 1966, but Evans continued to run errands for them and to work with them in the studio. After recording Revolver in 1966, McCartney went by himself on holiday to France, but arranged to meet Evans in Bordeaux at the Grosse Horloge church, on the corner of cours Victor Hugo and rue St. James. At exactly the pre-arranged time of one o'clock Evans was standing under the church clock when McCartney arrived. They later drove to Madrid together, but got bored, and phoned Epstein's office in London and asked to be booked on a safari holiday in Kenya. When they arrived there they visited the Amboseli Reserve at the foot of Mount Kilimanjaro, and also stayed at the exclusive Treetops Hotel, where the rooms are built on the branches of trees. Evans and McCartney at Heathrow airport in 1966, after their African trip.
They spent their final night in Nairobi at a YMCA, before they returned to London. The Beatles — according to McCartney — needed a new name, and on the flight back to England Evans and McCartney played with words to see if they could come up with something new. Evans innocently asked McCartney what the letters “S” and “P” stood for on the pots on their meal trays, and McCartney explained that it was for salt and pepper, which led to the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band name, although McCartney denies the rumor that Evans came up with the name by himself. They arrived back in London on 9 November 1966. Before the cover of Sgt. Pepper could be completed by Peter Blake, Evans and Aspinall were sent out to find photographs of all of the people that were to be shown on the front cover.
The Beatles and Evans flew to Greece in late 1967 with encouragement from Greek-born "Magic Alex," the director of Apple Electronics, to buy an island or a group of islands. The idea was that the whole Apple entourage would live on the islands in their own separate homes, but would be connected to each other by tunnels leading to a central dome. Evans and his family were included in the plan, but it was abandoned as being unworkable after McCartney refused to participate. McCartney had no housekeeper in 1967, so Evans moved in with him at 7 Cavendish Avenue, St John's Wood, near the Abbey Road Studios. It was at Cavendish Avenue that McCartney bought his first Old English Sheepdog, Martha, and Evans wrote that he often complained about the dog fouling the beds. Evans later bought a house in Sunbury-on-Thames, which was between McCartney's house, and Lennon, Harrison, and Starr's houses outside London.
While working on the Magical Mystery Tour film, Evans wrote about his work duties:
“I would get requests from the four of them to do six different things at one time and it was always a case of relying on instinct and experience in awarding priorities. They used to be right sods for the first few days until they realised that everything was going to go smoothly and they could get into the routine of recording... Then I would find time between numerous cups of tea and salad sandwiches and baked beans on toast to listen to the recording in the control room.”
The Beatles, accompanied by Evans, flew to India in February 1968, to visit the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's ashram, after meeting him on 24 August 1967 at the London Hilton. Evans wrote in his diary on 17 February 1968:
“The press really tried kicking down the gates into the Ashram, the Indian people on the Ashram called me half way through, but as soon as an Indian reporter told me "No bloody foreigner is going to stop me in my own country", I cooled it.”
When Apple was formed in 1968, Evans was promoted from road manager to personal assistant, although his weekly £38 salary remained the same. Evans was the only member of the Apple entourage to be invited to attend (and be a witness) when McCartney and Linda Eastman were married at Marylebone Registry Office on 12 March 1969. Evans wrote in his diary that he was due to be there at 9.45am but Michael McCartney's train from Birmingham was delayed. Peter Brown and Evans passed the register office at 9.15 and saw that there were only a few photographers and ardent fans standing in the rain, but when they left at 11.30am they were mobbed by a crowd of about 1,000 people.
Musical contributions
Evans contributed to many recordings, including lending his voice to "Yellow Submarine". Before recording it on 26 May 1966, at Abbey Road, Evans and Aspinall ransacked the store cupboard next to Studio Two for a range of instruments and implements, such as chains, a ship's bell, whistles, hooters and thunderstorm machines that were to be used on the recording. After recording the overdubs, Evans strapped on a marching bass drum and led everybody in a line around the studio doing the conga dance while banging rhythmically on the drum. Evans played single organ notes on "You Won't See Me," and harmonica, kazoo, and organ on "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" McCartney explained that he showed Evans where the note was on the organ, and then nodded his head when he wanted Evans to play, and shook it when he wanted him to stop. During the recording of "Lady Madonna," Evans was sent to Abbey Road's lavatories to collect toilet paper (which was stamped with the words, "PROPERTY OF EMI"). This was used to cover hair combs, which Evans and others blew through to resemble the sound of a kazoo orchestra.
