T H E

B E AT L E S

SOLO
GeO rG e HarriSOn

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 Mat Snow

T H E
B E AT L E S

SOLO
GeOrGe HarriSO n
The Illustrated Chronicles of
John, Paul, George, and Ringo
after the Beatles

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 Contents
Chapter 1
Meet Hari Georgeson 7
Chapter 2
Letting It All out 17
Chapter 3
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished 27
Chapter 4
Materially Yours 34
Chapter 5
Dark Hoarse 43
Chapter 6
In Sickness and in Health 54
Chapter 7
He’s Not the Messiah. He’s a Very Naughty Boy! 61
Chapter 8
Meet Nelson (and Spike) . . . 73
Chapter 9
Shiva Shiva Shankara Mahadeva 83
Index 92
Credits 95

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 Chapter1
Meet Hari Georgeson

“Thank God that’s over!”

—George Harrison

Left: An autographed promotional

photo of George Harrison taken in
1963, during the Beatlemania years.

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 J
anuary 10, 1969 was another cold day in the cavernous Twickenham Film
Studios, west of London. That lunchtime in the studio canteen, after yet another
morning of bickering and bad vibes during the so-called Get Back sessions/live
rehearsals that were being filmed for a potential TV documentary, George Harrison
could take no more. The Quiet One got up, quietly said
to each of the other three Beatles, “See you ’round the
clubs,” and walked out.
“Got up went to Twickenham rehearsed until
lunchtime,” as he wrote in his diary, “left the Beatles
. . . had chips later at Klaus and Christines went home.”
Five days later, George agreed to rejoin on two
conditions. There would be no Beatles concert before
a paying audience (Paul’s idea, on which George was
never sold, having insisted three years earlier that
the Beatles cease the touring that was so destructive
to their music-making), and the group would quit the
film studios to resume work at their Apple HQ. Paul
aside, George was pushing at an open door, but no one
doubted his determination to get his way or walk.

A Kid No Longer
The previous year had done wonders for George’s
self-confidence as a musician. Despite having only
one song accepted for inclusion on 1967’s Sgt. Pepper’s
Lonely Hearts Club Band (compared to three on its 1966
predecessor, Revolver), that one song, “Within You
Without You,” was for millions of young Westerners
a hugely influential introduction to the sounds and
spirituality of Hindu India. When filmmaker Joe
Massot (who years later directed The Song Remains the
Same for Led Zeppelin) approached George at the end
of 1967 to create the soundtrack for his new movie
Above: A tense-looking George Wonderwall starring Jane Birkin, George leaped at the
Harrison rehearsing in December chance. He was excited to further explore the fusion of
1969—the same year the Beatles
broke up. rock and traditional Indian music under his own name,
rather than as a Beatle ranked third in the pecking
order.

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 Above: The album cover for
Wonderwall Music. It was
designed by American Bob Gill,
and Harrison reportedly asked
for a brick to be removed from
the wall in the illustration so the
gentleman at least stood a shot
at seeing the ladies bathing!

Left: An Apple promotional poster

for Wonderwall Music. It is a
fusion of images from the album
cover with the photo of Harrison
(taken by John Kelly) from The
White Album.

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 Above: Harrison (far left) is mesmerized by Bob
Dylan's performance here at the Isle of Wight Festival
in 1969. Pattie Boyd is next to him, Maureen Starkey
and Ringo Starr are in front of Pattie, and a bearded
John Lennon and face-painted Yoko Ono are
behind them in the crowd.

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 Though somewhat fragmentary and oblique, in keeping with the movie footage, George’s Wonderwall
music held its own when compared with Paul’s 1966 soundtrack for The Family Way. This made the fight
to get even a single B-side (“The Inner Light” on the flip of “Lady Madonna”) and just one song per side
on the Beatles’ 1968 double The White Album all the more galling for George.
Yet George’s “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” featuring his friend Eric Clapton on lead guitar
(uncredited for contractual reasons), was for many fans the brightest White Album highlight. Likewise
uncredited, George cowrote the hit single “Badge” for Eric’s group Cream.
Those U.K. recording sessions completed, in the fall of 1968 George flew to the United States, where
he worked on the production of Is This What You Want?, the Apple album by Jackie Lomax. George’s old
Merseybeat compadre had already recorded a George-produced flop single for the label, “Sour Milk Sea,”
a White Album reject George had written in India that spring.
On that same trip, in California, George met the electronic music pioneer Bernie Krause, who
introduced him to the newly invented Moog synthesizer, which was to feature on the Beatles’ Abbey Road
the following summer. George couldn’t wait to play with this new technology and recorded a twenty-
five-minute piece then and there called “No Time or Space.” In February 1969, with his newly purchased
Moog back home in his Esher bungalow, southwest of London, he would complete an album titled
Electronic Sound that was released by Apple that May. If ever George stood condemned out of his own
mouth with his curmudgeonly aphorism “Avant garde? ’Aven’t got a clue!” this album was it. All the same,
Beatle George was on a bold journey of musical exploration without the three older Beatle brothers to
hold his hand.
But the biggest boost to George came at Thanksgiving of 1968 when Bob Dylan invited him to
Bearsville in upstate New York, also home of The Band, whose down-home, self-titled debut album
George revered. The guitars were broken out on the third day of George’s stay, and he and Dylan
cowrote “I’d Have You Anytime,” which would be recorded for the first album of George’s solo career
after the Beatles. Always able to add harmonic richness and dextrous guitar to the work of the finest
songwriters, George found in Dylan a musician of giant stature who, unlike John and Paul, did not look
down on him as a kid.

Extreme Personality
In the Harrison family, George was the youngest of three boys,
a situation he found replicated in the Beatles (the oldest Beatle,
Ringo, joined years after George), leaving him forever shuttling
between deference to his elders and rebellion. George embodied
opposites: on one side the spiritual dimension of the Krishna sect
of Hinduism, which he came to via his discovery of traditional
Indian music in 1965, and on the other side his cocksure Scouse
wit and love of comedy.

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 “
The great thing about Delaney & Bonnie was that
”
ability to get spontaneous. —Bonnie Bramlett

Above: (left to right) Eric Clapton, Bonnie

Bramlett, Delaney Bramlett, and George
Harrison relaxing at a Delaney & Bonnie &
Friends concert at Birmingham Town Hall on
December 4, 1969.

Left: George Harrison and Right: An autographed poster for the

Eric Clapton performing on original Delaney & Bonnie & Friends
stage with Delaney & Bonnie (with Eric Clapton) in Bristol, signed
in Copenhagen, Denmark in by George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and
December 1969. Bonnie & Delaney.

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 “I find myself torn between those two extremes,” he admitted
years later. “It must have something to do with being a Pisces.
They draw a Pisces as two fish swimming in opposite directions,
and I do have those two sides. I’m very, very serious about things
which I personally feel are serious. But most worldly things I’m
very unserious about—I take it all with a pinch of salt. I like
craziness. I had to, in order to be in the Beatles.”
George felt very much at home combining seemingly mismatched
styles and attitudes, and that summer of 1969, when everything
seemed possible, George produced a three-minute single for
release on Apple of the ancient “Hare Krishna Mantra” among a
set of tracks released by the London Radha-Krishna Temple. The single, with the mounting
intensity of its chant, bells, and percussive contributions by Paul and Linda McCartney,
charted in twenty countries.
As the Beatles drew to a close with Abbey Road taking residency at the top of charts all
over the world, and John’s announcement to the other three in September 1969 that he was
quitting the group (a decision kept from the world while their business manager Allen Klein
negotiated a new deal with Capitol Records in America), George was on a high. His two songs
on Abbey Road, “Here Comes the Sun” and “Something” (written in tribute to his wife Pattie,
and quoting from Apple artist James Taylor’s 1968 song “Something in the Way She Moves”)
were widely acclaimed as perhaps its two best numbers, with no less an arbiter than Frank
Sinatra, who recorded “Something” twice, calling it “the greatest love song ever written.”
George’s first and last Beatles single A-side was a worldwide number one.
Typically perverse, now that he finally had the spotlight, George’s next move was to
retreat into the shade of a bigger set of musical personalities, wishing no more than to play
second fiddle. Like him, George’s friend Eric Clapton was inspired by The Band to explore
a rootsier, less ego-driven way of making music, putting the song ahead of the guitar solo.
So he broke up the blues-rock power trio Cream and founded a new group called Blind Faith,
comprising fellow British fans of The Band, including Steve Winwood. When Blind Faith
toured the United States in the summer of 1969, among their support acts was Delaney &
Bonnie & Friends, a blue-eyed soul and rock ’n’ roll revue fronted by husband-and-wife singer-

Top: George Harrison and his Right: George Harrison sitting

wife, Pattie Boyd Harrison. They among members of the
are leaving a courthouse after International Society for Krishna
pleading guilty to a drug offense. Consciousness on August 29, 1969.
They were convicted in 1969.

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 songwriters Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett. Eric increasingly joined “
them on stage, having lost interest in his own group. Would you
When Delaney & Bonnie & Friends toured Europe, Eric stayed
with them as a guitarist in the shadows. Inspired by his friend’s mind if l joined
Quixotic adventure making music as a humble sideman, George ”
impulsively overcame his reluctance to play before live audiences and the band?
joined in the fun. “Would you mind if I joined the band?” he asked
Delaney. “Would there be too many guitars?”
The tour was turning into a circus, but that was the way the free-and-easy musicians liked
it. Picking up George at his bungalow in Esher, they all set off for the next date in Bristol.
Among the touring party was the Texan gospel-soul organist and singer Billy Preston, who
George had first met in 1962 and then hooked up with again in early 1969 when Preston was
playing a London date in Ray Charles’s band. Always a soul music fan and now further spurred
by his Krishna faith, George was keen to delve into soul’s gospel roots. Having reintroduced
Billy to the other Beatles, on whose spring smash-hit single “Get Back” the Texan played
electric piano, George produced Billy’s 1969 album for Apple, recruiting heavyweight rock
buddies Eric Clapton and Rolling Stone Keith Richards. The title track to That’s the Way God
Planned It became a hit single. George also signed and coproduced the self-titled 1970 album
by soul diva Doris Troy, whom he met while she sang backing vocals on the Preston album.
One night when the Delaney & Bonnie & Friends tour reached Copenhagen, George fell
into a musical conversation with Billy Preston and Delaney Bramlett: If you were going
to write a gospel song—and he was thinking of “Oh Happy Day” by the Edwin Hawkins
Singers, which was a huge worldwide hit single that summer of 1969—how would you do it?
The answer would spark George’s greatest yet most burdensome hit.

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 Chapter 2
Letting It All out

“I can be Lennon/McCartney
but I’d rather be Harrison.”
—George Harrison

Left: George Harrison playing an

acoustic guitar circa 1970.

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 T
he song “My Sweet Lord” remains George Harrison’s greatest hit, in which, like
John Lennon with “Imagine,” he seemed to condense the things he felt most passionate
about into an enduring anthem.
George initially gave the song to Billy Preston to record. Then, after cutting his
own version, the song became the ultimate showcase for so many of George’s trademarks.
First was the slide guitar. Unlike such blues-rockers as the Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones or
Fleetwood Mac’s Jeremy Spencer, George conjured a sweet, sad sound that shared an affinity
with the keening of a human voice and the bowed Indian string instrument, the dilruba.
Second was the integration of gospel and Krishna in the vocal invocations of the Judeo-
Christian “Hallelujah” and the Vaisnava Hindu prayer, “Hare Krishna/Hare Krishna/Krishna
Krishna/Hare Hare/Hare Rama/Hare Rama.” For George, it was all music in devoted praise
to a greater, transcendent god. Third was the nostalgic return to the sweet tunefulness of
pop before the era of sex and drugs. George said he modeled the feel of the song on the
worldwide pop-gospel smash “Oh Happy Day” by the Edwin Hawkins Singers. However,
Delaney Bramlett later recalled playing for Harrison the melody to a different song on guitar
backstage in Copenhagen in 1969, by way of illustrating how to write a gospel song: “He’s
So Fine,” which the Chiffons girl group took to the upper reaches of both the U.S. and U.K.
singles charts in 1963.

Too Close for Comfort

In the act of composition, many songwriters draw ideas from existing songs, or use an old
song as a starting point in the creation of a new one. When George brought “My Sweet Lord”
to Abbey Road in the spring of 1970, none of the seasoned professionals present spoke up to
suggest that its likeness to “He’s So Fine” might be too close for comfort.
“My Sweet Lord” was just one of several new tunes George brought to the studio. Having
been frustrated at how, over the previous three years, John, Paul, and even producer George

Right: George Harrison’s first solo 45,

“My Sweet Lord” was also the first
solo single by a Beatle to claim over
a million units sold.

Left: Popular girl group, the Chiffons,

had a gospel-style hit with “He’s So
Fine” in 1963. It was this song that
would plague Harrison’s legal life for
years to come.

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 Above: George Harrison, hair swinging, is Top right: Derek and the Dominoes circa
happily listening to the master tape of his first 1970. Members included (left to right) Eric
solo album, “All Things Must Pass” in October Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, Jim Gordon, and
1970. He is accompanied by legendary Carl Radle. Their biggest hit, “Layla,” was
producer, Phil Spector (middle) and Pete lovingly written for Harrison’s wife, Pattie
Bennett of Apple Records. Boyd, by Eric Clapton.

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 Martin had denied him songwriting space on Beatles’ albums, George had
a backlog of tunes he was bursting to record under his own name. “I didn’t
have many tunes on Beatles’ records, so doing an album like All Things Must
Pass was like going to the bathroom and letting it out,” George remarked
earthily.
Even though George itched to lay down compositions dating back as far
as 1966 (“The Art of Dying” and “Isn’t It a Pity” both date from that golden
year of pop and rock), he deferred to Phil Spector’s insistence on quality
control and auditioning every song in demo form before suggesting and
accepting or rejecting changes. George had been mightily impressed by
Spector’s salvage job on the Beatles’ Get Back sessions, which the spring of Above: A colorized reissue
1970 became a worldwide number-one album as Let It Be. Despite drawing of the All Things Must Pass
album cover in 2001. The
so much inspiration from the intimate, rural atmospheres surrounding the original 1970 cover was black
music-making of Dylan, the Band, and Delaney & Bonnie, George wanted and white and taken by
to make a big impression with his solo debut and so allowed the Wagner Barry Feinstein. In the photo,
Harrison, is surrounded by
of Pop carte blanche to give All Things Must Pass the Wall of Sound works. large gnomes at his home
Once more a recognized figure thanks to his cameo as a drug dealer in in Friar Park. Many have
the 1969 counterculture movie smash Easy Rider, Phil Spector supervised speculated that the gnomes
represented the Beatles
a crowd of musicians in numbers to match his glory days producing the and Harrison’s place
Ronettes and the Righteous Brothers in the early 1960s. At the time many of among them.
the musicians on All Things Must Pass could not be officially acknowledged

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 without infringing on the terms of their own recording contracts, but
subsequently they have been credited to include not only George’s fellow
Apple artists Badfinger (on whose album Straight Up George would
produce and play guitar fills on the following year) and Billy Preston, but
undercover guitarists Dave Mason and Eric Clapton, who had with him
most of the players to constitute Derek and the Dominoes; Procol Harum
keyboardist Gary Brooker; old Hamburg pal, the bassist Klaus Voormann;
and drummers Ringo Starr, Jim Gordon, Alan White Phil Collins, and
Ginger Baker. Throw in Bobby Keys and Jim Price, whose signature brass
marked the Rolling Stones’ classic records and live shows of the era, plus
George’s close friends, Gary Wright of Spooky Tooth, and John Barham,
the arranger kept on from Wonderwall, and Spector had to be at the top of
his game to maintain focus.
Arriving at Abbey Road, turning down the air-conditioning to icy, and
moaning about the British studio equipment, Spector nevertheless created
an amazing sound, and all went well until George’s mother died suddenly
that July, suspending the sessions. Progress was slowed further when
George, a perfectionist in his own way, insisted on retake after retake of
small instrumental details; Spector, a big-picture visionary, grew bored
and, in breach of his long-maintained studio self-discipline, started hitting
the brandy bottle, eventually flying home early. It was the start of the
producer’s long slide into self-destruction. But he was not alone. Eric
Clapton was introduced to heroin during the sessions by a drug dealer
who regularly supplied cocaine to musicians at the sessions, including
George—perhaps helping explain the project’s runaway self-indulgence.
By the time the All Things Must Pass sessions were over, George had no
fewer than twenty-three tracks in the can and asked why stop at a single
album? Why not a double? In fact, since George and his fellow musicians had
found themselves jamming away after hours, Delaney & Bonnie-style, and
coming up with loose-knit but funky music that chimed with the marijuana-
scented, easy-going mood of the times, why even stop at a double? Capitol in
America and EMI in the rest of the world were hesitant to release a three-
disc box set onto the market, even one by a Beatle. But George insisted and
the labels were rewarded with number-one chart positions around the world
for the first-ever triple album by a solo artist.

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 Above: George Harrison, cap on
head and books in hand, walking
to record All Things Must Pass.

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 Above: George Harrison sitting
peacefully in the grounds of his
home, Friar Park.

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 Ounce for ounce (literally), the first Christmas since
lt would be a long time the Beatles officially broke up found George by far

before Harrison would

the most successful former Fab Four. For George, this
was added vindication, since so many of his songs

wax nostalgic about

had been Beatles’ rejects, including not only the 1966
compositions but also the title track, “Hear Me Lord”
the Beatles.
and “Let It Down.” A song he wrote in fury during his
brief flounce from the Beatles in January 1969, “Wah-
Wah,” like “I Me Mine” on Let It Be, vented George’s
frustration with the group. It would be a long time before he would wax even slightly nostalgic
about “When We Was Fab.”
Among the more upbeat numbers were the glorious white gospel “Awaiting on You All,”
which rejects the Catholicism of his Liverpool upbringing, and “What Is Life,” a Motown/
rock hybrid like “Keep on Running,” a hit four years earlier for the Spencer Davis Group, of
which Steve Winwood, later of Blind Faith, had been singer. It was an era of borrowings.
And then there was the hauntingly beautiful “Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Roll),” a
cryptic song unless one happened to know that George and Pattie had just moved to Friar
Park, a magnificent Gothic pile near Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, which had been built
by the Victorian eccentric lawyer, horticulturalist, and “microscopist” Sir Frankie Crisp, who
would become a posthumous inspiration to George. Featuring a formal garden of twelve
acres surrounded by twenty more acres, the grounds boasted secret passageways, two lakes
connected by a series of grottoes, an alpine garden, and a maze. The house had twenty-five
bedrooms, a ballroom, and a library. Its electric light switches made in the form of smiling
friars’ faces were just one oddball touch that thrilled the new owner. Others included lounging
supersized garden gnomes with which George was photographed on the album cover, heavily
bearded and dressed to do the yard work.
The second track on the album was “My Sweet Lord,” which, released as a single, shot to
the top of charts all over the world. One of those songs that define an era, it was not only a
worldwide smash but a legal time bomb. But when it went off, George would not
allow himself to be distracted for long.
He had a matter of life and death with which to contend.

Right: Released in 1971, “What Is Life/

Apple Scruffs” was the second U.S.
single from All Things Must Pass. You
can just make out George on the
cover, playing his guitar in the tower
window of Friar Park.

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 Chapter 3
No Good Deed Goes
Unpunished

“It was nerve-wracking. I had always

been one of the back-room boys.”
—George Harrison

Left: George Harrison with close friend

and confidante, Ravi Shankar, privately
consulting at a press conference
promoting the Festival of Indian Arts
held in London.

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 Above: A sight in Right: (left) The single album
white! George Harrison cover for Bangla Desh and (right)
performing live at the the cover for the The Concert for
Concert for Bangla Desh Bangla Desh recorded in New
in New York’s Madison York City at the Madison Square
Square Garden. Garden concert.

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 T
wo weeks before the release of All Things Must Pass,
on November 12, 1970, the deadliest tropical cyclone ever
recorded struck the Ganges Delta. As many as half a million
people lost their lives in the storm surge and subsequent
starvation as crops were lost to the floodwaters. West Bengal
in India was badly affected, but its neighbor, East Pakistan, was
devastated. A province of Pakistan, it was geographically separated
from that country by a thousand miles of Indian territory—twice
the distance separating Alaska and Washington state. When, after
decades of neglecting East Pakistan, the Pakistani government
bungled the relief effort, what had been a separatist movement
went for broke, triggering what became known as the Bangladesh
Liberation War. During 1971, the Pakistani Army compounded
the disaster when their atrocities against civilians added to the vast
crowds of refugees. Although an Indian, Ravi Shankar, the master
sitarist and mentor to George Harrison, was a native of the Ganges
and desperately wanted to help his fellow Bengalis on the other side of
the border. Above: An advertisement
The need for relief was enormous and urgent, and Shankar knew that in Billboard magazine for
Harrison’s Bangla Desh.
any money he and his fellow classical Indian musicians could raise in a
benefit concert would make little difference, so he asked his friend George,
the former Beatle flying high on the back of “My Sweet Lord” and All
Things Must Pass, for help.
“Really, it was Ravi Shankar’s idea,” George told a press conference in
July 1971. “He was telling me about his concern and asking me if I had
any suggestions. Then after an hour he talked me into being on the show.
It was a question of phoning the friends that I knew and seeing who was
available to turn up. I spent June and half of July just telephoning people.”
George also recorded a benefit single, “Bangla Desh,” which climbed
charts around the world as part of a groundbreaking event: the first-ever
all-star rock ’n’ roll benefit concert, with its spinoff album and concert film.
Actually, The Concert for Bangla Desh comprised two shows taking
place at noon and in the evening on Sunday, August 1, 1971, before a Overleaf: George Harrison
total audience of 40,000 at New York City’s Madison Square Garden. and Bob Dylan performing
live in front of 20,000 people
Among the first friends George called were his fellow former Beatles. at the Concert for Bangla
Ringo agreed right away, but, nervous about playing an entire set before Desh held in New York’s
a live audience for the first time in five years, he asked to double up with Madison Square Garden on
August 1, 1971.
another drummer, so Jim Keltner, go-to guy for a generation of superstar

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 rockers, sat alongside him. Paul declined because he was trying to put some distance between
himself and the other former Fabs, while John claimed that he could not juggle his other
commitments to make it work (years later it emerged that John pulled out when George
vetoed Yoko appearing alongside him; John subsequently made cutting public remarks about
George’s narrow-mindedness and keen interest in money despite his antimaterialistic songs
and pronouncements).
Even so, Ravi Shankar, Eric Clapton, Billy Preston, and Leon Russell (hugely popular,
thanks to his tour with Joe Cocker the previous year) were charismatic costars. But George’s
trump card was his friend Bob Dylan, who treated the crowd to powerful performances of
some of his most popular songs, with George memorably playing electric guitar fills on a
superb “Just Like a Woman.” It was George’s show, though, and he adroitly mixed songs
from All Things Must Pass with his highlights from the Beatles’ last years: “While My Guitar
Gently Weeps,” “Here Comes the Sun,” and “Something.” Dapper in white suit, boots, and
orange Western shirt, yet furrow-browed with an untamed beard and the prophetic intensity
of a medieval saint, he pulled off the difficult task of wowing the crowd while never losing
sight of the reason they were all there in the first place. A superstar in deadly earnest, his
exuberant costars and sensational band making up for his limitations as a singer (he had, after
all, only the third-best voice in the Beatles), George set the template for how the public would
think of him from thereon in.

Show Me the Money

It was a triumph with a bitter aftermath. All the musicians had played for free, some even canceling
paying gigs to be there. Their generosity would not be matched by the record distributors and
retailers, the taxman, or even Apple boss and George’s business manager Allen Klein (though this
only came to light later). Just as the Bangla Desh benefit brought out the best in the musicians, it
brought out the worst in the music industry and the money men. The concert raised $243,418.50,
which was given to UNICEF to administer, but that amount was expected to be dwarfed by
revenue from boxed triple live album (as recorded by Phil Spector) and movie ticket sales.
First, the distributors, chiefly Capitol in the United States, wanted a big slice of every sale;
George went public with the issue to embarrass them into climbing down a little. Then record

Right: George Harrison and Ravi

Shankar appeared on The Dick
Cavett Show on January 1, 1972 in
an effort to hasten the album release
of The Concert for Bangla Desh.

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 retailers were reluctant to stock a live triple album on which they’d earn only $1.50 per sale.
Again George overcame his distaste for publicity and found himself on The Dick Cavett Show “to
try and speed the release of the album because people were arguing over nickels. And so I had to
go and shout on TV. And the next day the album was ready to go—they all solved the problem.”
Finally, when Apple Corps was accused of skimming off a profit, they were only recovering
their advertising and production costs, according to Klein, who also managed George’s
business affairs, as well as John’s and Ringo’s (but not Paul’s, with an acrimonious legal dispute
the result). Sharp-eyed accountant though he was, Klein failed in one vital duty: to claim tax-
exempt status for the benefit and its spinoffs. As a result, millions of dollars were tied up in
escrow for eleven years while the dispute raged between George and the IRS; in the U.K.,
after two years of fighting his corner, George had no choice but to write a personal check for
a million pounds to Her Majesty’s Inland Revenue on income he’d donated straight to charity.
And if all that wasn’t bad enough, Klein outdid himself when he was jailed in 1979 for
income tax evasion after illegally selling $216,000 worth of promotional copies of the album.
For George, the whole experience was proof of the maxim that no good deed goes
unpunished. Nor was the fallout from The Concert for Bangla Desh the worst that the material
world would throw at him, as 1971 turned into 1972.

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 Chapter 4
Materially Yours

“Fame is not the goal. Money is not

the goal. Peace of mind you don’t just
stumble across. You’ve got to search.”
—George Harrison

Right: George Harrison with close

friend and confidante, Ravi Shankar,
privately consulting at a press
conference promoting the Festival of
Indian Arts held in London.

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 S
ince February 1971, Paul had been fighting in court for release
from the Beatles’ business partnership, effectively suing the other
three. Public remarks and courtroom testimony grew increasingly
acrimonious, with John and Paul in particular waging a vicious
George withdrew propaganda war against each other.
But as 1972 dawned, both John and George came to realize that Allen
into a dark and Klein was not all that he seemed. George had been disaffected by the tax
fiasco surrounding the proceeds from The Concert for Bangla Desh, and,
uncommunicative worse still, suggestions that Klein’s management company, ABKCO, had
been skimming the profits. That May, when Klein’s management contract
mood. came up for renewal, George—like John and Ringo—would only renew
for three months at a time. In response to Paul’s court case against his
partners in Apple and the Beatles, George had coined the phrase “sue
me, sue you blues” and now had written a song with that title, grafting
bottleneck blues guitar onto a gloomily wry do-si-do structure.

Dark Times
George was also fighting on another legal front. Shortly after “My Sweet
Lord” hit the top of the charts, Bright Tunes, the company that controlled
the copyright of “He’s So Fine,” written by the late Ronnie Mack, filed
a suit against George, his English and American publishing companies
(Harrisongs), Apple Records, BMI, and the publishers that released sheet
music for “My Sweet Lord.” In response, Allen Klein met with Bright
Tunes’ president and major stockholder to try to resolve the dispute. After
negotiations broke down, Bright Tunes went bust and George dropped
Klein from his management.
But it was not over. It was, in fact, very, very far from over.
George, of course, did not know in early 1972 that the copyright
infringement case would drag on for twenty years and that he would be
betrayed by his ex-manager, that disentangling the Beatles would continue
to prove such a legal ordeal, or that so much of the money raised by The

Left: Album cover and promotional advertisement for Living in the Material
World. The bottom ad features photographs of the auras of George’s
hands. The album cover features (left to right) Ringo Starr, Jim Horn, Klaus
Voormann, George Harrison, Nicky Hopkins, Jim Keltner, and Gary Wright’s
face pasted over the body of attorney, Abe Sommers. Abe stepped in for
Gary, who couldn’t make the photo session.

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 “
Once l chanted
Concert for Bangla Desh would not go to disaster relief rather to the
taxman, the record industry, and his manager. But it was as if he felt a
the Hare Krishna
presentiment.
Distracted on three legal fronts from both his music and his spiritual
mantra all the growth, George despaired of the material world and withdrew into a dark
and uncommunicative mood in which he did little but mutter his mantra
way from France “Gopala Krishna, Om Hari Om” for comfort. “Once I chanted the Hare
Krishna mantra all the way from France to Portugal, nonstop,” he said in
to Portugal, 1982. “I drove for twenty-three hours and chanted all the way. It gets you
” feeling a bit invincible. The word ‘Hare’ is the word that calls upon the
nonstop. energy that’s around the Lord. If you say the mantra enough, you build up

—George Harrison
an identification with God. God’s all happiness, all bliss, and by chanting
His names we connect with Him.”
At last, George’s muse stirred, and in October 1972 George set to work
on the follow-up to All Things Must Pass. It would be an even more Krishna-
suffused record than its predecessor, but otherwise gathered together many
of the same musicians, including drummers Ringo and Jim Keltner, bassist
Klaus Voormann, and pianists Gary Wright and Nicky Hopkins (on whose
album, The Tin Man Was a Dreamer, George played guitar during weekend
sessions while cutting his own album during the week).
John Barham again crafted subtly lush arrangements, but Phil Spector’s
only credit came for production on the backing track of “Try Some Buy
Some,” written by George for Spector’s wife Ronnie of the Ronettes’ fame.
Recorded in 1971, it was exhumed for 1973 release minus Ronnie but with
George dubbing in his vocal.

Holding His Own

Spector’s near absence wasn’t the only downsizing since All Things Must
Pass. “Try Some Buy Some” aside, George had no backlog to draw upon,
and so with only ten compositions written since 1971 making the cut, it

Above: Nicky Hopkins circa 1970.

Hopkins was a frequent contributor
to Harrison’s albums, and George,
in turn, played guitar on his album
The Tin Man Was a Dreamer.

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 was clear that he would not match John or Paul
for productivity.
Mostly recorded at George’s home studio in
Friar Park, the new album, entitled Living in the
Material World, was a treat for the ears, with the
melodies and musicianship upstaging George
the lead singer and lyricist. Unlike John and
Paul, George’s voice was always reedy and often
indistinct, so it was easy to ignore the verses
even if George, an old-school pop tunesmith to
his marrow, worked hard to ensure the choruses
of “Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long,” “The Day
the World Gets ’Round,” and “Who Can See
It” caught the ear with their deep and delicious
emotion. The single that preceded the album, “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth),” was
sprightly but lightweight, and it went to number one in America, knocking Paul’s “My Love”
from the summit (the only time two ex-Beatles occupied the top two places on the singles
chart). Though an attentive listen revealed how preachy George could be on the album, he
caught a public mood that craved an echo of 1960s idealism as America was gripped by the
cynicism revealed in the Watergate hearings. Its title track, nodding almost nostalgically to
“John and Paul” and “Richie” (who, with George, had “got caught up in the material world”),
Living in the Material World went to number one in the U.S. and did well in other charts.
Unlike All Things Must Pass, though, it soon slipped from the charts and enduring public
favor until its 2006 reissue.
Even so, three years into his solo career, George was more than holding his own as the
commercial equal of his old rivals John and Paul and, without qualification, was perhaps more
loved and respected as a human being than either of the others.
Pictured on the inner sleeve of Living in the Material World enjoying an alfresco vegetarian
banquet with his bandmates on the lawn of Friar Park (with his mansion, Mercedes 600
Pullman, and chauffeur in the background), George looked like he had reconciled the fruits
of the material world with his deeper spiritual quest. But behind the scenes, all was not well.

Above: Klaus Voorman playing bass in the recording studio on “BB King
In London” album. Voorman lived briefly with Harrison and Starr in their
London flat, played bass on several albums from George, John, and
Ringo during their solo careers, and he designed the Beatles’ Anthology
albums in the 1990s, having designed the cover of Revolver in 1966.

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 40

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 41

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 Chapter 5
Dark Hoarse

“I’m a grain of dirt, and I feel great.”

—George Harrison

Left: Harrison performing on stage

during his North American tour
at Maryland’s Capitol Center on
December 13, 1974.

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 G
eorge’s friend Eric Clapton had been nursing a growing
obsession with George’s wife, Pattie, since he was struck
by her beauty upon their first meeting in 1968. For all the
musical and spiritual freedom George craved, he was an old-
fashioned husband who quashed Pattie’s modeling career. And despite the
balm of meditation into which he increasingly withdrew after 1968, he
could be a moody and distant partner. One, too, with a roving eye, justified
in his own mind, according to Pattie’s memoirs, “by the god Krishna who
was always surrounded by young maidens.” After his return from India
in 1968, Pattie wrote that, George yearned to be “some kind of Krishna
figure, a spiritual being with lots of concubines. He actually said so.”

Friends and Lovers

Despite the love George expressed for Pattie in “Something,” his first and
only Beatles’ A-side single, by the following year of 1970, Pattie felt free to
respond to Eric’s flirtations, inspiring the guitar legend to write his own
classic rock hit in her honor, “Layla.” Eric confessed all to George, whose
response was to half laugh it off, then encourage Eric to clear his path to
Pattie’s younger sister, Paula. George was not to get his wicked way with
Paula, however; that privilege fell to Eric.
To Pattie, the whole situation was intolerable, but while she set off
determined to remain true to George, over time her resolve was melted by
Eric’s unflagging attentions, despite his long lapse into alcohol and heroin
addiction. After all, her own lifestyle with George in the early 1970s was
Below: While his marriage on the slide. Friar Park was a “madhouse,” she confessed in her memoirs,
was falling apart, George with their lives “fueled by alcohol and cocaine.” George, she wrote, used
threw himself into his work
and started his Dark Horse cocaine “excessively and I think it changed him.”
Records label so he could By the summer of 1974, Eric was relatively clean and, hearing that
record and produce. George and Pattie no longer kept up the pretense of togetherness—not

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 Above: Eric Clapton and Pattie
Boyd. While married to Harrison,
Boyd was the inspiration for
Clapton’s “Layla” and, later,
“Wonderful Tonight.”

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 "’
l d rather she

was with him

"
than some dope.

—George Harrison

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 least thanks to George’s open affair with Ringo’s wife, Maureen, which,
after the shock to the drummer wore off, did not end the two former
Fabs’ friendship—he made his move. Pattie moved in with Eric, divorcing
George. (Clapton’s subsequent marriage to Pattie inspired yet another
classic, “Wonderful Tonight.”)

Full Speed Ahead Below: (Top) This

While all this was going on in the background, George was throwing advertisement ran in
Billboard magazine in 1974
himself into his work. As far as he was concerned, Apple was over, and he for Dark Horse Records.
was itching to leave EMI/Capitol. He was eager to set out not only as a (Bottom) The album cover
recording artist but as a producer of other artists’ records on a new label for Dark Horse which
released in December
he would call Dark Horse Records, the moniker often used to describe his 1974.
place in the Beatles’ line-up. His old mentor Ravi Shankar was the first
artist to benefit, when George produced his album Shankar Family and
Friends, a fusion work of Krishna bhajans, jazz (featuring hotshot L.A.
saxophonist Tom Scott), gospel (Billy Preston also guested), and rock (as
did Ringo). “I Am Missing You,” featuring all three plus George, Ravi,
and the Indian classical vocalist Lakshmi Shankar (no relation), was a
glorious highlight.
While recording Shankar Family and Friends in Los Angeles, George also
negotiated a distribution deal for his Dark Horse label with Herb Alpert
and Jerry Moss’s A&M Records, who hired as George’s secretary a super-
efficient and pretty twenty-seven-year-old Mexican-American named
Olivia Arias. In L.A. George had time to visit Ringo in the studio, where
the drummer was cutting his self-titled album. George wrote three songs
for Ringo, including the sumptuous “Photograph,” which would
give George the songwriter his second U.S. number one of 1973.
Back home in the U.K., George got wind of a soft-rock duo
called Splinter managed by former Beatles’ roadie Mal Evans.
Hearing them as a new Badfinger, George signed them to

Left: Eric Clapton and girlfriend,

Pattie Boyd, in April 1975 at the
premiere of the rock musical film,
“Tommy,” in London’s Leicester
Square.

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 Dark Horse, brought them to London, and threw “
After l split up from
himself wholeheartedly into arranging, producing,
and playing guitar on their album, The Place I Love. Pattie, l went on a bit
Painstakingly recorded over a period of months at
"
Friar Park, the album is a lost minor classic of the era, of a bender.
full of Beatleslike touches such as the “Hey Jude”–style
fade-out to “Somebody’s City.” —George Harrison
All the activity getting Dark Horse Records and its
artists off to a flying start left George little time to
write, let alone record, his own music. Worse, he had given himself a deadline by agreeing
to join Ravi Shankar and his Indian classical orchestra in a full-blown North American tour
scheduled for the late fall of 1974.
Though they had been growing apart for years, George could not help but respond to the end
of his ten-year relationship with Pattie, singing of his loneliness and lack of tenderness in the
disheartening song, “So Sad.” The words here were typical of the disheartened–and –disheartening–
lyrics. Conversely, George was in a cringingly comic mood for his rewrite of the Everly Brothers’
1957 classic “Bye Bye Love,” when he describes “our lady” going by with “you-know-who.”
Bizarrely, perhaps, Eric played on the sessions that were rushed through in September and
October 1974 for release as Dark Horse during George’s first and last solo North American
tour scheduled to start that November. “Eric Clapton’s been a close friend for years,” George
explained when questioned about his wife leaving him for the guitarist. “I’m very happy about
it. I’m still very friendly with him. I’d rather she was with him than with some dope.”
Indeed, the two would remain friends and, years later, even tour together. In his memoirs,
Eric described their “competitive and edgy” relationship as “a cagey brotherliness,” with
George “the elder brother” who usually had “the last word.”
On the eve of the sessions for his new album, a stressed-out George caught laryngitis, a
situation compounded by songs that were of a rushed and patchy quality, uncharacteristically
self-revealing about his personal life. “After I split up from Pattie,” George explained, “I went
on a bit of a bender. If you listen to ‘Simply Shady’ on Dark Horse, it’s all in there . . . I could
put back a bottle of brandy occasionally, plus all the other naughty things that fly around.”
But the songs were sour-sounding, too. This was not what George’s fans wanted.

Right: Harrison performing live on

stage during the Dark Horse tour.

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 ’
George s
Nor did they want the Ravi Shankar Orchestra providing not only
the opening set but also interlude music during George’s headline

honeymoon
set when he hit the road “already exhausted,” as he later admitted,
from the year’s workload. Worse, though propped up onstage

with the public

by Billy Preston’s energy and good humor, George was not a
commanding front man. His voice, shot from laryngitis and abuse,
almost vanished some nights. Dubbing it the “Dark Hoarse” tour, was over.
critics were not kind. And when the crowds grew sullen, restive,
and reluctant to chant “Hare, hare” on demand, George would
lecture them from the stage.
Dark Horse failed to sell anything like Living in the Material World, much less All Things Must
Pass, and not every house was full, even though by the tour’s end on December 20 at Madison
Square Garden, it had grossed a respectable $4 million.
Like his marriage, George’s 1970s honeymoon with the public was over. He returned to
Friar Park with his new girlfriend, Olivia Arias, to work out his next move.
At the start of 1975, George was in worse shape than he realized. He was also making no
attempt to curb the excesses that had helped knock the halo off his public standing via their
negative impact on the Dark Horse album and tour.
While the tour, if not that album, had been undertaken for noble reasons, what George did
next smacked of expediency contrary to his talent and dismissive of his fans. He knew that
A&M would only get their full marketing and distribution muscle behind Dark Horse Records
once George started to release his own records on the label, but he was still under contract
to Apple (released by EMI/Capitol) for one more album. When Dark Horse Records’ duo
Splinter had to pull out of recording sessions at A&M’s L.A. studios due to illness, rather than
pay cancellation fees, George booked himself into the studios in their stead to fulfill his final
contractual obligation to Apple.
What emerged was a typical mid-1970s L.A. album: mellow, self-indulgent, and as uninspired
as most coke-fueled projects. Even the joke of the album title, Extra Texture (Read All About It),
and sleeve (textured cardstock) were fussy rather than funny; the chewed apple core logo on the
album’s label at least had the ring of bitter truth. Though the sound is consistent, with George
utilizing synthesizers with far greater proficiency than in 1969, the songs are a mixed bag: the
self-pity of “This Guitar (Can’t Keep from Crying)”; the affectingly sincere synth-soul tribute to

Left: George Harrison and future

wife, Olivia Arias.

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 Motown singer-songwriter Smokey Robinson, “Ooh Baby (You Know That
I Love You)”; another Sir Frankie Crisp–inspired song, “The Answer’s at the
End” (which got its title from a legend Crisp had left on a wall at Friar Park );
“You” (another 1971 backing track intended for Ronnie Spector, disinterred
here with a fresh George vocal); and the wry ennui of “Tired of Midnight
Blue.” Notably absent were songs that reflected George’s Krishna faith.

A Big Joke
At the end of an album that George himself later described as his worst is a
throwaway among throwaways: “His Name Is Legs (Ladies and Gentlemen)”
features the vocal japes of “Legs” Larry Smith of the surreal English comedy-
rock Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, who had appeared in the Beatles’ TV movie
Magical Mystery Tour.
Smith’s fellow Bonzo, Neil Innes, had gone on to link up in the British
TV comedy series “Rutland Weekend Television” with Eric Idle of the
hugely successful (as well as surreal and satirical) TV and movie team
Monty Python’s Flying Circus. “After the Beatles, Monty Python was my
favorite thing,” said George, who shared his love of the show with Elvis
Presley and John Lennon. “[T]hey were the only ones who could see that
everything was a big joke.” That December of 1975, George surprised
“Rutland Weekend Television” viewers (and obliged his friend Eric Idle)
by appearing peg-legged and parrot-shouldered to sing “The Pirate Song.”
Shading even John as the wittiest Moptop at mid-1960s press conferences,
George was never so down that joking failed to cheer him up. What not
even George could have foreseen back in 1975 was that surreal English
comedy would provide him with a new career.