On "A Day in the Life," Evans controlled an alarm clock and counted the measures in the original 24-bar break. The intent was to edit out the alarm clock when the missing section had been filled with music, but as it complemented McCartney's piece (the first line of McCartney's section began with, "woke up, got out of bed") the decision was made to keep the ringing, although George Martin later commented that editing it out would have been unfeasible. Evans was also one of the five piano players simultaneously hitting the last chord of the song. Evans played tambourine on "Dear Prudence" and saxophone on "Helter Skelter." He played a double solo with Lennon, although neither of them was proficient on the instrument. Evans contributed background vocals and shoveled a bucket of gravel (as part of the rhythm) on "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)." Evans also contributed to the White Album outtake "What's the New Mary Jane," and hit an anvil on "Maxwell's Silver Hammer." Evans later co-wrote "You and Me (Babe)" with George Harrison, which appears on Ringo Starr's 1973 solo album.
Sgt. Pepper contribution
According to his diaries—from which extracts were released in 2005—Evans stated that he helped to compose songs on the Sgt. Pepper album. Evans wrote, on 27 January 1967: "Sgt Pepper. Started writing song with Paul upstairs in his room, he on piano. What can one say about today—ah yes! Four Tops concert at Albert Hall. The Beatles get screams they get the clap. Off to Bag after gig. Did a lot more of "where the rain comes in" [a lyric from "Fixing a Hole"]. Hope people like it. Started Sergeant Pepper. On 1 February: "Sergeant Pepper" sounds good. Paul tells me that I will get royalties on the song—great news, now perhaps a new home. On 2 February: "Recording voices on Captain Pepper. All six of us doing the chorus in the middle, worked until about midnight." Evans did not receive any royalties and stayed at his £38-a-week pay (£488.68 in current money). Keith Badman (author of The Beatles off the Record) has referred to a tape recording of Evans speaking shortly before his death, on which Evans reiterated some of the statements made in the diary. According to Badman, Evans was asked if it would be a problem that his name were not credited, as the Lennon/McCartney writing name was "a really hot item."
On film and portrait
In the film Help!, Evans plays a confused channel swimmer who pops up through an ice-hole in Austria, and on a beach in the Bahamas. The Beatles went to visit the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India on 24 August 1967, and during their stay the photographer Philip Townsend took a photo portrait of Evans. The photo is on display in Room 32 at the National Portrait Gallery.
The Beatles asked Evans and Aspinall to find and hire the actors that they wanted to perform in the Magical Mystery Tour film, and to find an old 60-seater coach, on which they were told to paint the Magical Mystery Tour logo which McCartney had designed. Evans later appeared in the film as one of the magicians who cast mysterious spells on the passengers of the bus.
In the Let It Be film, Evans can be seen playing the anvil during early versions of "Maxwell's Silver Hammer," and can be seen talking to police officers on the Savile Row rooftop when they came to stop the live performance. Before the rooftop concert, Evans placed a camera and a microphone in a corner of Apple's reception area, so that when the police came in to complain about the noise—which was expected—they could be filmed and recorded. The Beatles were often filmed by Evans during his time with them (without sound) and a collection of his recordings was later released on DVD.
Producer
In 1968, Evans discovered the band Badfinger (then known as The Iveys) and suggested that they be signed to Apple. Although not trained as a studio technician, Evans produced several songs recorded by the Iveys/Badfinger in 1969 and 1970. The most notable of these is the song "No Matter What" by Badfinger, which charted on Billboard's Top 10 in December 1970. Evans also produced some tracks for Keith Moon's solo album Two Sides of the Moon.