Right: From left to right, Olivia Arias,

George Harrison, Eric Idle, and Terry
Gilliam at the premiere of Monty Python
and the Holy Grail in July of 1975.

Left: Album cover and promotional

postcard for Harrison’s album,
Extra Texture. Though the album’s
performance was a disappointment, it
still sold over 500,000 units.

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 53

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 Chapter 6
In Sickness and
in Health

“Between rock ‘n’ roll and the straight

life, I think I’ve found the balance.”
—George Harrison

Right: George Harrison

performing with Paul Simon on
Saturday Night Live in 1976.

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 I
n 1976, five years after the original suit, “He’s So Fine” copyright-holder Bright Tunes
was reconstituted to fight its case against George for copyright infringement with “My
Sweet Lord.” Shortly before the case went to court, George made a settlement offer that
Bright Tunes accepted. Then, mysteriously, Bright Tunes changed its mind, and made a
counter-demand for 75 percent of the worldwide receipts and surrender of copyright.
What George did not know was that Allen Klein, no longer representing him or any other
former Beatle, had secretly entered into negotiations to buy Bright Tunes and furnished them
with inside information about earnings from “My Sweet Lord.” Klein stood to gain hugely if
George lost the case or was pressured into making a large settlement before going to trial.
Reeling from the injustice of Bright Tunes’ outrageous new demand, George chose to go to
trial—a “nightmarish” week-long ordeal in New York for the Quiet One who had to stand in
the witness box with his guitar to explain and demonstrate how he wrote the song. The trial
became a battle of rival musicologists. The essence of Bright Tunes’ case was that two key
melodic phrases in “He’s So Fine,” which recurred in “My Sweet Lord,” were so unusual that
there could be no argument that George did not plagiarize them, at least subconsciously. The
judge agreed, and found in favor of Bright Tunes.
Then things got really complicated. The judge had to decide how much money to award
Bright Tunes. Bright Tunes not only claimed damages based on what “My Sweet Lord” earned
as a single, but also as the most popular track on the hugely successful All Things Must Pass
and on the EMI/Capitol compilation album The Best of George Harrison. The judge, having
decided that one-quarter of the success of “My Sweet Lord” could be attributed to George’s
Beatle- appeal and lyrics, after much toing and froing with various sets of accounts, arrived at
a very precise figure: $1,599,987.

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 At which point Bright Tunes sold its rights to “He’s So Fine” to Allen Klein’s ABKCO.
The blinders fell from George’s eyes about what had been going on. Having initially been
inclined to accept the judge’s decision, he changed his mind on the grounds that the decision
amounted to an ill-gotten gain. By then, the case had dragged on to February 1981—a decade
after Bright Tunes originally filed the suit.
The district judge agreed with George that Klein was not entitled to profit from his purchase
of Bright Tunes’ rights in “He’s So Fine” and ordered him to hold those rights in trust for
George, to be transferred to him upon payment of $587,000—the sum Klein had paid for the
song’s rights. It wasn’t over, however. Lawyers wrangled about exactly what rights Klein had
bought, as well as various accounting issues. The case went back to court in 1991—twenty
years after the suit was first filed—where the deal was tweaked, but not by much.
Back in 1976, when George knew he’d lost the case but had no idea what a long legal road
lay ahead, he rued whatever mental block had got him into this expensive, stressful, and time-
consuming mess. In his 1980 memoirs, I Me Mine, he reflected that only when “My Sweet
Lord” was released as a single, provoking comment on its likeness to “He’s So Fine,” did the
similarity occur to him. “Why didn’t I realize?” he wrote. “It would have been very easy to
change a note here or there, and not affect the feeling of the record.”

Laughter and Love

In response to losing the case, George wrote “This Song” as “a bit of light comedy relief ”
and to “exorcize the paranoia about songwriting that had started to build up in me.” Brassy
and upbeat like an updated “Savoy Truffle,” the track featured Eric Idle on vocal interjections.
The Python stalwart also directed the promotional video, set in a courtroom and featuring
several of George’s cronies in cameo roles, including drummer Jim Keltner as the gavel-
beating judge and, in drag, Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood (who’d had an affair with Pattie in
1973). Equally good-humored and even zanier, “Crackerbox Palace” was inspired by Lord
Buckley’s L.A. mansion, but, as was made clear in Eric Idle’s promo video, George was really

Right: George had no idea that when

the lawsuit was filed against him for “My
Sweet Lord,” the case would continue for
the next twenty years.

Left: George promoting his album,

Thirty-Three & 1/3 at Henley-on-
Thames, inside his Berkshire home.

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 thinking of Friar Park peopled by buddies and friends goofing off, including his soon-to-be
wife Olivia in black basque, stockings, and garters.
George had his groove back. Seeing him having so much fun in these videos and enjoying
his confident, if not quite classic, new album Thirty-Three & 1/3 (after both the number of
revolutions per minute of vinyl long-players and his age when he recorded it), one would
never suspect that after starting work on it in the humiliating aftermath of the Bright Tunes
court case, things had only gotten worse for George.
Due to deliver his debut Dark Horse album to A&M on June 25, 1976, George’s chronic ill
health, after months of failed alternative remedies, was diagnosed as hepatitis, and he was only
able to start recording sessions in late May. George would not be rushed, but he failed to explain
his problem to A&M. Tired of waiting, and by no means convinced that a new George Harrison
album would add up to a goldmine, A&M prepared in September to sue him for late delivery.
The recording deal was abruptly terminated on both sides, and George promptly signed both
himself and Dark Horse Records (which George was winding down, disillusioned by the
demands of some of its artists who were “never satisfied”) over to the supercool Warner Bros.
Records, which was headed up by the visionary Mo Ostin and his team of producers devoted to
bringing out the best in maverick artists.
Even though Thirty-Three & 1/3 did not chart as highly as its two predecessors, it sold
more copies over the long term. Like Extra Texture, a Krishna-free zone, Thirty-Three & 1/3’s
standouts included Cole Porter’s “True Love,” which swung deliciously, showcasing George’s
slinkiest slide playing and foreshadowing the Traveling Wilburys, while “Pure Smokey” was
the soul fan George’s second and best tribute to the Motown legend. But perhaps best of all
was “Learning How to Love You,” a delicately serpentine melody full of tender yearning. It
was a song from the heart. Early in 1978 Olivia Arias confirmed she was pregnant and on
August 1 gave birth to a boy, Dhani (Sanskrit for “wealthy”). The couple married one month
later in a small, private ceremony, keeping with the sadness the family still felt after the
smoking-related death of George’s father that May.
These were huge changes for George. And professionally his focus was changing, too. For
almost the next decade music would come second to movies.

Right: George gets playful promoting Thirty-Three &

1/3 (with the help of Python, Eric Idle) at Henley-on-
Thames, near his Berkshire home.

Left: Album cover for Thirty-Three & 1/3, though not a

chart-topper, it sold more copies over the long term
than his previous two albums.

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 59

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 Chapter 7
He’s Not the Messiah. He’s a
Very Naughty Boy!

“Sometimes I feel like I’m on the wrong

planet. What the hell am I doing here?”
—George Harrison

Left: A photo still from Monty Python’s

Life of Brian (1979). George Harrison had
an uncredited cameo in the film as Mr.
Papadopoulos. John Cleese is on the right;
Eric Idle is on the left.

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 B
ack on the “Dark Hoarse” tour, George had booked his New
York hotel suite in the name of “Jack Lumber” in tribute to “The
Lumberjack Song,” a musical skit from “Monty Python’s Flying
Circus.” Though the TV show had come to an end, the Python team
continued making movies while enjoying solo projects—a semidetached
afterlife the Beatles could have had. George was aware of the parallel and
felt an affinity. He’d played a cameo in his Python pal Eric Idle’s “Rutland
Weekend Television” show, and when that show developed a parody of the
Beatles called the Rutles, George not only was far from offended, but eager
to help.
“I loved the Rutles because the Beatles for the Beatles is just tiresome,”
George said. “It needs to be deflated a bit, and I loved . . . the Rutles taking
Below: The Rutles with their that burden off us.” George supplied Idle with loads of unseen Beatles
epic hit video, “All You Need footage for his guidance in writing a spoof TV documentary, entitled “All
is Cash.”
You Need Is Cash,” broadcast in the U.S. in March 1978. Among
appearances by Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray, and John Belushi,
George happily played a cameo as a TV news interviewer.

The Monty Python Savior

George got even deeper into the Python connection when the
financial plug was pulled at the last minute for their forthcoming
feature film, Monty Python’s Life of Brian. When the backers got
around to reading the script they realized the movie, which parodied
the biblical life of Jesus, would be too hot to handle. Almost on a
whim—“I wanted to see the movie”—George offered to save the
project with fresh finance, which he arranged with Denis O’Brien,
who had replaced Allen Klein as his business manager. Forming a

Left: The HandMade Films label.

Harrison started the label to finance
Monty Python’s Life of Brian when
the original backers pulled out.

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 Above: The music. The drama.
The Rutles. (Left to right: Neil Innes
(Nasty), Ricky Fataar (Stig), Eric Idle
(Dirk), and John Halsey (Barry).

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 movie production company called HandMade Films, George mortgaged
Friar Park to raise the $6 million production budget.
Monty Python’s Life of Brian—in which executive producer George had
a line in a crowd scene—was just as controversial as its original backer
feared, but the movie returned $20 million on George’s investment. George
was thrilled, and over the next dozen years he went on to finance nineteen
movies, mostly Python and spinoff projects, but also The Long Good Friday,
Mona Lisa, and Withnail and I, among a run of acclaimed hits. Without
the pressure of the spotlight and at one remove, George had found a new
outlet for his creativity, one that offered him fresh challenges—unlike
music. “The novelty’s worn off,” he told journalist Mick Brown. “Most of
my ego desires as far as being famous and successful were fulfilled a long
time ago. . . . I still enjoy writing a tune and enjoy in a way making
a record . . . but I hate having to compete and promote
the thing.”
Happy to be surrounded by musician friends
and simpatico producers, this period of George’s
musical career is often unjustly overlooked. Having
not only neglected his songwriting but also cheerfully lost touch with
what was going on in the music scene in 1977 (“I was ‘skiving’, as the
English say”), George was reinspired indirectly through his new hobby:
closely following Formula 1 racing. Chatting to Niki Lauda, the Austrian
F1 world champion who had returned to the circuit just six weeks after
sustaining severe facial burns in a collision at the 1976 German Grand
Prix, George noted that Lauda “was saying how he just likes to go home
and relax and play some nice music . . . maybe I can write a song that Niki
on his day off may enjoy.”
Forfeiting the producer’s chair (“It’s hard for an artist to be in the booth
and in the studio”) to Warner Bros. staff producer Russ Titelman, whose
work with Ry Cooder George enjoyed, George conjured a set of new
songs of a quality to match those on Thirty-Three & 1/3 and revived “Not

Left: Harrison making a Right: A beaming George is next to

music video for his single, British motorcycle champion Barry
“Blow Away,” in 1978. Sheene (1950—2003) on April 25, 1978
at Brands Hatch track where he is
driving his first Formula One racecar.

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 Guilty,” the 1968 Beatles’ reject that rebuked John and Paul. Titelman
fashioned a sound at once true to the mostly romantic and reflective
songs—“Here Comes the Moon” and the upbeat “Blow Away” and “If You
Believe” are highlights—yet tastefully contemporary, too. Stellar guests at
the sessions in George’s home studio at Friar Park included Eric Clapton,
now married to George’s ex, Pattie, old pal keyboardists Gary Wright
and Steve Winwood, and the crack rhythm section of Andy Newmark on
drums and Willie Weeks on bass.
Though matching its predecessor in quality and instant appeal, the self-
titled album George Harrison failed to match its international sales, despite
going gold (500,000 sales) in the loyal U.S. Enjoying domestic bliss—
gardening was a growing obsession—and fascinated by the learning curve
of movie production, George did virtually no promotion—and very few
albums go out and sell themselves, even those by ex-Beatles.
Where George Harrison was all smooth sailing and a joyful reflection of
George’s relaxed peace of mind, its successor would suffer from Warner
Bros.’ anxiety to do better commercially. Also affecting the outcome was
John’s murder, which occurred during the sessions. At the time, John was
spurning George’s efforts to get in touch after the older Beatle admitted
to having been hurt when George failed to give him what he
felt to be his due in the younger Beatle’s sketchy book of song
lyrics and memoirs, I Me Mine (1980).

No Way to Treat a Beatle

Retreating yet further from the competitive music industry,
George returned to producing his own songs at a measured
pace, surrounded by his family, house, garden, and friends,
while also becoming popular at The Row Barge pub in
Henley-on-Thames and maintaining an active interest in
HandMade Films.

Above: Album cover for George Harrison LP.

Previous page: George Harrison answers

questions during an intense press conference
in Los Angeles, California (1980).

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 lt was the first time
The album that would be titled Somewhere in England
took around eleven months to record and once again

one of his studio albums

featured a roster of English musician friends who lived
just a drive away from Friar Park, as well as such flown-
failed to go gold.
in U.S. hotshots as Weeks, Newmark, and Tom Scott.
To George’s shock, when he delivered the completed
album that fall of 1980, Warner Bros. rejected it. The
music industry was changing, and hit singles were once more seen as
crucial to marketing albums—and Warners could not hear a hit. They
demanded four new songs (which meant four in the existing track list had
to be dropped), various tweaks on other songs, and new sleeve artwork.
This was no way to treat a Beatle, but George swallowed his pride and
complied, recruiting his friend, the ace percussionist Ray Cooper, as an
extra pair of ears to coproduce the second version of the album.
The discarded tracks and original versions of songs that Warners
rejected have since surfaced, and George’s fans have perhaps sanctified the
album he wanted to release rather than the one Warners finally accepted.
Both are mixed bags, but two songs stand out as deeply felt returns
to singing of his spirituality: “Life Itself ” and the gentle, thoughtful
“Writing’s on the Wall.” What should have been a moving meditation, “Sat
Singing,” was rejected despite its catchiness. Indeed, the songs Warners
rejected were just as commercial as the the substitutes they accepted. Just
as strangely, they were happy to include two cover versions of songs by the
great Hoagy Carmichael despite George, for all his evident love of these
oldies, having little vocal feel for the wry jazz Americana of “Baltimore
Oriole” and “Hong Kong Blues.”
Warners did get their hit. Originally written by George for Ringo to
include on his next album, “All Those Years Ago” was partially recorded
with Ringo on drums. After John was killed, George rewrote the lyrics as a
tribute to John (and a bitter denunciation of his killer and just about anyone
who had ever criticized John). In an emotional reunion, Paul and Linda
McCartney dropped by to sing backing vocals. Released as the first single
from the album in May 1981, “All Those Years Ago” shot to number two in the
U.S., George’s biggest hit in eight years, and Somewhere in England followed
it to number eleven in June. Then sales just as quickly fell away as word got
out that very few songs on the album ranked with George’s best work. It
was his first studio album that failed to go gold in the U.S.

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 ls Anyone Listening?
The downward trend steepened with Gone Troppo, released in November
1982 and again recorded over a period of months with a few big-name
U.S. musicians and a great many congenial British players. The result is a
good-natured but unessential album that feels like the work of a hobbyist
on vacation—its balmy vibe perhaps reflecting the Harrisons’ extended
stays at their homes on Maui and in Australia—than a seriously ambitious
musician. That the best song and most committed performance is a cover
of a 1961 doo-wop hit “I Really Love You” originally recorded by the
Stereos and with Ry Cooder regular Willie Greene Jr. on bass vocals speaks
volumes. That the second best track is “Circles,” a song George demoed for
the Beatles in 1968 but which was never properly recorded on the likely
grounds that it was too close for comfort to “Strawberry Fields Forever,”
is no less telling. Otherwise, fussy early-1980s production (Exhibit A:
the synthesizer-treated vocals of “Baby Don’t Run Away”) does more to
obscure the record’s inherent qualities than disguise its weaknesses.
Dismayed that radio stations were no longer playing his records—a
situation not helped by his refusal to help Warner Bros. promote the album
with interviews and other media appearances—George seemed to retire
from the music industry altogether. He had a house, a garden, a family,
a movie company, and a bunch of good friends (also, it was rumored, a
recurrent drug problem). If people were no longer listening, what had he
to gain in still wanting to be heard?

Left: Album cover for Gone Troppo.

Right: Harrison visiting Olivia Arias

and son, Dhani, in the Princess
Christian Nursing Home in Windsor.

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 Chapter 8
Meet Nelson (and Spike) . . .

“We were going to be The Trembling Wilburys.

Then we sobered up.”
—George Harrison

Left: George performing at the Prince’s

Trust Rock Concert on June 6, 1987.

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 W
hat brought George back to music was, of
all things, the third movie in the Porky’s series,
Porky’s Revenge!, released in 1985. By one of those
movie industry quirks, the job of producing the
soundtrack fell to Welsh rocker Dave Edmunds, who called his
friends—including George, Jeff Beck, Carl Perkins, Willie Nelson,
Robert Plant, Phil Collins, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds—
and assembled a far better soundtrack than the movie deserved.
George’s singularly ill-fitting contribution was “I Don’t Want to Do
It,” a heartfelt song about growing up written but never recorded
by Bob Dylan, who showed it to the Beatle when the two hung out in Woodstock back in 1968.
George had demoed his own version back in 1970 but never attempted a full-blown version
until Dave came calling. It is a great performance of a great song.
Dave wasn’t finished with George. He wanted to honor the rockabilly pioneer Carl Perkins
with a televised all-star tribute. Given that Carl was a formative inspiration to the teenage
George as a guitarist and songwriter, George was delighted to join Eric Clapton, Ringo,
and other stars for the event. Relaxed and in fine voice and a dove-gray suit, George bopped
through “Everybody’s Trying to be my Baby” as if he’d never been away. Reliving his youth
with friends and inspirations, he was in his element.

Primadonna?
The following year, George contributed to another soundtrack for a dubious movie, but this one
was his own: the HandMade production Shanghai Surprise. George contributed two numbers,
the title song and, far better, a rooty-tooty Cab Calloway pastiche titled “The Hottest Gong
in Town” that captures the feeling he’d failed to nail with his two previous Hoagy Carmichael
covers. As the movie’s producer, however, George was horrified by the on-set behavior of its
celebrity couple costars, Madonna and Sean Penn. It can hardly be coincidental that after the
movie bombed, George renewed his interest in making music seriously and competitively.

Above: Album cover for Cloud Nine.

Right: Harrison teams up with

Madonna to publicize their movie,
Shanghai Surprise.

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 Right: From left to right, George
Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Donald “Duck”
Dunn (behind), and Eric Clapton
performing live onstage at the Prince’s
Trust Concert on June 6, 1987.

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 77

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 This time George had a favor to ask of Dave Edmunds: could he get a message to the
publicity-shy songwriter, producer, and leader of Electric Light Orchestra, Jeff Lynne? A
Beatles nut, Lynne had a very commercial production style that favored texture over clutter,
a big beat over complexity, and melody over everything else. Over the course of eighteen
months George and Jeff got to know each other before George popped the question of
whether he would produce the album with which George was determined to break his silence.
Jeff was the producer George had long needed. Though recorded at Friar Park like many of
its predecessors, and with many of the usual suspects (Ringo, Eric Clapton, Jim Keltner, Gary
Wright), Cloud Nine had a chartbound clarity and sense of purpose that had been lacking to a
greater or lesser degree since perhaps even All Things Must Pass.

A Winning Team
Breaking George’s five-year virtual silence when released in November 1987, Cloud Nine’s
songs were, on average, no better than those on, say, George Harrison, but, as recordings,
each had a coherent balance that foregrounded George’s strengths as a singer, guitarist, and
melodist. Though his productions never created the awesome sense of space and drive of
Phil Spector’s, Jeff Lynne was just as geared to making his client’s songs sound big, bold, and
deliciously repeatable on the radio.
Months before its release, the sense that George and Jeff had formed a winning team became
obvious when they offered a stellar performance at The Prince’s Trust All-Star Rock Concert
in London with fellow Cloud Nine sessioneers, including Ringo, Eric Clapton, Elton John, and
Ray Cooper. The first single from Cloud Nine, released in October 1987, was a cover of James
Ray’s “Got My Mind Set on You,” a 1962 R&B record in the Bobby Bland/Sam Cooke style.
The original was a great tune but never a hit, so George would never suffer by comparison
with Ray’s soulful voice. As in the song’s video, George played it affectionately deadpan—and
was rewarded with his first U.S. number-one single since 1973. Throughout
the album, Jeff brought out the wry, loving humor in
George’s singing, even in up-tempo numbers where
his reedy voice might otherwise struggle, such as
“This Is Love” and “Devil’s Radio.” The most touching
song, “Just for Today,” was inspired by an Alcoholics

Right: Album cover for The Traveling Wilburys.

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 Anonymous leaflet, perhaps hinting that George was
emerging from a generally dark time in his life. The whole thing

track was “When We Was Fab,” which revealed George started when George
For many fans, however, Cloud Nine’s outstanding

called Bob Dylan to see

coming to terms with his Beatles’ past with typical
gnomishness, his lyrics referring elliptically to police

if they could borrow

harassment and the microscope of public scrutiny,
while Jeff ’s arrangement relished the chance to recreate
his studio.
the swooping harmonies of “I Am the Walrus.”
The album yielded one more single, “This Is Love,”
the record that would serendipitously return George
to an even higher plane of creativity and popularity. In
early 1988 George was hoping a B-side would pop into his head when he went into the studio.
In Los Angeles with Jeff and enjoying dinner with Roy Orbison, a friend of the Beatles since
1963, George invited the legendary singer along to the session. Just as casually, and without
a studio booked, George phoned Bob Dylan to see if they could use his. On the way, George
stopped at Tom Petty’s house, where he’d left a guitar, and Tom found himself along for the ride
too. Together, all five improvised a song titled “Handle with Care” after a sticker on a cardboard
box lying in Bob’s garage. The session was such a pleasure for all five musicians that, before
Dylan headed off on the road that May 1988, they decided to cut a whole album in the kitchen
of Eurythmic Dave Stewart’s Malibu house, which was connected to a control booth.

Wilbury Hootenanny
Conviviality ruled, and the hootenanny spirit of five ace singer-songwriters with sentimental
roots in the 1950s gelled into a special set of songs and performances that were later tidied
up and sweetened with overdubs by Jeff Lynne at Friar Park. Though very much a collective
effort, certain songs bear the strong imprints of individuals, and “Heading for Light” is pure
George in its jaunty tune and personal lyrics of a journey from dark to light.
“George had only ever been in one band,” Tom Petty told this author, “but he was the best
bandleader I ever saw, really good at organizing things, at knowing who was best at what,
delegating what to do. He had a great passion for the band. He was a great record producer and
made the process a lot of fun; he instinctively knew when the session’s bogging down and it’s
better to forget that problem and go on to another one and keep the energy going. That’s what a
lot of what a good producer knows how to do: to keep the session on an up. The smallest things
can disrupt a good session and you have to learn to go ’round them.”
A summit of talents making music together out of the sheer pleasure of congenial chemistry
did indeed require careful handling so as not to disturb the delicate balance of egos—and

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 George could call upon his experiences with two of
the biggest, John and Paul. “We’ll bury ’em in the mix,”
George’s catchphrase during the Cloud Nine sessions in
response to audible glitches, took on a life of its own
as a band name in this least calculated of superstar
recording sessions. The five even adopted joke aliases (a
la Sgt. Pepper’s in 1967) to ease the burden of living up
to their own legends, with George
’
lt wasn t the becoming Nelson Wilbury on the
first album of songs attributed to
same without Roy. the Traveling Wilburys, and Spike
Wilbury on the second.
Upon its release in October 1988,
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 rocketed up album charts all
over the world and sold by the million over the course
of the next year. Fortunately, Roy Orbison was able to
enjoy the start of that successful run before he suffered
a sudden fatal heart attack in December. The four
surviving members reconvened in April 1990 to cut the
mischievously titled follow-up, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3,
dedicated to the memory of “Lefty Wilbury.” But without
the Texan’s sweet inspirational presence, it wasn’t quite
the same, with the songs chugging down the highway
rather than beating warmly, five hearts as one. Even so,
when both albums were rereleased as a single package
to huge new sales in 2007, listeners could appreciate the
sequel without the sense of mild disappointment that
greeted its release at the end of 1990.
Nor did Nelson/Spike offer the only glimpses of a
reborn George. To complete his Warner Bros. contract,
George rounded out the compilation album The Best
of Dark Horse with a few orphan songs, the best being
“Cheer Down” (which first appeared, weirdly enough
for a pacifist, on the soundtrack of Lethal Weapon 2)
and the wry satire “Cockamamie Business.”
George entered the 1990s on a high—no longer a has-
been but a legend with not only a much-loved history
but also the promise that there was a lot more to come.

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 Above: The Traveling Wilburys (left
to right: Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff
Lynne, and George Harrison).

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 Chapter 9
Shiva Shiva Shankara
Mahadeva

“Death is just where your suit falls off and

now you’re in your other suit. It’s all right.
Don’t worry.”
—George Harrison

Left: Harrison performing with Ravi

Shankar, who passed away in
December 2012.

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 F
riendship determined George’s next emergence from behind
the gates of Friar Park. In the wake of the tragic accident that
took the life of his four-year-old son, Conor, in March 1991, Eric
Clapton was consoled by the kindness shown by his old friend
George and wife Olivia. George was there for him when, after months of
dazed grief, Eric threw himself into work by touring Japan in December.
The twist was that Eric would be barely more than a sideman while
George and his songs took most of the spotlight. With Eric’s band of
crack pros, the performances were superlatively slick, as befitted the
stadium-rock era. But what was missing was much sense that the backing
band was inhabiting the songs. So when the tour was released for posterity
on 1992’s Live in Japan album, credited to George Harrison, with Eric
Clapton and His Band, what the public was treated to was a collection of
deluxe singalongs. Only “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” catches fire,
as Eric, perhaps accessing his grief, unleashes three solos of a harrowing
intensity to equal the 1968 original.

Friends and Legends

George would play before audiences twice more, both times in 1992 and both in
tribute to influences and inspirations from his past: first in London in support
of the Maharishi Mehesh Yogi’s Natural Law Party, and next in New York for
the thirtieth anniversary of Bob Dylan’s first album. A confluence of events
was pushing George, after twenty-five years, full circle. In Japan with Eric
he had played a lot of his Beatles’ songs—“I’ve found that I quite like them,”
he said. “A few years ago I might not have, but now I’m proud of them”—
and he was finding himself ever more reconciled to the idea of revisiting his
Moptop past by participating in the long-mooted project to create an official
TV documentary telling the story of the Beatles from the inside, with spinoff
projects including a book and freshly exhumed material consisting of live
radio performances and studio outtakes, demos, and fully recorded songs that

Left: Album cover for Rock Right: Reunited! Ringo Starr, Paul
Legends: George Harrison McCartney, and George Harrison in
with Eric Clapton and His 1995, together to publicize the single
Band. “Free as a Bird” and the first volume of
the Anthology rarities compilations.

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 never made the cut. The chief marketing tool for the Anthology project would be the reunion of
the surviving Beatles—waggishly styling themselves the Threetles—to record the first new Fab
Four singles in a generation using two song sketches demoed by John in the 1970s called “Free as a
Bird” and “Real Love.” Always the holdout, George laid down strict conditions for his participation.
First, Jeff Lynne would produce, and second, he would contribute not only slide guitar but, in the
coda of “Free as a Bird,” his new passion, the ukulele, as popularized by mid-century northern
English music hall and movie star George Formby.
At last, George could be the alpha-male Beatle, though he remained careful to maintain
the group’s legendary image, only telling the documentary crew “what really happened” once
they’d turned off their equipment.
Part of the reason George finally relented to celebrate the Beatles was that he needed the
money. HandMade Films had run into problems, and George found himself suing his business
partner, Denis O’Brien, for mismanagement. The court duly awarded George $11 million in
1996, though he was typically downbeat about his chances of actually “getting the money.”

“’
l ve found

that l quite like

”
them ...
—George Harrison
(on playing Beatles’ songs decades later)

Right: Harrison performing

at the Bob Dylan thirtieth
anniversary tribute concert
in 1992.

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 Above: Friends and Legends:
George Harrision and Eric Clapton
in 1991.

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 “
Olivia and l are overwhelmed by the concern

expressed by so many people. We thank

”
everyone for their prayers and kindness. 
—George Harrison

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 Left: Michael Abram, the
schizophrenic who broke into
Friar Park and stabbed George
on December 30, 1999.

Enduring Love
As if to cleanse himself of this immersion in lawyers
and money, George’s next project was producing and
playing on another album with Ravi Shankar. Released
in May 1997, Chants of India is perhaps the very
best introduction to the enduring creative friendship
between the Bengali classical master and the scruff
from Liverpool’s back streets.
That year, though, George, who had quit smoking in
1992 after thirty-five years, was diagnosed with cancer,
and underwent two operations to remove growths from
his neck and lung. The next year, 1998, he was treated
for cancer in his throat. Then, while still recovering, on
December 30, 1999, George was nearly stabbed to death
by a young schizophrenic, Michael Abram, who broke
into Friar Park. Only prompt action by Olivia, who was
herself injured in the attack, saved her husband’s life.
Who knows whether the cancer would have recurred
had George not suffered this life-threatening trauma.
He joked that the album he had been quietly making
at Friar Park for years would be titled The World Is
Doomed Vol. 1, but his notes show that it was always
intended to be called Brainwashed.

Left: George Harrison with wife, Olivia, Above: George Harrison and son,
on January 15, 2000 in Ireland. Dhani, at a guitar auction at
Christie’s in London, 1999.

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 When George succumbed to tumors in both his lung and brain on
November 29, 2001, he had, unlike John, made his peace with the world
and said farewell to his old friends Paul and Ringo, each of whom had
lost wives to cancer. Also, like John, he left behind an album’s worth of
unfinished recordings, which fell to his son Dhani and Jeff Lynne to
complete, with the help of George’s detailed notes.

Life Goes on Within You

Released a year after his death, Brainwashed was classic George, happily
embracing the paradoxes of his personality as crystallized in the track
“Pisces Fish,” which yearns for spiritual nirvana amid a gentle mockery of
the material world that fast-forwards from his teenage motorcycle to the
riverside idyll of the countryside around Friar Park. George never wrote
more acidly witty lyrics, even though devout Roman Catholics might have
been very offended by “P2 Vatican Blues (Last Saturday Night),” in which
George took the faith of his Liverpool Irish upbringing severely to task.
Yet his guitar, autoharp, and ukulele on the instrumental “Marwa Blues”
attain a serene spirituality without equal in his recordings. “Stuck Inside a

George had made

Cloud” may well be George’s best rock-pop song since “My Sweet Lord,”
while his cover of Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler’s “Between the Devil and

his peace with

the Deep Blue Sea” confirms not only his love of pre-rock popular song
but his hard-won feel for how to perform it.
the world and said
Among many treasures, the title track seems to sum up the man and
his music: a Dylanesque rap that kicks lumps out of Western culture, yet
farewell to his presents the heavenly alternative in the invocations to God and Krishna,
the whole song dissolving into the Namah Parvati prayer, chanted in
old friends Paul unison by George and Dhani. One generation hands over to the next, and
as George’s final musical testament comes to a close, we are left with the
and Ringo. serene acceptance that in death is life, and life goes on within you and
without you.

Right: George Harrison’s parents,

Harold and Louise, sorting through
his twenty-first birthday mail at his
childhood home.

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 Index
Page numbers in italics indicate Barham, John 22, 38 Cloud Nine (Harrison) 74, 78–79,
photographs. Bearsville, New York 11 80
Beatles 8, 10, 14, 15, 21, 25, 29, 32, “Cockamamie Business” (Harrison) 80
33, 36, 39, 44, 47, 52, 62, 64, 68, Collins, Phil 22, 72
A 78, 84, 85, 86
Beck, Jeff 72
Concert for Bangla Desh 28, 28,
29, 29, 30–31, 32–33, 32, 36, 38
Bennett, Pete 20 Cooder, Ry 64, 69
A&M Records 47, 51, 58 The Best of Dark Horse 80 Cooper, Ray 69, 78
Abbey Road (Beatles) 11, 14 “Between the Devil and the Deep “Crackerbox Palace” (Harrison)
Abbey Road Studios 19, 21, 22 Blue Sea” (Arlen/Koehler) 90 57
ABKCO 36, 57 Blind Faith 14, 25 Cream 11, 14
Abram, Michael 89, 89 “Blow Away” (Harrison) 64, 65 Crisp, Sir Frankie 25, 52
All Things Must Pass (Harrison) 20, BMI 36
21–23, 21, 22–23, 25, 29, 32, 38,
39, 51, 56, 78
Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band 52
Boyd, Pattie 10, 14, 14, 21, 25, 44, D
“All Those Years Ago” (Harrison) 45, 45, 46, 47, 48, 57
69 Boyd, Paula 44 Dark Horse (Harrison) 16, 48, 49,
“All You Need Is Cash” (Rutles) Brainwashed (Harrison) 89, 90 51, 62
62, 62 Bramlett, Bonnie 13, 13, 15 Dark Horse Records 44, 44, 47, 48,
Alpert, Herb 47 Bramlett, Delaney 13, 13, 15, 19 51, 58, 80
“The Answer’s at the End” Bright Tunes 36, 56, 57, 58 “The Day the World Gets ‘Round”
(Harrison) 52 Brooker, Gary 22 (Harrison) 39
Apple Records 8, 11, 14, 15, 20, 22, Brown, Mick 64 Delaney & Bonnie 13, 13, 14–15, 21
32, 33, 36, 47, 51 Buckley, Lord 57 Derek and the Dominos 21, 22
“Apple Scruffs” (Harrison) 25, 25 “Bye Bye Love” (Everly Brothers) “Devil’s Radio” (Harrison) 78
Arias, Olivia 47, 50, 51, 58, 88, 89 48 Dick Cavett Show, The 33, 33
“The Art of Dying” (Harrison) 21 “Don’t Let Me Wait Too Long”
“Awaiting on You All” (Harrison)
25 C (Harrison) 39
Dylan, Bob 10, 11, 30–31, 32, 77,
79, 80–81, 84, 86, 90
B Calloway, Cab 72
Capitol Records 14, 22, 32, 47,
E
51, 56
“Baby Don’t Run Away” (Harrison) Carmichael, Hoagy 69, 74
70 Chants of India (Shankar) 89 Easy Rider (movie) 21
Badfinger 22, 47 “Cheer Down” (Harrison) 80 Eddy, Duane 77
“Badge” (Cream) 11 Chiffons 18, 19, 36 Edmunds, Dave 74, 76, 78
Baker, Ginger 22 “Circles” (Harrison) 69 Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) 78
“Ballad of Sir Frankie Crisp (Let It Clapton, Conor 84 Electronic Sound (Harrison) 11
Roll)” (Harrison) 25 Clapton, Eric 11, 12, 13, 13, 14, 21, EMI 22, 47, 51, 56
“Baltimore Oriole” (Carmichael) 69 22, 32, 44, 45, 45, 46, 47, 48, 68, Evans, Mal 47
Band, The 11, 14, 21 72, 78, 84, 84, 87 Extra Texture (Read All About It)
“Bangla Desh” (Harrison) 28, 28, Cleese, John 61 (Harrison) 51–52, 52, 58
29

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 F l Lethal Weapon 2 (movie) 80
“Life Itself ” (Harrison) 69
Living in the Material World
Festival of Indian Arts, London “I Don’t Want to Do It” (Dylan) 72 (Harrison) 36, 38–39, 40–41, 51
34–35 I Me Mine (Harrison memoirs) 57, Lomax, Jackie 11
Fleetwood Mac 19 68 London Radha-Krishna Temple 14
Formula 1 64, 65 “I Me Mine” (Harrison) 25 Lynne, Jeff 77, 78, 79, 81, 86, 90
“Free as a Bird” (Beatles) 86 “I Really Love You” (Stereos) 69
Friar Park 24, 25, 38, 44, 48, 51,
52, 58, 64, 68, 78, 79, 84, 89, 90
“I’d Have You Anytime” (Dylan/
Harrison) 11 M
Idle, Eric 52, 57, 59, 62, 63
G “If You Believe” (Harrison) 64
India 8, 11, 19, 27, 29, 34, 44,
Mack, Ronnie 36
Madonna 72, 73
47, 48 Magical Mystery Tour (movie) 52
George Harrison (Harrison) 68, 68, “The Inner Light” (Harrison) 11 Martin, George 19, 21
78 Innes, Neil 52, 63 “Marwa Blues” (Harrison) 90
“Get Back” Sessions (Beatles) 8, 15 International Society for Krishna Mason, Dave 22
Gill, Bob 9 Consciousness 15 Massot, Joe 8
“Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Is This What You Want? (Lomax) 11 McCartney, Linda 14, 69
Earth)” (Harrison) 39 Isle of Wight Festival, 1969 10 McCartney, Paul 8, 11, 14, 32, 33,
Gone Troppo (Harrison) 69–70, 70 “Isn’t It a Pity” (Harrison) 21 36, 39, 69, 85, 90
Gordon, Jim 21, 22 “Monty Python’s Flying Circus”
“Got My Mind Set on You”
(Traveling Wilburys) 78 J 52, 53, 57, 60–61, 62, 64
Monty Python’s Life of Brian 60–61,
62, 64
H John, Elton 78
Jones, Brian 19
Moog synthesizer 11
Moss, Jerry 47
“Just for Today” (Harrison) Motown 25, 52, 58
“Handle with Care” (Traveling 78–79 “My Sweet Lord” (Harrison) 18,
Wilburys) 79 19, 25, 29, 36, 56, 57, 57
HandMade Films 62, 64, 68, 72, 86
“Hare Krishna Mantra” (Harrison) K N
14, 19
Harrison, Dhani (son) 58, 89, “Keep on Running” (Spencer Davis
90 Group) 25 Namah Parvati prayer 90
Hawkins, Edwin 15, 19 Keltner, Jim 29–30, 36, 38, 57, 78 Natural Law Yoga Party 84
“Heading for Light” (Traveling Keys, Bobby 22 Nelson, Willie 72
Wilburys) 79 Klein, Allen 14, 32, 33, 36, 56, 57, “No Time or Space” (Harrison) 11
“Hear Me Lord” (Harrison) 25 62 “Not Guilty” (Harrison) 64
“Here Comes the Moon” Krause, Bernie 11
(Harrison) 64
“Here Comes the Sun” (Harrison)
Krishna sect of Hinduism 11, 14,
15, 19, 38, 44, 52, 58, 90 O
14, 32
“He’s So Fine” (Chiffons) 18, 19,
36, 56, 57 L O’Brien, Denis 62, 86
“Oh Happy Day” (Edwin Hawkins
“His Name Is Legs (Ladies and Singers) 15, 19
Gentlemen)” (Harrison) 52 Lauda, Niki 64 Ono, Yoko 10, 32
“Hong Kong Blues” (Carmichael) “Layla” (Derek and the Dominos) “Ooh Baby (You Know That I Love
69 21, 22, 44, 45 You)” (Harrison) 52
Hopkins, Nicky 36, 38, 38 “Learning How to Love You” Orbison, Roy 79, 80
Horn, Jim 36 (Harrison) 58 Ostin, Mo 58
“The Hottest Gong in Town” Lennon, John 10, 14, 19, 32, 33, 36,
(Harrison) 72 39, 52, 68, 69
“Let It Be” (Beatles) 21, 25
“Let It Down” (Harrison) 25

93

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 P Sheene, Barry 65
Simon, Paul 54–55 U
“Simply Shady” (Harrison) 48
“P2 Vatican Blues (Last Saturday Sinatra, Frank 14 UNICEF 32
Night)” (Harrison) 90 Smith, “Legs” Larry 52
Penn, Sean 72
Perkins, Carl 72
“So Sad” (Harrison) 48
“Something” (Beatles) 14, 32, 44 V
Petty, Tom 79, 81 Somewhere in England (Harrison)
“Photograph” (Harrison) 47 68–69 Voormann, Klaus 22, 36, 38, 39
“Pisces Fish” (Harrison) 90 Sommers, Abe 36
The Place I Love (Splinter) 48
Plant, Robert 72
“Sour Milk Sea” (Lomax) 11
Spector, Phil 20, 21, 32, 38, 78 W
Porky’s Revenge (movie) 74 Spector, Ronnie 38, 52
Presley, Elvis 52 Spencer Davis Group 25 “Wah-Wah” (Harrison) 25
Preston, Billy 15, 19, 22, 47, 51 Spencer, Jeremy 19 Wall of Sound 21
Price, Jim 22 Splinter 47–48, 51 Warner Bros. Records 58, 64, 68,
Prince’s Trust All-Star Rock Spooky Tooth 22 69, 70, 80
Concert, 1987 72, 78 Starkey, Maureen 10, 47 “What Is Life” (Harrison) 25, 25
Procol Harum 22 Starr, Ringo 10, 11, 22, 33, 36, 38, “When We Was Fab” (Harrison)
“Pure Smokey” (Harrison) 58 39, 47, 69, 72, 78, 85, 90 25, 79
Stewart, Dave 79 “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
R Straight Up (Badfinger) 22
Stray Cats 76
(Harrison) 11, 32, 84
White, Alan 22
“Stuck Inside a Cloud” (Harrison) White Album, The (Beatles) 9, 11
Radle, Carl 21 90 Whitlock, Bobby 21
Ravi Shankar Orchestra 51 “Who Can See It” (Harrison) 39
“Real Love” (Beatles) 86
Richards, Keith 15 T Winwood, Steve 14, 25, 68
“Within You Without You”
Righteous Brothers 21 (Harrison) 8
Ringo (Ringo Starr) 47 “Taxman” (Harrison) 33 “Wonderful Tonight” (Clapton)
Robinson, Smokey 52 Taylor, James 14 45, 47
Rock Legends: George Harrison with That’s the Way God Planned It Wonderwall (movie) 8, 9, 9, 11, 22
Eric Clapton and His Band 84, 84 (Preston) 15 Wood, Ronnie 57
“Rocky” (Fender Stratocaster) 16 Thirty-Three & 1/3 (Harrison) 56, Wright, Gary 22, 36, 38, 68, 78
Rolling Stones 19, 22, 57 57–58, 58, 59, 64 “Writing’s on the Wall” (Harrison)
Ronettes 21, 38 “This Guitar (Can’t Keep from 69
Russell, Leon 32 Crying)” (Harrison) 51–52
Rutland Weekend Television 52, 62
Rutles 62, 63, 63
“This Is Love” (Harrison) 78, 79
“This Song” (Harrison) 57 Y
The Tin Man Was a Dreamer
S (Hopkins) 38
“Tired of Midnight Blue”
Yogi, Maharishi Mehesh 84
“You” (Harrison) 52
(Harrison) 52
“Sat Singing” (Harrison) 69 Titelman, Russ 64
Saturday Night Live 54–55 Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 (Traveling
Scott, Tom 47, 68 Wilburys) 80
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Traveling Wilburys 58, 78–80,
Band (Beatles) 8 80–81
Shanghai Surprise (movie) 72, 73 Troy, Doris 15
“Shanghai Surprise” (Harrison) 72 “True Love” (Porter) 58
Shankar Family and Friends “Try Some Buy Some” (Harrison)
(Shankar) 47 38
Shankar, Lakshmi 47
Shankar, Ravi 26, 29, 32, 34–35,
47, 48, 51, 82–83, 89