Allen Klein
Evans enjoyed an executive position at Apple until 1969, when Allen Klein was hired as a manager to reorganize the whole company. Evans was fired by Klein the next year, because Klein complained to Lennon that Aspinall and Evans were "living like kings—like fucking emperors", although Evans was later reinstated after McCartney, Harrison and Starr complained. On 13 September 1969, Evans accompanied John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Klaus Voormann, Alan White and Eric Clapton to Toronto, Canada, for the Toronto Rock 'N' Roll Revival Concert. He later commented about the concert:
“I was really enjoying myself. It was the first show I had roadied for three years and I was really loving every minute of plugging the amps in and setting them up on stage, making sure that everything was right. Everyone wanted the show to go particularly well because Allen Klein, who had flown over, had organised for the whole of John's performance to be filmed. This was on top of it being video-taped by Dan Richter.”
Later life and death
Evans separated from his wife in 1973, and subsequently moved from the UK to Los Angeles, where Lennon had moved to live with May Pang after his own separation from Yoko Ono. Evans is credited on the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album as providing "tea and sympathy."
Evans was shot and killed by the police on 5 January 1976, in his rented duplex at 8122 W. 4th Street in Los Angeles. The officers mistakenly believed that the air pistol Evans was holding was a rifle. Before his death Evans was working on a book of memoirs called Living The Beatles' Legend, which he was supposed to deliver to publishers Grosset and Dunlap on 12 January 1976. Friends said that Evans was depressed about his separation from his wife Lil Evans — who had asked for a divorce before Christmas — although he was then living with new girlfriend Fran Hughes.
On the night of Evans' death he was so despondent that Fran Hughes phoned his collaborator on his book, John Hoernie, and asked him to visit them. Hoernie saw Evans "really doped-up and groggy," and Evans told Hoernie to make sure that he finished Living The Beatles' Legend. Hoernie helped Evans up to an upstairs bedroom, but during an incoherent conversation Evans picked up a 30.30 air rifle. Hoernie struggled with Evans, but Evans (being much stronger) held onto the weapon.
Hughes phoned the police and told them that Evans was confused, had a gun, and was on valium. Four policemen arrived and two of them, David D. Krempa and Robert E. Brannon, went up to the bedroom. The police report stated that as soon as Evans saw the policemen he pointed the rifle at them. The officers repeatedly told Evans to put down the rifle (which they did not know was an air pistol). but Evans constantly refused. The police fired six shots, of which four struck Evans—killing him instantly. Evans had previously been awarded the badge of "Honorary Sheriff of Los Angeles County." Evans was cremated on 7 January 1976 in Los Angeles. The Beatles did not attend his funeral, but Harry Nilsson and other friends attended. Evans' ashes were sent by post back to England, but were misplaced and lost in the postal system. Upon learning of the lost remains, John Lennon quipped that "they should look in the dead letter file."
The Mal Evans archive
The Beatles' memorabilia is in continuous demand, but a full set of autographs by all four could be forgeries, as Evans and Aspinall used to sign many of them when Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr were too busy. In 1992, Lennon's original pages of lyrics to "A Day in the Life" were sold by the Evans estate for £56,600 at Sotheby's, in London, to an unknown collector.
Other lyrics collected by Evans have been subject to legal action over the years: In 1996, McCartney went to the High Court in England and prevented the sale of the original lyrics to "With a Little Help from My Friends" that Evans' widow Lily had tried to sell, by claiming that the lyrics were collected by Evans as a part of his duties and belonged to the individual Beatles. A notebook in which McCartney wrote the lyrics for "Hey Jude" was sold in 1998 at an auction for £111,500. The notebook also contains lyrics for "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "All You Need is Love". The pad also contains lyrics, notes, drawings and poems by Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr, as well as by Evans.
A suitcase that Evans was carrying at the time of his death, which was supposed to contain unreleased recordings, photos and other memorabilia, was lost by the police during the investigation and became known as the lost "Mal Evans Archive". It was reported in June 2004 that an English tourist, Frasier Claughton, bought the suitcase for $36 at a flea market just outside of Melbourne, Australia, unaware of its contents. By August 2004, however, experts had determined that the documents within the suitcase were photocopies made in the 1990s and declared the supposed archive a fake.