94

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 Picture Credits
Special thanks to Bruce Spizer (www.beatle.net), Associated Press
author of The Beatles Solo on Apple Records, for use of P30, Madison Square Garden during the Concert for
the following images: Bangladesh © Jim Wells / Associated Press
P37, George Harrison © Associated Press
P9, Wonderwall poster P75, George Harrison and Madonna © Peter Kemp
P9, Wonderwall album / Associated Press
P11, Electronic Sound album P88, George and Olivia Arias © Associated Press
P19, Solo 45 of “My Sweet Lord”
P21, All Things Must Pass album (colorized re-issue) CameraPress
P25, What is Life / Apple Scruffs album P56, George promoting Thirty-Three & 1/3 at
P28, Single album cover for Bangla Desh and The his Berkshire home © Camera Press / Roger DiVito
Concert for Bangla Desh album 1976
P29, Promotional poster for Bangla Desh P59, George gets playful promoting Thirty-Three &
P36, Album and promotional advertisement for 1/3 © Camera Press / Roger DiVito 1976
Living in the Material World
P47, Dark Horse promotional advertisement and album Collection Herbert Hauke
/www.rockmuseum.de
Special thanks also to Happy Nat of P6, Autographed promotional photo of George
TheBeatlesRarity.com for use of the following P32, Bangladesh / Deep Blue album (Italian)
image:
Corbis Images
P40, Living in the Material World inner sleeve P14, George and Pattie Boyd leaving court ©
Bettman / Corbis
Alamy P20, George Harrison, Phil Spector, and Pete
P8, George rehearsing © Trinity Mirror / Bennett © Bettman / Corbis
Mirrorpix / Alamy P28, George performing at the Concert for
P13, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Bramlett, Delaney Bangladesh © Henry Diltz / Corbis
Bramlett, and George © Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix P81, The Traveling Wilburys performing © Neal
/ Alamy Preston / Corbis
P18, The Chiffons © Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy P82, George Harrison with Ravi Shankar © Marc
P45, Eric Clapton and Pattie Boyd © Pictorial Press Bryan-Brown / Corbis
Ltd / Alamy
P50, George Harrison and Olivia Arias © Trinity Getty Images
Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy P12, George and Eric Clapton performing © Jan
P53, George, Olivia Arias, Eric Idle, and Terry Persson / Redferns
Gilliam at the premiere of Monty Python © Trinity P15, George with Krishnas © Keystone-France /
Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
P60, Monty Python’s Life of Brian © Pictorial Press P16, George playing guitar circa 1970 © GAB
Ltd / Alamy Archive / Redferns
P64, George making video for “Blow Away” © John P21, Derek and the Dominoes © Michael Ochs
Henshall / Alamy Archives / Stringer / Getty Images
P87, George and Eric Clapton © Geoff A. Howard P24, George on the grounds of Friar Park © Terry
/ Alamy O’Neill / Getty Images
P26, Ravi Shankar whispering to George Harrison
© Popperfoto / Getty Images

95

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 P31, George Harrison and Bob Dylan © Michael Idols Picture Library / Photoshot
Ochs Archives / Stringer / Getty Images P4, George Harrison © S.S. Archives/Idols/
P33, George on the Dick Cavett show © Ann Photoshot
Limongello / ABC via Getty Images
P35, George, Ravi Shankar, and Allen Klein © Rex USA
Evening Standard / Getty Images P10, George and Beatles at Bob Dylan performance
P38, Nicky Hopkins © Michael Ochs Archives / © Daily Mail / Rex USA
Stringer / Getty Images P71, George visiting Olivia and Dhani © Associated
P39, Klaus Voorman © Estate of Keith Morris / Newspapers / Rex USA
Redferns / Getty Images P89, Michael Abrams © Mercury Press Agency /
P42, George performing in 1974 © David Hume Rex USA
Kennerly / Getty Images P89, George Harrison and son, Dhani © Richard
P46, Eric Clapton and Pattie Boyd © Evening Young / Rex USA
Standard / Stringer / Getty Images
P49, George on the Dark Horse tour © Steve Tracks (Memorabilia)
Morley / Redferns P13, autographed poster for Delaney & Bonnie &
P55, George Harrison and Paul Simon © Richard E. Friends in Bristol
Aaron / Redferns P23, George Harrison walking to record All Things
P62, The Rutles dancing © GAB Archive / Redferns Must Pass © Tracks Limited
P63, The Rutles © GAB Archive / Redferns P44, Dark Horse label and stickers
P65, George at Formula One race © Roger Lings / P52, Extra Texture album and promotional postcard
Stringer / Getty Images P57, “My Sweet Lord” flyer
P66, George at a press conference © Michael Ochs P58, Thirty-Three & 1/3 album
Archives / Stringer P62, Handmade Films label
P72, George performing at the Prince’s Trust © P68, George Harrison LP
Peter Still / Redferns P70, Gone Troppo album
P77, George performing at Prince’s Trust with Jeff P74, Cloud Nine album
Lynne, Eric Clapton, and Donald “Duck” Dunn © P78, Traveling Wilburys album
Peter Still / Redferns P84, Autographed program for George Harrison with
P85, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Paul Eric Clapton and his Band
McCartney © Tommy Hanley / Redferns / Getty
Images All reasonable attempts have been made to contact the
P86, George Harrison at Bob Dylan tribute concert copyright holders of all images.
© KMazur / WireImage
P91, George Harrison’s parents sorting through his
mail at home © Manchester Daily Express / SSPL via
Getty Images

96

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 A division of Book Sales, Inc.
276 Fifth Avenue, Suite 206
New York, New York 10001

RACE POINT PUBLISHING and the distinctive Race Point Publishing logo
are trademarks of Book Sales, Inc.

© Mat Snow 2013

All photographs from the publisher’s collection, unless otherwise noted on page 95.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from
the publisher.

This publication has not been prepared, approved, or licensed by Apple Corps Ltd. or the
estate of George Harrison or any of its assignees. This is not an official publication. We
recognize, further, that some words, model names, and designations mentioned herein
are the property of the trademark holder. We use them for identification purposes only.

ISBN (4-volume set): 978-1-5526-7936-4

Author: Mat Snow

Project editor: Jeannine Dillon
Copyeditor: Steve Burdett
Interior designer: Rosamund Saunders
Cover designer: Brad Norr/bradnorrdesign.com

Front and back cover illustration: Brad Norr

Printed in China

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

www.racepointpub.com

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 T H E
B E AT L E S

SOLO
JO hn LennOn

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 Mat Snow

T H E
B E AT L E S

SOLO JO hn LennOn
The Illustrated Chronicles of
John, Paul, George, and Ringo
after the Beatles

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 Contents
Chapter 1
From Fab Four to Flying Solo 6
Chapter 2
On the Run, but Shining on 18
Chapter 3
Not Dreaming but Screaming 28
Chapter 4
Sweetness, Light—and a Sting 36
Chapter 5
Que Pasa, New York? 46
Chapter 6
Ambassador or Guerilla? 58
Chapter 7
Lost and Found on the Lost Weekend 66
Chapter 8
The Vanishing 76
Chapter 9
Into the Sky 86
Index 92
Credits 95

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 Chapter 1
From Fab Four to Flying Solo

“As usual, there is a great

woman behind every idiot.”
—John Lennon

Left: John Lennon in 1967 at work

in his home recording studio in
Weybridge, U.K.

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 T
he last year of the 1960s was the last year of the Beatles. It
was also the first year of John Lennon’s career as a solo artist—
an artist abandoning the safety net of the group, even though
the world did not yet know it. And it was perhaps not until the
summer of 1969 was fading that he even knew it himself for sure.
There was no single crisis moment that caused John to step away
from the band he had founded as a sixteen-year-old back in 1957.
Instead, a series of crises had grown steadily more intense since the
suicide of Beatles’ manager Brian Epstein in August of 1967, at the
zenith of Sgt. Pepper mania and the Summer of Love.
Brian was not the most astute dealmaker, as the group had learned
to their cost. But with Brian protecting them from business pressures and helping resolve
tensions in the pressure-cooker environment of phenomenal worldwide fame, the Beatles
ran smoothly even when heading into completely uncharted territory—which they had
been doing almost exclusively as musicians, superstars, and cultural icons since their global
breakthrough in 1964.
But without Brian, who would take care of business? The Beatles launched Apple Corps,
initially conceived as a Beatles’ holding company and investment vehicle to minimize their
tax exposure. However, Apple soon turned into a money pit through various financially
hemorrhaging enterprises, ranging from experimental electronics to a fashion boutique to
(and this is the one that actually made a lot of money) a record label.

The Beginning of the End

In May of 1968 John flew to New York with Paul McCartney to tell the world how Apple
would reinvent capitalism for the hippie generation. In those heady days anything seemed
possible, and for the two old friends and songwriting partners, the future together was still
very bright. But within three months, recording sessions for what would be the double-length
eponymous album (known more commonly as the White Album) had become so tense that

Above: The Please Please Me sleeve early in early 1963,

the Beatles’ first U.K. number one.

Left: Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil! John Lennon

on the cover of Bravo magazine’s German edition.

Right: John Lennon talking with Beatles’ manager Brian

Epstein on set. Epstein committed suicide in August
of 1967—at the height of Sgt. Pepper mania.

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 9

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 Ringo Starr walked out of the group and had to be coaxed back. The Beatles
had disagreed among themselves before, but nothing like this. George
Harrison was on a songwriting streak but was frustrated that his efforts
were sidelined by John and Paul’s determination to dominate the writing
credits. And both George and Ringo felt increasingly patronized by Paul—
no mean guitarist and drummer himself—telling them exactly how to play
their parts on his songs.
But above all, there was Yoko Ono.

About a Girl
The term “dysfunctional family” had yet to be invented, but John’s
background was a classic case. As an only child abandoned by both parents,
he had been raised by his mother’s respectable older sister, his aunt Mimi.
John’s mother, Julia, had reappeared when he was a teenager, and he was

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 reconciled with her free spirit, falling in love with her as if she were a sexy older sister. When
she was knocked down by an out-of-control car and killed instantly in 1958, the off-duty police
officer at the wheel was officially exonerated. John was a rebel before, but now it was personal.
John was a sexual rover, but at the age of twenty-two he married his long-suffering girlfriend,
Cynthia, when she became pregnant. His mid-twenties, at the height of Beatlemania, were what
John was to call his “Fat Elvis” phase, when bouts of depression, overeating,
and lethargy were interspersed with bursts of furious creativity. By the end
of 1966 he had slimmed down, but that was because he had switched to an
LSD diet, spending most of the year under its influence.
Then Yoko Ono appeared on the Swinging London scene. She was an
avant-garde artist from Japan—via New York—whose conceptual and
performance art were by turns provocative, enigmatic, and witty. John was
charmed, while she saw in him a rich potential patron. Mutual intrigue
turned into a love affair as they discovered they had much in common: a
troubled childhood, a failed marriage (John would eventually divorce from
Cynthia in 1968), and a deep commitment to stirring up the world with art.
Suddenly, John had the female soul mate he’d pined for since his mother’s
death. He and Yoko jointly documented their first eighteen months together
in the medium John knew best. The albums Unfinished Music No. 1: Two
Virgins (with the couple controversially photographed naked on the sleeve),
Unfinished Music No. 2: Life With The Lions, and Wedding Album are scrapbooks of snapshots
in sound whose merits are strictly as historical artifacts; as Lennon side projects, they offer
far less than his two highly inventive mid-1960s books, In His Own Write and A Spaniard in the
Works. But the album trilogy told the world what Paul, George, Ringo, and the unfortunate
Cynthia found out out in the summer of 1968: John and Yoko were inseparable.

Right: A young John Lennon with his

wife, Cynthia.

Above: John Lennon on the September

1968 cover of Eye magazine. The photo
was taken by Linda Eastman, who would
later go on to marry Paul McCartney
in 1969.

Left: A tense John Lennon, Paul

McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo
Starr rehearsing for the “Night of 100
Stars” at the London Palladium in 1964.
Judy Garland was also on the bill.

11

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 Left: Inseparable . . .
John Lennon holds
Japanese-born
artist and musician
Yoko Ono in his
arms in December
of 1968.

Above: Two Virgins

album cover and
sleeve, which
was a source of
controversy in 1968.

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 e...
olds
n
cian
s
ber

gins
nd

f
1968.

Above: John Lennon, Yoko Ono, and Paul McCartney at the premiere of
the new Beatles’ film “Yellow Submarine” on July 18, 1968. Thousands
of Beatles’ fans brought traffic to a halt in Piccadilly Circus as they waited
to see the band arrive at the premiere. John and Paul hold apples, the
symbol of their newly formed company, Apple Corps.
Right: Wedding Album cover. John and Yoko were married in 1969.

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 When Yoko arrived with John at Abbey Road Studios to sit in on the White Album sessions,
the four-way working chemistry that they’d all taken for granted since 1962 abruptly broke
down. Only Ringo accepted Yoko’s presence. George was downright rude to her, while Paul,
sensing John’s dependence on her approval rather than on his own instincts, began to dominate
proceedings, which infuriated everyone.
Almost miraculously, the White Album emerged as another masterpiece. What came next, at
Paul’s behest, did not. Inspired by the spontaneous, organic sound of the Band—on both their
album Music from Big Pink and the “Basement Tapes” collection of songs they’d recorded
with Bob Dylan, which were circulating among rock insiders—Paul cajoled the Beatles into
writing and recording songs on the roof, documenting the whole process for a movie release
and finishing the whole shebang with a secret gig, their first since quitting the road in August
of 1966.

Above: John Lennon and Yoko Ono with Beatles’ manager Allen Klein in
1969. Klein convinced Lennon to let him manage the Beatles’ business, and
it was this decision that caused a major rift between John and Paul, since
McCartney never trusted Klein.

Left: On January 30, 1969, the Beatles performed their last live public concert
on the rooftop of the Apple Organization building for director Michael
Lindsey-Hogg’s film documentary, “Let It Be,” on Sevile Row in London.
Drummer Ringo Starr sits behind his kit. Paul McCartney and John Lennon
perform at their microphones, and guitarist George Harrison (1943–2001)
stands behind them. Lennon’s wife, Yoko Ono, is sitting on the right.

15

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 Tempers ran high in a virtually unheated movie studio in January 1969,
in what would later become known as the “Let It Be” sessions. Few really
good songs came out of those weeks, though the show the band gave on
the rooftop of the Apple HQ in London had a rough-and-ready charm.
Depressed by the whole experience, the Beatles could not bear to review
the hours of movie footage and recording tape—plus there was a more
immediate crisis to contend with.
Apple Corps was in chaos, as were all the Beatles’ complex business affairs.
Enter Allen Klein, a canny and aggressive music-business accountant from
Above: John Lennon New Jersey who, with some justification, claimed to be able to screw back
doodled a self-portrait of every cent the record companies had originally screwed out of the artists.
Bed Peace.
He’d done it for the Beatles’ buddies the Rolling Stones, and now he could
do it for the biggest band on the planet. Paul, on the verge of marrying
New Yorker Linda Eastman, had been warned by his future in-laws that
Klein was not to be trusted, but John was seduced by Klein’s approach,
which blended no-bullshit abrasiveness with flattery of John’s artistry
and personal empathy (Klein had lost his mother at a young age). John
impulsively appointed Klein to look after his business affairs. At John’s
John and Paul urging, George and Ringo followed suit. Paul had been lobbying for his
future in-laws to take care of the Beatles’ business, but the other three,
were at war with already resentful of the way Paul had treated them in the studio, refused.
Suddenly, John and Paul were at war over who was to run the show; though
who was going to George and Ringo sided with John, Paul held out.
It is a measure of the enduring Lennon-McCartney partnership that, on
run the show . . . John’s first Beatles’ A-side in two years, a bouncy song all about him and
Yoko, Paul was happy to play drums, piano, and bass during George and
Ringo’s absence on other business.
“The Ballad of John and Yoko” tells the story of the first modern rock ’n’
roll celebrity event: how the newly married couple cheerfully exploited their
fame and controversy (Yoko was widely seen as an inscrutable Oriental
home-wrecker) to stage oddball happenings—sitting enigmatically in a
giant bag, conducting press conferences from a hotel bed—to attract the
world’s media and, in John’s words, to “advertise peace.”
John’s publicity campaign for peace (even as tensions with Paul escalated)
gave him a sense of a mission—that he was taking his biggest step out of
the comfort zone the Beatles had afforded him. Even though he was still
officially a Beatle and in the midst of recording sessions for their final
masterpiece, Abbey Road, that big step would be the first statement of his
solo musical career: the worldwide anthem “Give Peace a Chance.”
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 Above: John Lennon and Yoko Ono
conducting a press conference
from a hotel bed in 1969 to
advertise peace.

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 Chapter 2
On the Run,
but Shining on

“I’ve been a freak all my life and I have

to live with that.”—John Lennon

Left: John Lennon playing the guitar in

Rishikesh, India, where he was following a
transcendental course in 1968. All the Beatles
attended the Transcendental Meditation
training session at the ashram of Maharishi
Mahesh Yogi.

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 Above: John Lennon and Yoko Right: The original handwritten lyrics for John Lennon’s
Ono stage a pop concert in aid of hit song, “Give Peace a Chance.” The lyrics were
the United Nations Children’s Fund sold at Christie’s auction house in 2008 for $833,654.
(UNICEF) on December 16, 1969. Lennon had given the lyrics to sixteen-year old Gail
Renard when he wrote them at the infamous 1969
Montreal “bed-In.”

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 A
ll over the world, “The Ballad of John and Yoko” had gone to
number one–but not in the United States, where it only scraped
into the top ten. The lines “Christ, you know it ain’t easy,” and
especially “They’re going to crucify me,” crimped radio play
and sales in many states, especially with John’s 1966 “bigger than Jesus”
controversy far from forgotten. It was as a cartoon messiah—little round
Gandhi glasses, white suit, long hair, and full beard—that John presented
himself to the world that summer of 1969. Was he for real? Was it a put-on?
John instinctively stoked the intrigue.

Off the Cuff

In March, on a honeymoon that doubled as a publicity stunt in support of peace,
John and Yoko had staged a “bed-in” at the Amsterdam Hilton, as mentioned
in “The Ballad of John and Yoko.” To help promote that record and intensify
their peace campaign, John and Yoko staged a second “bed-in” in Montreal in
May (he was banned from the United States due to a marijuana conviction the
previous November). The Montreal event was an even bigger media circus
than Amsterdam, and, with Yoko’s help, John wrote an impromptu peace
anthem whose chorus was based on a phrase he’d recently coined: “All we are
saying is give peace a chance.”
John moved fast, pinning the lyrics on the hotel bedroom wall so everyone
could read them, and he led the whole room full of media, visiting celebrities,
a Montreal rabbi, and a group from the local Radha Krishna Temple in an
unrehearsed, tape-recorded sing-along. Five weeks later “Give Peace a Chance”
was released as a single, credited to the Plastic Ono Band (“The Plastic Ono
Band is you,” John later told the world). It would become both a worldwide hit
and an enduring peace anthem.

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 John had proved to himself that he could make music—using the inspiration of the moment,
with whomever or whatever came to hand—that the world would listen to and love. He didn’t
need the same old team, the same old working methods, the same old support structures, and
the same old problems that were getting worse and sucking all the joy out of music-making
for him. He didn’t need the Beatles.
On August 22, the Beatles were photographed together for the last time, in the grounds of
John’s new mansion, Tittenhurst Park, outside London. Post-production was completed on
Abbey Road three days later, and then fate played its hand. The Toronto Rock ’n’ Roll Revival
on September 13 was set to capitalize on a resurgent interest in the music’s founding heroes,
including Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, and Fats Domino, all of whom John
revered. Ticket sales were slow, so the promoters hatched the idea of inviting John over as a
superstar master of ceremonies. John told them that he’d come over and play instead.
But who would be in his band?

Above: (left to right) Star Power: Eric Right: Album covers for Happy Xmas
Clapton, John Lennon, Mitch Mitchell, (War is Over) and Give Peace a
and Keith Richards performing live Chance from the Plastic Ono Band.
onstage as The Dirty Mac on The Rolling
Stones’ “Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus” in 1968.

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 And by the Way . . .
In December of 1968, for the Rolling Stones’ mooted Rock ’n’ Roll Circus
TV special, John had performed his White Album song “Yer Blues,” using
the moniker Winston Leg-Thigh and the Dirty Mac, with Keith Richards
on bass, Jimi Hendrix’s drummer Mitch Mitchell, and Eric Clapton on
guitar. The latter had also played a solo on George Harrison’s White Album
track “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and so was in the Beatles’ inner
circle of musician buddies. John called Eric and invited him to catch a
plane with him from London to Canada; also onboard was the Beatles’ old
Hamburg pal Klaus Voormann, playing bass, future Yes drummer Alan
White, and Yoko. The Plastic Ono Band was formed. And by the way,
John told them, though there hadn’t been time to break the news to Paul,
George, and Ringo, he was leaving the Beatles.
Allen Klein was thunderstruck. He was in the midst of negotiating a
new deal for the Beatles with Capitol Records in the United States, but
with John leaving the band his hand would be critically weakened. They
agreed to keep John’s resignation under wraps.
On the flight over, to the bemusement of the other first-class passengers,
including a senior executive from Schick razors, the bearded, long-haired
musicians sat rehearsing a set of rock ’n’ roll standards on acoustic guitars
that John hadn’t played since the Cavern Club, plus “Yer Blues,” and a new
song that he’d wanted the Beatles to record but they hadn’t liked—“Cold
Turkey”—which described John’s withdrawal from a brief dalliance with
heroin earlier that year.
Before the show, John was so apprehensive about his first concert before
a paying audience in three years that, after drugging himself before the

John was so
show with Eric, he threw up and had to lie down. In the event, he and the
band passed the audition even if they never quite caught fire—and the fans
apprehensive
hated Yoko’s lengthy screaming performances of her songs “Don’t Worry
Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking for Her Hand in the Snow)” and “John
John (Let’s Hope for Peace),” as can be witnessed in the D. A. Pennebaker that he drugged
documentary “Sweet Toronto” and on the live album Live Peace in Toronto
1969. “I enjoyed it like mad,” John told his friend Barry Miles upon his himself before
return, “even if I did have to sing ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’ and ‘Money’ again,
because they’re the only things I know!” Two weeks later in London, John the show and had
reconvened the band, with Ringo replacing Alan White, to record “Cold
Turkey” for release as a single by the Plastic Ono Band. It was the first to lie down.
song for which John took sole songwriting credit. Also, though it was

23

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 “ ”
The Plastic Ono Band is you.

—John Lennon

Above: Album covers for the Plastic

Ono Band’s Live Peace in Toronto and
Cold Turkey.

Right: Difference of opinion . . . (left to right)

Alan White, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voormann,
John Lennon, and Yoko Ono expressing
the different ways to say “peace.” This
picture was taken in September of 1969,
the day after the Plastic Ono Band
headlined the Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Revival
show at Varsity Stadium.

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 25

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 less noticed at the time, Yoko had the B-side (“Don’t Worry Kyoko”), but unlike the Toronto
performance of “Cold Turkey,” she was not heard on the A-side at all; for all his devotion
to Yoko, John knew the recorded performance would be better off without her. Love may
have been blind, but it was not deaf. The release was John’s loudest statement yet of solo
intent. Though its controversial subject matter limited radio play, and consequently sales,
Cold Turkey remains a searingly powerful record, the punchy and uncluttered blueprint for
John’s best solo work.

lnstant Karma, lnstant Hit

That December, John, Yoko, Clapton, Voormann, George Harrison, and friends played
a benefit show in London for UNICEF. It was the last time John would share a stage with a
fellow Beatle. The following month, January 1970, he called George with an invitation to play
on a new kind of record that had come to him in a brainwave: an instant single about seizing
the moment and joining in something called “Instant Karma!” John told the press he “wrote
it for breakfast, recorded it for lunch, and we’re putting it out for dinner.” And that is more or
less what happened.
Phil Spector, who was in London trying to salvage a commercial album out of the “Let It Be“
session tapes from the previous year, produced the record. Whereas the much older George
Martin was a meticulous producer, bringing out the myriad harmonies, textures, and depths in
the Beatles’ records, Spector was an eccentric man of John’s age, more focused on sonic impact
and emotional intensity—the essences of the hit records that John admired. Reproducing the
“Wall of Sound” he’d created on early 1960s classics by the Ronettes and others, Spector had
John, George, Voormann, Billy Preston, and drummer Alan White hammer away on pianos
simultaneously. The whole thing was done in three takes.
A top-five single all over the world, “Instant Karma!” was the first solo Beatle record to sell
more than a million copies. It was a blast of joy and positive thinking
from a man hailed as one of the defining figures of the 1960s, who
was starting the new decade with the cropped hair and unshaven
face of an escaped convict—a desperado who meant business.
But if John had a plan, it would soon be undone by something
arriving in the mail.

Left: Yoko Ono and John Lennon Right: Album cover for
at the UNICEF gala at Ile de France, Instant Karma!
Paris 1968.

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 Chapter 3
Not Dreaming
but Screaming

“When you’re drowning, you just go,

Aaaaaaargh!!!”—John Lennon

Left: John Lennon sitting pensively in London

Airport smoking a cigarette. At the time of
the picture, he and wife Yoko Ono were
involved in a messy custody battle over
Yoko’s daughter from a previous marriage.

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 I
n 1967, a Californian psychotherapist named Dr. Arthur Janov
had a eureka moment when, during a therapy session, his patient curled
up on the floor and started screaming from the very depths of his soul.
What Dr. Janov witnessed inspired the belief that adult neuroses and
self-destructiveness stem from repressed reactions to childhood trauma;
if the therapist can help the patient bring those repressed feelings to the
surface and release them as screams of pain, over time the patient will
be relieved of anxiety, pain, and extreme behavior. Janov’s first book, The
Primal Scream, was published in early 1970. John Lennon was one of the
prominent people to whom the publisher mailed a copy to drum up interest.

Help Wanted
Screaming, of course, was what Yoko did on stage, and this coincidence
piqued John’s interest. What he read was like a message directed solely
at him, because in that early spring John needed help. His new home,
Tittenhurst Park, was overrun with builders. His relationship with Paul—
his creative other half and the close friend who, having also lost his
mother as a teenager, shared a deep bond of pain with John—was growing
rancorous over business differences. The lithographs John had made of
him and Yoko on their honeymoon were the subject of a police prosecution
for obscenity. In short, John barely felt able to get out of bed.
John got in touch with Janov, who, at his children’s urging, flew to London.
Janov had no doubt that John was in “the kind of pain that would knock a
patient off the floor, it was so catastrophic . . . agony beyond description,” as
he told British music journalist Gavin Martin. Initial sessions took place at
Tittenhurst Park, then at Janov’s temporary clinic in London, and finally,
when Janov complained he could no longer stay away from his Californian

Left: Police detectives are taking down and seizing

eight of the erotic pictures displayed at “Bag One.”
The exhibition featured a series of erotic pictures
depicting him and Yoko on their honeymoon.

Right: An invitation to attend “Bag One,” where

John and Yoko displayed the lithographs made
on their honeymoon. These lithographs became
the source of police prosecution for obscenity.

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 patients, in Los Angeles at his Primal Institute. John was granted leave to enter the United
States while appealing his U.K. drug conviction.
Encouraged by Janov over the course of that spring and summer (the Beatles’ final studio
album, Let It Be, was released in May) to get in touch with his deepest feelings about everything
from his mother and father abandoning him to life with his strict aunt Mimi, his fellow Beatles’
reactions to Yoko, and much more besides. John regressed to childhood. After each session of
howling agony and purgation, he went for a swim in the pool of his rented Bel Air mansion
and further consoled himself with a diet of chocolate, ice cream, and Dr. Pepper, putting on
thirty pounds. When his visa ran out, John flew home with Yoko, even though Janov felt that
the therapy needed another year to run its course.

A Portrait of Vulnerability
Did it work? For a short while, yes. John was creatively re-energized, and he at once channeled
into his songs the past he had confronted and the person he could now see unflinchingly in the
mirror. Among the phrases John coined during his sessions with Janov, “God is the concept by
which we measure our pain” became a key lyric in the album simply called John Lennon/Plastic
Ono Band, which was recorded at Abbey Road with Ringo on drums and Klaus Voormann on
bass (Yoko’s Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band album was recorded at the same

John regressed
time with the same core musicians).
Though he played old Elvis and Chuck Berry records in the studio and
to childhood and
ran through a few rock ’n’ roll standards to warm up, John was not after
a joyous sound of release but rather a simplicity of playing to give the
consoled himself songs space to speak for themselves. The lyrics were pinned conspicuously
to the studio walls so that Ringo and Klaus knew just what was at stake
with chocolate, personally for John. Nor could they fail to notice how John had changed
from the tough nut he’d always seemed. Now he was openly fragile, and on
ice cream, and several occasions he wept in the studio.
The album’s songs to Yoko—“Hold On,” “Look at Me,” and “Love”—are
Dr. Pepper . . . among the most touching John ever wrote, but they are not what stunned
his fans on first hearing the album. The album starts with the slowed

Right: A troubled-looking John

Lennon, circa 1970.

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 He was openly fragile

and on several occasions

wept in the studio . . .

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 34

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 down tolling of funeral church bells sampled from a horror movie soundtrack, with John’s
voice over a stark arrangement of piano, bass, and drums: “Mother, you had me, but I never
had you.”
“Mother,” which ends in howls of grief, would be the album’s only single. As the album
unfolded, other shocks followed: the savagery of “I Found Out”; the explosive joke ending of
“Remember” (in 1997 Phil Spector, who worked with John and Yoko on the record’s production,
said that John had wanted him to source the sound of a genuine IRA bomb going off in
Northern Ireland, but he had to make do with a sound library effect); the four-letter words
and bitter self-denunciation of “Working Class Hero”; the litany of failed faiths in “God,”
concluding with the dream being over as he no longer believed in the Beatles—he just believed
in himself. But the album wasn’t over—not quite. Recorded as if on a child’s cassette player,
“My Mummy’s Dead” is almost unbearably sad, no matter how often it’s heard.

The Outsider
Released in December of 1970, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was not the usual Christmas family
album. With George Harrison’s Spector-produced triple-album debut All Things Must Pass, the
must-have post-Beatle record of the season, few fans wanted John to spoil the party, and his
album sales were far from fab. But listeners soon began to recognize the record for what it was: an
intensely felt and expressed masterpiece in which anyone could hear something of themselves in
John’s unsparing yet vulnerable self-portrait.
John had made his stand against wishful thinking about the Beatles, religion, the 1960s, and much
else, and he went even further in a long, shockingly candid interview he gave Jann Wenner of Rolling
Stone magazine that December. In the eyes of the millions who loved the Beatles, John was turning
into an angry outsider, and only so many wanted to follow him out to the edge—far fewer than were
singing along with George to “My Sweet Lord.” Always competitive,
always populist as he was, John was rankled by this. Could he remain
true to his determination to tell the truth while making music for the
masses, not just the hardcore? That was his challenge for 1971.

Left: John Lennon at the E.M gallery party promoting his album,
Power to the People.

Right: John Lennon on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

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 Chapter 4
Sweetness, Light
—and a Sting

“Declare it. Just the same way we

declare war. That is how we will have
peace . . . we just need to declare it.”
—John Lennon

Left: A reflective John Lennon at his

Tittenhurst Park home during the making
of the “Imagine” film on July 23, 1971.

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 J
ohn usually acted on instinct rather than by methodically
working through an agenda. Now in his fourth year with Yoko, his
horizons and mind continued to broaden. Visiting New York with
her, he saw the city from the perspective of her former bohemian
life there; visiting Japan to meet her family, he was charmed and intrigued
by the quiet delicacy of domestic life.
Though raised by women, John was an alpha male in a man’s world—
unthinkingly so, until he met Yoko. At the dawn of the 1970s, the F-word
was on everyone’s lips—feminism. Yoko had been a feminist long before it
went mainstream, and John happily embraced both women’s rights and his
own softer side. Even in the fight for workers’ rights and the challenge to
Being photographed war-mongering capitalism that was by then spinning off from the peace

in a Japanese riot
moment and coming from the streets, women were the underdog, and John
was determined to tell the world the news.

helmet with a
Inspired by a long and supportive interview he gave to the British
radical political newspaper Red Mole, John wrote a new song around
clenched fist salute
the slogan “Power to the People.” A call to arms for workers, the song
challenged “comrades and brothers” to let “your own woman . . . free
’
didn t help sales. herself.” Echoing “Instant Karma!” in its raucous sing-along style—and
likewise quickly written and recorded to seize the moment—“Power to the
People” was, as John said, “something for the people to sing. I make singles
like broadsheets.”
Credited to the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and again
featuring the studio talents of Klaus Voormann, Alan White, Billy
Preston, and Phil Spector, it was a hit—but not as big a hit in that
spring of 1971 as the singles released by each of the other three
former Beatles. Being photographed in a Japanese riot police helmet
and giving the clenched fist salute on the single’s sleeve didn’t help.
This, perhaps, was the critical moment when John realized that to
get his message across to the world, as well as to compete even with
Ringo for the public’s affections, never mind Paul or George, he
needed to coat his songs, as he said, with sugar.

Left: Sleeve of Power To The People single.

Right: John Lennon and Yoko Ono at their

home in Tittenhurst Park in 1970. They lived
here from 1969–1971.

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 39

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 A Spoonful of Sugar
In September 1971, Imagine was the album—and the title song—that gave
John not only the worldwide hit he craved but proved that his artistic and
moral vision had survived the smoking ruins of the Beatles, and that he
could offer the way forward in the 1970s.
The basic tracks were recorded in a week in John’s home studio at
Tittenhurst Park with a broad cast of musicians, including George (but not
Ringo), ace pianist Nicky Hopkins, and, on massed acoustic guitars in the
streamlined 1970s version of coproducer Phil Spector’s “Wall of Sound,”
members of the Apple-signed pop-rock group Badfinger. With communal
meals around the kitchen table and John sneaking off with Hopkins for
a joint behind the back of a disapproving Yoko, the atmosphere was
convivial but always disciplined. John’s focus and work ethic in the studio
only slackened two years later, when he was off Yoko’s leash.
Some of Imagine’s songs completed previously sketched ideas, such
as “Gimme Some Truth,” which was started two years before to protest
“Tricky Dick” Nixon’s election as U.S. president. Likewise, “Jealous Guy”
was a new lyric added to the exquisite tune of John’s unrecorded 1968
song “Child of Nature.” “Jealous Guy” is a love song of startling insecurity
and neediness that fleshes out “Look at Me” (from the previous year) both
lyrically and musically. “Crippled Inside,” too, not only offered some verbal
fun but invited listeners to dance along to a jug-band tune that would
have done the Lovin’ Spoonful proud. Yet the song’s meaning was no
more than what John had learned from Dr. Janov’s therapy sessions. The
beautiful “How?” was, again, therapy-inspired but delicately sugar-coated
with strings. As a result, millions more fans swallowed the pill of John’s
doubt-ridden psyche.
But if John gave fans a shock with his renunciation of the Beatles in the
Above: John Lennon previous year’s song, “God,” in 1971 he made it personal, targeting Paul
playing a gorgeous white in “How Do You Sleep?” Played out in public via newspaper reports that
piano at Tittenhurst Park
during the making of the aired the former Beatles’ financial and legal differences, the spat between
film “Imagine.” The same Paul and his former bandmates—especially the group’s founder and his
piano was used to record former songwriting partner—was getting nastier. Like a rejected lover
the song “Imagine.”
reverting in anger and grief to a razor-tongued Liverpool teenager, John
Above: The album cover relished putting the knife, the boot, and whatever else he had into Paul in
of Imagine (released in “How Do You Sleep?” He would have put in a highly libelous comment,
1971), featuring John with
his head in the clouds. too, about authorship of the song “Yesterday” had he not heeded Allen
Klein’s advice not to.

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 Above: John Lennon and Yoko Ono Overleaf: Tensions between John Lennon and Paul
posing in their Tittenhurst Park home McCartney were beginning to show signs of strain in
during the making of the “Imagine” 1968, when this press conference photograph was
film on July 23, 1971. taken. By 1971, they were launching personal attacks
on each other through their albums. Lennon’s How Do
You Sleep? caused a sensation.

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 And just in case anyone missed the point, John included in the album
package a photo of him clutching a pig in parody of the cover of Paul’s
album Ram, which had come out that May and infuriated John with the
couple of mild digs aimed at him.
A song so unpleasantly powerful would usually have stolen the show
in albums by most other artists, but “How Do You Sleep?” was instead
upstaged by the opening title track.

A Fresh Start
Since the start of her relationship with John, Yoko had miscarried at least
twice. Both John and Yoko were each already parents with their children
living in the custody of their previous partners—Julian with Cynthia,
and Kyoko with Yoko’s second husband, Tony Cox. For John and Yoko,
a baby together would mean a fresh start at family life. A month before

Above: An autgraphed
copy of Grapefruit from Yoko
Ono and John Lennon.

Right: Yoko Ono launches

her new book Grapefruit in
1971. John Lennon signed
copies of the new release at
Selfridges in July of 1971.

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 the “Imagine” sessions started, John told the U.K.’s
Daily Mirror, “Yoko and I still hope for children of our
own. If not, we’ll adopt. We’ll cop all sorts of children,
Jews and Arabs, blacks and whites and polka-dot kids
too if there are any going.” John and Yoko were also
dreaming of the world in which the child they longed
for would be born.
That summer of 1971, the couple toured bookstores to
promote Yoko’s expanded edition of “instruction pieces,”
Grapefruit. In it, readers were invited to “imagine” the
“clouds dripping” or “one thousand suns in the sky at
the same time.” What John (and Yoko) imagined was a
world for their child without divisions of nation, wealth,
or faith. Sung over a gently inquiring yet serenely
authoritative piano figure, John conceded that people
might say he was a dreamer—and on the album sleeve,
his head was in the clouds—but he wasn’t the only one.
Join us, he hoped, and the world would live as one.
The enduring image of Imagine is of John playing
a white grand piano in the white music room at
Tittenhurst Park. But the appearance of unruffled
peace is deceptive. John was plagued by fans knocking
on the door, looking for enlightenment. And just a few
miles away, the law courts of London were grinding
away at the Beatles’ fortune and reputation. John and
Yoko had paid brief visits to New York after John was
allowed back into the United States, but now, on the
eve of Imagine’s release, the world city of “Jews and
Arabs, blacks and whites and polka-dot kids” looked
like a place of escape and rebirth for both. On Tuesday,
August 31, the couple flew from London to New York.
John would never return.

Top right: January 28, 1968, John Lennon, Paul Above: John and Yoko with Julian (son to John
McCartney, and Ringo Starr with old Liverpool friend, and Cynthia) and Kyoko (daughter to Yoko
singer Cilla Black, and pop singer Donovan (far left) at Ono and Tony Cox) in Edinburgh, 1971.
the reception to welcome the group Grapefruit to the
Beatles’ Apple record label. Just a few short years later,
John had turned into a family man.

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 Chapter 5
Que Pasa, New York?

“I like New Yorkers. They don’t believe in

wasting time.”—John Lennon

Left: John Lennon, dressed in a military jacket and

sunglasses, sings into a microphone as he performs
onstage at the “One to One” concert in Madison
Square Garden, New York on August 30, 1972. The
charity concert was to benefit developmentally
disabled people.

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 J
ohn and Yoko’s most pressing reason for taking up residence
in New York was to pursue Yoko’s custody battle with her previous
husband, Tony Cox, for their daughter, Kyoko. But for John, now
aged thirty-one, the city instantly offered not just a welcome but
a ticket back to the feeling he last had when he was the coolest, hippest,

John felt that

and most sarcastic art-school student in the tough seaport of Liverpool,
grooving to unfettered rock ’n’ roll hot off the boat from America.

he and Frank

The City that Never Sleeps

Zappa had a lot in
Making their base on the seventeenth floor of the St. Regis Hotel, and
common . . .
then later at a Greenwich Village loft, John and Yoko bicycled everywhere
in cheerful imitation of their fellow Villager, John’s old friend Bob Dylan.
Excited and delighted by the open-minded, risk-taking New York art scene
(a welcome contrast to the conservatism he’d left behind in Britain), John
soundtracked his new 24/7, street-level lifestyle with old Elvis, Bo Diddley,
Chuck Berry, and Link Wray records, plus albums by the scabrously
satirical comedian Lenny Bruce and the entire back catalog of the group
with whom John had put in a cameo performance at New York’s Fillmore
East that summer: Frank Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. John felt that he
and Zappa had a lot in common (despite Zappa’s tendency toward musical
virtuosity and his utter disdain for social and political idealism).

Right: A posed group

portrait of Frank Zappa with
the Mothers of Invention.

Opposite: John Lennon and

Yoko Ono stroll around their
neighborhood, near Bank
Street in Greenwich Village
in October of 1972.

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 There were others, too, with whom John quickly struck up friendships,
notably the political activists Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman of the
Yippies (Youth International Party) and the street musician David Peel,
who introduced John to the group he would invite to be his backing band,
Elephant’s Memory.

Christmas in New York

But first, Christmas: a time for children, a time for nostalgia, and a time for
John’s friend and latter-day studio coconspirator, Phil Spector, whose 1963 Phil Spector
all-star album A Christmas Gift for You from Philles Records was by now very
unfashionable but still close to John’s heart. As the two convened to record supervised a

holiday sound
Lennon’s next single, John found himself utterly in his element among
a bevy of superb musicians, including Nicky Hopkins and drummer Jim

full of sleigh
Keltner, who’d also played on the “Imagine” sessions. For the non-album
“Happy Xmas (War Is Over),” Spector supervised a sound that didn’t stint
bells and caroling
on sleigh bells or caroling kids (some thirty-plus were recruited from the
Harlem Community Choir).
The song harked back to more innocent days, yoking melody lines that kids . . .
evoked everything from the folk ballad “Stewball,” the Paris Sisters, and
Johnny Ace to John’s 1969 Christmas message: WAR IS OVER! (If You
Want It). Though “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” is one of the best-loved
solo Beatle songs today, in 1971 it was released too late to make an impact
on the Christmas singles market and was not a hit.
Back in London, John had made the benefit record Do the Oz in support of
the owners of the underground magazine Oz, who were being threatened
with jail for obscenity. In the United States, he also hastened to
help those oppressed by the state, most notably Detroit White
Panther leader John Sinclair, the political dissident who had
been sentenced to a ten-year jail stretch after he was entrapped
in a marijuana bust, and Black Panther activist Angela Davis.

Left: John Lennon sitting on Right: Album cover for

a windowsill, probably at the Happy Xmas (War is Over).
Dakota in New York City in 1980.

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 Making live appearances in support of Sinclair as well as the families of
the thirty-nine killed in the Attica prison riot, John was inspired by the
rapturous reception he received.
What he did not know was that the U.S. government was also watching
his support of these anti-establishment causes, but with mounting alarm

ln January of
rather than applause. In January of 1972, the FBI opened a file on John; it
was a presidential election year and the incumbent Richard Nixon wanted to

1972, the FBl

thwart by means fair or foul any opposition to his re-election (most notable
among these means was the illegal break-in at the Democratic National

opened a file on
Committee offices at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C.). The
voting age was to drop to eighteen prior to the November elections, and
John Lennon.
Nixon’s regime feared that the new youth vote could tip the election in favor
of the Democrats if they were mobilized by the likes of Lennon.
Had he known that Uncle Sam was assembling a case for his deportation,
John might have thought twice about his next album. Where the Christmas
single had been an old-fashioned production number compared to the
“instant” stand-alone singles that preceded it, on the album John and
Yoko hoped to release within months of Imagine, John reverted to writing
and recording in the heat of the moment, with Phil Spector once again
supervising the studio sessions. Most tracks championed John and Yoko’s
pet causes, as John said, “in a tradition of minstrels—singing reporters—
who sang about their times and what was happening.” Songs included, in
various musical styles, “John Sinclair,” “Attica State,” and “Angela.”

Champion of a Cause
Around the same period, John had met up with Paul for the first time in
two years when he and his wife Linda were in New York. The ex-partners
found themselves, as Brits of Irish descent, agreeing that British troops
should get out of Northern Ireland; each would write songs to that effect,
of which “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and the catchy “The Luck of the Irish”
would feature on the album Some Time in New York City.
Back in 1968, Yoko had given John a crash course in feminism, and in
“Power to the People” he had alluded to the cause. Now he had a new slogan
song with which to spread the word: quoting a magazine interview Yoko
had given in 1969, John penned “Woman Is the Nigger of the World.”
Few radio stations would play the song when it was released as a single,
though it was one of the strongest tracks on the new album. But the best

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 Above: Yin and yang . . . John Overleaf: John Lennon and Yoko
Lennon and Yoko Ono at their Bank Ono performing at a charity
Street home in the West Village. concert in New York, August 1972.

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 song—and best performance both from John in voice and from his raucous new backing band,
Elephant’s Memory—was “New York City”, which updated “The Ballad of John and Yoko”
from three years before, joyously relating the recent uplift in the couple’s lives and tipping its
hat to John’s early inspiration, Chuck Berry, both musically and lyrically. It should have been
the single.
It wasn’t, but that was hardly John’s worst decision. First was the second disk of the double
album, which collected live numbers from John’s appearances at the London Lyceum in 1969
and with the Mothers of Invention the previous summer at the Fillmore East. John sang
well, but the backing musicians were either under-rehearsed or, in the case of the Mothers,
a stylistic misfit. Far worse for most listeners was that there was a lot of Yoko, just as there
was on the album’s studio sides, where John, true to his feminist commitment, gave her equal
billing and a near-equal share of the album’s listening time. Muse to John she may have been,
but she was hardly in his class as a singer or songwriter. Most put their fingers in their ears
and walked away.

Dark Shadows
Meanwhile, John’s U.S. visa ran out in February of 1972. As long as he did not leave and
then try to re-enter the country, he was reasonably safe. A forced deportation would have made
the government look provocatively heavy-handed. But that meant John would be trapped in
the land of the free, so he hired a lawyer whose early advice was to cut down on controversial
causes and try harder to endear himself to broader U.S. public opinion. John was always
moved by the plight of children, and when a fundraiser was
proposed to improve conditions at Staten Island’s overcrowded
Willowbrook State School for special needs children, John and
Yoko volunteered to join a bill that included Stevie Wonder.
The “One to One” matinee and evening shows on August 30
at New York’s 20,000-capacity Madison Square Garden turned
out to be John’s final stage appearances as a billed act, and these
shows were recorded and filmed. Finally released in 1986, “Live
in New York City” is fine, but the live footage, warts and all, is
a revelation. A great party band dominated by Stan Bronstein’s

Left: An Apple promotional ad

touting John’s brand new release,
“Mother.” The photos at the top are
of a young John Lennon and Yoko
Ono.

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 bellowing saxophone, Elephant’s Memory trampled all over the Below: Album cover for
songs that needed musical restraint: “Mother” and “Imagine.” But Woman Is The Nigger of the
World.
when it came to rock, the band inspired an initially tense, gum-
chewing John to cut loose on great renditions of “Come Together,”
“New York City,” “Instant Karma!,” and “Hound Dog.” The last
bleeds, via a Yoko rap, into “Give Peace a Chance,” the stage filled
with chanting revelers.
The show was a triumph, inspiring John to start dreaming of
a tour. But the shadows were gathering: repeated miscarriages,
heroin and methadone habits that were kicked only to return, the
dawning realization that Paul had been correct in his suspicions
about Allen Klein’s integrity, and conspicuous U.S. government
surveillance (including phone tapping) all put John and Yoko’s
marriage under strain. By the time of Nixon’s landslide election
victory that November, something had to give.

Repeated

miscarriages

and a recurring

drug habit put

a strain on the

marriage . . .

Left: Ready for battle . . .

John Lennon and Yoko Ono
in matching berets.

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 Chapter 6
Ambassador or Guerilla?

“If there’s such a thing as genius—I am

one. And if there isn’t, I don’t care.”
—John Lennon

Right: John Lennon working on

his album, Mind Games, at the
Record Plant in 1972.

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 W
hat gave out was John’s self-control. A party that was started to celebrate
Nixon’s hoped-for defeat turned into a wake, when TV coverage began to
report the opposite. The causes John had supported were roundly rejected by
American voters before his eyes. John turned on his radical guests and then
made things far worse by getting drunk and having sex with another guest, to the horror of
Yoko and to the embarrassment of everyone else in the apartment.
There had been rumors of tension between the couple in previous months, and as Yoko
approached her fortieth birthday, she began to entertain the idea that letting her husband,
nearly eight years her junior, off the leash might save rather than destroy their marriage.
Dependent on the dominating Yoko, yet intrigued by the thought of playing the field, John
was torn. In April of 1973, as if to deny the shakiness in their relationship, the couple fled the
Village to move uptown to a spacious apartment overlooking Central Park, which had been
just vacated by the movie actor Robert Ryan. The Dakota, John liked to tell people, was where
“they made Rosemary’s Baby,” as if its setting for the classic horror movie added to its charm.
On the kitchen door John affixed a plaque announcing it as the “Nutopian Embassy.” That
April Fool’s Day he had announced “the birth of a conceptual country, NUTOPIA. Citizenship
of the country can be obtained by declaration of your awareness of NUTOPIA. NUTOPIA
has no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people. NUTOPIA has no laws other than
cosmic. All people of NUTOPIA are ambassadors of the country. As two ambassadors of

Left: There’s a storm

brewing . . . John Lennon
on the roof of the
Dakota on February 25,
1975. Central Park, the
Manhattan skyline, and
dark clouds loom behind
him.

Right: John Lennon in the

kitchen of his apartment in
the Dakota on West 72nd
Street in New York City.

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 NUTOPIA, we ask for diplomatic immunity and recognition in the United Nations of our
country and its people.” As a way to beat his deportation order, it was never going to work,
but the Nutopia concept had charm; its flag was a white tissue, and its anthem, to be featured
on John’s next album, Mind Games, was a few seconds of silence.

Trouble Brewing
A fresh bout of writer’s block gnawing at John was made all the more frustrating by Yoko,
who was prolifically writing her fourth album, the tellingly titled Feeling the Space. Unlike
her previous three, it would not feature musicians chosen by John but her own pick of crack
sessioneers. With independence clearly a two-way street, what was John to do? He decided
to cut Mind Games immediately after Feeling the Space in the same studio and with the same
core musicians Yoko had picked for hers (with the help of the couple’s young assistant, May
Pang). These included drummer Jim Keltner, keyboardist Ken Ascher, saxophonist Michael
Brecker, pedal-steel player “Sneaky Pete” Kleinow, and—with the twist that he’d also played
on Paul’s recent album, Red Rose Speedway, as well as Ram, which had so irritated John two
years before—guitarist David Spinozza.
Recollections differ as to whether John had the songs already fully formed when he went
into the studio, or if he relied on the musicians to give rough drafts a fuller musical shape.

Yoko kicked John out

of the nest, and he

traveled across the

country with a new girl

on his arm . . .

Right: John Lennon and May Pang

during the Jim Stacey Benefit at
Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles,
California on March 23, 1974.

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 What is significant is that the title track, which also leads off the album and was to be the
first single release, had its origins in a song John had vaguely started working on in January
1969; by 1973 its slogan chorus of “make love, not war” seemed a relic of another age. The rest
of the song compressed the latest stage in the development of John’s personal philosophy—
a blend of mysticism and mental and spiritual exploration half-digested from a book he’d read
when it came out in 1972: Mind Games by Robert Masters and Jean Houston. The listener
hopes that lines referring to druid dudes doing the mind guerilla are John being wacky and
Walruslike, but the music is so sincere and anthemic that they have to be taken at face value.
Whereas the clunkier songs on Some Time in New York City could be forgiven as aberrations,
sincere but failed experiments in Dylan-esque protest songwriting, every element of Mind
Games— the track sequencing, the excellent musicianship, and its slick production and varied
arrangements combining elements of girl pop, country, exotica, and updated rockabilly—
indicated that John was trying his best to win back his huge Imagine audience.
Upon its release that November, Mind Games was a hit, though no blockbuster—selling
around half a million copies in the United States, compared to Imagine’s two million plus.
With the benefit of hindsight, Mind Games offers some very good tracks. “Bring on the
Lucie (Freda Peeple)” is an antigovernment, self-empowerment anthem with its widescreen
slide guitar echoing George’s version of Dylan’s “If Not for You” three years before—clearly,
the old boss was admitting the kid might have some tricks worth learning after all. Of the
love songs, “One Day (At a Time),” “You Are Here,” and especially “Out the Blue” (in parts
echoing the Beatles’ “Sexy Sadie”) are gently catchy and sweetly textured—easy on the ear but
sincere and very public statements of John’s continued need for and devotion to Yoko. But by
the time listeners heard the beautiful “Aisumasen (I’m Sorry),” with its promise not to cause
any more pain to his darlin’, it was too late: Yoko had kicked John out of the nest and he was
on the other side of the country in Los Angeles—“Lost Arseholes,” as he put it—with a new
girl on his arm: May Pang.

Right: Album covers for

Some Time in NYC and
Mind Games.

Overleaf: May Pang

and John Lennon at the
Beacon Theater in New
York City for the opening
of “Sergeant Pepper’s
Lonely Hearts Club.”

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-

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 Chapter 7
Lost and Found on the
Lost Weekend

“I am scared a lot of the time.

I think we all are.”
—John Lennon

Left: Rock musicians John Lennon

(left) and Chuck Berry (right)
perform on The Mike Douglas Show
in 1971.

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 W
hen John touched down in Los Angeles on September 18, 1973, he had a
cover story: he was there to put the finishing touches on Mind Games and then
go straight back into the studio to record a new album of golden-oldie covers
for fun—and to wriggle off an awkward legal hook.
Between his deportation battle and the Beatles’ fallout with each other, as well as with
Allen Klein—reluctantly the other three ex-Beatles had accepted Paul’s view that Klein was
in business for himself, and at the expense of his formerly fab clients—John was beset by
lawyers. The last thing John needed was another legal fight, so when one arose, his instinct
was to do whatever it took to make it go away. The problem was this: John’s last hit single
with the Beatles was “Come Together,” the funky anthem of sexual liberation that blended
John’s love of comical English wordplay with Chuck Berry’s brilliantly witty celebrations
of the 1950s American teenage dream. The trouble was, in his tribute to Chuck, John lifted the
line “here come ol’ flat top” from the Berry song “You Can’t Catch Me.” Chuck didn’t mind, but
the song’s publisher, the notorious mob-connected Mo Levy (the model for “The Sopranos”
character Hesh Rabkin) sued.
Legally, John had no defense, so he agreed to record and release three songs for which Levy
controlled the publishing, thereby providing a very big payday for Levy, also known as Octopus.
John decided to see this requirement as a positive—he was, after all, an unreconstructed rocker
and had sung rock ’n’ roll numbers on records and in studio warmups with the Beatles. Even
though most of the early Beatles’ albums contained rock ’n’ roll covers, including John’s 1964
belting account of Berry’s “Rock and Roll Music,” he was reluctant to insert three covers

Left: Legendary producer Phil

Spector (middle) in 1964 directs
a recording session at Gold Star
Studios with engineer Larry Levine
(left) and musician Nino Tempo
(right) in Los Angeles, California.

Right: John Lennon is held back

from attacking a photographer
by his friend, American singer-
songwriter-musician Harry Nilsson,
(left) and an unidentified friend, on
March 12, 1974, in the parking lot
of the Troubadour in West Hollywood,
California. Lennon, along with
Nilsson had just been kicked out of
the club for drunkenly heckling the
comedy duo, the Smothers Brothers.

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 69

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 into his next solo album of otherwise original songs. So, enjoying a wave of nostalgia for the
golden age of rock ’n’ roll stirred by the likes of the George Lucas movie American Graffiti
and, in Britain, That’ll Be the Day (costarring Ringo), John decided to go for broke and record
a whole album of oldies. And who better to team up with on such an album than Phil Spector,
who was based in L.A.?
In reality, the main reason that brought John to L.A. was that only by getting as far as
he could from New York without leaving the United States could he distance himself from
the guilt of separating from Yoko and living with another woman, the pretty twenty-two-
year-old Chinese-American May Pang. John and May had been having (so she later wrote) a
surreptitious fling back in New York. Perhaps Yoko had wind of this when she suggested that
May accompany John to L.A. as his personal assistant; that way, John’s need for release stayed
in-house and under Yoko’s loose supervision.

Lost and Found

Spector immediately collapsed into a round-the-clock He lost control and

That fall, John was utterly conflicted. The sessions with

succumbed to rage and

partying, with cocaine, Librium, booze, and general
mayhem. When John lost control and succumbed to
self-pity . . .
drunken rage and self-pity, as he did almost every
night in some of L.A.’s most high-profile watering
holes (to the embarrassment of his fans), it was Yoko
he cried for. For fourteen months, he had what he would later call his “Lost Weekend”—losing
himself in vodka, Brandy Alexanders, and marching powder, yet clearly having no fun at all.
Keeping John company was a cast of fellow talents who had also lost their way at a time
when the 1960s dream of a new society had soured into self-indulgence born of frustrated
ideals. Chief among them was Spector himself, whose studio eccentricity had begun scaling
new heights. Then there was singer-songwriter, charmer, and Beatles favorite since the late
1960s Harry Nilsson, famous for the hit “Without You” and now spiraling into self-destruction.
As many as twenty-seven musicians would roll up to A&M Studios as the night wore on, all
carousing, all charging top-dollar session fees. It was chaos, with John picking up the tab.
Then it got even worse. With his paranoia already tweaked, Spector then refused to leave
the tapes securely locked at the studio after each night’s session, instead loading them into
the trunk of his car for the drive home. One night, at the end of the 1973 Christmas holidays,
Spector never returned. Later there were rumors of a car accident. Whatever the case, he
wasn’t picking up the phone.
While John waited for Spector to resurface, he continued to carouse with old buddies, such
as Ringo, Jim Keltner, the Who’s Keith Moon, and Rolling Stone Mick Jagger. Fortunately,

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 it wasn’t all party time—John’s production of Jagger’s slick but funky
Willie Dixon cover “Too Many Cooks” was finally released in 2007, and
in the spring of 1973 Harry Nilsson, charmed John into producing his
tenth album, Pussy Cats, which was heavily promoted on the back of the
ex-Beatle’s involvement. Despite the quality of songs like “Don’t Forget
Me” and John’s lush, nostalgic sound, Nilsson’s drinking, which had grown
worse, had audibly damaged his once pristine voice. During recording,
John had grown concerned, and it brought home to him the fact that the
party lifestyle came at a cost. In an effort to solve the immediate problem,
John insisted that Pussy Cats be finished away from L.A.’s temptations, in
the more businesslike environment of New York. It was the excuse John
needed to return east in April of 1974.

Words Unleashed
The writer’s block that had partly precipitated John’s crisis
with Yoko was now over, and he had a cache of new songs
that reflected the recent months: about his bouts of fear and
depression there were “Scared,” “Old Dirt Road” (cowritten
with Nilsson), and “Nobody Loves You (When You’re Down
and Out)”; about hedonism as survival there was “Whatever
Gets You Thru the Night” (a phrase he’d heard on a late-
night televangelist broadcast); about May Pang there was
“Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Paradox)”; about Yoko
there was “Bless You”; recalling the vitriolic yet lush “How
Do You Sleep?,” there was “Steel and Glass,” this time about
former ally Allen Klein; and, flashing back to such late Beatles’

Left: Album cover for Walls and

Bridges.

Above: Stickers for Walls and

Bridges.

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 Above: John Lennon’s last onstage
appearance on November 28,
1974. Here, he performs with Elton
John after losing a bet about
“Whatever Gets You Thru the Night”
going to number one (it did).

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 hypnopompic classics as “I’m Only Sleeping,” “Strawberry
Fields Forever,” and “Julia,” there was “#9 Dream,” perhaps the Elton John
highlight of the album.
Featuring many of the same musicians as Mind Games, predicted that
“
Whatever Gets
and again self-produced, Walls and Bridges—a title evoking
communication and noncommunication—enjoyed far more

You Thru the

success. Despite the first song, “Going Down on Love,” making
for a relatively weak start, Walls and Bridges was otherwise a
”
Night would go to
stronger album than its predecessor throughout, with better
songs and much more musical variety, as John allowed his
number one . . .
players to show off “their chops.”

New Friends
Among John’s new friends was the bestselling rock singer of the early and mid-1970s, fellow
Brit Elton John. John found himself enjoying his gay buddy’s camp and carefree milieu; Elton
sang harmonies and played piano on “Whatever Gets You Thru the Night” and, convinced it
was a hit, bet John, who was beset by anxiety that he’d lost his popular touch, that it would be
a number one hit single. John agreed to appear on stage with him if Elton was proved right.
The song fared exactly as Elton predicted, and on November 28, 1974—Thanksgiving
night—at New York’s Madison Square Garden, a very nervous John Lennon upstaged all
the razzamatazz of a classic Elton show, taking the stage to a massive ovation to perform
“Whatever Gets You Thru the Night,” “I Saw Her Standing There” (the 1963 Beatles’ rocker
on which Paul sang lead vocals), and the Sgt. Pepper classic “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,”
a cover of which had just been released by Elton featuring John as Dr. Winston (his middle
name) O’Boogie on guitar and backing vocals; it would go to number one in the Billboard
singles chart in January. John was inspired by the audience response and thrilled to be on
stage again. It would be his final appearance before a paying audience.
Elton’s cover of “Lucy” was not the last number one hit single to which John would
contribute, however. He’d met and been fascinated by the innovative English rock star David
Bowie, who was in the U.S. making what he would later call his “plastic soul” album, Young
Americans. John was intrigued when Bowie told him he was cutting a version of “Across the
Universe,” one of John’s Let It Be songs, and so helped out at the session. The pair discussed
the experience of stardom, a conversation Bowie distilled into the song “Fame,” on which
John helped with a vocal cameo. Bowie gave John a cowriting credit on the track, which was a
number one in the summer of 1975.
John had rediscovered his Midas touch, but the problem of satisfying Mo Levy had still not
gone away.

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 Digging Deep
On Walls and Bridges, John celebrated his renewed contact with son Julian
by cutting a version of Lee Dorsey’s easygoing, gumbo-flavored 1961 hit
“Ya Ya” with the eleven-year-old on drums. It was a song whose publishing
Levy controlled, and releasing it on a hit album bought John some time.
With Levy demanding a full settlement, John managed to retrieve the
Spector tapes at a cost of $90,000. Cans and cans of tape were conveyed
from JFK Airport to the New York recording studios in a fleet of limos.
But listening back to hours of party fun yielded only four songs on which
everyone was in tune; John would have to cut the balance of the album
Above: Album cover for from scratch.
Rock ‘n’ Roll. Digging deep into the Beatles’ live repertoire from their Hamburg and
Liverpool days of more than thirteen years earlier, John and his team
of eight crack New York sessioneers took just three days to complete a
tribute to some of his favorite jukebox hits from when he was a leather-
jacketed young greaser. Among them were Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That a
Shame,” which he associated with his mother, who had bought him the
guitar on which he first learned to play the song as a teenager, and Gene
Vincent’s “Be-Bop-A-Lula,” a favorite, too, of Paul’s, who also covered it
many years later.
Compared to the nippy roadsters of the originals, John’s covers on the
1975-released album Rock ’n’ Roll are chrome-trimmed limousines purring
with high-octane musicianship from such legends as Steve Cropper, Jesse
Ed Davis, Hal Blaine, Leon Russell, Nino Tempo, and Bobby Keys. John’s
singing has for the most part all the elation, anguish, and thrill of the
covers he sang with the Beatles, even though, being insecure as ever about
his voice, he submerged it somewhat in the mix (when Yoko supervised the
CD remix and remaster in 2004, she raised it to where, from the listener’s
viewpoint, it always should have been; this is the version, rather than the
2010 CD re-issue, that packs the punch).
Packing a punch in particular are John’s version of Chuck Berry’s “You
Can’t Catch Me”—the song that started all the Mo Levy trouble in the first
place—and his hit single of Ben E. King’s 1961 chart smash, cowritten
with Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller, “Stand by Me.” A mighty song about
two being stronger than one, this was no mere duty call for John, but a
deeply felt truth about him and Yoko.
And Yoko was no longer deaf to her husband’s appeals for reconciliation.

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 Above: John Lennon and David
Bowie at the Uris Theater in New York
on February 28, 1975, for the 17th
Annual Grammy Awards.

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 Chapter 8
The Vanishing

“I still get recognized.

I think it’s me nose.”
—John Lennon

Left: John Lennon and Yoko Ono outside

of the Times Square recording studio, The Hit
Factory, before a recording session of his final
album Double Fantasy in August of 1980.

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 Y
oko had attended John’s Thanksgiving 1974 performance with Elton at
Madison Square Garden to give him a gardenia, her favorite flower, as a token of her
continuing love. It was all going right for John. His realization that Paul had been
correct all along about Allen Klein settled the essence of the dispute with his former
songwriting partner that had raged since 1969, and now John and Paul were back on very
friendly terms. And with “Whatever Gets You T-hru the Night” going to number one in
the States, John had at last joined the other ex-Beatles in planting his flag at the summit
of the U.S. singles chart as a solo artist. None of the four had anything more to prove of their
viability as musicians outside of the Fab Four’s comfort zone. Still, in 1975, the possibility of a
Beatles reunion amounted to slightly more than the world’s wishful thinking.
It never happened.

Above: A bunch of suits . . . David Right: John Lennon playing the

Bowie, Art Garfunkel, Paul Simon, guitar for a tribute to Sir Lew Grade
Yoko Ono, and John Lennon at the in 1975.
Uris Theater in New York City for the
17th Annual Grammy Awards on
February 28, 1975.

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 No Place Like Home
John had nothing more to prove. He’d moved back to the Dakota with Yoko
that January, telling New York radio listeners the following month that “our
separation was a failure.” And, turning forty-two, Yoko had again become
pregnant. But at her age, and after so many draining disappointments,
she wasn’t sure she wanted to continue with the pregnancy; she agreed
on the condition that John give his unconditional support by becoming a
househusband.
This he did, but the degree to which he settled into this role depends on
which of the numerous eyewitnesses to the so-called Dakota years are to
be believed. Though John publicly repented for the Lost Weekend of 1973
and 1974, toward the end of those months away from Yoko he was busy
rebuilding the bridges to family in Liverpool. He was also reconnecting to
Paul McCartney and old friends going back to his childhood—such as Pete
Shotton—and the Beatles’ days—such as Mick Jagger. But those contacts
virtually ceased when John returned to Yoko. Rumors abounded of his
return to complete emotional and psychological dependency on his wife
and her curious decision-making processes, including numerology.
In April of 1975, a month after Yoko learned that she was pregnant, John
discharged a final professional obligation when he performed “Imagine”
and a cover of Little Richard’s “Slippin’ and Slidin’”—a track on the just-

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 released album Rock ’n’ Roll—on a TV tribute to British showbiz impresario Sir Lew Grade.
John had been locked in legal dispute for the previous four years with Grade’s music publishing
company, ATV. The fact that John wore impenetrable little round dark glasses, chewed gum
unsmilingly, and outfitted his eight-piece band with masks that they wore on the backs of their
heads (to give them all two faces) told the audience all they needed to know about his real
feelings for the man to whom he was supposedly paying tribute. John exhibited three other
telling eccentricities: he wore a red jumpsuit, showing he’d absorbed some of Elton John and
David Bowie’s lessons in modern rock showmanship; his hair was long and worn pulled back
almost samurai-style, as if to confirm his Japanese affinity; and on “Imagine” he invited the
all-star audience to “imagine no immigration,” a bitter reference
“
lf bringing up a
to the one dispute that still dogged him.
But by now Nixon was gone, and with him any political will
’
to throw John out of America. On October 7, recognizing his child isn t work,
desire to live in and contribute positively to the United States,
”
John was granted his residency visa, allowing him to leave the what is?
country without fear of being denied re-entry. Two days later,
on John’s thirty-fifth birthday, Yoko gave birth to their son, —John Lennon
Sean Tara Ono Lennon.

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 Proud Papa
It has been sweepingly generalized that for five years John baked bread, boiled brown rice,
and saw to Sean’s needs as he grew from baby to young boy. “He didn’t come out of my belly
but, by God, I made his bones,” said John. “I’ve attended to every meal, and to how he sleeps,
and to the fact that he swims like a fish.” Yoko, meanwhile, the scion of a wealthy Japanese
banking family, devoted her time to building the couple’s personal fortune, which included a
herd of prize dairy cattle—an investment that echoed John’s delight as a small child in his
uncle George’s Liverpool dairy farm.
“Our press-clipping service . . . is full of the most bizarre stories,” John noted to himself in
1978 (posthumously published in the book Skywriting by Word of Mouth). “Amongst my favorites
is the one that I’ve gone bald and become a recluse ‘locked in my penthouse’—a cross between
Elvis Presley, Greta Garbo, and Howard Hughes—occasionally making cryptic statements
like ‘I’ve made my contribution to society and don’t intend to work again.’ If bringing up a
child isn’t work, what is? The reality behind the mystery is simply that we are doing what we
want to do. Period.”
For a five-year period, John’s professional résumé reveals very little. But in 1980, as Sean
approached his fifth birthday and school age, and John neared the symbolic watershed of his
fortieth, his long banked-up creativity began to itch. In the last summer vacation of John’s life,
he was inspired to scratch it.
For almost five years John devoted himself to Sean, the hearth, and the home. The family
had also traveled, mostly to Japan to visit the Ono family. But as a child, John had loved
vacationing outdoors with his beloved uncle George, and he was determined to give Sean the
very best childhood (as if to help purge the worst memories of his own), which meant sun and
sea vacations.
John also craved a midlife adventure and was gripped
by the idea of yachting from Rhode Island to Bermuda.
Leaving Sean safely on dry land, that June he and his crew
set sail for a week. Paul McCartney’s current hits “Silly Love
Songs” and “Coming Up” were playing on the radio like a
challenge to his old partner, who had barely completed a
song since making one contribution to Ringo’s Rotogravure
album in 1976. But what broke through John’s six-year

Left: John Lennon strumming a Right: Album

tune for son, Sean Lennon, in the cover for Double
Imagine documentary in 1988. Fantasy.
Yoko Ono is laughing and filming
in the background.

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 songwriter’s block was a far bigger adventure than John had anticipated when he first set sail.
A storm blew up in Bermudan waters, and John—afterward claiming that quitting heroin cold
turkey had stress-proofed him against seasickness—was the only crewmember apart from the
captain well enough to pilot the yacht safely to harbor. The experience hugely invigorated
John and filled him with fresh self-confidence. In Bermuda, fully formed songs started pouring
out of him.
John had brought along cassettes of fragmentary home demos (recorded at the Dakota) to
get him going, and some of these recordings showed his sarcastic side, unblunted by domesticity,
never mind loyalty to old friends. “The Rishi Kesh Song” spoofs George Harrison’s mantra
dependency, while the even more withering “Serve Yourself ” roasts Bob Dylan’s 1979 born-
again Christian sermon-song, “Gotta Serve Somebody,” as well as sending himself up as a
comically and cosmically furious Liverpudlian. Both of these fascinating gems can be found
on 1998’s revelatory John Lennon Anthology, which features home demos, studio outtakes, and
other previously unreleased material.

Mostly John wrote

songs of love and need,

home, and hope for the

future . . .

Left: Rock star John Lennon

signing an autograph in 1980.

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 Mostly John wrote songs of love and need, home, and hopes for the future, but not quite
every song highlights the domestic serenity he had finally found in raising Sean and resolving
tensions with Yoko. Tracks from Anthology bearing this out include “I’m Losing You,” which
recalled his Lost Weekend with so much raw anguish, it seemed as if it were still happening.
In fact, he started the song as “Stranger’s Room” in 1978, completing it that summer of 1980
when, unable to reach Yoko by telephone from Bermuda, John again plunged into the terror
of abandonment and the need for reassurance that had gripped him since childhood. Likewise,
“Nobody Told Me” was started in 1976 as a song for Ringo, the everyman bemused by the
mad, mad world. John recorded a version in August of 1980 at New York’s Hit Factory, the
studio sessions from which his next two albums would be drawn.

Ready for Yoko

Very early on, John and Yoko—playfully casting themselves as the Victorian poets Robert
Browning and Elizabeth Barrett, who had married despite her being some years his senior,
at last conceiving a son after several miscarriages—had decided that they would break the
silence with their first joint album since Some Time in New York City. Double Fantasy (named
after a species of freesia John had seen in Bermuda), with a subtitle of “A Heart Play,” mostly
alternated between songs written and sung by each spouse, with John starting each side and
Yoko having the final two songs. Whereas in 1972 John and Yoko had pictured themselves as
artistic urban guerillas firing bullets from the front line of the struggle against “The Man,”
in 1980 they made their marriage and son the focus of their message to the world: that peace
ripples out from the healing influence and mutual support of a loving family.
Noting the chart success of the New Wave single “Rock Lobster” by the B-52s, which
featured quirky female vocals, John felt that for the
first time the mainstream public had the ears to enjoy
Yoko’s voice. To aid the mainstream listener, the
couple wanted a contemporary sound, so they hired
producer Jack Douglas, who had engineered Imagine
and gone on to become one of the decade’s heavyweight
rock producers, credited with hit records by the likes
of Aerosmith. Among his favorite clients were Beatles’

Right: Photo taken the summer

of 1980 of John Lennon standing
with Yoko Ono outside the Dakota
Apartments in New York City. This
photo appears on Lennon’s last
album Double Fantasy.

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 fans Cheap Trick, so Douglas recruited their guitarist Rick Nielsen and
drummer Bun E. Carlos for the Double Fantasy sessions, where they cut
“I’m Losing You” in a searing performance to echo “Cold Turkey” and
“I Found Out” a decade before. But the result was simply too heavy. The
decision was taken—it’s said by Yoko and supported by John—to stick to
the radio-friendly, adult-oriented rock sound of the day: no rough edges,
but rather the airiness of a spacious, modern luxury kitchen.

Personal Truth
In contrast to the production’s dawn-of-the-1980s sheen was John’s song-
craft, rooted in his formative pre-Beatles’ rock years, with few of the outré
harmonic, melodic, and verbal touches he’d developed in the 1980s. Over
the years, and especially since 1970, John had come to distrust imagery,
wordplay, and storytelling as evasions of what was most important to him
as a songwriter: telling his personal truth. But where the songs of 1970
have the impact of catharsis, ten years later the buoyancy of John’s life and
mood as reflected in such songs as “(Just Like) Starting Over” (the first
single released from the album and the last hit of his lifetime), “Watching
the Wheels,” and “Woman” instantly appeal but, perhaps, don’t sink so
deeply into the listener’s psyche; it’s the difference in emotional impact
between the tolling funeral bells announcing John Lennon/Plastic Ono
Band in 1970 and the tinkle of the Tibetan wishing bell that opened Double
Fantasy ten years later.
Double Fantasy met with a mixed reception upon its release on
November 17. Selling solidly in its first three weeks, the album included,
everyone could agree, one indisputable classic to rank among John’s very
best work: “Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)” is irresistibly and lastingly
meaningful to anyone who loves children. It also offers John’s last great
quotable verse: “Life is what happens to you/While you’re busy making
other plans.”
The night of December 8, 1980, revealed the awful prophecy of those lines.

Right: John Lennon posing with

fan Paul Goresh in the last picture
of him taken on the day of his
death, December 8, 1980.

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 85

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 Chapter 9
Into the Sky

“Everybody loves you when

you’re six foot in the ground.”
—John Lennon

Left: Yoko Ono kisses her son

on the head at the dedication
of the Strawberry Fields garden in
Central Park.

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 ’
Overnight, John s voice and

music filled the airwaves . . .

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 F
or anyone who had grown up with the music of the Beatles and
John Lennon, John’s murder at the hands of the mentally unstable fan
Mark Chapman outside the Dakota the night of December 8, 1980,
was a shock on par with that of the murder of President Kennedy
seventeen years earlier. Not until the death of Princess Diana seventeen
years later would the world see another similar outpouring of grief.
Overnight, John’s voice and music filled the airwaves, his image filling
screens and printed pages. An ocean of ink assessed John’s life, times,
talent, and significance. Liverpool renamed its airport after him (its motto:
“Above us only sky”), and Yoko continues to memorialize her husband and
his ideals.
Decades later, conspiracy theories about his murder have not wholly
faded. Nor have the what-ifs. What if Chapman had missed? What
if John had dodged the bullets? With a life as unpredictable as John’s, it is Not since the

death of President
impossible to speculate too confidently. One can only extrapolate from the
evidence of his final work: Milk and Honey (1984); the Anthology box set

Kennedy had the

(1998); and, almost as revealingly, Double Fantasy Stripped (2010), which
removed most of the musical decoration and treatments of John’s voice to
world shown such
reveal, quite simply, the man and his songs.
If the glossy production with the help of Jack Douglas had started Double
Fantasy’s climb up album charts around the world, John’s murder kept it an outpouring of
at the top for months afterward. But what has taken the world decades to
hear is that when he restarted his career in 1980, John Lennon really was grief . . .
undimmed as a musical force.
Always ambivalent about the sound of his singing voice, John often
double-tracked it, swathed it in reverb, and buried it in the mix. As she
shared none of John’s insecurities about his voice, which sometimes clouded
his production judgment, Yoko remixed Rock ’n’ Roll in 2004 (as distinct
from John’s original 1974 mix), confirming that he really was the greatest
rock singer of all—not Elvis, nor Little Richard, could quite match his
vocal intensity and charisma.

Left: Front page of the Daily Mirror Left inset: John Lennon fans gather
on December 10, 1980. to pay their last respects outside
the Dakota Apartments in New York
on December 9, 1980, the spot
where the former Beatle was shot
dead by Mark Chapman.

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 Gone but Never Forgotten
Without John’s studio “jiggery-pokery” (a term he used to condemn
George Martin’s Beatles’ production back in 1969), Double Fantasy Stripped
and Anthology’s fourth CD, Dakota, reveal Lennon singing his last songs
with the utmost subtlety and feeling. They show a talent that had remained
undiminished since 1965 or 1970, albeit one expressing itself differently,
evolving in step with the singer and songwriter. Milk and Honey includes
three of John’s very best late songs: “Nobody Told Me,” “Borrowed
Time,” and “Grow Old with Me.” Cherry-picking from Double Fantasy
and its Stripped version, Milk and Honey, and Anthology’s Dakota would

John left behind

yield an album’s worth of material to match the quality and lasting appeal
of Imagine.
a body of work
Who knows whether John would have sung as much of the soundtrack
to the 1980s as he had the 1960s and 1970s. What is certain is that he had
that has not made a start, and in doing so he fulfilled the ambition of every performing
artist, be they playing to local church halls or to packed stadiums: when
dimmed over the he exited the stage, he left the audience wanting more. He also left behind
a body of work that has not dimmed over the decades. As the most
decades . . . revealingly human of the great artists and icons of our time, John Lennon
will remain an inspiration for generations to come.

Near right: Yoko Ono,

with her son Sean, in
London, on April 14, 1986.

Far right: John Lennon’s

first wife, Cynthia, and their
17-year-old son, Julian,
leaving their home on
December 9.

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 Left: John
Lennon
(1940–1980)
as a child in
elementary
school.