A Hard Day's Night is the third UK album by The Beatles, released on 10 July 1964 as the soundtrack to their first film of the same name on Parlophone in mono (catalogue number PMC 1230) and stereo (PCS 3058.) The album, their fourth U.S. release, was released on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records with a different tracklisting.
First all-original album
While showcasing the development of the band's songwriting talents, the album sticks to the basic rock and roll instrumentation and song format. It is notable as the first Beatles album to feature entirely original compositions (and the only one with a song catalogue credited entirely to Lennon/McCartney). The album contains some of their most famous songs, including the title track (with its distinct, instantly recognizable opening chord) and "Can't Buy Me Love", both being transatlantic number one singles for the band. The album and film are said to portray the classic image of the Beatles, as it was released at the height of Beatlemania.
George Harrison's resonant 12-string electric guitar leads were hugely influential; the movie helped persuade the Byrds, then folksingers, to plunge all out into rock & roll, and the Beatles (along with Bob Dylan) would be hugely influential on the folk-rock explosion of 1965. The Beatles' success, too, had begun to open the U.S. market for fellow Brits like the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Kinks, and inspired young American groups like the Beau Brummels, Lovin' Spoonful, and others to mount a challenge of their own with self-penned material that owed a great debt to Lennon-McCartney.
The title of the album (and of the film) is said to have been the accidental creation of drummer Ringo Starr, though the phrase is used in John Lennon's contemporary book In His Own Write and was reputedly used at least once by him during the Hamburg era.
Side one of the LP contains the songs from the movie soundtrack. Side two contains songs written for, but not included in, the film, although a 1980s re-release of the movie includes a prologue before the opening credits with "I'll Cry Instead" on the soundtrack. This is also the first The Beatles album to be recorded on four-track tape, allowing for good stereo mixes. Despite this, the Compact Disc release of this album (catalogue number CDP 7 46437 2) is currently available only in mono, though many of the tracks appeared in stereo on CD for the first time with the release of the boxset The Capitol Albums, Volume 1 in 2004. "A Hard Day's Night" and "Can't Buy Me Love" both appear in stereo on the 1962–1966 compilation. "I Should Have Known Better" and "You Can't Do That" have yet to be released in true stereo on CD.
In 2000, Q placed A Hard Day's Night at number five in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. In 2003, the album was ranked number 388 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
On 26 February 1987, A Hard Day's Night was officially released on CD in mono, as were three other of The Beatles' albums, Please Please Me, With The Beatles, and Beatles for Sale. Having been available only as an import in the US in the past, the 13 track UK version of the album was also issued domestically in the US on LP and cassette on 21 July 1987. Stereo mixes of "A Hard Day's Night", "Can't Buy Me Love" and "And I Love Her" are available on the 1962–1966 (The Red Album) CD. This album will finally be reissued in stereo on CD on 9 September 2009.