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 Index
Page numbers in italics indicate “Bring on the Lucie (Freda Douglas, Jack 83–84, 89
photographs. People)” (Lennon) 63 Dylan, Bob 15, 48, 63, 82
Browning, Robert and Elizabeth
A Barrett 83
Bruce, Lenny 48 E
Abbey Road studios 15, 16, 22, 32
“Aisumasen (I’m Sorry)” 63 C Elephant’s Memory 51, 56, 57
Epstein, Brian 8, 9
All Things Must Pass (Harrison) 35 Eye magazine 11
“Angela” (Lennon) 52 Capitol Records 23
Apple Corps 8, 13, 15, 16, 40, 45, 56
Ascher, Ken 62
Carlos, Bun E. 84
Chapman, Mark 89 F
“Attica State” (Lennon) 52 Cheap Trick 84
ATV 80 “Child of Nature” (Lennon) 40 “Fame” (Bowie) 73
A Christmas Gift for You (all-star Fats Domino 22, 74
B album) 51
Clapton, Eric 22, 23, 25, 27
FBI 52
feminism 38, 52, 56
“Cold Turkey” (Lennon) 23, 24, Fillmore East, New York 49, 56
Badfinger 40 27, 84
Bag One (Exhibition) 30, 31, 31
“The Ballad of John and Yoko”
“Come Together” (Lennon-
McCartney) 57, 68 G
(Lennon) 16, 21, 56 Cox, Kyoko Chan (son of Yoko
Band, the 15 Ono and Tony Cox) 23, 27, 44, Garfunkel, Art 78
Beatles, the 8, 10, 13, 14, 16, 22, 45, 48 “Gimme Some Truth” (Lennon) 40
40, 62, 70, 71–72, 73, 74, 78, 79, Cox, Tony 44, 45, 48 “Give Peace a Chance” (Lennon)
83, 90 “Crippled Inside” (Lennon) 40 16, 21, 57
albums and songs see under Cropper, Steve 74 “God” (Lennon) 35, 40
individual album or song name Gold Star studios 68
business affairs 8, 13, 15, 15, 16,
23, 40, 45, 56, 57, 68, 78 D Goresh, Paul 85
Grade, Sir Lew 78, 80
split 8–9, 15, 22, 23, 35, 68 Grapefruit (book) 44, 45
“Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)” Dakota, the, New York City 51, 61– Greenwich Village, New York 48,
(Lennon) 84 62, 60, 61, 79, 82, 83, 88, 89, 90 49, 53, 61
bed-ins 16, 16, 17, 20, 21 Davis, Angela 51 “Grow Old with Me” (Lennon) 90
Berry, Chuck 22, 32, 48, 56, 66, Davis, Jesse Ed 74
68, 74
Black Panthers 51
Diddley, Bo 48
Dirty Mac, the 22, 23 H
Black, Cilla 45 Do the Oz (Lennon) (benefit record)
Blaine, Hal 74 51 Happy Xmas (War is Over)
“Bless You” (Lennon) 71 Donovan 45 (Lennon/Ono) (album) 23, 51, 51
“Borrowed Time” (Lennon) 90 Double Fantasy (Lennon/Ono) 76, “Happy Xmas (War is Over)”
Bowie, David 73, 75, 75, 78, 80 81, 83–84 (Lennon/Ono) (single) 51
Bravo magazine 8 Double Fantasy Stripped (Lennon/ Harrison, George 10, 10, 14, 15, 16,
Brecker, Michael 62 Ono) 89, 90 23, 25, 26, 27, 35, 38, 40, 63, 82

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 Hendrix, Jimi 23
Hit Factory, the 76, 83 L “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
(Lennon-McCartney) 73
Hoffman, Abbie 51
“Hold On” (Lennon) 32
Hopkins, Nicky 40, 51
Lennon, Cynthia (wife) 11, 11, 44,
45, 90 M
“Hound Dog” (Presley) 57 Lennon, John:
“How Do You Sleep?” (Lennon) 40, albums see under individual album Madison Square Garden 56, 72,
41, 44, 71 name 73, 78
appearance 11, 21 Martin, Gavin 31
I background 10–11
“bigger than Jesus” comment 21
Martin, George 27, 90
McCartney, Linda 16, 52
childhood 10–11, 79, 83, 91 McCartney, Paul 8, 10, 10, 13, 14,
“I Found Out” (Lennon) 35, 84 depression 11, 71 15, 16, 31, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 45,
“I’m Losing You” (Lennon) 83, 84 drug taking 11, 23, 32, 57, 82 52, 57, 62, 68, 78, 79, 81
“If Not for You” (Dylan) 63 genius 58 Mike Douglas Show 68
Imagine (Lennon) (album) 40, 40, honeymoon 21, 31 Miles, Barry 23
45–46, 51, 52, 63 househusband 79, 80, 81 Milk and Honey (Lennon) 89, 90
Imagine (Lennon) (film) 36, 40, houses see under individual area Mind Games (Lennon) 58, 62–63,
41, 80 or house name 63, 68, 73
“Imagine” (Lennon) (song) 37, 40, marriages see Lennon, Cynthia Mind Games (Masters/Huston) 63
41, 45, 56, 57, 79, 80 and Ono, Yoko Mitchell, Mitch 22, 23
In His Own Write (Lennon) 11 overeating 11 Moon, Keith 70
India 18, 19 sexuality 11 Mothers of Invention 48, 48, 56
Instant Karma! (Lennon) (album) 27 shooting 88, 89–90 “Mother” (Lennon) 35, 56, 57
“Instant Karma!” (Lennon) (song) singing 89 “My Mummy’s Dead” (Lennon) 35
27, 38, 57 songs see under individual song “My Sweet Lord” (Harrison) 35
IRA 35 name

J
weight 11, 32
writer’s block 62, 71, 82 N
Lennon, Julia (mother) 10–11
Lennon, Julian (son) 44, 45, 45, 90 New York 8, 11, 16, 38, 45, 46, 47,
Jagger, Mick 70, 71, 79 Lennon, Mimi (aunt) 10, 32 48, 49, 50, 52, 54–55, 56, 57, 60,
Janov, Dr. Arthur 31–32, 40 Lennon, Sean (son) 80, 81, 83, 85, 70, 71, 73, 74, 78, 79, 83, 83, 85,
Japan 11, 38, 80, 81 86, 87, 90 89, 89
“Jealous Guy” (Lennon) 40 Let It Be (Beatles) (album) 16, 27, “New York City” (Lennon) 56, 57
Jim Stacey Benefit, Century Plaza 32, 73 Nielsen, Rick 84
Hotel, Los Angeles, 1974 62 Let It Be (film) 14, 15 Night of 100 Stars, London
John Lennon Anthology (Lennon) Levine, Larry 68 Palladium, 1964 10, 11
82, 83, 90 Levy, Mo 68, 73, 74 Nilsson, Harry 69, 70, 71
John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band Lewis, Jerry Lee 22 Nixon, Richard 40, 52, 57, 61, 80
(Lennon) 32, 35 Lindsey-Hogg, Michael 15 “Nobody Loves You (When You’re
“John Sinclair” (Lennon) 52 Link Wray records 48 Down and Out)” (Lennon) 71
John, Elton 72, 73, 78, 80 Little Richard 79–80, 89 “Nobody Told Me” (Lennon) 83, 90
“Just Like (Starting Over)” Live in New York City (Lennon) Northern Ireland 52
(Lennon) 84 56–57 Nutopia 61–62
Live Peace in Toronto (Lennon)
K 23, 24
Liverpool 40, 48, 74, 79, 81, 89 O
London Lyceum 56
Keltner, Jim 51, 62, 70 “Look at Me” (Lennon) 32, 40 “Old Dirt Road” (Lennon) 71
Keys, Bobby 74 “Lost Weekend” 70, 79, 83 “One Day (at a Time)” (Lennon) 63
“Love” (Lennon) 32 “One to One” concert, New York
Klein, Allen 15, 16, 23, 40, 57, 68, Lovin’ Spoonful 40 46, 47, 56
71, 78 “The Luck of the Irish” (Lennon) “Out the Blue” (Lennon) 63
Kleinow, “Sneaky Pete” 62 52 Oz 51

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 P Some Time in New York City
(Lennon) 52, 56, 63, 63, 83
Wenner, Jann 35
“Whatever Gets You Thru the
A Spaniard in the Works (Lennon) 11 Night” (Lennon) 71, 72, 73, 78
Pang, May 62, 62, 63, 64, 70, 71 Spector, Phil 27, 35, 38, 40, 51, 52, “While My Guitar Gently Weeps”
peace, campaign for 16, 17 68, 70, 74 (Harrison) 23
Peel, David 51 Spinozza, David 62 White, Alan 23, 24, 27, 38
Pennebaker, D. A. 23 St. Regis Hotel, New York 48 Who, the 70
Philles Records 51 “Stand by Me” (Lieber and Stoller) Willowbrook State School 56
Plastic Ono Band 21, 23, 23, 24, 74 “Woman” (Lennon) 84
24–25, 27, 32, 35, 38, 84 Starr, Ringo 10, 10, 14, 15, 16, 32, “Woman Is the Nigger of the
Please Please Me (Beatles) 8 38, 40, 45, 70 World” (Lennon) 52
Power to the People (Lennon) “Steel and Glass” (Lennon) 71, 73 Wonder, Stevie 56
(album) 35 Summer of Love 8 “Working Class Hero” (Lennon) 35
“Power to the People” (Lennon) “Sunday Bloody Sunday” (Lennon)
(single) 38, 38, 52
Presley, Elvis 11, 32, 48, 89
52
“Surprise, Surprise (Sweet Bird of Y
Preston, Billy 27, 38 Paradox)” 71
primal scream therapy 31, 32 Sweet Toronto (documentary) 23 “Ya Ya” (Dorsey) 74
Pussy Cats (Nilssen) 71 Yellow Submarine (film) 15

R T “Yer Blues” (Beatles) 23

Yes 23
Yippies 51
Tempo, Nino 68, 74 Yogi, Maharishi Mahesh 19
Radha Krishna Temple 21 Tittenhurst Park 22, 31, 39, 40, 40, Yoko Ono 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 15,
Ram (McCartney) 44, 62 41, 45 16, 16, 23, 25, 27, 31, 32, 35, 38,
Red Mole 38 “Too Many Cooks” (Dixon) 71 39, 40, 44, 45, 45, 48, 52, 53, 56,
Red Rose Speedway (McCartney) 62 Toronto Rock ‘n’ Roll Revival 56, 61, 62, 70, 71, 74, 78, 79, 80,
“Remember” (Lennon) 35 22–23, 24 81, 83, 83, 84, 89
Renard, Gail 20 transcendental meditation 19 “You Are Here” (Lennon) 63
Richards, Keith 22, 23 Troubadour, Los Angeles 68, 69 “You Can’t Catch Me” (Berry) 68,
“The Rishi Kesh Song” (Lennon) 74
82
Rock ‘n’ Roll (Lennon) 74, 74, 80, 89 U Z
“Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus” concert
22, 23 U.S. government 52, 57
“Rock Lobster” (B–52s) 83 Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins Zappa, Frank 48, 48
Rolling Stone magazine 35, 35 (Lennon/Ono) 11, 12
Rolling Stones, the 16, 22, 23, 70 Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the
Rubin, Jerry 51 Lions (Lennon/Ono) 11
Russell, Leon 74 United Nations Children’s Fund
Ryan, Robert 61 (UNICEF) 20, 27

S V
“Scared” (Lennon) 71 Voorman, Klaus 23, 25, 27, 32, 38
“Serve Yourself ” (Lennon) 82
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club
Band (Beatles) 8 W
Shotton, Pete 79
Simon, Paul 78 Walls and Bridges (Lennon) 71, 73, 74
Sinclair, John 51, 52 “Watching the Wheels” (Lennon)
“Slippin and Slidin’” (Little 84
Richard) 79–80 Wedding Album (Lennon/Ono) 11, 13
Smothers Brothers, the 68

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 Picture Credits
Special thanks to Bruce Spizer (www.beatle.net), Associated Press
author of The Beatles Solo on Apple Records, for use P86, Yoko Ono comforting Sean Lennon ©
of the following images: Bettmann / Corbis / AP Images
P90, Julian Lennon and Cynthia Lennon ©
P11, Eye magazine cover featuring John Lennon Bettmann / Corbis / AP Images
P13, Wedding album
P35, Rolling Stone magazine cover featuring John Collection Herbert Hauke
Lennon /www.rockmuseum.de
P38, Power to the People album P8, Please Please Me album
P40, Imagine promotional poster P8, John Lennon on the cover of Bravo magazine
P51, Happy Xmas (War is Over) album
P56, Apple promotional advertisement for “Mother” Corbis
P57, Woman is the Nigger of the World album P28, John smoking © Bettman / Corbis
P63, Some Time in NYC and Mind Games albums P42, John and Paul McCartney at a press conference
P74, Rock ‘n’ Roll album © Elliott Landy / Corbis
P66, John Lennon and Chuck Berry © Jeff
Special thanks also to Happy Nat of TheBeatlesRarity. Albertson/Corbis
com for use of the following images:
Getty Images
P23, Give Peace a Chance album P4, John Lennon singing at Madison Square Garden
P23, Happy Xmas (War is Over) album © Brian Hamill / Getty Images
P24, Live Peace in Toronto album P12, John embracing Yoko Ono © Susan Wood /
P24, Cold Turkey album Getty Images
P27, Instant Karma! album P12, Two Virgins album cover © Hulton Archive /
Getty Images
Alamy P12, Two Virgins album cover (back) © Hulton
P9, John Lennon and Brian Epstein © Keystone Archive / Getty Images
Pictures USA / Alamy P13, Yoko, John, and Paul © Michael Webb / Getty
P11, John Lennon and Cynthia Lennon © Trinity Images
Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy P14, Beatles on rooftop of Apple © Express /
P15, Allen Klein, John Lennon, and Yoko Ono © Stringer / Getty Images
Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy P18, John playing the guitar in India © Keystone-
P17, John Lennon and Yoko Ono promoting bed France / Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
peace in 1971 © Marka / Alamy P21, Lennon’s handwritten lyrics for “Give Peace a
P33, John Lennon smoking © Trinity Mirror / Chance” © Don Emmert / AFP / Getty Images
Mirrorpix / Alamy P22, Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus © Andrew Maclear / Redferns
P44, John and Yoko at Grapefruit launch © Trinity P25, Alan White, Eric Clapton, Klaus Voorman,
Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy John Lennon, and Yoko Ono © Mark and Colleen
P45, Beatles with Cilla Black and Donovan © Hayward / Getty Images
Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy P26, John Lennon and Yoko Ono at UNICEF show
P54-55, John and Yoko performing at a charity concert © Cummings Archives / Redferns
in NY © Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy P36, John Lennon singing with hand under his chin
P71, Walls and Bridges album © EPA/ epa european © Getty Images
pressphoto agency b.v. / Alamy P40, Imagine album cover © Michael Ochs Archives
P90, Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon © INTERFOTO / Getty Images
/ Alamy

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 P41, John Lennon and Yoko Ono in Tittenhurst © The Image Works
Tom Hanley / Redferns / Getty Images P6, John at the piano © UPPA / TopFoto / The
P46, John Lennon singing at Madison Square Image Works
Garden © Brian Hamill / Getty Images P16, John Lennon drawing of “Bed Peace” © Press
P48, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention © Association / The Image Works
RB / Redferns P20, Yoko Ono and John Lennon performing for
P49, John Lennon and Yoko Ono walking © Brian UNICEF © TopFoto / The Image Works
Hamill / Getty Images P50, John Lennon sitting on a windowsill © Bunk /
P53, John and Yoko, back to back © NY Daily News ullstein bld / The Image Works
via Getty Images P57, John and Yoko in military gear © UPPA /
P59, John Lennon working on Mind Games © David TopFoto / The Image Works
McGough / Time & Life Pictures /Getty Images P80, John Lennon playing guitar for Sean Lennon
P60, John Lennon on the roof of the Dakota © while Yoko films © Mary Evans / Ronald Grant
Brian Hamill / Getty Images Archive / The Image Works
P61, John Lennon in the kitchen of his apartment at
the Dakota © Brian Hamill / Getty Images Mirrorpix
P62, John Lennon and May Pang © Ron Galella / P10, The Beatles rehearsing in 1964 © Mirrorpix
WireImage P45, John, Yoko, Julian, and Kyoko © Mirrorpix
P64, John Lennon and May Pang © Ron Galella / P88, Front cover of The Daily Mirror © Daily
WireImage Mirror / Mirrorpix
P68, Phil Spector in a recording studio © Ray Avery P88, Fans standing outside the Dakota after
/ Getty Images Lennon’s death © G Major / Mirrorpix
P69, John Lennon being restrained by Harry
Nilsson © Fotos International / Getty Images Rex USA
P72, John Lennon and Elton John © Steve Morley / P30, Police seizing art at the Bag One exhibition ©
Redferns Daily Sketch / Rex USA
P75, John Lennon and David Bowie © Ron Galella / P34, John Lennon promoting Power to the People ©
WireImage Associated Newspapers / Rex USA
P76, John Lennon and Yoko Ono outside of a P39, John Lennon looking at Yoko Ono © George
recording studio © Michael Ochs Archive / Stringer Konig / Rex USA
/ Getty Images P85, last photo taken of John Lennon (with a fan) ©
P78, David Bowie, Art Garfunkel, Paul Simon, Yoko Everett Collection / Rex USA
Ono, and John Lennon © Ron Galella / WireImage
P79, John Lennon at tribute for Sir Lew Grade © Tracks (Memorabilia)
Ron Gallela / WireImage P31, Bag One invitation
P82, John Lennon signing autographs outside the P44, Autographed copy of Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit
Dakota © David McGough / Time & Life Pictures P71, Stickers for Walls and Bridges
P83, John and Yoko standing outside the Dakota P81, Double Fantasy album
©AFP / Getty Images
P91, John Lennon as a schoolboy © Gems / All reasonable attempts have been made to contact the
Contributor / Redferns copyright holders of all images.

96

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 A division of Book Sales, Inc.
276 Fifth Avenue, Suite 206
New York, New York 10001

RACE POINT PUBLISHING and the distinctive Race Point Publishing logo
are trademarks of Book Sales, Inc.

© Mat Snow 2013

All photographs from the publisher’s collection, unless otherwise noted on page 95.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from
the publisher.

This publication has not been prepared, approved, or licensed by Apple Corps Ltd. or
the estate of John Lennon or any of its assignees. This is not an official publication. We
recognize, further, that some words, model names, and designations mentioned herein
are the property of the trademark holder. We use them for identification purposes only.

ISBN (4-volume set): 978-1-5526-7936-4

Author: Mat Snow

Project editor: Jeannine Dillon
Copyeditor: Steve Burdett
Interior designer: Rosamund Saunders
Cover designer: Brad Norr/bradnorrdesign.com

Front and back cover illustration: Brad Norr

Printed in China

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 T H E
B E AT L E S

SOLO
PauL McCartney

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 Mat Snow

T H E
B E AT L E S

SOLO
PauL McCartney
The Illustrated Chronicles of
John, Paul, George, and Ringo
After the Beatles

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 Contents
Chapter 1
Exit the One-Man Band 6
Chapter 2
Getting High with Wings 18
Chapter 3
On a Roll Again 26
Chapter 4
Back to Earth 38
Chapter 5
Busted, Grounded, Dragged, and Tugged 46
Chapter 6
From Broadway Bum to Born-Again Beatle 56
Chapter 7
A Real Everywhere Man 66
Chapter 8
A Love That Lasted Years 74
Chapter 9
Stumbling to Joy 82
Index 94
Credits 95

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 Chapter 1
Exit the
One-Man Band

“I like to work. Sit me down

with a guitar and let me go.”
—Paul McCartney

Left: Paul McCartney in 1967 being interviewed after the

BBC televised the Beatles’ new movie, Magical Mystery Tour.
Critics had been harsh in their criticism of the movie, and
McCartney defends it, claiming that the title should have
informed people that there would be no plot or form.

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 I
f ever the world of music gave proof for the maxims “you always hurt the one you love” and
“the road to hell is paved with good intentions,” it would be Paul McCartney and the Beatles.
Though John was the Fab Four’s leader and founder, from 1966 it was Paul whose ambition,
focus, and creativity increasingly drove and shaped the group. When John surrendered to
his 1966–1967 LSD reverie, it was Paul whose songs filled the gaps left by John’s falling
productivity. When the group, urged by George, stopped touring in 1966, it was Paul who
came up with Sgt. Pepper as a project to give them a new world to conquer. When the Beatles’
manager, Brian Epstein, took his own life in August of 1967, it was Paul who insisted that
making an unscripted road movie, Magical Mystery Tour, would cure them of the blues and
confirm that the Beatles were still very much in business. When John fell headlong in love with
Yoko Ono, installed her in the hitherto sacred space of the recording studio, and yet remained
open to what the Beatles could do for his songs, it was Paul who asserted himself even more
forcefully to have McCartney compositions performed the way he wanted in order to push the
group to even greater heights.

Right: A groovy Paul

McCartney posed by the
coast at Newquay, U.K.,on
the Magical Mystery Tour,
on September 14, 1967.

Opposite: A PR photo for the

Beatles’ Magical Mystery
Tour movie in 1967. Paul
McCartney and Ringo Starr
are on the left.

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 '
Paul s perfectionism became

even more overbearing to the

other three as their doubts

grew about his plans . . .

This was Paul’s great mistake. Though there is no greater lover of harmony in music,
Paul, paradoxically, had little gift for fostering harmony among his fellow musicians in the
sessions for the so-called White Album. And despite the fact that the Beatles emerged with
a masterpiece from those tense months in 1968, Paul was hardly wise to pressure the other
three into the even more ambitious “Get Back” project, the back-to-basics movie/recording/
live-show rehearsals, where his perfectionism became even more overbearing to the other
three as their doubts grew about Paul’s plans.
“After Brian died . . . Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us, when we
went round in circles?” John said in 1970.
A very capable guitarist and drummer himself, Paul bruised the feelings of both Ringo and
George in the way that he demanded adjustments to their playing, as if suddenly they were no
longer quite good enough. (“We got fed up of being sidemen for Paul,” John added.) Paul, in
short, was a control freak and, in another paradox for a musician with such a perfect ear, was
surprisingly poor at listening to his friends.
Just as John had Yoko, Paul had another New York bohemian black sheep of a wealthy
family, Linda Eastman. Whereas Linda never interfered in Paul’s music or his commitment
to the Beatles, her family connections unwittingly created the circumstances by which the
background tensions between Paul and the other three escalated into an acrimonious split.
New Jersey music-business accountant Allen Klein had flattered and seduced John Lennon
into making him his business manager, with promises of vastly increasing the Beatles’
revenues. George and Ringo followed suit. They also voted to have him take charge of the
running of their business, Apple Corps, which was out of control and hemorrhaging funds.
Linda’s father and brother, John and Lee Eastman, were wealthy New York businessmen who
had heard on the grapevine that Klein was not all that he seemed, and they counseled Paul to
steer clear. Paul opposed the involvement of Klein in the Beatles’ affairs and urged the other
three to let his new in-laws, the Eastmans, take charge instead. Seeing this suggestion as no
more than a move by Paul to control every aspect of the group, they refused and got even
more solidly behind their man Klein.

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 Below: A rare Beatles’ letter
sent to Paul McCartney’s
lawyer and father-in-law,
Lee Eastman, on April
18, 1969. Signed by John
Lennon, George Harrison,
and Ringo Starr, it explained
that Eastman would no
longer represent the band.
Allen Klein at ABKCO would
represent the remaining
three Beatles. It has been
referred to as the “breakup”
letter since the decision
over who to manage the
Beatles caused a major rift
between the Fab Four.

Above: Paul McCartney marries

Linda Eastman at the Marylebone
Register Office on March 12, 1969.
Linda’s daughter, Heather,
attended the civil ceremony.

Left: Paul McCartney, bearded and

gruff, getting into a car in 1969.

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 It turns out Paul’s judgment was right on target; however, his diplomacy
was disastrous. Happily distracted by his marriage to the pregnant Linda
in March of 1969, Paul could not finesse the feelings of his fellow Fabs. By
that summer it was clear that, at the very least, the Beatles would be taking
a break from each other while they tried to sort out their differences. In that
spirit, the group recorded their final album proper, Abbey Road. Knowing
that it may be their last for a while, the four pulled together one final time.
But no one, at that point, was saying that it was definitively over. Until
two weeks before Abbey Road’s release, that is, when John announced to
the other three that he was leaving. At that time, Klein was negotiating an
enormous deal for the Beatles with Capitol Records, and he persuaded the
Above: The back cover four Beatles to keep John’s departure a secret until further notice.
of Paul McCartney’s first Paul was distraught. At a draining time with the birth of his first
solo album, McCartney.
At a quick glance, you child, Mary, that August, Paul found himself emotionally unprepared for
might accidentally miss the disintegration of the group he had poured himself into for years, as
Paul’s baby daughter, well as the fraying of friendships with all three, especially John, whom he
Mary, peeking out of Paul’s
leather jacket. continued to look up to even though he no longer understood what was
going on in his old partner’s mind. Depressed and directionless, Paul later
admitted that he hit the bottle at that time, and that only with Linda’s
support did he recover the urge to make music. For years the studio

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 perfectionist, now Paul was no longer trying to go bigger and better (and
match the songs and productions of his friendly rival, Beach Boy Brian Depressed and
Wilson). Now, so roundly rejected by the other three Beatles, he would
prove he didn’t need them. He would not only make a solo album, he would directionless ,
Paul later
make it all by himself: writing, singing, playing, and recording every note.
Only Linda would help him out with vocal harmonies—the controversial

admitted he hit
sound of things to come.
With no single, it would be an album of mostly casual, undercooked

the bottle at that

music making—just as Bob Dylan was also doing on the cusp between the
1960s and 1970s—entitled, in a stark declaration of self-sufficiency and
time . . .
independence, McCartney.
The fuss surrounding the album’s release upstaged the music itself. Paul
wanted to release the album that spring of 1970, but the other three objected.
Not only would it clash with the release of Ringo’s debut, Sentimental Journey,
that March, but also with Let It Be, the Beatles album salvaged from the
1969 “Get Back” sessions by Wall of Sound producer Phil Spector, whose
schmaltzy orchestration of his song “The Long and Winding Road” Paul
loathed but could not veto. When John and George sent Ringo to Paul’s
London home to ask him to delay the release of McCartney, Paul lost his
temper and threw the drummer out.
It was all-out war now, which escalated when McCartney’s release was
preceded by Paul’s wounded and coldly angry press release announcing
to the world that he had left the Beatles, which made front-page news
worldwide. Later, John remarked how smart Paul was to reveal the secret
that the group was finished when he had a solo record to promote.
When the world heard the music behind the bombshell, they were
underwhelmed—as were John and George, who voiced their disappointment

Left: A touching moment . . . Paul

and Linda McCartney in a New
York recording studio in 1971
polishing his singles “Another Day” Above: Album cover
and “Oh Woman, Oh Why.” for Ram

Right: Album cover for Thrillington,

released in 1977 by Paul
McCartney under the pseudonym
Percy “Thrills” Thrillington

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 Right: Paul McCartney
singing with his new band,
Wings, in 1972. Linda is
pictured beside him.

in public. To most fans, only one song, “Maybe I’m Amazed,” sounded finished
and a worthy addition to Paul’s songbook; the rest remained home-made
sketches, or perhaps superior demos, as if Paul felt they weren’t worth any
further work. But “Every Night,” which moves from angst to fulfillment in
love, and the sadly nostalgic “Junk” are fine songs, and the remaining numbers,
which include lo-fi instrumentals, are charming.
Such was the power of the Beatles’ brand that McCartney, with its back-
Opposite: A detail from an cover photo of Paul with baby Mary, topped the U.S. album charts. Paul
advertisement in Billboard had gotten back on the horse, but he had a long way to go to meet public
magazine hyping Paul
McCartney’s solo album, expectations. He spent much of 1970 and 1971 in a legal dispute with Allen
McCartney. Klein and the other Beatles as he tried to leave the partnership, exposing
their commercial affairs and mutual grievances to a dismayed public, with
Below: Front of the album many fans seeing Paul as the villain by suing his fellow former Beatles.
cover for McCartney. By way of escape from the London High Court and lawyers’ offices, Paul
and his family loved to retreat to his remote High Park Farm on the Mull
of Kintyre, where he wrote a brand-new batch of songs.
The bitterness of the Beatles’ fallout, his rejuvenation at his spartan
Scottish idyll, and his determination to make a proper, polished record
now that he’d gotten over his depression, took Paul and Linda to her old
apartment in New York. There they recorded, in semi-secrecy, a new album
and stand-alone single that reflected the mixed picture of Paul’s life at the
start of the 1970s.
Cut with a handful of excellent session players, Ram is a wonderful
suite of singable, hummable McCartney melodies and sumptuous chord
progressions. Though none cohere into classic, self-contained songs to

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 match “Maybe I’m Amazed,” never mind “Yesterday,” in mood and flow,
Paul secretly Ram gets quite close to the bitty yet irresistible medley on the second side
of Abbey Road.
rerecorded the Though a vast overall improvement on Paul’s solo debut, Ram disappointed
“ ” in two respects. First, Linda, who was pushed into the job of harmony
tunes on Ram singer by Paul, was no John or George, and from then on her often shrill and
unsupple singing offered a poor substitute for the harmonic richness Paul’s
at Abbey Road at fans had come to expect from his Beatles’ songs. (Linda was also cocredited

great personal
as a songwriter on Ram, a legal fiction devised to help Paul earn royalties on
a better publishing deal than that which he was tied into with the Lennon–

expense.
McCartney partnership.) Second, without the friendly competition with the
verbally exacting John to push wordsmith Paul the to memorable heights
of wit and pathos, Paul’s lyric writing settled for glibness, whimsy, dippiness,
and an occasionally carping tone that infuriated John when he rightly
detected a finger-wagging criticism within the words of the album’s opener,
“Too Many People.” John reacted by overreacting on his Imagine song “How
Do You Sleep?”, which, nasty though it was, was written in blood and acid
in contrast to the vanilla essence that flowed through Paul’s writing. (And
just in case anyone missed the point: whereas Paul was photographed on the
sleeve of Ram shearing a sheep at his Scottish farm, John had himself pictured
straddling a pig on Imagine.)
Paul had written more good songs than would fit in one album, so
“Another Day” was released as a stand-alone single; it’s a slice of an
everywoman’s life that Paul had felt able to express beautifully before in
“Eleanor Rigby” and “She’s Leaving Home.” Like Ram, it was catchy and
attractive; also like Ram, the single did not reach his highest standards—
Above: The cover far more a “Your Mother Should Know” than a “Hey Jude.”
of Life magazine on Commercially, Paul hit the jackpot with both records, but then he had come
November 7, 1969, featuring
Paul McCartney and his to expect that as a matter of course over the years. But for Paul, without
family in Scotland. The Life John there to test how far the public could be pushed before they stopped
magazine correspondent, buying your records, big sales meant that he was pleasing people, and he was
Dorothy Bacon, reportedly
trudged through a Scottish always eager to please the people. Indeed, in June of 1971, just after Ram’s
bog to find Paul and put the release, he secretly (and expensively) rerecorded its tunes back at Abbey
“Paul is dead” rumors to rest. Road in middle-of-the-road big band and choir arrangements of the kind
Right: Paul McCartney, Paul felt his dad would enjoy. Titled Thrillington and credited to a fictional
Linda, and dog Ringo Percy “Thrills” Thrillington, this album of enjoyably undemanding light
at their farm near
Campbeltown in Scotland music was shelved until a belated release in 1977. Why?
on January 1, 1971 That summer of 1971 Paul had decided to form a new band.

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 17

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 Chapter 2
Getting High
with Wings

“If you can play in a pub,

you’re in a good band.”
—Paul McCartney

Right: Paul McCartney smoking a cigarette

and cuddling with his wife, Linda McCartney,
at a 1972 party in Oxford, England.

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 W
hen he was recording Ram in New York with session
players, Paul had a rather unpleasant surprise: unlike his fellow
Beatles, who would work with him on his songs over the course
of months, top session players are booked far in advance, and
the best will have very few blanks in their diaries. So if Paul, who was used
to enjoying a smoke, taking his time, and changing his mind, wanted later to
revisit a recording to change something or recut it altogether with the same
musicians, he might not have been able to do it, because they’d have moved on
to other jobs.
With his own band, however, that would not be a problem. And with his own band,
Paul would also be able to realize his dream, which had been resisted by the other Beatles in
their final year, when he urged it as a way of recovering their founding rock ’n’ roll spirit and
lost camaraderie: going on the road without any fuss or hype as traveling players, just turning
up and performing unannounced to the people at modest venues, like college halls. Paul and
Linda loved reggae and craved its sunny, unfussy, and youthful exuberance in their own music.
The new group would be a rebirth of what had put Paul on the path to being a professional
musician in the first place.
As he later admitted, having joined rather than founded the Beatles 15 years previously,
Paul had never formed a group before and “didn’t have a clue” how to do it. But rather than
form a supergroup of established stars, with all the baggage and potential for conflicting
egos that he’d escaped from in the Beatles, he decided to pick like-minded musicians so they
could “grow together.” From the Ram sessions, drummer Denny Seiwell was picked, and Paul
welcomed a former member of the Moody Blues whom he’d known since his Beatlemania
days, Denny Laine, to take the place as Paul’s foil on vocals and various instruments. Banging
away uncertainly on keyboard and vocal harmonies, Linda was also in the group.

Above: A 1975 Wings tour program.

Left: Paul and Linda McCartney with
fellow Wings’ members, Denny Seiwell
(left) and Denny Laine (right) on
November 30, 1972.

Right: Paul and Linda McCartney are

pictured with their two-year-old daughter,
Stella McCartney, at The Piccadilly
headquarters of the Toy for a Sick Child
Fund in 1973. Stella donated her teddy
bear, “Fruity.”

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 The name? Wings. Linda had just given birth to the couple’s second
child, Stella, and it had been touch and go for a while. But a guardian
angel saw Stella safe and sound, and the vision of angel’s wings seemed
propitious to Paul and Linda.
Released in time for Christmas 1971, the group’s debut, Wild Life,
sounded flimsy and lightweight, as if Paul thought charm, enthusiasm,
and stoned humor were enough. Compared to his two solo albums—and
especially compared to John’s recently released Imagine album—it was thin.
And compared, it was. Singing his first cover since 1964, Paul’s reggaefied
version of Mickey & Sylvia’s 1957 hit “Love Is Strange” sounded like
Above: Album cover for Wings was winging it from writing to recording; indeed, most of the
Wild Life. tracks were first takes of songs that had arisen from band jams. But then,
at the very end of the album, Paul pulled out all the stops.
Simple, stark, and sad, “Dear Friend” was sung to John (never named,
but who else could it be?) in sorrow rather than anger, mourning the
friendship lost in a publicly acrimonious business dispute.
The album sold—it was by a Beatle—but nowhere near made number
one. Nor was Paul’s next move likely to make up for lost ground; less
than three weeks after “Bloody Sunday,” when 13 unarmed protesters were
shot dead by the British Army in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, Wings
released the rousing singalong single “Give Ireland Back to the Irish.”
Paul, like John and George was of Irish descent and normally an instinctive
crowd pleaser and controversy-dodger. He was the first former Beatle to
put his art on the line in defiance of public opinion in Great Britain, which
was bitterly split on the issues of army conduct and Great Britain’s right
to remain in Northern Ireland. Banned on British airwaves, it was only a
moderate U.K. hit but went to number one in the Republic of Ireland.

Right: IRA terrorist suspects

are rounded up by British
soldiers on “Bloody Sunday”
in Londonderry, Northern
Ireland, when 13 Roman
Catholics were killed on
January 30,1972. Despite
his usual crowd-pleasing
behavior, Paul tapped into
his Irish heritage and Wings
released “Give Ireland Back
to the Irish” after the tragedy.

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 The High Life
Four months later, Wings’ next single was controversial
in an entirely different way: as a devoted, hands-on
family man who had written songs for children since
“Yellow Submarine,” Paul released a version of the
nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” Rock fans
were appalled.
Contending with a press and public underwhelmed
and divided over Paul’s post-Fab Four career, Wings
hit the road, piling children, dogs, and musicians—
including another guitarist, Henry McCullough, from
Ireland and of Joe Cocker’s band—into a truck and
driving north out of London. There was no itinerary;
they would turn up at a college town, ask to see the
social secretary, enquire if they could play that night,
and if the answer was yes (and it always was), put on
the show there and then. The surprise and novelty of a
Beatle turning up to play more than made up for any
technical shortcomings—the pressure sat on Linda in
particular. On the road, the band got to know each other
as well as the live repertoire, which mixed Wings and
rock ’n’ roll favorites with no Beatles tunes whatsoever.
Heartened by their reception, Wings took to Europe
that summer of 1972 to combine work with play as they
sunbathed in their open-top tour bus between gigs. As
he hadn’t toured since 1966, Paul was unprepared for
the attention rock bands were getting from police and
customs officials the world over looking to make high-
profile busts. Nor had he heeded the fact that John and
George’s drug possession convictions demonstrated
that Beatledom no longer conveyed legal immunity,
if it ever did. Paul was busted in Sweden for marijuana
possession and got off with a fine and a warning, but
back home in Scotland he was arrested to face the more Above: Paul McCartney and wife Linda on
serious charge of marijuana cultivation. It required an tour in their open-top, psychedelic tour bus in
July of 1972.
expensive legal defense to get Paul off with another

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 fine. Against this background, Paul hardly played it safe with Wings’ next
single, “Hi, Hi, Hi,” which celebrated getting high and having sex and
was just as crass but a lot less fun than it sounds. The flip of this double
A-side hit, “C Moon,” was reggaeed bubblegum pop that boasted a catchy
tune, nifty trumpet and xylophone arrangement, and absolutely nothing
to challenge the growing consensus that Paul needed John to shake him
out of his comfort zone.
Yet, as Elton John’s gigantic sales of the era showed, there was a huge
'
That was Paul s
market for attractive, undemanding rock with hummable tunes, even if many
people felt the Beatles had unbeatably supplied all this and a whole lot more in
biggest problem
the previous decade. But that was then. In their next move, Paul McCartney
and Wings (as he now restyled the band’s name in the hope of more sales
. . . how could he than had been garnered by their first album) would revert to the polish
of Ram rather than the casual feel of McCartney or Wild Life. Recorded on
escape his own either side of the 1972 European tour, Red Rose Speedway followed Beatles’
practice in containing none of the immediately preceding singles when it
giant shadow? was released in the spring of 1973, as well as in its dazzling practice in its
surface detail and subtler touches that reveal themselves with each listen.
But unlike Beatles’ practice, the songs themselves flattered to deceive; the
best of them, “Single Pigeon,” lacked the compelling tunefulness of even so
minor a Fab-era McCartney moment as “All Together Now.” Amazingly,
Paul had thought that they had recorded enough good songs to make up a
double album until he was talked out of it, though the record’s sumptuous
packaging suggested the level of his confidence.
The album spun off a U.S. number-one slow-dance single, “My Love,”
which might have been better remembered were it not for the fact that
the mega-selling release that spring of the Beatles’ Red 1962–1966 and
Blue 1967–1970 compilation albums reminded everyone of just how good
Paul’s old band was.
And that was Paul’s big problem: commercial catnip though he remained,
and only just having turned 30, how could he escape his own giant shadow?

Above: Album cover for Red Right: Paul McCartney rehearsing

Rose Speedway. with his band, Wings, before their
British tour, on April 7, 1973.

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 Chapter 3
On a Roll Again

“Beatles’ songs? Some of the younger

kids like the new songs better.”
—Paul McCartney

Left: Paul McCartney playing the piano with

Beatles’ producer George Martin in the 1960s.
McCartney teamed up with Martin again in 1973
to create the smash hit “Live and Let Die” for the
James Bond movie of the same name.

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 I
n the summer of 1973, Paul McCartney was not the only made-in-Britain world-beater
who needed a reboot. The other was James Bond.
After the 1971 movie Diamonds Are Forever, Sean Connery, the original big screen
007, hung up his Walther PPK and the franchise’s producers recruited the far more self-
mockingly suave Roger Moore. With a new star came a new approach to the signature song;
for the first time the title sequence of a Bond movie would rock—to “Live and Let Die.”
“I always have seen myself as a hack. That’s why I did the Bond theme,” Paul cheerfully
explained. One of Paul’s live set-pieces ever since, “Live and Let Die” pumps just enough
adrenaline to offset the Linda-composed reggae break and the recurring lyrical clunker
of “this ever-changing world in which we live in.” But, not least thanks to Paul turning to the
Beatles’ old producer, George Martin, for help for the first time in three years, the song had
blockbuster bombast and excitement; Paul was raising his game.

A Sense of Unfolding
Though recorded during the “Red Rose Speedway” sessions, “Live and Let Die” anticipated
the mood that would follow months later in Wings’ next album—a sense of unfolding,
thrillerish drama. But it would happen without drummer Denny Seiwell and guitarist Henry
McCullough. Simmering discontents about their roles within the band and less than princely
wages (in stark contrast to Paul’s growing wealth, which allowed him to invest in property,
art, and song catalogs, including that of his hero Buddy Holly) saw them quit on the eve
of Wings’ departure to Nigeria.
To extend the “Live and Let Die” mood of tropical adventure, Paul booked his U.K. record
company EMI’s Lagos studio for the band’s next album. When Paul, Linda, Denny Laine,
and the seasoned Abbey Road recording engineer Geoff Emerick arrived, they found it was
monsoon season, with the studio only half-built. Worse still, a very aggrieved Fela Kuti—

Left: Ginger Baker (Cream) and Fela Kuti, the father

of Afrobeat, in 1972. Kuti became enraged when he
thought McCartney had come to Nigeria to steal
his people’s music.

Right: Paul and Linda McCartney at the Live and

Let Die film premiere in London on July 5, 1973.

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 Dustin Hoffman chose

Pablo Picasso as the

'
subject for McCartney s

off the cuff tune.

- -

Above: Actor Dustin Hoffman on February 20,

1975. Paul wrote “Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to
Me)” after Hoffman challenged him to create a
spontaneous song on a subject he suggested.

Right: Award winners of the Daily Mirror Pop

Club Readers’ Poll posing at a special concert
at Bingley Hall, Staffordshire on January 8, 1977.
The bottom row (left to right) is Paul Miles, David
Essex, Paul McCartney, Linda McCartney, Denny
Laine, Jimmy McCullough, and Joe English. The
top row are members of the Rubettes and the
Real Thing.

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 the father of Afrobeat and Nigerian equivalent of James Brown—turned up accusing them
of coming to his country to steal his people’s music. Only when they played him some of their
own songs were his anxieties allayed. And then, out for a stroll one day, Paul and Linda
were mugged, losing not only her cameras but the cassettes of song demos recorded at their
Scotland home’s “Rude Studios,” which they were using as templates for the Lagos recording
sessions.
It should have been a disaster, but the music the three made (with Paul playing drums,
guitar, and keyboard as well as his usual bass) in these trying circumstances never hinted at
the difficulties. Instead, it was suffused by a mood of youthful, carefree escape—from “Jet,”
which refined the key elements of “Live and Let Die” while being actually named after the
McCartneys’ black Labrador, thru “Helen Wheels” (the family’s Land Rover), to the song that
would give the album its title, “Band on the Run,” with its cast of kids’ cartoon characters.
This was superb music for teenagers on a spree, and by far the most instantly attractive album
made by a Beatle since Abbey Road. One of its more grown-up numbers, “Picasso’s Last Words
(Drink to Me),” was written when the movie star Dustin Hoffman, whom the McCartneys met
in Jamaica where he was filming Papillon, challenged Paul to write a song off the cuff based on
a subject he suggested. This happened to be a news story about the final days of Pablo Picasso.
The last track, the widescreen pulse-racer “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five,” then segued
into a reprise of the title track, much as Sgt. Pepper had done six years previously. Even the
sleeve carried a faint echo of Sgt. Pepper, peopled as it was with celebrity pals of Paul with the

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 band, pinioned by a searchlight mid-jailbreak. Most of these celebrities
meant nothing outside the U.K.; unlike John and contemporaries such as
Rod Stewart, Paul’s heart remained at home in Great Britain.
The whole album was a self-confident triumph and hogged the upper
reaches of album charts worldwide for much of 1974, the year of the oil crisis
and recession, and a time when the West badly needed some cheerful escapism.

A Reunion of Sorts
The McCartneys took the opportunity to kick back for a while, enjoying
family life. For Paul, now that he was able enter the U.S. again after the ban
from his drug conviction had expired, it was also time to heal an old wound.
He went to visit John in Los Angeles, where he was spending his “Lost
Weekend” away from Yoko, and they rekindled their friendship. Ringo had
been the catalyst for the rapprochement. Though he was the oldest Beatle,
Ringo played something of the needy kid brother role, shaped by the fact
that, unlike the other three, he wasn’t much of a singer or songwriter, and
so would always struggle to maintain a recording career.
A likable, genuinely nice man, since the breakup of the Beatles, Ringo
had gotten by with a little help from his friends, culminating in 1973’s hit
album Ringo, on which all three of his former fellow Fabs helped out with
songs and playing without any fuss or personal politics. By then the legal
issues dividing the band and their money were close to being settled, and
had John, George, and Ringo accepted Paul’s view that Allen Klein was a
less than trustworthy custodian of their partnership and business empire.
The heat of the disputes that had made relations between John and Paul so
hateful three years previously had cooled, and though the two would never
resume their creative intimacy of the early 1960s, they would make up and
learn to be on friendly terms again.

Left: Going green . . . Paul and Linda

McCartney out riding bicycles in
February of 1973.

Right: Album cover for Band on the Run.

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 While he was in the U.S., Paul also took the opportunity to “break in” the two replacement
members of Wings. On drums came the seasoned rocker Geoff Britton, while on guitar
entered 20-year-old Jimmy McCulloch, who had enjoyed a U.K. number-one hit single as a
member of Thunderclap Newman with “Something in the Air” when he was just 16. While
staying on the Nashville ranch of Curly Putman, Jr., songwriter of such country classics as
“D-I-V-O-R-C-E” and “Green, Green Grass of Home,” Wings wrote and recorded a new
single, titled “Junior’s Farm” in honor of their location. A catchy, carefree rocker like “Helen
Wheels,” it maintained momentum and cemented the impression that Paul had found his post-
Beatles musical identity.

Running on Empty
The momentum generated by Band on the Run was not be stalled, even if the next album
could be said to show Paul running dangerously close to empty. Mostly recorded in New
Orleans in early 1975, Venus and Mars suffered an interruption partway through the recording
sessions when Geoff Britton, who’d failed to fit in, had to be replaced by the more simpatico
American drummer, Joe English. But the problem with Venus and Mars was the audible drop
in the standard of song set so sky high by its predecessor. Echoes of better work abounded,
from “You Gave Me the Answer”’s reprise of the Beatles’ tea-dance pastiche “Honey Pie”
to “Magneto and Titanium Man”’s litany of cartoon character capers that recalled catchier
songs starring Rocky Raccoon, Uncle Albert, Admiral Halsey, Sailor Sam, and so on.
Picked as the first spin-off single, the best song was “Listen to What the Man Said,” a bright-
eyed and bushy-tailed gallop around the sentiment of love conquering all, with session-star
Tom Scott’s happy-go-lucky saxophone dancing lightly over one of Paul’s most contagious
pop melodies. A radio staple and a U.S. number one that spring of 1975, it helped Venus and
Mars amass huge sales, though not on the sustained scale of Band on the Run.
Just 10 months later Wings released another album, Wings at the Speed of Sound, which
reprised, in even more diluted form, its predecessor’s formula. The new album, however,
boasted two great pop songs rather than one, though the filler, on which each band member
got to write and sing, lacked even the substance of Venus and Mars. Paul’s “Beware My Love”
features his most shredded vocal performance since the Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” eight years
before, but the mood of heavy emotional outpouring feels forced. In utter contrast, the two

Right: Paul and Linda performing

on the Wings’ 1976 U.K. tour.

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 great pop songs—“Silly Love Songs” and “Let ’Em In” (both of them
Paul was happily top three U.S. hits)—are McCartney at his most seemingly effortless,
demanding little of himself save his facility for bouncing ear candy, nor
supplying the anything of the listener save their willingness to let the top down, tune in,
' and enjoy the ride.
world s demand “Let ’Em In” is by far the better song, based on a piano figure where
a nagging sense of anxiety resolves into martial drumbeats then a full-
for heart shaped - blown major key litany of names to be let in, ranging from the historic

tunes . . .
(Martin Luther) to family (Auntie Gin). Perhaps very much in Paul’s mind
at the time of its writing—with its poignant brass arrangement—was his
father Jim, a 73-year-old former semi-professional trumpeter and lifelong
smoker, who was now dying. Recorded, like the rest of the album, at Abbey
Road, “Let ’Em In” has an elusive but enduring melancholic undertow—
young and old, famous and obscure, cool and uncool, no one was excluded
from the warmth—let ’em all in to heaven, perhaps.
Contrastingly one-dimensional, “Silly Love Songs” could almost have
been Paul’s mission statement. Defying not only his former writing partner’s
program of emotional self-revelation in song, but also his own poignant
explorations of human feeling back in the 1960s, he was now happily supplying
the world’s demand for heart-shaped tunes in the 1970s.
Say it loud, Paul was fluffy and proud. A string of airy pop hits, one
undeniable classic pop-rock album, and a few near misses were more than
enough to assist the launch of Wings on a world tour to surpass that
of Paul’s old band.
But as Paul was to find while playing huge stadiums in America’s
Bicentennial summer of 1976, on the year-long Wings Over the World tour,
the Beatles remained a subject on everybody’s lips. The word was out that
the divisions had been healed, and with Wings’ tour schedule including

Left: The Wings Over America

Live Album.

Left: Paul McCartney with his father in

1973. Jim McCartney, a lifelong smoker,
was dying during the time that Paul was
writing the song “Let ‘Em In.”

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 the vast sports venues that the Beatles had pioneered with stage rock shows 10 years before,
what better setting could be imagined for a reunion? The media rumor-mills hummed with
speculation that John, George, and Ringo would turn up one night to turn back the clock, with
a multimillion-dollar payday offered by an American promoter to make it happen. That Paul
strenuously deflected such speculation only fueled it further.
In the event, Paul met the demand for Fabness partway, performing five Beatles’ numbers
that were his sole, unassisted compositions: “Yesterday,” “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” “Lady
Madonna,” “Blackbird,” and “The Long and Winding Road.” Fans went crazy, but so slick and
punchy was the live act—both Denny Laine and Jimmy McCulloch performed cameo songs
to make Wings feel more like a band rather than just Paul-plus-sidemen—that the two-hour
show scarcely dipped from the mood-setting opener, “Venus and Mars,” to the encore, “Soily,”
an unreleased song from 1973.
With Linda blooming in confidence on stage, and the tour arranged to be family-friendly,
right down to the disco area set aside in Wings’ chartered BAC 1-11 jet for the little
McCartneys, Paul could honestly say he had achieved everything and more that he had set
out to do four years previously: he had conquered the world all over again, but this time
accompanied not by his buddies but by his loved ones. The vast sales of the souvenir triple-
live-album Wings Over America, released for Christmas of 1976, sealed the success of the man
who was now, indisputably, the biggest Beatle.

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 Chapter 4
Back to Earth

“Hell, how much credit do you

want in a lifetime?”
—Paul McCartney

Left: Country living . . . Paul McCartney

and Linda McCartney, with their
daughters, Heather, Stella, and Mary,
in Rye, East Sussex, U.K. on April 4, 1976.

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 T
he term “work-life balance” had yet to be coined in the late 1970s, but that balance
is exactly what Paul McCartney seemed to be accomplishing as 1976 turned to 1977.
Linda became pregnant with what would be her fourth child—her third with Paul—and
that winter, following a record-breaking hot summer in the U.K. during which punk
rock took root in London, Paul planned to record a new album celebrating the city. Returning
to EMI’s Abbey Road studios in London, the weather got him down after a few weeks, so he
upped sticks with the band, technicians, and family to go to the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean.
They set up recording facilities on board a yacht, the Fair Carol, with everyone berthed in boats
alongside for a month of music-making, drinking, smoking (with yet another warning from
local law-enforcement officers), and swimming, thus giving the album the working title of Water
Wings. Linda’s advanced pregnancy ended that phase of recording, and the McCartneys returned
to High Park Farm in Scotland with Wings members Denny, Jimmy, and Joe. There, during
the summer of Her Majesty the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, Paul and Denny were suitably moved
by the views of romantic wilderness around the expanding McCartney homestead to write
together “a love song to where we lived, a Scottish waltz.” It was to join
such anthems as “Scotland the Brave” and “Loch Lomond” as a Caledonian
classic to bring a tear to the eye and a swirl to the kilt.
Featuring seven pipers and seven drummers of the Campbeltown Pipe
Band, the song “Mull of Kintyre” had one absentee, unnoticed at the time:
Jimmy McCulloch. After a drunken spat with Paul and Linda, he had run
off to join Steve Marriott in a new lineup of the Small Faces, who were
originally contemporaries of the Beatles back in the 1960s. Two years
later, Jimmy would die of a heroin overdose at the age of 26.
American drummer Joe English wasn’t to continue much longer in
Wings, either, bailing out due to homesickness or a gnawing dissatisfaction
about his remuneration, depending on whom you believe.
Released in November of 1977 with the semi-salacious rocker “Girls’
School” on the flipside, “Mull of Kintyre” sold and sold in Great Britain,
staying at number one for weeks that Christmas, notching up more than
two million U.K. sales and outselling even the Beatles’ biggest single,
1963’s “She Loves You.” A huge hit also in Europe and Australia, “Mull

Above: Guitarists Jimmy Right: It’s a boy! Paul and Linda

McCulloch (left) and McCartney with their son, James,
Steve Marriott (right) of on September 21, 1977.
Small Faces performing in
Manchester, England on
September 14, 1977.

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 of Kintyre” did not, however, perform well commercially in Japan or, more worryingly, in
the world’s biggest and most Beatlemaniac record market, the U.S. Meanwhile, without the
inclusion of either side of this single on its track listing, London Town was released in 1978, an
event somewhat upstaged for the McCartneys by the arrival the previous September of their
son James, the third generation of McCartney boy to bear the name (Paul’s given name is
James, like his father before him). Unlike Band on the Run, which had been focused by the
adversity of its making, the diffuse writing and recording history of London Town was audible
to fans. From the lyrical bum notes of the folksy soft-rock title-track ode to London (the
Americanism “barker” when he meant “busker,” the antiquated slang term for a policeman,
“rozzer” used at all), through the Kinksesque “Famous Groupies” and the prog-rocking sea
shanty “Morse Moose and the Grey Goose,” to the exciting but ill-timed Sun-style rocker
“Name and Address,” which Paul wrote for Elvis, who died before getting to hear it, London
Town sounds less like a coherent album than a bunch of B-sides. Enjoyable though it was, the
albums then selling in their multimillions by Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles were unified by
the three Cs of California, Cocaine, and Creative intensity—a combination that was a world
away from the easy-going, backward-looking London Town.
One song, however, did look to the future: Paul liked Michael Jackson, back then a child star
coming into maturity but not yet the icon he was to become, and wrote “Girlfriend” for him.
Paul’s falsetto vocal performance acted as a guide for Michael’s own performance on his huge
hit album Off the Wall the following year.
Held aloft by a U.S. number-one single, the heartwarming Macca-by-numbers “With a
Little Luck,” London Town sold well over a million copies in the U.S., but, as in the rest of the

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 world, it fell from the charts relatively quickly. While Paul’s army of loyalists
added it to their collection, the album made few converts. Paul felt his U.S.
record company’s sales force had failed to do London Town justice, so he left
Capitol to sign a huge deal with Columbia Records. But Paul also knew that,
in the mainstream rock-pop market, times and tastes had changed since his
all-conquering mid-1970s period. Disco, New Wave, and a growing vogue for
shiny electronic keyboard sounds were making the warm, bluesy, funky feel that
had held sway over so much bestselling music since the late 1960s sound old-
fashioned, though what became known as AOR (adult-oriented rock) kept faith
with its aging market’s tastes in the musical palette they’d grown up with. And, two years
before the launch of MTV, elaborately theatrical promotional videos were taking over from a
filmed live performance as the cool currency of how rock should market itself on television.
Other giant acts who’d erupted in the wake of the Beatles, such as the Who, Pink Floyd,
and Led Zeppelin, were responding to these changing tastes, and it felt like a gathering of the
clans rallying to the flag of their generation when, on October 3, 1978, at the suggestion
of the Who’s drummer, Keith Moon, Paul called in pals from these groups, plus other British
so-called Old Wave rock luminaries, to record an all-star session at Abbey Road.
The sessions would yield two future tracks, “Rockestra Theme” and “So Glad to See You
Here,” though Moon himself was sadly missing. He’d died the month before from an accidental
prescription-pharmaceutical overdose after a dinner thrown by Paul to mark what would have
been his hero Buddy Holly’s birthday.

Left: Paul McCartney performing

on stage with Wings at the Empire
Pool, Wembley, U.K., in October of
1976. The three shows at Wembley
marked the end of the group’s
first complete world tour, which
included the U.S.

Above: Album cover for London

Town.

Right: Paul McCartney and Michael

Jackson on December 19, 1983.

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 The Dawn of Disco
Before these songs saw the light of day, along with the rest of the album for which they were
recorded, a stand-alone single, “Goodnight Tonight,” was released. This introduced a fourth
incarnation of Wings, with new drummer Steve Holley and a new lead guitarist, Laurence
Juber, to get the band back up to a five-piece again. They recalled that their auditions had
been perfunctory; “The enthusiasm had peaked,” Paul admitted later. Clearly modeled on the
pioneering hits by New York’s disco band Chic, “Goodnight Tonight” was a wisp, but the
percolating groove of elegantly strummed guitars, Latin percussion, and Paul’s throbbing
bass defied you not to hit the dancefloor—and, indeed, it was also released in extended 12 inch
vinyl form specifically for DJs.
Reaching number five in the U.S., “Goodnight Tonight” appalled many old fans who objected
to disco in principle for being plastic, populist, and manufactured, as distinct from rock, which
they saw as “real” music. But while “Goodnight Tonight” told the world that Paul was keeping
up with modern trends, it also announced that he was no longer setting them. Such would be the
impression confirmed by what was intended as a Wings’ rebirth—or rehatch—album, but would
in fact prove to be their swansong, Back to the Egg.
Far from justifying Columbia Records’ record-breaking advance payment, the new album
sold fewer than any Wings’ studio album since the first, with reviews ranging from “over-
egged” to “scrambled.” Yet listening to it now reveals a compelling oddity closer to the
sophisticated blue-eyed, soul-blues grooves of Boz Scaggs and Steely Dan, or the avant-
garde whimsy of David Bowie, than anything Paul had done since his greatest period as a
singer, songwriter, and experimental stylist in the Beatles from 1966 to 1968. “To You,” for
example, is sung red-raw, and were it not loaded with all the expectations and connotations
of a McCartney composition, would be acclaimed today as a minor New Wave rock classic.
As if retreating from making such demands on his audience, Paul then released the solo
hit single “Wonderful Christmastime,” the third dose of seasonal cheer by an ex-Beatle (John
had celebrated “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” in 1971, and George rang in the New Year with
“Ding Dong, Ding Dong” in 1974), and the most eagerly lightweight.
So, for Paul, the 1970s had ended in much the same way as the 1960s, with a band on its last
legs and questions being asked as to whether he could stay creative and compete with new talents,
techniques, and tastes. For Paul, 1980 would start with this challenge but also end in tragedy.

Right: Linda McCartney, Paul McCartney,

and the Who’s drummer, Keith Moon, in 1977.
Moon died of an accidental prescription-drug
overdose after a dinner party thrown by Paul.

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 45

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 Chapter 5
Busted, Grounded,
Dragged, and Tugged

“It was just too crazy, blurred, horrific.

You can’t take it in.”—Paul McCartney

Right: Paul McCartney, cigarette in

hand, expressing his opinion in the
mid-1970s.

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 48

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 T
hough launched off the back of a relative flop album in a group that Paul
increasingly felt had run its course, the new year of the new decade was to see Wings
take off on a world tour. Going into the winter of 1979, they’d warmed up on over 20
U.K. dates, nostalgically playing the sorts of venues where Beatlemania had broken
out back in 1963—with three entirely Paul-penned Fabs' hits on the set list—culminating in
an all-star benefit “Concert for the People of Kampuchea” in London on December 29. No one
knew, least of all the band, that it would be Wings’ final performance.
The following month, January of 1980, they flew to Japan, where Paul was to perform
for the first time since the Beatles’ last tour in 1966. Though only the most delicate legal
diplomacy permitted him into the country, which had banned him for his drug convictions,
Paul seemed not to have taken note of the obvious: Japan was tough on drug possession.
Years later, he told British journalist Chris Salewicz what happened as they cleared customs
and immigration at Tokyo’s Narita Airport: “We got some good grass in America and no
one could face putting it down the toilet. We knew we weren’t going to get any in Japan. It
was lying on top of the bloody suitcase. I’ll never forget the guy’s face as he pulled it out. He
almost put it back. He just did not want the embarrassment.”
Embarrassment is what sprang Paul from his shared prison cell after 10 days. The Japanese
didn’t want to have to prosecute such a high-profile foreigner, so, after negotiations with
the U.K. consulate and Paul’s legal team from his father-in-law’s firm in New York, he was
deported back to the U.K.
Paul had gotten away with it, but he seemed unchastened by such a close shave with a
grueling trial and possible prison sentence of seven years’ hard labor in a foreign land. Nor

“
We got some good grass in America

and no one could face putting it


”
down the toilet. —Paul McCartney

Left: Paul McCartney being arrested

in Japan on January 19, 1980 for Above: Album cover for
drug possession. McCartney II.

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 were his fellow Wings' musicians and crew compensated for the loss of earnings they’d been
due to make on a world tour. Indeed, he mocked the country that had let him off the hook
with the face-pulling sleeve art and instrumental title “Frozen Jap” on his new album. That it
was a do-it-yourself solo album, significantly entitled McCartney II exactly a decade after his
first, self-titled do-it-yourself solo album, suggested that, while Wings still officially existed,
their dissolution would only be a matter of time. But Paul had not intended to make so pointed
a statement. He had recorded the songs in the summer of 1979, soon after the "Back to
the Egg" sessions, in the home studio attached to his Scottish farmhouse, experimenting with
new sequencers and other electronic instruments that were entering the musical marketplace.
Paul had been an early synthesizer enthusiast since filling the Abbey Road studio with “a
roomful of Moog” for the recording of the Beatles' song “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” in 1969,
but over the course of the following decade he had returned to more conventional guitar-rock
arrangements while, musicians like Stevie Wonder surged to huge acclaim and popularity
with a string of hit albums marrying great songs to synthesizer technology.
With Paul uncertain about Wings after their return from the aborted world tour, these
home recordings filled a gap; the album was a respectable million-seller, though no Band on
the Run-scale blockbuster. They also, by not trying so hard and allowing himself to indulge
his playful side, made a far more sparkling job of remodeling Paul’s music for the New Wave
generation than had Back to the Egg. Of the songs, “Temporary Secretary” upgraded the sly
comedy of his 1966 Beatles number one “Paperback Writer” for the age of electronica, while
“Coming Up” was a U.S. number one hit single in Paul’s perkiest style, the vocals varispeeded
for an intriguingly synthetic effect. When John Lennon heard it on the radio on a yachting
trip in the Caribbean that June, it inspired him to get back to making music for release for the
first time in over five years.
The pick of the bunch, though, were two sublime ballads, “One of These Days” and “Waterfalls,”
which was named after the rural property near England’s south coast where the McCartney family

Right: Paul reunited with former Beatles'

producer, George Martin, to record songs for
the animated feature of Rupert the Bear, the
British children's comic strip.

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 was increasingly spending their time. So beautiful were their melodies that
critics were almost embarrassed to point out that the lyrics were as lame as The fate of

Wings was driven

ever from the man who had previously written such poetic masterpieces as
“Eleanor Rigby” and “Blackbird.”
'
from everyone s

The Phone Call

minds when Paul
While McCartney II seemed to look to the future, Paul spent the months
received a tragic
following the Japanese bust back in his comfort zone of nostalgia. He was
once more working with the Beatles’ old producer, George Martin, to
record songs for a projected animated feature based on the cozy British phone call.
children’s comic strip, Rupert Bear, which debuted in 1920 and stayed true
to that era. Paul has always had an intense attachment to the world of his
happy Liverpool childhood before the death of his mother when he was
14. Enjoying being with Martin once more, Paul continued the sessions
with songs for a new album, initially slated to be a Wings' record. But
between them they were eager to have greater freedom of choice in the
musicians they used to fulfill a broad range of styles, which included the
likes of drummers Ringo Starr, Hal Blaine, and Dave Mattacks. With
only Denny Laine a fixture on most of the tracks, this could hardly be
passed off as a Wings' album, especially as the song “Get It” guest-starred
the rockabilly pioneer Carl Perkins—who’d been an early inspiration to
the Beatles—and “Ebony and Ivory” guest-starred Stevie Wonder who,
alongside Paul and Elton John, had commercially dominated pop-rock
over the previous decade.
But, just a few weeks into rehearsals for the recording sessions, the fate of Wings
was driven from everybody’s minds by the events of December 9, 1980. At home
that morning, Paul received a phone call from his manager with terrible news:
John Lennon had been shot dead in New York by a deranged fan.
Paul was shocked and grief-stricken—and also had to contend with the
world’s media demanding instant, measured comment. Paul made the fatal
error of facing the press pack in person that evening while his feelings
were in turmoil, and the confused words that slipped out were to rebound Above: Rockabilly pioneer
instantly and haunt him for years to come: “It’s a drag, isn’t it?” Carl Perkins at the Country
Music Festival in Wembley,
Suddenly, if John was the martyred saint, Paul was the unfeeling, U.K., 1981. An inspiration to
superficial, so-called best friend who couldn’t muster even the semblance the Beatles and McCartney,
of a show of grief—a lightweight talent and human being compared to he guest-starred on Paul's
song, "Get It."
the moral and musical heavyweight that was John. The truth, of course,

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 was and is far more nuanced and complex, but every time Paul suggested
that this was the case, it looked as if he was trying to maximize his input
into the Beatles at the expense of his erstwhile partner and friend who,
of course, could no longer answer back.

Wings No More
From a musical viewpoint, John had been the listener whom Paul had always
tried to please back in the 1960s, and without him, with only the need to please
himself and perhaps the unseen public, Paul ceased pushing himself, especially
as a lyricist. Never a credible substitute for John, Denny Laine had neither
quite enough talent nor the self-confident forthrightness to demand better
of Paul, and upon his resignation from Wings in 1981, thus formally ending
the group, his replacement as Paul’s musical foil was to fare scarcely better.
Eric Stewart was from Manchester, less than 40 miles from Liverpool. He
had been the main songwriter in the Beatles’ beat-group contemporaries the
Mindbenders and had gone on in the 1970s, as one quarter of 10cc, to score
more big hits, most notably the 1975 worldwide smash “I’m Not in Love.”
When he was seriously injured in a car crash in 1979, Paul had phoned with
words of support, and when Eric recovered, they joined up to make music.
A fresh face who was also an old friend and a proven hitmaker in his own
right helped infuse Paul with new creativity, while George Martin, who,
being a World War II veteran and of an older generation, had never been in
awe of the Beatles, helped him craft the finest record he could. On a roll and
enjoying themselves, they amassed far more songs they judged to be worthy
of commercial release than would fit onto a single album.
The cream were released in 1982 on Tug of War, a slick, tuneful, and
modishly funk-lite album that revealed Stewart’s influence in intricate story-
telling songs that lent themselves to promotional videos, such as “Take It
Away.” Heralding the album’s release, the duet with Stevie Wonder, “Ebony
and Ivory,” suggesting that the musical harmony of the black and white keys
on a keyboard should inspire the world to racial harmony, had the upbeat

Left: A stricken Paul McCartney Above: Eric Stewart of 10cc in 1979.

being interviewed while leaving Stewart teamed up with McCartney
AIR studio, Oxford Street, London to make new music after he
in 1980, shortly after the murder recovered from a serious car crash
of John Lennon. in 1979.

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 message, melody, and genre-bridging star power to hit number one all over
Paul would the world. But the album’s most enduring song, “Here Today,” echoed his
1966 Beatles' classic “For No One” in its poignant evocation of love lost;
sometimes choke that “Here Today” could also be interpreted as a song of regret at the lost
friendship with John, never to be fully healed, touched many listeners more
up on stage when deeply than any McCartney song had for years. “There were many things
left unsaid,” Paul told American TV viewers. “I would have liked to have
he performed straightened everything out.” Years later, Paul would sometimes choke up
" "
Here Today.
when he performed it on stage, admitting it was about losing John.
Tug of War was by far Paul’s biggest hit album since London Town.

He admitted it
Released18 months later, its successor, Pipes of Peace, included many tracks
left over from those George Martin sessions, and its second-best selection
was about losing
of songs sold correspondingly less well. Moving on from duetting with
Stevie Wonder, Paul was now sparring with another Motown child prodigy
John . . . who’d grown to adult superstardom: Michael Jackson. Promoted by a
video casting Paul as a 1920s snake oil salesman and Michael as his young
accomplice—Mac & Jack—the U.S. number one “Say Say Say” saw both
artists coasting creatively, but hitting big nonetheless in the commercial
slipstream of another Mac & Jack duet, “The Girl is Mine,” which was the
first hit single to be released on what quickly became the bestselling album
of all time, Michael Jackson’s 1982 classic Thriller.
As the Beatles had been to the 1960s, Michael Jackson would be to the
1980s: a phenomenon who not only created brand-new artistic styles and
turbocharged the entertainment industry but also shaped the feelings
and lives of an entire generation. It came as a bitter irony to Paul when,
upon the advice he’d given Michael about investing his wealth in music
publishing, the new megastar promptly bought the company that owned
the Beatles’ songwriting catalog, a treasure trove of Paul’s own best work
that the former Beatle had been trying to acquire for years.
This moment marked the changing of the guard. Paul would always be
music royalty, but now he would have to fight to stay in contention as a
bestselling artist of new songs.

Above: Album cover for Tug Right: A still from the filming of a video for "So Bad," the
of War. B-side of Paul McCartney's number-one single, "Pipes
of Peace" on January 13, 1984. The clip features (from
left to right) Ringo Starr, Linda McCartney, Eric Stewart,
and Paul McCartney.

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 Chapter 6
From Broadway Bum
to Born-Again Beatle

“The public will be the judges.”

—Paul McCartney

Right: Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr in

period costume for a scene in the movie,
Give My Regards to Broad Street, in 1984.
McCartney also penned the script.

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 I
t’s hard to say what Paul should have done at this point to maintain his status as a 1960s
icon who could still sell new records by the bucketful. Contemporaries like Bob Dylan, Paul
Simon, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Pink Floyd, and the survivors of the wreck of Led
Zeppelin struggled with this challenge, as did Paul’s fellow surviving Beatles, George and
Ringo. Indeed, Ringo could now release an album as good as Stop and Smell the Roses and still
only just scrape into the U.S. Top 100. But when invited to come on board for Paul’s latest
project, Ringo had his doubts even at this low ebb in his own career.
For what Paul chose to do next was make a movie that almost everyone except the man
himself foresaw as an absolute car crash.
Given his experience of appearing in the Beatles’ movies and his own appreciation of the art
form as a fan—and being a movie fan is what attracted him to the project in the first place—
Paul should have paid more attention to the fundamental component of any movie: the script.
Investing millions of dollars of his own money in the movie, entitled Give My Regards to
Broad Street, permitted Paul to ignore all the safeguards the professional movie industry has
in place to ensure a basic level of commercial appeal. The cameras started rolling on what
would turn out to be a near two-hour movie based on a 23-page script. And it was a script
that, updating the Fab Four premise of A Hard Day’s Night two decades before, would star our
solitary hero—Fab Paul—charming and bantering his way through a narrative very loosely
based on his actual working life as a pop star, with outbreaks of song along the way. But
whereas the 1964 movie was handled by solid professionals who gave John, Paul, George, and
Ringo just enough space to display their winning personalities in witty repartee, in 1984 Paul
was the paymaster who expected the whole thing to fly on his personal charm and improvised
gift for story and characters. He was mistaken. In shot for almost the entire film, Paul played
himself as complacent yet caring, decisive yet overwhelmed by events, friendly yet enigmatic.

Right: Looking a bit pale . . .

Jeff Porcaro, Steve Lukather,
Paul McCartney, Linda
McCartney, and Louis
Johnson all dressed up for
the movie, Give My Regards
to Broad Street.

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 Lavishing a small fortune and the talents of numerous high-quality actors
and movie technicians on a storyline and script that would be disappointing
as a 14-year-old’s school project made the movie, and by extension Paul
himself, the object of ridicule when the reviews came out. People stayed
away in droves, and those of Paul’s hardcore loyalists who braved it were
often embarrassed to see the legend making such a fool of himself and, by
another extension, of his faithful fans, too.
To see a 40-year-old musical genius and father of three abase himself in
humiliating pursuit of a new teen audience in the movie’s set-piece
performance of “Silly Love Songs,” with Paul, Linda, and the band clothed,
coiffed, and made up in the New Romantic style that had peaked two years
previously, was a very low point. The high points were Paul’s unadorned
solo performances of his Beatles’ classics “Yesterday” and “For No One.”
These were also the crown jewels of a soundtrack that supplied some
adequate new songs, including the hit single “No More Lonely Nights,”
with an inspired guitar solo by Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour.
The soundtrack album sold no more than respectably in the U.S. but went
to number one in the U.K., despite Paul’s reputation having been battered
earlier in 1984 when Denny Laine told British tabloid readers of Paul’s
prodigious dope-smoking, which by then had not only led to six busts in
six countries but also slowed his work rate and fogged his judgment. Laine
further argued that Paul was tightfisted, overbearing, and “a mummy’s boy.”
Above (top): Album
cover for Paul McCartney

High Turnover
Unplugged.

Taking over the producer’s chair from George Martin, who needed a break Above (bottom): Album
from working with Paul after three albums in succession, Hugh Padgham, cover for Press to Play.

whose track record by then included huge hit albums for the Police and
Phil Collins, was called in to give Paul’s music a contemporary, synth-
heavy sheen. Padgham discovered over many frustrating months the
fundamental truth of Laine’s tabloid revelations. Indeed, old friend Eric
Stewart bailed out of the sessions, finding them slack yet bad-tempered
because they were so unconstructive, chiefly because Paul had fallen into
the routine of spending an eternity to write and record on autopilot, to
the frustration of the producer and fellow musicians, rather than focusing
intensely on doing his very best. Written quickly at the start of the
sessions, only “Footprints” had a spark of inspiration.

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 Upon its release in 1986, the album, Press to Play, underperformed everywhere and bombed
in America, selling around 250,000 copies. By Paul’s standards, this was lamentable, and his
response was to set the pattern for the way his career has developed in subsequent decades.
One of the many interruptions to the “Press to Play” sessions was Paul’s performance at
Live Aid in London’s Wembley Stadium on July 13, 1985, the biggest music event of all time, to
raise money for victims of the Ethiopian famine. Nearly two billion people worldwide watched
it live on TV. Very few major stars declined to perform when asked, and for some, like U2 and
Queen, it was the springboard to the highest level of popularity. The rapturous reception Paul
got for his performance of “Let It Be” at the piano, unaccompanied but for a ragged chorus
of supporting stars like David Bowie, confirmed the former Beatle as untouchable just as
long as he tapped into his 1960s songbook and evoked memories of that golden age. Nor was
Paul immune to personal nostalgia. Whereas back in the 1970s he seldom reminisced about
the Beatles and considered it bad form to bring up the subject in conversation, now he could
hardly leave it alone. And just as the Beatles’ catalog was released for the first time on CD
to huge sales, especially of the early material and Sgt. Pepper, which was celebrating its 20th
anniversary, so too did Paul delve back into his past in search of freshness, fun, and, perhaps,
the spark of inspiration that got him songwriting in the first place, back in the 1950s.
The first time this author met Paul McCartney, he was delighted to find himself an
audience of one to the former Beatle hammering out the 1952 Leiber and Stoller R&B classic

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 “Kansas City,” one of a huge repertoire of good-time standards that had stayed at the core
of his affections. In July of 1987 Paul was toying with the idea of hitting the road and had
invited a bunch of seasoned British rock ’n’ roll musicians to audition for the live band at his
Sussex farm. Over two days, they rehearsed and ran through a selection of 22 well-known
hits, stretching from Elvis to hot-rodded versions of Gershwin and Ellington jazz classics,
routinely recording them for review as they went.
When Paul played back the tapes, he was thrilled to hear what amounted to a terrific off-
the-cuff rock ’n’ roll covers album to complement his late partner John’s 1975 album Rock ’n’
Roll, right down to the inclusion of Fats Domino’s “Ain’t That a Shame.”
The only problem is what such an album would say by way of a subtext at this perilous
moment in Paul’s career: that he could no longer write good new songs of his own? That he
could no longer face the future so had fallen back on the past? Paul’s management, tasked
with making his wishes come true, supplied an ingenious solution. For years in the U.S.S.R.,
illicitly traded home-recorded cassettes of the Beatles had soundtracked the lives of young
Soviets as they struggled under an overbearing, overcontrolling state, and east of the Iron
Curtain the Fab Four were accorded the status of standard-bearers of freedom. But now,
under Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet Union was relaxing censorship and lifting bans on such
Western subversion as rock music. Where better, then, to release Paul’s album—titled Choba
B CCCP, as in Back in the USSR—than the Soviet Union, turning what would otherwise look
like a backward step into a historically pioneering move in the new era of perestroika?

A Fresh Phase
So it was that Paul’s seventh solo album was not officially for sale in the West until 1991,
three years after its release on the Soviet record label Melodiya. Imaginative and newsworthy
though this release was, it was only a holding operation. Paul put off his return to the stage
while he recorded an album of original material with a new collaborator. Also on London’s
Live Aid bill, the Liverpool-born New Wave songwriter Elvis Costello had tapped into the
communal mood of the day and wowed the crowd by inviting them to help him sing “this old
Northern English folk song,” which was in fact a cover of the Beatles’ Lennon-penned number-
one hit “All You Need Is Love.” Highly intelligent, verbally adroit, and sarcastic, Costello had
something of Lennon about him, and Paul’s management had high hopes that, put together in

Left: Paul McCartney and George

Martin in a recording studio for the
“South Bank Show” in January of 1984.

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 Nearly two billion people worldwide

watched the star studded charity show.

-

Above: Bono, Paul McCartney, and Freddie

Mercury were among the all-star ensemble
to join the Live Aid show on July 13, 1985.

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 a songwriting collaboration, the younger man would inspire the veteran
to rediscover his best form. A record breaking -
crowd cheered
In the event, the pair failed to find a compatible songwriting method,
but some good material did come out of it, and the songs Paul wrote alone

on Paul in Rio de
at this time showed a marked improvement on almost everything he’d
written since 1979. “Put It There” and “We Got Married” also had elements

Janeiro . . .
of personal reminiscence that gave them an emotional dimension beyond
the mere display of superior seasoned songcraft. Though long accustomed
to the art of the personal cover-up—in contrast to John Lennon’s habitual
self-revelation in song—over the course of the troubles of his middle age,
Paul would find that admitting inspiration from his own life into his songs
would strengthen his art after decades of coasting on craft and whimsy.
Paul would open up in song only slowly, but 1989’s Flowers in the Dirt
felt like the start of a fresh phase, and it was rewarded with acclaim: a
number one U.K. chart position and strong sales in the U.S. spread out
over a year. The reason for the sustained American sales was that, for the
first time since 1976, Paul toured the U.S. as part of an 11-month, 104-date
world tour that stretched into 1990. And this time, with low ticket prices
thanks to a sponsorship deal with a credit-card company, he was playing
the stadiums. But there was an even bigger reason why tens of thousands
of paying fans—and in Rio de Janeiro’s Maracana Stadium, a record-
breaking 184,000—cheered him to the echo every night: with more than
half the set consisting of songs he’d written in the 1960s, Paul had finally, Above: Album cover for
as a solo performer, re-embraced Beatlemania. But there was a twist. Tripping the Live Fantastic.

Setting the Record Straight

By now, following Linda’s lead, Paul was a committed vegetarian and
member of the environmental pressure group Friends of the Earth; every
member of the audience received on entry a free lavishly illustrated and
produced souvenir program highlighting this aspect of his life. But inside,
Paul also looked back on his career, correcting, as he saw it, some common
misconceptions of his and John’s roles within the Beatles. Stung by years
of comparison to his disadvantage, especially in the decade since John’s
murder and virtual canonization, Paul wanted to set the record straight
that, far from being the bland conservative of popular reputation, it was
he, not John, who had first investigated the musical and artistic avant garde
back in the 1960s. This was a point to which Paul would return again and

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 again in the following years, backing it up with a number of releases dabbling in rave music,
sampling, and mash-up techniques.
As for the tour, backed by Linda (keyboard and percussion), former Average White Band
member Hamish Stuart (bass and guitars), former Pretender Robbie McIntosh (guitar), Paul
“Wix” Wickens (keyboards), and Chris Whitten (drums and percussion)—each of whom had
proved themselves on the “Flowers in the Dirt” sessions—some of its best performances were
captured for posterity in both a live album, Tripping the Live Fantastic, and a concert movie, Get
Back, which reunited Paul with Richard Lester, the American director of the Beatles’ movies
Help! and A Hard Day’s Night. From hereon in, the world-tour souvenir live album would
become a staple of Paul’s commercial output.
By way of a postscript, Paul’s next release was also a live album, but one documenting a
show at the other end of the scale to that of the Maracana. The MTV music channel had
recently launched a new slot called Unplugged, where musicians usually more used to playing
an electric set would play an acoustic one. By its second series, bigger acts were being tempted
to perform this way, despite the risk of the naked format exposing technical weaknesses.
Paul McCartney was never going to shirk such a challenge, and in January of 1991, after
two weeks of diligent rehearsal with his band, featuring new drummer Blair Cunningham,
he played a set before a small invited audience, mixing covers ranging from Guy Mitchell’s
1956 “Singing the Blues” to Bill Withers’ soul classic “Ain’t No Sunshine,” with solo songs
mostly from his McCartney debut, and, of course, Beatles’ numbers, of which the best, “And
I Love Her,” perhaps even bettered the 1964 original. The show was a huge success, and
so pleased was Paul with the performance that he released most of it as a 16-track album
entitled Unplugged (The Official Bootleg), meeting with further acclaim and strong sales. By
mixing his musical roots, Beatles’ career, and solo work in his set list and performing it all
so wholeheartedly, Paul rekindled the fullest popular affection for who he was and what he
represented. With that affirmation, Paul entered the 1990s with renewed artistic ambition.

Left: Band tour photo in

Rotterdam, Holland on
November 7, 1989. From left to
right, Hamish Stuart, Paul “Wix”
Wickens, Linda McCartney, Paul
McCartney, Robbie McIntosh,
and Chris Whitten.

Right: Paul McCartney

performing on his U.S. tour
in 1990.

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 Chapter 7
Real A
Everywhere Man

“I love a choir, real people devoting

themselves to music. The teamwork makes
me optimistic about the human race.”
—Paul McCartney

Left: Paul McCartney saying hello to

Princess Diana after a performance
in Lille, France in November of 1992.

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 I
f Paul McCartney’s trumpet-playing father was at the back of his
mind when he wrote “Let ’Em In,” he positively haunted the Liverpool
Oratorio, which Paul wrote, in collaboration with composer and conductor
Carl Davis, to mark the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s
150th anniversary, for performance in the majestic setting of his home
city’s Anglican Cathedral in June of 1991. Over two years in the writing,
the narrative very loosely followed what might have been Paul’s own story
had he never become a star and left Liverpool, its reflective, even memorial
mood evoking the parents and best friend whose loss he mourned. As long
in duration and on as large a scale as Handel’s “Messiah” or any of the
other great classical oratorios with orchestra, chorus, and solo singers,
Paul’s Liverpool Oratorio lacked variety of pace, recurrent themes, and clear
structure, but had passages of great emotional power, thanks not least to
such solo voices as Kiri Te Kanawa and Willard White.
The premiere was acclaimed as a triumph, however, and the recording
topped the classical charts; Paul would be drawn out of his comfort zone
in rock music to such ambitious projects again. In the meantime, it was
back to the comfort zone of a world tour planned to start in February
of 1993, taking in Australasia, where he had not played as intended in
1989–1990. Preceding the start of the so-called New World Tour, Paul
took his live band into Hog Hill Mill, a windmill he owned on his southern
England property that had been converted into a recording studio, where
they quickly cut a new album, Off the Ground. That some of its songs were
Flowers in the Dirt leftovers reflected the second-best nature of most of the
material. While the antivivisection, antipolitician, and pro-ecological
sentiments he voiced in some songs got the album talked about, they
upstaged two very beautiful but uncontroversial numbers, “I Owe It All to
You” and “Golden Earth Girl,” clearly songs for Linda. Written with huge

Left: The program cover for the

Liverpool Oratario.

Right: Paul and Linda McCartney

performing on April 1, 1993.

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 69

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 Above: Paul donned Shakespearean attire for
his first starring role in a TV & film commercial on
November 30, 1994. He was working to promote the
Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts, a school for
which he is a patron.

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 crowds in mind, the swaying anthem “C’mon People” closed the album in
grand if slightly predictable style, an echo of Wings’ “Let ’Em In.”
Paul’s confidence was high, and, though now 50 years old, he imagined
getting involved in the dance-remix culture packing clubs and warehouses
in the U.K., Europe, and increasingly the U.S. Constantly demanding new
sounds and textures to keep it fresh, the music’s dominant mood was spacy The album was
and disembodied, despite being rooted in a solid 4/4 beat. This was not a
foreign language to a musician who’d been fascinated by the avant garde credited to the
and mind-expansion since 1966 (even before John Lennon, as he liked to " "
point out), so Paul had the idea of having some of Off the Ground’s tracks Fireman, which

was another
remixed by one of the leaders in the field, Youth, aka Martin Glover, who
had played bass in the New Wave rock band Killing Joke before reinventing
'
tribute to Paul s
himself as a stoned-dance-remix guru. But Youth had other, bigger ideas;
rather than remix some songs for the dance market, he wanted to be able
father . . .
to sample any snippet from Paul’s recorded work as raw material to build a
brand-new set of tracks. So taken was Paul by the concept that he actively
collaborated in the process, and, in November of 1993, the 77-minute
album entitled, intriguingly all in the lower case, strawberries oceans ships
forest was released, credited to the Fireman and with no mention of its
makers’ real identities. Rumor eventually revealed all, with the Fireman
being, of course, the one who rushed in from the pouring rain in the
Beatles’ “Penny Lane,” another tribute to Paul’s father who had been a
firewatcher in Liverpool during World War II.