Track listing
All tracks credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Normally, Paul McCartney and Lennon would contribute a roughly equal number of songs to each album, but A Hard Day's Night is the one Beatles album on which Lennon's dominance as songwriter is by far the greater -- writing the majority of the 13 tracks on the album on his own. This is also one of two British Beatles albums, along with Let It Be, in which Starr does not sing lead vocal on any songs (although Starr sang the lead vocal on "Matchbox," a cover of a Carl Perkins song recorded contemporaneously with the songs on A Hard Day's Night and released in Britain on the Long Tall Sally EP). Side one # Title Lead vocals Length 1. "A Hard Day's Night" Lennon and McCartney 2:34 2. "I Should Have Known Better" Lennon 2:46 3. "If I Fell" Lennon and McCartney 2:24 4. "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" Harrison 1:59 5. "And I Love Her" McCartney 2:33 6. "Tell Me Why" Lennon 2:12 7. "Can't Buy Me Love" McCartney 2:14
Side two # Title Lead vocals Length 8. "Any Time at All" Lennon 2:15 9. "I'll Cry Instead" Lennon 1:49 10. "Things We Said Today" McCartney 2:40 11. "When I Get Home" Lennon 2:20 12. "You Can't Do That" Lennon 2:39 13. "I'll Be Back" Lennon and McCartney 2:20
Sales chart positions
Year Chart Position 1965 Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart 1
1. "Can't Buy Me Love"/"You Can't Do That" Released: 16 March 1964 2. "A Hard Day's Night"/"Things We Said Today" Released: 10 July 1964 3. "And I Love Her" Released: 20 July 1964 4. "I'll Cry Instead" Released: 20 July 1964
The American release
Soundtrack by The Beatles and George Martin Released: 26 June 1964 Recorded: 1964, Abbey Road Studios Genre: Beat Length: 29:21 Language: English Label: United Artists Producer: George Martin
Singles from A Hard Day's Night
1. "A Hard Day's Night"/"I Should Have Known Better" Released: 13 July 1964 2. "And I Love Her"/"If I Fell" Released: 20 July 1964 3. "I'll Cry Instead"/"I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" Released: 20 July 1964
The American version of the album was released on 26 June 1964 by United Artists Records in mono (catalogue number UAL 3366) and stereo (UAS 6366) and contained the seven songs from the film: "A Hard Day's Night," "Tell Me Why," "I'm Happy Just to Dance With You," "I Should Have Known Better," "If I Fell," "And I Love Her," and "Can't Buy Me Love." It also features "I'll Cry Instead", which, although written for the film, was cut from it at the last minute. The American version also included four easy listening-styled instrumental versions of Lennon and McCartney songs by George Martin: "I Should Have Known Better", "And I Love Her", "Ringo's Theme (This Boy)", and "A Hard Day's Night", each of which later appeared on George Martin's own instrumental albums released by Capitol, United Artists and Parlophone. The album went to number one on the Billboard album chart, spending 14 weeks there, the longest run of any album that year.
After EMI acquired United Artists Records, this album was reissued on 17 August 1980 on the Capitol label, catalogue number SW 11921.
Whilst the stereo version of the album included the instrumental tracks in true stereo, the Beatles' own recordings appeared as mono recordings made from the stereo releases. True stereo versions of most of the songs appeared on the Capitol Records album Something New, also in 1964. "Can't Buy Me Love" and "I Should Have Known Better" finally appeared in stereo versions on the Apple Records compilation Hey Jude in 1970. The song "A Hard Day's Night" did not appear in a stereo version in the U.S. until the LP Reel Music in March 1982. The American version has yet to be released officially on CD.
Revised track listing
All tracks credited to John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Side one
1. "A Hard Day's Night" – 2:33 2. "Tell Me Why" – 2:10 3. "I'll Cry Instead" – 1:48 4. "I Should Have Known Better" (instrumental, George Martin & His Orchestra) – 2:10 5. "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You" – 1:59 6. "And I Love Her" (instrumental, George Martin & His Orchestra) – 3:46
Side two
7. "I Should Have Known Better" – 2:44 8. "If I Fell" – 2:22 9. "And I Love Her" – 2:29 10. "Ringo's Theme (This Boy)" (instrumental, George Martin & His Orchestra) – 3:10 11. "Can't Buy Me Love" – 2:12 12. "A Hard Day's Night" (instrumental, George Martin & His Orchestra) – 2:06
Personnel
The Beatles
* George Harrison – lead guitar (six- and 12-string); acoustic and Spanish guitars; background vocals; lead vocals on "I'm Happy Just to Dance with You"; harmony vocal on "Things We Said Today" and claves on "And I Love Her" * John Lennon – lead, harmony, and background vocals; rhythm and acoustic guitars; harmonica; lead guitar on "You Can't Do That"; piano on "Things We Said Today" (wiped in the mixing process but always audible on the record) and tambourine * Paul McCartney – lead, harmony, and background vocals; bass guitar and piano; acoustic guitar on "I'll Be Back" * Ringo Starr – drums, cowbell, maracas and tambourine
Maureen Cleave is a journalist who worked for the London Evening News and London Evening Standard in the 1960s, conducting interviews with famous musicians of the era, including Bob Dylan and John Lennon.
Posts