’
Always Leave Em Wanting More
Off the Ground sold respectably, while strawberries oceans ships forest did
far more for Paul’s credibility as a musical risk-taker than it did for his
bank balance.
By the time Paul surreptitiously released his ambient house debut, he
was already nearing the end of 1993’s 78-date New World Tour, which
again wowed fans with its blend of faithfully rendered Beatles’ (including
“Penny Lane”), Wings’, and solo songs. That the souvenir live album that
followed, Paul Is Live, attracted more attention for its sleeve, referencing
Abbey Road, “Martha My Dear,” and the 1969 “Paul is dead” rumor, than
for the music within, with only moderate sales its reward, suggested that
Paul had broken one of the golden rules of showbiz: always leave them
wanting more.

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 Once again discovering that while public affection may be boundless,
Paul decided to public investment in his every last release was not, Paul decided it was a
good moment to remove himself from his own career to reassume the role
reassume the role for which the world loved him best: as a Beatle.
Back in the late 1980s, inter-Fab hostilities had renewed when George,
in which the world Ringo, and Yoko discovered that, as part of the deal to return him from
Columbia Records to Capitol in the U.S., Paul had negotiated an extra
loved him best: percentage-point royalty over the other three on the sale of Beatles’ records,

as a Beatle.
and they sued him. Thus, in 1988, when the Beatles were inducted into the
Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame, Paul made his excuses and did not attend.
Two years later this issue had been resolved, and the three survivors were
talking again, though no substantial decision would be made concerning
Beatles’ business without each insisting on expensive and time-consuming
management, legal, and financial representation. But there was now a
substantial new Beatles’ project to be discussed: a television series based
on archive footage collected over the years by the former Beatles’ roadie
and trusted Apple Corps boss Neil Aspinall.
The often prickly George might have been expected to resist revisiting the
past, but his 1987 hit “When We Was Fab” suggested he was now reconciled
with his Beatles’ years. Besides, after a failed film investment, he needed
the money. Ringo would always go with the flow, and Yoko was amenable,
too. The idea grew, with each of the three being interviewed for the series,
which produced a spin-off book and three albums of outtakes and hitherto
unreleased material, all under the umbrella title of Anthology (George having
vetoed Paul’s somewhat self-serving proposal of The Long and Winding Road).
To give the project a sense of Beatles’ renewal rather than just memorial, the
three survivors asked Yoko for any demo tapes John might have left unfinished,
and she found two songs sketched on tape from the late 1970s, “Free as a Bird”
and “Real Love,” for them to complete.
During the long process of editing before network broadcast and album
release, all heralded by the nicknamed Threetles’ “Free as a Bird” single, Paul
recorded an off-the-wall U.S. radio series, Oobu Joobu; painted colorful abstracts
Above: Paul McCartney and with the encouragement of the elderly Willem de Kooning; and wrote songs,
Steve Miller (above) worked including with the Dallas-born blueser-turned-hitmaker Steve Miller, on
together in the late 1960s
when Paul collaborated on whose third album Paul had helped out during an idle moment in 1969.
his third album, and they But suddenly, what should have been yet another victory lap in the career
wrote songs together again of Paul McCartney turned to ashes. Linda was diagnosed with breast
in the 1990s.
cancer, the condition that had killed Paul’s mother when he was a teenager.

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 Paul did not attend the ceremony since he was

being sued by the other Beatles over royalties.

Above: George Harrison, Yoko Ono, Ringo Starr, Julian

Lennon, and Sean Lennon attending the Beatles’ induction
into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame on January 20, 1988.

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 Chapter 8
A Love that Lasted Years

“I balance every sad moment with a

happy moment.” —Paul McCartney

Right: Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney smile

at each other on October 15, 1997 during the
presentation of the French fashion house Chloe’s
spring/summer 1998 ready-to-wear collection
designed by their daughter, Stella McCartney.

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 T
“ ”
Somedays
he years to come were some of the worst, and the most
tumultuous, in Paul’s life. Yet he never stopped working, making

reveals a
music. And some of it, perhaps because of the emotional crises
he had to overcome, was among the best of his career. With their

vulnerability
youngest child, James, now 18, Paul had time on his hands while Linda
underwent grueling cancer treatment.
that Paul had
As well as the Steve Miller collaborations, Paul already had other songs
in the bag, such as “Calico Skies,” its quick but inspired composition and
recording prompted by 1991’s Hurricane Bob, which Paul had witnessed always kept
while staying on Long Island. Other songs were written against a
background of anxiety about Linda, most heartrendingly “Little Willow,” hidden . . .
Paul’s memorial to Ringo’s first wife and mother of his children, Maureen,
who had died of leukemia in December of 1994. “Somedays” reveals a
vulnerability that Paul had always kept hidden in his music, and throughout
the album, which would be titled Flaming Pie after a goofy comment John
Lennon had made decades before about the founding of the Beatles, had an
emotional depth that belied the façade of thumbs-aloft chumminess behind
which “Macca” had long hidden.

Not Enough Time

Flaming Pie only just missed the top spot in the U.S. and U.K. album
charts, and registered by far Paul’s best sales and reviews since Tug of War
15 years before, suggesting a creative rebirth such as that enjoyed the
same year by Paul’s contemporary, Bob Dylan, with Time Out of Mind.
Coinciding with the knighthood he received from Queen Elizabeth to
make him Sir Paul McCartney, the spring of 1997 should have been a
time of joy. But Linda—now Lady McCartney—had been too ill to attend
the ceremony at Buckingham Palace. By October, however, she felt well
enough to attend the premiere performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall
of her husband’s second major classical work, Standing Stone, released on

Left: Sir Paul McCartney at Right: Album cover

Buckingham Palace after receiving for Flaming Pie.
his knighthood from Queen
Elizabeth in the spring of1997.

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 CD that May. Of Irish ancestry, Paul is fascinated by Celtic history, archeology, and myth. The
Celtic standing stone that inspired the 75-minute orchestral and choral tone poem was located
on the McCartneys’ Scottish property; its sleeve photo was taken some 27 years earlier by
Linda. The album’s genesis was a commission by Paul’s U.K. label EMI’s classical division to
celebrate their centenary, and its starting point a long poem Paul had written, which can be
found in the CD sleeve booklet. Standing Stone evokes such masters as Mahler, Sibelius, and
Vaughan Williams, and it combines lyricism with not only epic scale but emotional weight.
When, that summer of 1997, Youth was once more summoned to work with Paul on another
ambient dance album as the Fireman, he picked up on the mood of unspoken sadness that
surrounded Paul, and the album Rushes hauntingly evokes water, landscape, and memory. The
track “Palo Alto” even samples the sound of Linda horse riding, her favorite pastime. Like on
its predecessor, Paul’s voice is only heard as a flitting background shadow, and the music was
as unlike the mainstream’s understanding of what he was all about as it was possible to get.
Indeed, Paul recently told this author that, but for George Harrison’s intransigent attitude
to what he derided as “the avant garde? ’Aven’t got a clue,” the second Anthology compilation
of Beatles’ outtakes would have included their fabled 1967 psychedelic jam “Carnival of Light.”
Only now, in middle age, had Paul dared go public with his experimental side.
By the end of 1997, all of Linda’s cancer treatments had failed, and she and Paul knew that
time was now short. Retreating to the clear air and sunshine of their ranch in Arizona, they
enjoyed the companionship of family and her beloved
animals until the end came in April of 1998.
Paul and their children retreated into grief. But,
after a while, just as good old rock ’n’ roll had offered
the 14-year-old Paul an escape from misery with the
death of his mother from breast cancer back in 1956,
so it did, 43 years later, upon the death of his wife.
Convening musicians he liked and trusted, including
Pink Floyd’s guitarist Dave Gilmour, Paul went into
Abbey Road studios in March of 1999 and quickly cut
an album of 1950s rock classics made famous by the
likes of Elvis, Gene Vincent, Chuck Berry, and Carl

Left: Linda McCartney arrives at Carnegie Hall for Above: Album cover for Standing
the North American premiere of Paul McCartney’s Stone. The photo on the cover had
Standing Stone on November 19, 1997. It was at the been taken by Linda years earlier.
end of that year that the McCartneys had to accept
that all of Linda’s cancer treatments had failed and
time was short.

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 Above: Paul McCartney and Perkins, plus three self-penned pastiches, including what would become
Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour the resulting hit album’s title track, “Run Devil Run.” There was nothing
performing on TV’s “Later
with Jools Holland” show in tired, sad, or faked about this collection; it sizzled and rocked from start to
November of 1999. finish. Released as a single, the most powerful performance was of singing
cowboy Bobby Helms’s 1958 hit “No Other Baby,” with its heartfelt chorus
of “I don’t want no other baby but you.”

A New Love
Soon after the album’s completion, and at virtually his first public appearance
since the death of his first wife 13 months before, Paul was to set eyes on
his second; very soon the news broke that the recent widower Sir Paul
McCartney had another baby after all. Heather Mills was a 31-year-old
former topless model, socialite, and high-profile charity worker who just a
few years earlier had lost her leg below the knee when hit by a motorcycle.

That friends and

Her looks, confident manner, and Northern roots appealed to Paul as soon
as her saw her on an awards ceremony stage, and he wasted little time in
relatives failed to
courting her. The fact that friends and relatives failed to take to Heather
didn’t faze Paul at all; many of them hadn’t liked Linda at rst, either.
take to Heather Of course, even in the flush of new romance, Paul had not forgotten
Linda. Released just a month after Run Devil Run, his album Working
'
didn t faze Paul Classical arranged familiar and new songs about Linda for the London
Symphony Orchestra and Loma Mar Quartet. As album followed album
at all . . . and Heather followed Linda, it would appear that, as the next millennium
dawned, Paul was rushing headlong into a new life.

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 Above: Sir Paul McCartney
and Heather Mills outside of
Nobu restaurant on July 31, 2000.

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 Chapter 9
Stumbling to Joy

“I’ve got to do something.

I could help with morale.”
—Paul McCartney

Right: Sir Paul McCartney performing onstage at the Concert

for New York City on October 20, 2001 at Madison Square
Garden in New York. The concert was to benefit the victims of
the World Trade Center disaster on 9/11.

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 A
clear pattern was emerging as to the type of musician Paul wanted to be in
public. There was Paul the singer-songwriter, who would also play bass and other
instruments in arrangements of his songs that stretched from solo to rock group,
making music squarely aimed to sell records as well as to please himself; this was
how it had been since the Beatles. Then there was Paul the avant-gardist, playing with structure
and textures, samples and loops, often with a like-minded collaborator or two, such as the
Fireman. Then there was Paul the classicist, the influence of George Martin’s arrangements
of Paul’s Beatles’ songs “Yesterday,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “For No One,” and “Penny Lane” now
finding full-blown expression in works of a scale even Beethoven seldom attempted. Finally,
back to the very start of his life as a musician, there was Paul the cover artist, reconnecting
to his roots in 1950s rock and even further back. All but the last of these Pauls had gelled in
the Beatles’ song of which Paul remains the most proud, cowritten with John Lennon, Sgt.
Pepper’s climactic “A Day in the Life.” But that was the magic time of 1967 when anything
seemed possible; since then, Paul is more comfortable wearing one hat at a time.
When Sgt. Pepper’s sleeve designer, the British pop artist Peter Blake, mounted an exhibition
of his work in Liverpool, he asked Paul to create the soundscape. In collaboration with Youth
and Welsh neo-psychedelic rock band Super Furry Animals, Paul the avant-gardist looped
Beatles’ samples and studio chat and field recordings from Liverpool’s Mersey Tunnel into
2000’s Liverpool Sound Collage album.

The Power of Tragedy

It was fun, but a fringe activity. The next album would be Paul the
singer-songwriter’s first ever without Linda by his side, and the first with
Heather. The songs on Driving Rain are remarkably personal, one is even
entitled “Heather.” They are also, for the most part, tightly crafted and,
in the spirit of Run Devil Run, played with seat-of-the-pants enthusiasm
by a new band including drummer Abe Laboriel, Jr. and guitarists Rusty
Anderson and Brian Ray. Yet they are also resonant with emotion on the
cusp of grief, besottedness, and bemusement at how he has come to this.
“I Do,” “Your Loving Flame,” “Spinning on an Axis,” and “From a Lover
to a Friend” are all fine additions to Paul’s catalog.

Above: Paul McCartney presents artist Peter Blake, who

designed the sleeve of the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely
Hearts Club Band, with a set of platinum recordings of
the album at a 20th anniversary party at Abbey Road
on June 1, 1987. Blake would later ask Paul to create the
soundscape in 2000 for his Liverpool exhibition.

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 Right: Paul
McCartney and
Heather Mills
McCartney watching
Keane perform on
July 2, 2005.

On the verge of the album’s release, Paul and Heather, who had
gotten engaged that summer, were awaiting a flight at JFK Airport on
September 11, 2001 and saw from there the horror and tragedy that
would unfold in Manhattan. As a gut response, he wrote a new song, an
air-punching but unmemorable anthem entitled “Freedom,” which was
hurriedly tacked onto the end of the album. Driving Rain was released
three weeks after Paul headlined the benefit concert for New York City at
Madison Square Garden above a who’s who of music legends and public
gures, from Jagger and Richards thru Jay-Z to Rudy Giuliani. That the
previous year’s Beatles’ singles compilation 1 had sold 29 million copies
to become the biggest-selling album of the new millennium only made it
more mystifying that in its slipstream Paul’s new album didn’t sell better,
though the lack of a hit single to publicize it on air must not have helped.
Paradoxically, when Paul released several of the album’s songs in live
form on the album Back in the U.S. (retitled Back in the World outside
America), documenting the 88-date world tours of 2002 and 2003 with a
new band and Heather by his side as his fiancée (and, from July 2002, his
wife), the public lapped it up. But with well over half the set consisting
of beautifully recreated Beatles’ songs, Paul was consciously giving the
world exactly what it wanted. Of those songs, the most poignant would
be George’s “Something.” Paul’s younger friend—whom he’d introduced
to John as a hot guitarist for their group and who since then had often
bridled at the older, more knowing Paul—had succumbed to lung cancer Above: Album cover for
in November 2001. It was a loss Paul felt deeply. Back in the US.

In October 2003 Paul became a father again, to Beatrice, his fourth

child. But relations between he and Heather became strained. With many
of Paul’s friends and associates concerned by her behavior, rumors began

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 Above: Paul McCartney (center)
with Rusty Anderson (left) and Brian
Ray (right) performing at Rock in
Rio IV on May 28, 2004.

Right: Autographed album

cover for Chaos and Creation
in the Backyard.

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 appearing in the media about the marriage and the many discrepancies between her account
of her past and what many witnesses alleged to be a less saintly truth.
Even so, Paul’s stage career went from triumph to triumph, including two Super Bowl
appearances, playing to 150,000 fans at the U.K.’s premier music festival, Glastonbury, and in
2005, in front of 200,000 fans in London’s Hyde Park, headlining the Live 8 day of events to
publicize world poverty in a 20th anniversary reboot of 1985’s Live Aid.
The summer of 2005 saw the release of Paul’s mash-up collaboration, a 25-minute set of
dance remixes with DJ and producer Freelance Hellraiser (Roy Kerr), the warm-up act for
Paul’s live performances that summer on a 37-date U.S. tour (and on a short European tour the
previous year). Encouraged by how well this had gone down with fans, the two had set to work
remixing “Maybe I’m Amazed,” “Temporary Secretary,” and other solo songs for a limited-
edition album entitled Twin Freaks, with Paul’s painting forming the sleeve artwork. Provided
you don’t feel Paul was vandalizing the sacred turf of his own songs to woo the dance crowd, it’s
a fun, lighthearted complement to his more pensive, ambient work with the Fireman.
As Paul entered his 64th year, he could, like his Sgt. Pepper song prophesized, dandle three
grandchildren on his knee, but he was also wrestling with a second wife half his age who, far
from consoling Paul for the loss of his first, provoked anger and dismay. During this crisis in
his life, Paul had been in and out of the studio for two years making an album of new songs,
playing most of the instruments himself and working with Radiohead’s producer, Nigel
Godrich, who saw his job as providing quality control. Beatle or not, Paul would not be cut
any slack. There were arguments and dark moments, but Paul knew the results were well
worth what he admitted were moments of “humiliation.”
If Band on the Run was Paul’s masterpiece as a craftsman of pop escapism, Chaos and Creation
in the Backyard is his masterpiece as a singer-songwriter who reaches into his own life for
inspiration. Full of songs to and about a female “other,” the album invited speculation as to
whether Paul was singing about Heather or Linda, or even his continuing sense of Linda as
a living presence in his life. Paul was not, however, in the business of confessing, kissing, and
telling. Love had always lain in the heart of his songs, but its demands and drawbacks had never
pressed upon his life as much as now, at an age when he might have hoped it would offer nothing
but comfort and ease. There was not a dud among the 14 songs on Chaos and Creation in the
Backyard, of which the very best, “Riding to Vanity Fair,” was typical of how Godrich had forced
Paul to go the extra mile in the way it twisted what one might imagine was a stock McCartney
melody into new, emotionally ambiguous territory, suitable for a song of bitter regret over a
one-sided relationship. There were no prizes for guessing who Paul was thinking about.
Whether it was the intriguing back story, as ugly rumors about the McCartneys circulated in
the media and on the Internet, or the sheer quality of the music, which was upliftingly terrific
despite an absence of Paul’s customary jolliness, sales were excellent. Though he would never
be as big as the Beatles again, Paul could still count on millions wanting to hear his new songs.

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 In May of 2006, the McCartneys separated, and divorce proceedings and
tabloid follow-ups revealed details not only of Paul’s vast wealth but also
of bad behavior on both sides, as well as a far seedier career before she
came to prominence than Heather had ever admitted to. Both in court and
in the wider world, Paul emerged with far more credibility and dignity,
mindful that this was still the mother of his fourth child he was ghting
with. Heather appeared to have no such qualms.
Against this background, Paul’s third major classical work, Ecce Cor
Meum (Latin for “Behold My Heart”), some nine years in the making,
was released. Like Chaos and Creation in the Backyard the year before, it
repaid the hard work of composition, in this case consisting of revisions
to a work that had been premiered in Oxford, England in 2001 (it had
been commissioned by an Oxford University college). A four-movement
oratorio, it could be said to be a requiem for Paul’s undying love for Linda.
In one form or another, against a backdrop of personal turmoil, a
fascinating new McCartney album was coming out every year. In 2007, on
a label launched by the Starbucks coffee-shop chain, which would get his
music heard in the hitherto untapped market of China, Paul released an
album of new songs entitled Memory Almost Full to even more impressive
sales than Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. In fact, some of these songs
Above: Paul McCartney predated those of Chaos, including “See Your Sunshine,” a love song to
arrives at the High Court Heather too good to excise despite that love having been so publicly
on February 13, 2008 in
London, England. It is the dashed on the rocks. However, the album’s closing song, “Nod Your Head,”
third day of a hearing is a furiously bitter and discordant address to a lover. Again, there were no
to reach a financial prizes for guessing who Paul was thinking about.
settlement in his divorce
from Heather Mills. Where Chaos has a density and unity of feel, Memory Almost Full is both
poppier and more rocking, more playful and lighter-hearted, even “The
End of the End,” where Paul contemplates the day he will die if needs be.
He was, after all, now 65; his father had died at 73.
With 70 the next big birthday in view, Paul kept up the pace of creativity,
linking back up with Youth for the third Fireman album. But rather than
the two-chord ambient dance music of the previous two collaborations,

Left: Autographed album Right: Paul McCartney performs “Jet”

cover for Memory Almost Full. in concert as his second number at
Citi Field in New York on July 17, 2009.
This was the first of three McCartney
concerts at Citi Field.

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 Electric Arguments had Paul singing songs. “We fancied a change in mood,” Paul told this
author upon its 2008 release. “First we thought we might add another chord to take it
somewhere else, and that opened the whole project—we could do anything. Youth suggested
to me, ‘How about a bit of vocal?’ Well, I haven’t got any songs, no ideas. ‘Well, want to try a
bit?’ It’s the Fireman, and anything goes, so I said, ‘Yeah, sure.’ So I got on mike and goofed
around, ad-libbing, then suddenly started to find words. I looked in poetry books—Burroughs,
Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg—to choose a couple of words and eventually a song came out of it. So
that’s how the Fireman found his voice, through experimentation. It’s a very random process,
but very liberating. And very quick. Each track got done in a day.”
Though just as tuneful as the previous two McCartney albums (“Sun is Shining” and the
Spectoresque “Dance ’til We’re High” are insanely catchy), the sense that this was a fringe
project rather than the main event condemned Electric Arguments to sell far less well, and so
remains a pleasure yet to be discovered by many fans.
Yet Paul’s popularity remained undented. The Beatles had pioneered stadium rock at New
York’s Shea Stadium in 1965, and 44 years later, on a 10-date North American tour, Paul played
three nights before 180,000 fans at the opening of its replacement, Citi Field, yielding the live
album and DVD Good Evening New York City. Two years later, he sold out Yankee Stadium

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 twice. These were the years Paul devoted to breaking his own attendance
records. The tours were shorter—he was, after all, playing a two-hour rock
’n’ roll set that would have taken its toll on performers decades younger
than the soon-to-be septuagenarian Paul—but the gigs were bigger than
ever, including a quarter of a million each in Quebec and Mexico City and
350,000 in Kiev. With two-thirds of the set consisting of Beatles’ songs,
this was the nearest one could get to seeing the greatest band of all time,
and Paul would further evoke the 1960s with a Jimi Hendrix riff to close
Wings’ “Let Me Roll It.” As Paul once told this author, if he could have
chosen any other musician to be, it would have been Jimi.
As Paul hit 70 in the summer of 2012, it seemed no huge public event was
complete without him knocking out a few numbers—in London he closed
both Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee Concert outside of Buckingham
Palace and the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics.
If these were victory laps, Paul was not done yet. His love affair with
America was consummated in 2011 with his third marriage, and second to
Above: Autographed album an American, to the wealthy businesswoman Nancy Shevell. Indeed, the
cover for Ecce Cor Meum. boy from the transatlantic port of Liverpool now felt very much at home
in America, releasing the ballet score Ocean’s Kingdom in collaboration
with Peter Martins for the New York City Ballet (Paul with his classical
hat on still very much a lover of the surging romantic string section),
followed three months later by his first covers album since 1999, Kisses
on the Bottom, a collection of lighthearted romantic standards by such
geniuses of Broadway song as Irving Berlin, Frank Loesser, Harold Arlen,
and Johnny Mercer. Released just in time for Valentine’s Day of 2012, of
the three McCartney originals he included in the set, “My Valentine” both
lovingly pastiches the American popular ballad of the pre-rock era and
serenades his new wife. Yet another hit album, Kisses on the Bottom was also
his rst to make the Billboard jazz album charts, where it hit number one.
The top is where Paul McCartney lives. Now in the unusual territory
of being a working global rock star in his 70s, who would bet against him
staying there for as long as he chooses?

Right: Joy up to the maximum . . . Sir Paul McCartney

raising his arms and singing at the opening
ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympic Games on
July 27, 2012.

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 “
Nothing pleases me more than to go into a room and
”
come out with a piece of music. —Paul McCartney

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 Index
Page numbers in italics sue McCartney 72 Davis, Carl 68 “Free as a Bird” (the Beatles) 72
indicate photographs. see also under individual de Kooning, Willem 72 “Freedom” (McCartney) 85
album or song title “Dear Friend” (Wings) 22 Freelance Hellraiser 87
A “Beware My Love” (Wings) 34
“Blackbird” (Lennon-
Diamond Jubilee Concert 90
Diana, Princess 66
Friends of the Earth 63
“From a Lover to a Friend”
McCartney) 37, 51 Driving Rain (McCartney) 85 (McCartney) 84
“A Day in the Life” (Lennon- Blaine, Hal 51 Dylan, Bob 13, 58, 77 “Frozen Jap” (McCartney) 50
McCartney) 84 Blake, Peter 84, 84
Abbey Road (the Beatles) 12,
16, 32, 71
Bond, James 27, 28
Bowie, David 44, 60 E G
Abbey Road studios 16, 28, Britton, Geoff 34
36, 40, 43, 50, 79, 84 Eastman, John 9 Get Back (concert movie) 64
ABKCO 11
“All Together Now” (Lennon- C Eastman, Lee 9, 11
“Ebony and Ivory”
“Get Back” project 9, 13
“Get It” (McCartney) 51
McCartney) 24 (McCartney—Wonder) 51, Gilmour, Dave 59, 79, 80
“All You Need Is Love” “C Moon” (McCartney) 24 53–54 “The Girl Is Mine”
(Lennon-McCartney) 61 “C’mon People” (McCartney) Ecce Cor Meum (McCartney) (McCartney—Jackson) 54
Anderson, Rusty 84, 86 71 88, 90 “Girlfriend” (McCartney) 42
“Another Day” (McCartney) “Calico Skies” (McCartney) 77 “Eleanor Rigby” (McCartney) “Girls’ School” (Wings) 40
13, 16 Campbeltown, Scotland 17, 40 16, 51, 84 “Give Ireland Back to the
Anthology (the Beatles) 72, 79 Capitol Records 12, 43, 72 Electric Arguments (Fireman) Irish” (Wings) 22
Apple Corps 9, 72 “Carnival of Light” (the 89 Give My Regards to Broad
Aspinall, Neil 72 Beatles) 79 Emerick, Geoff 28 Street (movie) 56–57,
Chaos and Creation in the EMI Records 79 58–59, 58
B Backyard (McCartney) 86,
87, 88
“The End of the End”
(McCartney) 88
Glastonbury Festival 87
Godrich, Nigel 87
Chic 44 English, Joe 34, 40 “Golden Earth Girl”
Back in the U.S. (McCartney) Chloe 74 Epstein, Brian 8, 9 (McCartney) 68
85, 85 Choba B CCCP (McCartney) 61 “Every Night” (McCartney) 14 Good Evening New York City
Back to the Egg (Wings) 44, 50 Citi Field, New York 89, 89 (McCartney) 89
Bacon, Dorothy 16
Baker, Ginger 28
Columbia Records 43, 44, 72
“Coming Up” (McCartney) 50 F “Goodnight Tonight” (Wings) 44

Band on the Run (Wings) 28,

30, 32–33, 33, 34, 42, 50, 87
Concert for New York City
82–83, 85 Fair Carol (yacht) 40 H
“Band on the Run” (Wings) 32 Concert for the People of “Famous Groupies”
Beach Boys, the 13 Kampuchea 49 (McCartney) 42 A Hard Day’s Night (the
Beatles, the: Costello, Elvis 61–62 Fireman 71, 79, 84, 87, 88–89 Beatles) 58
McCartney sues 14 Cunningham, Blair 64 Flaming Pie (McCartney) 77, Harrison, George 9, 11,
McCartney’s role in 8, 9, 77 13–14, 71, 73, 79, 85
11, 12, 13, 21
reunion rumors 36–37 D Flowers in the Dirt
(McCartney) 63, 64, 68
“Helen’s Wheels” (Wings) 32, 34
Hendrix, Jimi 90
Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame “Footprints” (McCartney) 59 “Here Today” (McCartney) 54
induction, 1988 72, 73 Daily Mirror Pop Club “For No One” (Lennon- “Hey Jude” (Lennon-
split 12, 13, 14, 21, 33 Readers’ Poll 30–31 McCartney) 54, 59, 84 McCartney) 16

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 “Hi, Hi, Hi” (McCartney) 24 inspired by McCartney 50 “Martha My Dear” (Lennon- lyric writing 16, 42, 89
High Park Farm, Mull of Klein and 9, 11 McCartney) 71 perfectionist 9, 13
Kintyre 14, 40 leaves Beatles 12 Martin, George 26, 27, 28, 50, record sales 16, 24, 34, 37,
Hoffman, Dustin 30, 32 “Lost Weekend” 33 51, 53, 54, 59, 60, 84 40–41, 42–43, 44, 50, 54,
Hog Hill Mill 68 LSD and 8 Martins, Peter 90 59, 60, 61, 71, 72, 77, 87,
Holley, Steve 44 lyric writing 16, 36, 63 “Mary Had a Little Lamb” 89, 90
Holly, Buddy 43 McCartney visits in Los (McCartney) 23 songwriting see under
“How Do You Sleep?” Angeles and re-establishes Mattacks, Dave 51 individual album and song title
(Lennon) 16 relationship with 33 “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” touring 16, 21, 23, 23, 24,
Hurricane Bob 77 murder of 51, 53, 54 (Lennon-McCartney) 50 34, 35, 36–37, 36, 40, 42,
Hyde Park 87 on McCartney 9, 13–14 “Maybe I’m Amazed” 49–50, 60, 63–64, 64, 68,
self-revelation in (McCartney) 14, 87 71, 87, 88, 89–90, 89
I songwriting 36, 63
Lennon, Julian 73
McCartney (McCartney) 12,
13–14, 14
vegetarianism 63
wealth 28
Lennon, Sean 73 McCartney II (McCartney) 49, Wings and see Wings
“I Do” (McCartney) 84 Lester, Richard 64 50–51 McCartney, Stella (daughter)
“I Owe It All to You” “Let ‘Em In” (Wings) 36, 37, McCartney, Beatrice 21, 22, 38, 74
(McCartney) 68 68, 71 (daughter) 85, 88 McCulloch, Jimmy 34, 37, 40
Imagine (Lennon) 16, 22 Let It Be (the Beatles) 13 McCartney, Heather McCullough, Henry 23, 28, 31
“I’ve Just Seen a Face” “Let It Be” (Lennon- (daughter) 11, 38 McIntosh, Robbie 64, 64
(Lennon-McCartney) 37 McCartney) 60 McCartney, James (son) 41, Melodiya 61
“Let Me Roll It” (Wings) 90 42, 77 Memory Almost Full
J Life 16
“Listen to What the Man
McCartney, Jim (father) 36,
37, 68, 71
(McCartney) 88, 88
Mercury, Freddie 62
Said” (Wings) 34 McCartney, Linda (wife) 9, 11, Miller, Steve 72, 72, 77
Jackson, Michael 42, 43, 54 “Little Willow” (McCartney) 77 12, 12, 13, 14, 14, 16, 19, Mills, Heather (wife) 80, 81,
Japan 42, 48, 49, 51 Live Aid 60, 61, 62, 87 20, 28, 31, 32, 38, 45, 55, 84, 85, 87, 88
“Jet” (Wings) 32, 88 Live and Let Die (movie) 27, 58, 59, 64, 69, 74 Mindbenders 53
John, Elton 24, 51 28, 29 breast cancer and death 72, Mitchell, Guy 64
Johnson, Louis 58 “Live and Let Die” 77, 78, 79, 80, 84, 87, 88 Moody Blues, the 20, 21
Juber, Laurence 44 (McCartney) 27, 28 children and 38, 39, 40 Moon, Keith 43, 45
“Junior’s Farm” (Wings) 34 Live 8 87 McCartney marries 11, 12 “Morse Moose and the Grey
“Junk” (McCartney) 14 Liverpool Institute for the vegetarianism 63 Goose” (McCartney) 42
Performing Arts 70 Wings and 20, 21, 22, 23, MTV 43, 64
K Liverpool Oratorio
(McCartney) 68, 68
23, 28, 31, 32, 35, 37, 69
McCartney, Mary (daughter)
“Mull of Kintyre” (Wings)
40–41
Liverpool Sound Collage 12, 12, 14, 38 “My Love” (Wings) 24
Kisses on the Bottom (McCartney) 84 McCartney, Paul:
(McCartney) 90
Klein, Allen 9, 11, 12, 14, 33
London Town (Wings) 42–43,
43, 54
avant garde and 63–64, 71,
79, 84 N
Kuti, Fela 28, 28, 32 “The Long and Winding Beatles and see the Beatles
Road” (Lennon- Celtic history, interest in 79 “Name and Address” (Wings)

L McCartney) 13, 37
“Love is Strange” (Wings) 22
childhood 51, 72, 79
choirs, on 67
42
New Wave 43, 44, 50, 61, 71
Lukather, Steve 58 commercials 70 New World Tour 68, 71
Laboriel, Jr., Abe 84 depression 12, 13, 14 New York City Ballet 90
“Lady Madonna” (Lennon-
McCartney) 37 M drugs busts 23–24, 33, 48,
49–50, 51, 59
Nigeria 28–29
9/11 82, 85
Laine, Denny 21, 21, 28, 31, eager to please 16, 22, 53 “Nineteen Hundred and
37, 40, 51, 53, 59 Magical Mystery Tour (the family and see under Eighty-Five” (Wings) 32
“Later with Jools Holland” Beatles) 8, 8, 9 individual family member name “No More Lonely Nights”
(TV show) 80 “Magneto and Titanium Man” knighthood 76, 77 (McCartney) 59
Lennon, John 77 (Wings) 34 Lennon and see Lennon, “Nod Your Head”
avant garde and 63, 71 Maracana Stadium concert, John (McCartney) 88
Beatles and 8, 9, 12, 16, 61, 1990 63, 64 love life see under individual
77, 84 Marriott, Steve 40, 40 lover name

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 O “Rockestra Theme”
(McCartney) 43
strawberries oceans ships forest
(Fireman) 71
see also under individual album
or song title
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Super Bowl 87 Wings at the Speed of Sound
Ocean’s Kingdom (McCartney) 90 Orchestra 68 Super Furry Animals 84 (Wings) 34, 36
Off the Ground (McCartney) Rude Studios 32 Wings Over America (Wings)
68, 71
Off the Wall (Jackson) 42
Run Devil Run 79–80, 84
Rupert the Bear 50, 50, 51 T 36, 37
Wings Over the World tour
“Oh Woman, Oh Why” Rushes (Fireman) 79 (Wings) 36–37
(McCartney) 13 “Take it Away” (McCartney) 53 “With a Little Luck”
Olympics, 2012 90, 91
1 (the Beatles) 85 S Te Kanawa, Kiri 68
“Temporary Secretary”
(McCartney) 42
Withers, Bill 64
“One of These Days” (McCartney) 50, 87 Wonder, Stevie 50, 51, 54
(McCartney) 50 Salewicz, Chris 49 10cc 53 “Wonderful Christmastime”
Ono, Yoko 8, 9, 33, 71, 73 “Say Say Say” (McCartney- Thriller (Jackson) 54 (McCartney) 44
Oobu Joobu (McCartney) 72 Jackson) 54 Thrillington (Thrillington) 13, Working Classical (McCartney)
Scott, Tom 34 13, 16 80
P “See Your Sunshine”
(McCartney) 88
“To You” (Wings) 44
“Too Many People” Yankee Stadium 90
Seiwell, Denny 20, 21, 28 (McCartney) 16 “Yesterday” (Lennon-
Padgham, Hugh 59 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Toy for a Sick Child Fund 21 McCartney) 14, 37, 59, 84
“Palo Alto” (McCartney) 79 Band (the Beatles) 8, 32–33, Tripping the Live Fantastic “You Gave Me the Answer”
“Paperback Writer” (Lennon- 60, 84, 87 (McCartney) 63, 64 (Wings) 34
McCartney) 50 “She’s Leaving Home” Tug of War (McCartney) 53, “Your Loving Flame”
“Paul is dead” 16, 71 (Lennon-McCartney) 16 54, 54, 77 (McCartney) 84
Paul Is Live (McCartney) 71 Shevell, Nancy (wife) 90 Twin Freaks (McCartney) 87 “Your Mother Should Know”
Paul McCartney Unplugged “Silly Love Songs” (Wings) (Lennon-McCartney) 16
(McCartney) 59, 64
“Penny Lane” (Lennon-
36, 59
“Single Pigeon” (Wings) 24 V Youth 71, 79, 84

McCartney) 71, 84 Small Faces 40, 40

Perkins, Carl 51, 51, 80 Smart, Hamish 64, 64 Venus and Mars (Wings) 34
“Picasso’s Last Words (Drink “So Bad” (McCartney) 55 “Venus and Mars” (Wings) 37
to Me)” (McCartney) 30, 32 “So Glad to See You Here”
“Pipes of Peace” (McCartney) 55
Porcaro, Jeff 58
(McCartney) 43
“Soily” (Wings) 37 W
Presley, Elvis 42, 61, 79 “Somedays” (McCartney) 77
Press to Play (McCartney) 59, 60 “Something” (Harrison) 85 “Waterfalls” (McCartney)
“Put it There” (McCartney) 63 “South Bank Show” (TV 50–51
Putman, Jr., Curly 34 show) 60 “We Got Married”
Spector, Phil 13 (McCartney) 63
R “Spinning on an Axis”
(McCartney) 84
“When We Was Fab”
(Harrison) 72
Standing Stone (McCartney) White Album (the Beatles) 9
Ram (McCartney) 13, 13, 14, 77, 78, 79, 79 White, Willard 68
16, 21, 24 Starbucks 88 Whitten, Chris 64, 64
Ray, Brian 84, 86 Starr, Maureen 77 Who, the 43, 45, 58
“Real Love” (the Beatles) 72 Starr, Ringo 9, 9, 11, 13, 33, Wickens, Paul “Wix” 64, 64
“Red” and “Blue” compilation 37, 51, 55, 56–57, 71, 72, Wild Life (Wings) 22, 22, 24
albums (the Beatles) 24 73, 77 Wilson, Brian 13
Red Rose Speedway (Wings) 24, Give My Regards to Broad Wings 14, 14, 16, 20, 21, 22,
24, 28 Street, role in 56–57, 58 22, 23–24, 25
“Riding to Vanity Fair” Ringo 33 birth of 21–22
(McCartney) 87 Sentimental Journey 13 end of 49, 51, 53
Rock in Rio IV, 2004 86 Stop and Smell the Roses 58 touring 21, 23, 23, 24, 35,
Rock ‘n’ Roll (Lennon) 61 Stewart, Eric 53, 53, 55, 59 36–37, 36, 42, 49–50

94

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 Picture Credits
Special Thanks to Bruce Spizer (www.beatle.net), Corbis
author of The Beatles Solo on Apple Records, for use of P11, Letter to Eastman and Eastman ©
the following images: Momentsintime.com/Splash News/Corbis
P55, So Bad video © Bettmann/CORBIS
P13, Ram album
P13, Thrillington album Getty
P15, Advertisement for McCartney album P8, Paul on the Magical Mystery Tour © David
P16, Life magazine cover Redfern / Redferns
P22, Wild Life album P12, Linda resting her head on Paul’s shoulder ©
P33, Band on the Run album Hulton Archive / Stringer / Getty Images
P43, London Town album P19, Paul and Linda at a party © Anwar Hussein /
P54, Tug of War album Getty Images
P59, Press to Play album P20, Wings members (four) © Evening Standard /
P63, Tripping the Live Fantastic album Stringer / Getty Images
P77, Flaming Pie album P22, Bloody Sunday © Popperfoto / Getty Images
P79, Standing Stone album P25, Paul rehearsing before his tour © Jack Kay /
P85, Back in the U.S. album Stringer / Getty Images
P86, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard album P28, Ginger Baker and Fela Kuti © Echoes /
Redferns
Special thanks also to Happy Nat of TheBeatlesRarity. P38, McCartney family with animals © David
com for use of the following images: Montgomery / Getty Images
P40, Jimmy McCulloch and Steve Marriot © Kevin
P12, McCartney album (back) Cummins / Getty Images
P49, McCartney II album P41, Paul, Linda, and baby James © Keystone
France / Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
Alamy P43, Paul with Michael Jackson © AFP / Stringer /
P9, promotional photo of Magical Mystery Tour © Getty Images
INTERFOTO / Alamy P51, Carl Perkins © David Redfern / Redferns
P17, Paul and Linda on a hillside © Trinity Mirror / P57, Paul and Ringo laughing in period costume ©
Mirrorpix / Alamy 2011 Richard Blanshard
P23, Paul and Linda in front of tour bus © P64, Paul and band tour photo © Rob Verhorst /
TrinityMirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy Redferns
P26, Paul playing piano with George Martin © P65, Paul playing guitar on US tour © Time & Life
Trinity Mirror / Mirrorpix / Alamy Pictures / Getty Images
P30, Dustin Hoffman © Lewton Cole / Alamy P69, Paul and Linda performing in 1993 ©
P32, Paul and Linda riding bikes © Trinity Mirror / P72, Steve Miller © Michael Ochs Archives /
Mirrorpix / Alamy Stringer / Getty Images
P36, Wings over America live album © CBW / Alamy P73, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction of the
P48, Paul getting arrested © Keystone Pictures Beatles © Ebert Roberts / Redferns
USA / Alamy P75, Paul and Linda smiling at each other © Jack
P50, Rupert the Bear books © Jack Sullivan / Alamy Guez / Stringer / AFP / Getty Images
P58, Costumes for Give My Regards to Broad Street © P78, Linda ©New York Daily News Archive / NY
AF archive / Alamy Daily News via Getty Images
P66, Paul with Princess Diana © Trinity Mirror / P83, Paul performing in NYC for 9/11 © Frank
Mirrorpix / Alamy Micelotta / Stringer / Getty Images

95

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 P86, Paul performing with Rusty Anderson and Brian P21, Paul and family at charity event © Evening News
Ray © Alfredo Rocha / WireImage / Rex USA
P88, Paul arrives at High Court for divorce P29, Paul and Linda at the James Bond premiere ©
proceedings © Daniel Berehulak / Getty Images Harry Myers / Rex USA
P91, Paul at the piano © Christophe Simon / AFP / P37, Paul with his father © David Dagley / Rex USA
Getty Images P45, Paul, Linda, and Keith Moon © James Fortune /
Rex / Rex USA
The Image Works P47, Paul smoking and talking © Harry Goodwin /
P11, Paul and Linda’s wedding © SSPL / Manchester Rex USA
Daily Express / The Image Works P52, Paul after Lennon’s death © Paul Fievez /
P42, Paul with guitar pointing at crowd © TopFoto / Associated Newspapers / Rex / Rex USA
The Image Works P53, Eric Stewart © Steve Joester / Rex USA
P62, Live Aid show with Paul, Bono, Freddie Mercury P60, Paul and George Martin © ITV / Rex USA
© Press Association / The Image Works P76, Paul getting knighted © Associated Newspapers
P70, Paul in Shakespearian attire © Press Association / Rex / Rex USA
/ The Image Works P80, Paul and David Gilmour © Andre Csillag / Rex
P84, Paul with artist Peter Blake © Press Association USA
/ The Image Works P81, Paul and Heather Mills © NIKOS / Rex USA
P85, Paul and Heather Mills © Press Association /
The Image Works Tracks (Memorabilia)
P89, Paul performing at Citifield in NY © The Star P14, McCartney album (front)
Ledger / Saed Hindash / The Image Works P21, Wings tour program
P24, Red Rose Speedway album
Mirrorpix P35, Paul with Linda on 1976 UK tour
P31, Award winners of Mirror poll © Mirrorpix P59, Paul McCartney Unplugged album
P68, program cover for Liverpool Oratorio
Rex P88, Memory Almost Full album
P4, Paul singing © Aylott / Daily Mail / Rex USA P90, Ecce Cor Meum album
P6, Paul getting interviewed © Daily Mail / Rex USA
P10, Paul with a full beard © Daily Mail / Rex USA All reasonable attempts have been made to contact the
P14, Paul and Linda singing at the piano © Bob copyright holders of all images.
Aylott / Daily Mail / Rex USA

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 A division of Book Sales, Inc.
276 Fifth Avenue, Suite 206
New York, New York 10001

RACE POINT PUBLISHING and the distinctive Race Point Publishing logo
are trademarks of Book Sales, Inc.

© Mat Snow 2013

All photographs from the publisher’s collection, unless otherwise noted on page 95.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from
the publisher.

This publication has not been prepared, approved, or licensed by Apple Corps Ltd. or
Paul McCartney or his representatives. This is not an official publication. We recognize,
further, that some words, model names, and designations mentioned herein are the
property of the trademark holder. We use them for identification purposes only.

ISBN (4-volume set): 978-1-5526-7936-4

Author: Mat Snow

Project editor: Jeannine Dillon
Copyeditor: Steve Burdett
Interior designer: Rosamund Saunders
Cover designer: Brad Norr/bradnorrdesign.com

Front and back cover illustration: Brad Norr

Printed in China

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 T H E
B E AT L E S

SOLO
RingO StaRR

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 Mat Snow

T H E
B E AT L E S

SOLO RingO StaRR

The Illustrated Chronicles of
John, Paul, George, and Ringo
after the Beatles

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 Contents
Chapter 1
From Octopus to Whale 7
Chapter 2
The Good, the Bad, and the Country 14
Chapter 3
Frank, Larry, and Easy 24
Chapter 4
Starr and Moon 32
Chapter 5
Hello Superstar, Goodbye Marriage,
and Goodnight Vienna 42
Chapter 6
A Large Fly 50
Chapter 7
From Stone Age to Steam Age 56
Chapter 8
Back in the Swing of Things 68
Chapter 9
The Wilbury Effect 80
Index 92
Credits 95

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 Chapter1
From Octopus to Whale

“It was over, and I didn’t feel

qualified to do anything else.”
—Ringo Starr

Right: A solemn-looking Ringo Starr

during the filming of the Magical
Mystery Tour on September 14, 1967.

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 Above: A very early shot of the Beatles in
1963 at Austin Reed, a men’s clothing store
on Regent Street in London, England. Ringo
confessed years later that he felt left out,
believing the other three men were closer.

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 I
n more ways than one, drummers have time on their hands. Rare is “
the drummer who does anything else—either writes or sings. In the You three are
Beatles, Ringo Starr did a little bit of both . . . but not much. Most of his
time was spent waiting for the others to come up with the songs and so close, and
then, once in the studio, waiting for the other three to do their bits so he
could do his bit. It required patience, and Ringo was patient. l feel left out
”
of it . . .
But in the increasingly toxic atmosphere of the summer of 1968, during
the recording of what came to be called the White Album—with Yoko Oko
a bizarre and irritating new presence on the scene, and Paul increasingly
overbearing—Ringo’s patience snapped while the group was rehearsing
—Ringo Starr
“Back in the USSR” (at around 7 p.m. on Thursday, August 22, to be precise).
Though already evening, the session had only just started. Ringo had been
hanging around the studio all day, reading the newspaper, and waiting for
the others to turn up.
“It was like madness in my head,” the legendary drummer, born Richard
Starkey, told this author in 2008. “I said, ‘I’m leaving the band,’ because
I felt that it wasn’t working. I knocked on John’s door, who was living in
my apartment, and said, ‘You three are so close and I feel out of it.’ And he
said, ‘I thought it was you three!’ And I went to Paul, I said the same thing,
and he said, ‘I thought it was you three!’ So I said, ‘Fuck it, I’m off.’ I went
to Sardinia.
“And then I came back”—to find his drum kit decorated with flowers—
“and the atmosphere was great. I didn’t do it to clear the air—I just couldn’t
stand it any more—but I think it did.”

Jet-Setting Lifestyle
In Sardinia, Ringo had stayed on a yacht belonging to his friend, the British
comic actor Peter Sellers, then one of the most bankable movie stars in
the world. Apart from being inspired while onboard to write “Octopus’s
Garden,” Ringo was developing a taste for a lifestyle and set of friendships
that lay a world away from his working-class Liverpool roots. It was also
a world apart from his own working life as one of the new monarchs of
what was being exhalted as not only a cultural but a social revolution.
Ringo was joining the international movie jet set.
The previous year, Ringo had killed some time playing a cameo role in
a movie starring three of the leading lights of that set: Richard Burton,
Marlon Brando, and James Coburn. Adapted from Terry Southern’s novel

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 Above: Ringo Starr cuddling with
Peter Sellers in the 1969 movie,
The Magic Christian.

Right: Movie poster of the 1968 film

Candy starring Ringo Starr.

Opposite: Ringo Starr and Ewa

Aulin star in director Christian
Marquand’s 1968 movie, Candy.

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 Ringo joined pal
Candy was a movie of its period, newly unshackled from the conventions
of old Hollywood to hurl at the screen a freewheeling farrago of unremitting

Peter Sellers in
zaniness, thumping anti-establishment satire, crazy set pieces, groovy
music, and over-the-top performances. Ringo’s performance, as a Mexican
an adaptation of
gardener seduced into losing his virginity to the beauteous Candy of the
title, reinforced his public image as the hangdog jester getting by on charm
a Terry Southern in a world he didn’t quite understand. For the movie’s producers, Ringo
was the Beatle whose name everyone knew, the Beatle who, as their own
novel . . . movies showed, could act a bit. Basic ability and box-office appeal to the
younger audience gave Ringo an option outside of music.
Ringo’s two weeks’ AWOL time from the Beatles was an aberration, and
he returned when the others begged him to in a telegram. While the Beatles
got back on track for the rest of 1968, in the new year the atmosphere
plunged again. This time it was George who quit in exasperation, while
recording the miserable “Get Back” sessions in a wintry movie studio
outside London. Like Ringo, George returned to the fold, but the project
was suspended. At this point, in the spring of 1969, Ringo took off for
another movie break, as sidekick to his pal Peter Sellers in another movie
adaptation of a Terry Southern novel, The Magic Christian. It was a far better
movie than Candy, though still no masterpiece, and with a star-studded
cast of cameos, including Raquel Welch, Yul Brynner (in drag), Roman
Polanski, and future Monty Python star John Cleese. Ringo featured as
the homeless drifter adopted by Sellers’ plutocrat, who proceeds to educate
him (and the audience) throughout a series of set pieces that everyone has
their price in life. The fact that the Beatles were trying in vain to sort
out their own runaway finances at the time, inspiring Paul McCartney’s
magnificently catchy “Come and Get It,” which, recorded by the Apple-
signing band Badfinger, popped up throughout the movie’s soundtrack.
Though fellow Beatles’ pal Harry Nilsson later enjoyed a huge hit with
a cover of their song, “Without You,” Badfinger remained in their patrons’
shadows, and tragedy was to blight them. By contrast, of all the acts to
be signed to Apple, it was Ringo’s protegé, English avant-garde classical
composer John Tavener, who, along with American singer-songwriter
Above: A movie poster for James Taylor, was to mature over the long term to greatest eminence,
The Magic Christian starring even though Tavener’s major Apple project, The Whale, was to lose money.
Ringo Starr and Peter Sellers,
in 1969. Ringo was as capable of surprise as his more explicitly creative bandmates.
His first two solo albums would be proof of that.

12

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 He’s hooked . . . Ringo Starr can’t seem to escape the clutches of a
beautiful slave girl in this scene from The Magic Christian. He costarred
with Peter Sellers, who played Sir Guy Grand, the richest man in the world.
Grand adopts Youngman (played by Ringo), a homeless boy. The movie,
based on Terry Southern’s novel, premiered at the Odeon Theatre in
London, on December 11, 1969.

13

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 Chapter 2
The Good, the Bad,
and the Country

“Gene Autry was my first musical

influence. Go and have a look
in my bedroom: it’s covered with
Gene Autry posters. ”
—Ringo Starr

Left: Ringo Starr on September 14, 1971,

at a preview of “Steel” at Liberty, which
he designed and developed with Robin
Cruikshank in conjunction with British Steel.

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 Ringo went back to the studio with George

Martin to record his first solo album . . .

16

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 W
hen Ringo sprang a surprise, such as quitting the band or backing an avant-
garde composer, it was borne of the surprise that he was acting out of character.
Mostly, Ringo went with the flow, such as the time he joined George in support
of John’s ill-judged choice of the group’s business manager, Allen Klein,
against Paul’s nomination of his new in-laws, the Eastmans. Yet Paul’s marriage to Linda was
far less divisive and disruptive than John’s to Yoko. Just as he founded the group, John was the
first to quit for real that September of 1969, a resignation kept to just the other three, their
intimates, and Klein, who was negotiating an unprecedentedly lucrative new record contract
with Capitol in the U.S. Ringo remained on good terms with John, though, playing on many
of his post-Beatles’ Plastic Ono Band records.
After the final flurry of Beatles’ recording activity at Abbey Road that summer of 1969,
and John’s announcement that spelled the end of the band, Ringo went straight back into
the Abbey Road studios with Beatles’ producer George Martin to record an album that was
as daring in its way as John’s avant-garde efforts with Yoko. It had a working title of “Ringo
Starrdust,” but renamed Sentimental Journey for release, after its opening track. The album
was full of Ringo’s covers of the Tin Pan Alley songs he’d grown up with before rock ’n’ roll
exploded into his teenage years: evergreen songs of the kind sung by his mother and friends
at the pub piano. Indeed, his old local pub, the Empress in Liverpool’s Dingle area, was the
album’s cover subject.

The Heavy Lifting

Foreshadowing Paul’s Tin Pan Alley covers album Kisses on the Bottom by 42 years, it was all a far
cry from the likes of the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter” or Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,”
which were flying rock’s rebel flag into the new decade. But what Sentimental Journey did do—
apart from providing as easy a listen as you will ever get from a singer with bags of sincerity but
only the tiniest vocal range and a timbre rightly rationed to one song per two sides of any given

Left: Ringo Starr appearing with George Martin on

the Yorkshire TV production “With a Little Help from My
Friends” presented by George Martin on December 14,
1969. Ringo also teamed up with Martin that year for
his first solo album entitled Sentimental Journey.

Right: Album cover for Sentimental Journey.

17

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 Beatles’ LP disk—was confirm Ringo’s artistic modus operandi: he let others do
the creative heavy lifting. For song selection, he asked family and old friends
back in Liverpool, who nominated such treasures as Cole Porter’s “Night and
Day,” Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust,” and Johnny Mercer’s “Dream.” For
arrangements, Ringo called on not only George Martin but also Quincy Jones,
Elmer Bernstein, Bee Gee Maurice Gibb, and budding super-producer Richard
Perry, among others. Of the players, Beatles’ experts think they have spotted
John, George, and even the half-estranged Paul, as well as old Hamburg buddy
and fellow member of the Plastic Ono Band, bassist Klaus Voormann.
But Ringo had come up with the concept, and he sang throughout as
charmingly as he had on John’s string-laden White Album closer, “Good
Night,” when he made it all sound warm and relaxed in the midst of open
warfare between Paul and the other Beatles.

The lntermediary
Isolated, hurt, and angry, Paul had made an album the opposite of Ringo’s—
entirely self-written and self-played, as if to show he didn’t need anyone
else to make a record—and slated it for release in the spring of 1970. The
only problem was that this was the time already agreed to see the release
of not only Ringo’s debut but the final Beatles’ album, Let It Be, featuring
the orchestral overdubs by producer Phil Spector (called in to salvage the
“Get Back” sessions that formed this release) on “The Long and Winding
Road” that Paul hated but could do nothing to stop, so further estranging
him from the other three.

Right: In the early days of his

solo career, Ringo teamed
up with budding super-
producer, Richard Perry
(shown here in Los Angeles
in 1982), for his album
entitled Ringo. During his
illustrious career, Perry
would produce albums for
Harry Nilsson, Ella Fitzgerald,
Barbra Streisand, Carly
Simon, Rod Stewart, and
Diana Ross.

18

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 Above: Ringo Starr with his wife and
son, Maureen and Zak Starkey, at
home in England on August 17, 1967.

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 John, George, and Ringo felt that, if Paul
released his own album as planned, it would
clash with and damage the sales of both Let
It Be and Sentimental Journey. Rather than
send an Apple employee to tell him that they
would be delaying its release, Ringo agreed
that he would be the personal bearer of this
unpalatable news to Paul. As Ringo would
later testify in the court case to end the
partnership, “When I told Paul that the rest
of us wanted to delay his solo album, he went
completely out of control. He was shouting
at me, prodding his fingers towards my face,
saying, ‘I’ll finish you now,’ and, ‘You’ll pay.’”
Always eager to avoid confrontation, but
having now been thrown out of Paul’s house,
Ringo was shaken. He no longer felt able
to act as an intermediary as Paul publicly
announced his departure from the band and
launched legal action. Against the background
of an increasingly acrimonious display of
dirty laundry in the law courts and press, the
three main songwriters pressed ahead with
solo work, with Ringo drumming for John
and George, but not Paul.

“’ ”
l ll finish you now . . .

—Paul McCartney

Right: Ringo and Paul in 1967 at Abbey Road

during the “Our World” live TV broadcast.
Just a few years later, the two would get into
a bitter fight over the release dates of their
individual solo albums, an argument that
would leave Ringo shaken.

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 While playing on George’s “All Things Must Pass” sessions that spring of 1970, Ringo
fell into conversation with Nashville veteran pedal-steel guitarist Pete Drake. Like many
Liverpudlians of his generation, Ringo was a huge fan of what was then called country and
western music (he sang the Buck Owens’ song “Act Naturally” on the Beatles’ Help! album),
and he saw his chance to take this love much further. Drake believed he could get his Nashville
songwriting buddies to write a whole bunch of tunes for Ringo to take his pick from, so the
erstwhile Beatle flew into Tennessee’s country music capital on June 22 raring to go. With
most of the songs written by Sorrells Pickard, Chuck Howard, and Larry Kingston, Ringo
immersed himself in the world of dimestore heartbreak and tear-stained humor, his manful,
unfussy lead vocal sweetened by Elvis’s regular backing singers, the Jordanaires. A well-
written, appealingly produced album, its weakness lay in two factors: the far higher standard
of singer country fans expected to hear on songs of the quality of “Without Her” and “Wine,
Women and Loud Happy Songs,” and, conversely, the limited appeal of mainstream Nashville
country, compared with hip LA country-rock, to Beatles’ fans.

Above: Album cover for

Beaucoups of Blues.

Right: A photo of Elvis’

regular backing singers, the
Jordanaires circa 1950. Ringo
hired the singers in later years
to sweeten his lead vocals on
Beaucoups of Blues.

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 Whereas Sentimental Journey had sold well in the U.S., and even better Above: Ringo Starr kidnaps
in the U.K., this new album, Beaucoups of Blues, flopped more or less Agneta Eckemyr against
her will in a scene from the
everywhere upon its release that September. 1972 movie Blindman.

A Cowboy at Heart
As if overcorrecting his conservative take on cowboy country—and Ringo
had, after all, taken his stage name from a cowboy, John Wayne’s Ringo
Kid in John Ford’s 1939 Western classic Stagecoach—the ex-Beatle’s
next major project returned him to celluloid, playing against type as the
psychotic baddie Candy in the spaghetti western Blindman. Shot in Spain’s
Almeria at its bleakest and dustiest in the summer of 1971, and with Allen
Klein involved in its financing, Blindman does not improve on the Dollar-
trilogy originals of the genre made a few years earlier by Sergio Leone
with Clint Eastwood and received only limited release.
By the time Blindman came and went, a new Ringo song—recorded during
the “Sentimental Journey” sessions and then set aside for over a year before being
released—had put Ringo right back at the top and given him a career anthem.

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 Chapter 3
Frank, Larry, and Easy

“They kept putting me on horses.

I don’t particularly like horses.”
—Ringo Starr

Left: Ringo Starr at his office in

Apple Corps in 1972.

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 O
Above: From left to right: n the night of January 18, 1970, during some studio “dead
Stephen Stills, Dave Crosby, time” on the “Sentimental Journey” sessions, Ringo made
and Graham Nash of the
rock group, Crosby, Stills & the first tentative recordings of a new song he’d written that
Nash in 1974. Stephen Stills would have been out of place on his covers album and would
helped Ringo on his album have to wait for a more propitious moment for release. Ringo had help
It Don’t Come Easy, back
in 1970. from George, bassist Klaus Voormann, and Stephen Stills of Crosby, Stills
& Nash—the vocal harmony supergroup whose debut album had been a
huge hit in 1969—who was staying in Ringo’s mansion. “It Don’t Come
Easy” became a record in thrall to the hippy-blues Americana typified by
the likes of Delaney & Bonnie—back then a huge influence on George—
and top-hatted singer/songwriter/keyboardist Leon Russell, at the time
collaborating with British singer Joe Cocker and providing inspiration for
an up-and-coming star by the name of Elton John. In his new composition,

“ ’
l just got lucky when l decided to write it. lt just came out. l don t
’ ”
think l ve ever written a song that literal since. —Ringo Starr

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 Ringo’s lyrics were about singing the blues and paying his dues, and the melody was a
slow- burner with echoes of gospel, which took flight into brass-assisted community singing—
very much the sound of the era, as rock ’n’ roll abandoned mind expansion for sanctification.
Produced by George, the song took time to coalesce into its final form, undergoing take after
take, a title change, and completion away from Abbey Road in Trident studios, before it was
ready for release in April of 1971.
As swinging a track as Ringo ever recorded—as a drummer he was in confident form—and
a top-five hit all over the world, “It Don’t Come Easy” validated Ringo as a recording star in
his own right. And if the millions who bought it wanted a more direct connection to his old
band, they had only to flip over the single to play “Early 1970,” Ringo’s witty, self-deprecating,
and friendly tribute to the other three, escalating in affection from Paul, who was miles away
from offering a little help to his old friend, up to George, who did little else. Indeed, George
both produced the record and played all the instruments that Ringo didn’t.
The song was as much a message to the other three as to the fans, as Ringo told this author:
“‘Early 1970 was the space I was in at the time. It was over, and you had to get on and deal with
it. We’d all decided that that was enough of that. We’d all grown up. There was a separation
going on: Paul had his situation and the three of us were doing ours. I knew John would play
with me and I knew George would play with me. And I really wasn’t sure that Paul would
play with me—because of the situation—and that’s the tag of the song. I just got lucky when
I decided to write it. It just came out. I don’t think I’ve ever written a song that literal since.”

An Unlikely Friendship
Ringo and George maintained the closest relationship of any of the former Fab Four, the
drummer doing a rapturously received star turn with “It Don’t Come Easy” during George’s
Concert for Bangladesh on August 1, 1971, at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
John was absent from the show, after George let him know that Yoko would not be welcome as
a performer. At that time John was friendly with the Los Angeles solo artist, bandleader of the
Mothers of Invention, and counter-culture satirical talisman Frank
Zappa. Three years earlier, the Mothers had parodied Sgt. Pepper
with their own masterpiece album, We’re Only in it for the Money, a sin
against Beatledom that, since the split, John and Ringo had heartily

Overleaf: Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Right: Single

Bob Dylan performing at Madison Square sleeve for It Don’t
Garden in New York on August 1, 1971 Come Easy.
at the Concert for Bangladesh, a charity
event organized by George to raise money
for the children of Bangladesh.

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 forgiven. In early 1971, Zappa was in London, had a studio, and had a budget (in the wake
of the success of the Woodstock movie, funding was not hard to find for projects involving
rock stars breaking every rule in Hollywood’s book). A stern, intellectual scourge of others’
self-indulgence, Zappa increasingly became a prime offender. He strove to prove himself an
even-handed satirist of both hippies and straights, a standard-bearer of both sexual freedom
and the conventionally unattractive, a rock-guitar virtuoso and modern classical composer
in the tradition of the avant-garde maestro Edgard Varèse, plus bandleader, filmmaker, and a
master of every form to which he applied himself. In the movie 200 Motels, Zappa wanted to
do all these things at once while choosing not to be on screen himself, opting with paradoxical
immodesty to be played by a Beatle—Ringo.
“Frank got the message to me, saying they were making this movie 200 Motels and he had
this idea,” Ringo told this author. “So I said, ‘Sure, come on up.’ He came to the house and laid
out a huge musical manuscript, about 30 pages of written music. I said, ‘Why did you do that?’
He said, ‘I wanted to show you.’ I said, ‘I don’t read music; I’m a busker.’ We started talking
and he wanted me to be him as the person, and he would play himself as the musician. The
idea that Ringo, Mr. Nice Guy, was playing Frank Zappa, the wild crazy man, was a lot of fun;
it appealed to me. Frank Zappa was very strange, though he was the straightest man I ever
met; the man, so far as I know, never took a drug in his life. Everybody else in those days was
dabbling in something.”
Despite Ringo also playing a character named Larry the Dwarf, the
movie required only five days of his time and the trimming of his beard
from fullness to Zappa’s imperial style, so he was happy to come on
board. So too, and playing a nun, was his fellow drummer and fellow
habitué of Swinging London’s clubland, Keith Moon of the Who, with
whom a friendship would blossom.
When distributors saw the finished movie, they were not impressed.
Few Zappa fans then or now would count the movie as anything more
than a failed experiment in the man’s vast creative output. Seen only
by the committed, Ringo’s big billing but minor role did not tarnish
his reputation. By the time 200 Motels found belated release, Ringo was
back on a roll.

Left: A movie advertisement Right: Ringo Starr in the foreground

for 1971’s 200 Motels in which and Frank Zappa (behind) on
Ringo Starr plays Frank Zappa. the set of the movie 200 Motels,
directed by Tony Palmer and
featuring music by Frank Zappa in
February of 1971.

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 “
The idea that

Ringo, Mr. Nice

Guy, was playing

Frank Zappa, the

wild crazy man,

was a lot of fun;

it appealed
”
to me . . . 
—Ringo Starr

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 Chapter 4
Starr and Moon

“I’d like to end up sort of . . .

unforgettable.” —Ringo Starr

Right: Drummers Ringo Starr and Keith

Moon have a powwow in Los Angeles,
Callifornia in April of 1974.

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 T
he movie 200 Motels rang a bell with Ringo, Zappa’s example
inspiring him to attempt a similar but far less ambitious project—
with somewhat more successful results. Rather than make a movie
about himself, Ringo chose to spotlight the British star provoking
the screamiest teenybopper hysteria since his own group the decade before:
glam-rock pioneer Marc Bolan of T. Rex.
A corkscrew-curled, pouting pixie who blended wittily hippie-dippy
lyricism and the Motorvatin’ jukebox rock ’n’ roll of Chuck Berry and
Eddie Cochran, London-born former model Bolan was flashy, fun, and
charismatic. He prowled and stamped around the stage like a combination
of Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page but wowing a younger, far
more female fanbase.
Ringo had been messing around with movie equipment in his plentiful
downtime since the mid-1960s, having taken a keen interest in filmmaking
technique during the shooting of A Hard Day’s Night. He was eager to
document the phenomenon of what was called “T. Rexstasy,” and so filmed
a show in London’s Empire Pool (since renamed Wembley Arena) in
February of 1972, paying almost as much attention to the screaming teens
in the audience as to Marc on stage. Concert amplification was far better in
1972 than it had been just a few years before during Beatlemania, and there
was a real two-way energy flow between star and fans, but Ringo was not
content to let an excellent show speak for itself. Apart from a specially
staged studio performance of two more numbers, with Ringo on drums
and prematurely balding young piano wizard Elton John, Ringo, and Marc

Left: English singer Marc Bolan

of T. Rex using a wah-wah
pedal during a concert at the
Empire Pool, Wembley, U.K., in
March of 1972.

Right: Ringo Starr and Marc

Bolan of T. Rex, with Ringo Starr
filming Born To Boogie in 1972.

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 set up scenes in the stoned, goofy spirit of the Beatles’ 1967 TV movie Magical Mystery Tour,
right down to animal costumes, a comedy waiter, and an airstrip location. The resulting movie,
Born to Boogie, released by Apple Films, was a hit then and still entertains today.
Working with Bolan and drawing inspiration from his uncomplicatedly catchy show-
off rock ’n’ roll, Ringo aimed straight for the contemporary pop charts with his next single,
“Back off Boogaloo,” perhaps the best record Marc Bolan never made. “But subconsciously he
wrote it,” Ringo told this author. “He was a really good friend of mine—we went on holiday
together. He was at the house one night, we’d finished dinner and were hanging out, but you’d
ask a question and he’d say, ‘Back off Boogaloo!’—it was never harsh, being very Marc Bolan.
I went to bed and just as I’m dozing I hear this melody, ‘Baaaack off, Boogaloo,’ coming right
at me. So I ran downstairs and no tape worked, so I bastardized a couple of tapes and got it
down. Though he didn’t know it, he created that song because of the way he spoke. Any man
who wrote ‘hips like ships,’ you got to love!”
Again produced by George, who played his trademark slide guitar, “Back off Boogaloo” went
top ten all over the world in the spring of 1972, its drum-powered ebullience guaranteed to lift
any party to its feet. The promotional video costarred, alongside Ringo, a spoof representation
of Frankenstein’s monster, as portrayed by Boris Karloff in the 1931 horror classic. Another rock
artifact of 1972 that referenced Universal’s horror movie pantheon of the 1930s was Beatles’
pal Harry Nilsson’s follow-up to his hit album of the previous year, Nilsson Schmilsson, entitled
Son of Schmilsson. On it the convivially eccentric singer-songwriter allowed the bitterness

Right: Harry Nilsson

dressed as Dracula at
George Harrison’s house
at Henley-on-Thames,
U.K. in 1972. Nilsson
starred as a rocking
vampire, and Ringo had
a cameo as Merlin the
Magician in the poorly
received Son of Dracula.

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 Above: Star Power . . . (left to right)
Ringo Starr, Lulu, David Bowie,
and Edgar Broughton at the Ziggy
Stardust retirement party held at the
Cafe Royal on July 4, 1973.

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 of recent divorce to sour his usual sweetness in songs mocking happily-
ever-afters. Ringo had played drums on some of the tracks, but it wasn’t
until his wife Maureen bought him a copy, with its Dracula-style sleeve,
that he realized that Nilsson had been thinking along the same lines as he
was when he conjured the idea of an Apple Films comedy vehicle for Harry
to star in. It was to be a rock’n’roll vampire picture working-titled “Count
Downe.” Despite repeated efforts to rewrite and salvage the mess of footage
shot in 1972, it was released to a resounding thud two years later as Son
of Dracula, a movie project that exposed Ringo’s lack of organizational rigor,
over-reliance on Beatle charm, and the appeal of his gang of old pals in lieu
of actual entertainment.
Ringo gave himself a cameo role as Count Downe’s courtier Merlin the Above: The Franken-
Magician. He also, in live sequences starring Nilsson in character as a rocking themed single sleeve for
Back Off Boogaloo.
vampire, cast two other drummers with time on their hands and nothing
better to do: Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham and the Who’s Keith Moon. While
Ringo indulged himself in hit-and-miss projects, neither Bonham (Bonzo)
nor Moon (the Loon) were inclined to use their spare time and money for
much beyond partying as hard as they could, tragically so for both brilliant
drummers. Keith, especially, would bond with Ringo in years to come, with
Ringo even taking Keith’s old role of the pedophiliac character Uncle Ernie
for two songs in the commercially successful, all-star orchestrated version
of the Who’s rock opera, Tommy. The next time their paths crossed, the
result would make up for 200 Motels and Son of Dracula.

Too Close for Comfort

As an actor, Ringo had been at his best when playing himself in the Beatles’
big- and small-screen movies, A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, and Magical Mystery
Tour. British journalist Ray Connolly had interviewed the Beatles and had
Ringo in mind when, in 1972, he finalized a screenplay. The script looked back
some 14 years to the era when Britain’s rock ’n’ roll megastars were teenage
tearaways in thrall to American jukebox rock, forming the groups that would
mutate into world stars in the following decade. Starring David Essex, who’d
played the lead in the Christian rock musical Godspell and who would soon
have hits in his own right, That’ll Be the Day took its title from the Buddy Left: Ringo Starr dressed in
Holly classic. Its plot was from a composite of several true-life rags-to-riches the late-1950s “Teddy boy”
style to make the movie
rock careers, and its settings came from the unglamorous British working- That Will Be the Day in
class recreational spots of the beach, vacation camp, and amusement park. October of 1972.

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 Ringo played Mike, the Liverpudlian Teddy Boy—the dandified British
“ ’
l didn t feel equivalent of the greaser—with the regulation quiff, sideburns, and tattooed
buttock, who takes the younger hero under his wing. Ringo’s long-ago job as
competitive with a barman paid off, as did his wider experience in the movie’s setting. In this
comfort zone, Ringo ad-libbed much of his dialogue, and though he totals
any drummer no more than ten minutes of screen time, the character he creates of a less-

on the planet.
than-lovable loser rings true to life, though not necessarily to his own.
The movie proved so successful in the U.K. upon its release in the spring

Keith and l were

of 1973 that a sequel was set into motion, though Ringo decided not to
play the role a second time—it went to another British pop star/actor
”
friends . . .
of his generation, Adam Faith—as the plot was getting too close to his
own story for comfort.
—Ringo Starr Stealing every scene in which he appeared in both movies was Keith Moon
(aka “Moon the Loon”), killing time between Who tours and recording
sessions in a life of bit parts, brandy, pills, and, (hence the nickname)
“looning.” Less a drummer than a force of nature, beneath Moon’s manic
exhibitionism beat a warm heart, endearing himself not only to Ringo but
Ringo’s firstborn, Zak Starkey, who was to model his own drumming style
on the family friend’s explosiveness rather than his dad’s solid backbeat,
persuasively deputizing for the long-lost Moon in the Who from 1996.
“I didn’t feel competitive with any drummer on the planet,” Ringo told
this author. “Keith and I were friends. He is Uncle Keith to my children.
With Keith on his solo albums in the 1970s, if we wanted to get the track
finished, we’d send him out of the room; sometimes he could just get in
your way. I always say that he had no real sense of timing; that’s how
Keith played. I had a friend in the early 1970s who wasn’t in the music
business, and we went along to a Who recording session. They had a huge
rack of tubular bells, and Keith ran at them from one end of the studio
and dived into the bells, which they were recording. My friend said to me,
‘Does everybody record like that?’ I said, ‘No, ha ha ha ha! You don’t run into
the instruments.’ Only Keith recorded like that, God bless him.”
That Christmas of 1972 Keith Moon paid a surprise visit to Tittenhurst
Park, John Lennon’s mansion where Ringo and family were living with its
Right: Ringo Starr, Harry owner absent in New York (Ringo would buy it the following year). Not
Nilsson, Micky Dolenz, and only was Keith dressed as Santa Claus, but his sleigh was drawn by real
Keith Moon hamming it
up at Hollywood studio in reindeer. It seems Moon brought good luck to the Starrs, for 1973 was to
California, 1977. mark the peak of Ringo’s solo career.

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 Chapter 5
Hello Superstar, Goodbye
Marriage, and
Goodnight, Vienna

“The Beatles got blasé. Suddenly I had

my own Gold record. I wiped all the
others off the wall.” —Ringo Starr

Left: Ringo Starr and his wife,

Maureen Starkey, on their way to
Mick Jagger’s wedding to Bianca
Perez-Mora in St. Tropez, France in
May of 1971.

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 I
n 1973, Ringo was movied out. As an actor, he didn’t like the early starts
or learning lines; when in charge, as he had been on the Son of Dracula
disaster, he couldn’t handle the complexity of movie production. Making
records was another matter: the producer would organize everything,
and all he needed to do for songs and musicians was to pick up the phone.
“ When a Beatle invited you to the studio, few refused.
Nothing is Harry Nilsson’s producer, Richard Perry, had just cut a hit album with
Carly Simon, and he was carving out a reputation for making mainstream
real, nothing artists sound hip and hip artists achieve mainstream sales. With Ringo’s
”
is real . . .
soft spot for ear candy and catchy melodies that the everyman could sing—
and, as a singer, Ringo was that everyman—Perry was the ideal choice to

—Ringo Starr
help him make his first real outing as an album artist. Sentimental Journey
and Beaucoups of Blues were exercises in, respectively, nostalgia and genre.
The singing drummer’s third album, significantly titled Ringo, would self-
consciously make his first big statement as a solo artist.
Yes, there was the jukebox chestnut “You’re Sixteen,” originally a 1960
hit for Johnny Burnette. There was also the hip modern classic, Randy
Newman’s “Have You Seen My Baby.” But what really got people excited
were the new songs, not only by Ringo, but by John, Paul, and George, too,
each of whom played on the album—though not at the same time. John
was enjoying his “Lost Weekend” in LA, where Ringo was recorded, while
George and Paul were passing through. Even so, this was the nearest thing
to a Beatles’ album since the release of Let It Be. With the so-called “Red”
and “Blue” Beatles compilation double albums selling millions in 1973, the
public appetite for the Fab Four hit a new peak, and, released in time for
that year’s Christmas market, Ringo rode the wave to the upper reaches
of album charts all over the world.
Though Paul’s effort, “Six O’ Clock,” was so weak that Ringo’s rum-
bustious “Devil Woman” beat it for intrigue and excitement, John and
George did their old buddy proud. Opening the album, John’s “I’m the
Greatest” would never challenge “Imagine” for melodiousness, but the lyrics,
referencing Ringo’s Sgt. Pepper alter-ego Billy Shears, mocked the ex-Beatle’s

Above: Ringo Starr and George Harrison with Right: Ringo and Maureen Starkey
their first wives, Maureen Starkey and Pattie had grown apart and got divorced
Boyd. Taken on June 19, 1968, Ringo had no in 1975.
idea that just a few years later George would
devastate him by splitting up with Pattie and
confessing he was in love with Maureen.

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 star status even as it boasted about it. “I love that song because it’s very
tongue in cheek,” Ringo told this author. “Only he could have written it and The party
only I could have sang it.” Better still, George’s “Sunshine Life for Me (Sail
Away Raymond)” amusingly harked back to Ringo’s songs of life beneath atmosphere was

the real thing,

the waves while extolling his yachting lifestyle on the surface. Indeed, while
yachting off Cannes, George helped Ringo write perhaps the single best

and it was getting

song of his career, a satisfyingly Beatles-esque tune about missing a loved
one called “Photograph.” Released as a single, it went to number one in the
out of hand . . .
U.S. and provided the emotional heart of an album dedicated, above all, to a
lighthearted party atmosphere, as one would expect on a record with a guest
list including such bon vivants as Marc Bolan, Stephen Stills, Harry Nilsson,
the Band, and Rolling Stones’ saxophonist Bobby Keys. Thirty years later,
following the death of George, “Photograph” would wring tears from fans
when Ringo sang it live.
But the party atmosphere was the real thing, and it was getting out of hand.
Even George, apostle of whole food and meditation, was sliding into booze
and cocaine, and Ringo did his best to keep up with his circle of hard-
partying pals. Ringo and his wife, Maureen, had grown apart, while
George had to endure the pain of appearing to be cool while his wife Pattie
conducted a love affair with his best friend, guitarist Eric Clapton. Such
was the drunken, coked-up atmosphere of this circle of rock’s aristocrats
that George’s response to being so betrayed by a friend was to betray
another; he started an affair with Maureen. Pattie realized what was going
on, but when she confronted Maureen, Ringo’s wife seemed not to care. So
Pattie phoned Ringo to break the news, and according to her recollection,
Ringo was devastated. When George told Ringo that he was in love with
Maureen, it was as if the ground vanished from beneath his feet. “Nothing
is real, nothing is real,” he repeated as if shell-shocked, quoting John
Lennon’s Beatles’ classic “Strawberry Fields Forever.”
John would once more help out Ringo, with the follow-up, 1974’s
Goodnight Vienna. But this time, George would be an absentee.

Left: Ringo Starr with girlfriend, Nancy Andrews. Above: American saxophonist Bobby Keys
Andrews was cited in the divorce proceedings (of the Rolling Stones) in a London recording
between Ringo and his wife, Maureen Starkey. studio in June of 1971. Keys can be heard on
Ringo’s smash hit Photograph on Ringo.

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 As, indeed, would be Paul. Though very similar in structure and mood to
’ “ ”
Ringo s elegant Ringo, and more or less matching it for quality, Goodnight Vienna’s relative
lack of Beatle magic was reflected in smaller, though still handsome,
gypsy lifestyle was sales. The Platters’ hit “Only You” supplied the jukebox nostalgia, while
Nilsson’s “Easy for Me” provided the emotional heart. John’s piano-
time consuming...
- pounding title track—an echo of the Beatles’ “Hey Bulldog”—cryptically
alluded to the respective marital fractures that both he and Ringo were
distracting themselves from in the hard-partying whirl, a lifestyle that “No
No Song”—a number-three U.S. hit single— cheekily denied.
“When we recorded ‘The No No Song,’ nobody in the studio was saying
no,” Ringo admitted to this author in 2008. “They were all saying, yes. We
were quite hysterical at the time. Hoyt Axton, who wrote it, was a great
guy. Now I do it on tour because I don’t smoke dope, I don’t drink, I don’t
do any of that stuff any more; it’s actually truer today than it was then.”
Goodnight Vienna, and its spin-off singles, did far better in the U.S. than
back home in Britain. With the U.K. taxing high earners like Ringo at what
was felt by many to be a punitive rate, and with so many pals based in LA,
including a secret new girlfriend, model Nancy Andrews (John had played
cupid), and with Maureen, suing him for divorce in London based upon his
adultery, Ringo relocated to Santa Monica. He later added properties in
Monte Carlo and Amsterdam. He would fly back to the U.K. as and when
the tax authorities allowed.
“Between the recording studios, movie premieres, promotion tours,
Above: Album cover for traveling nine months a year, and juggling the children, friends, and family,
Goodnight Vienna. we were gypsies,” Nancy Andrews was to recall—“elegant gypsies.”
With his elegant gypsy lifestyle so time-consuming, Ringo slowed down
in the second half of the 1970s. In 1975, the wildly inventive but highly
controversial British movie director Ken Russell, fresh from filming the
Who’s Tommy with an all-star cast, then cast Who singer Roger Daltrey
as the title star of his most far-fetched project yet, Lisztomania. The movie
postulated that the fame that engulfed the nineteenth-century romantic
composer and piano virtuoso Franz Liszt foreshadowed that of rock stars
over a century later, and so a rock ’n’ roll Liszt biopic made perfect sense.
Ringo would play the pope in a cameo that has to be seen to be believed.
In 1976, Ringo would return to work as a rock star. He would discover
over the next few years that, while the public would never grow tired
of hearing gossip about a jet-setting former Beatle, not even a former
Beatle was immune to the vagaries of changing pop fashion.

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 Above: Roger Daltrey of the Who
and Ringo Starr (as the pope) in
Ken Russell’s Lisztomania in 1975.

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 Chapter 6
A Large Fly

“My records go downhill as the

medication went up.”
—Ringo Starr

Left: Ringo Starr with his band

performing on a Dutch TV show
in 1976.

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 R
ingo has been accused of dabbling, of lacking committed
application. He was, he concedes, uninterested in meetings and
the routine of business. Even so, the furniture-design company he
formed with Robin Cruikshank was a going concern for six years
before being put up for sale in 1976. The year before, as part of the deal that
took him to Atlantic Records in the U.S. and Polydor in Europe, he set up
his own label, Ring O’ Records, much as George had set up Dark Horse.
It fared no better, closing after three years of losses sustained on a range
of novelty singles and improbable albums. These included a reissue of John
Tavener’s The Whale and, suggesting that Ring O’ Records really was
the quintessential vanity label, Startling Music, on which studio-engineer
turned synth whiz David Hentschel was commissioned to remake the whole
of Ringo’s eponymous hit album as a showcase for the ARP synthesizer.
Ringo himself—now one of Atlantic’s roster, alongside such rockers as
the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Yes, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young,
who all signed after the label’s successes with John Coltrane, Ray Charles,
the Coasters, the Drifters, and Aretha Franklin—permitted himself a
musical makeover by the suave in-house producer Arif Mardin. Mardin
had never before had to make a silk purse out of a voice like Ringo’s, and
mostly he chose to double-track it to smooth out its brays and wobbles and
to upholster it in brassy, chorus-heavy arrangements. As a result, 1976’s
Ringo’s Rotogravure album is among the easiest on the ear in Ringo’s catalog.
Otherwise, it was business as usual, with a song each from John, Paul, and
George (none of them their best work, though George’s “I’ll Still Love
You” rings gloomily true to the derailed marriages of both the writer and
the singer), plus one from Eric Clapton who, of course, had ran off with
George’s wife. Then there were three Ringo originals, cowritten with such
solid pros as Vini Poncia, as well as girlfriend Nancy, and the jukebox classic,
a fun and funky version of Bruce Chanel’s “Hey! Baby.”
Though by no means an inferior offering to Goodnight Vienna or even
Ringo, Ringo’s Rotogravure barely dented the U.S. top 30, and it didn’t even
manage that level of popularity elsewhere. It seemed that even the loyalists
already had enough Ringo in their record collections, thank you, and for
Above: Album cover for the rest of the world, luxuriously appointed amiability was not enough.
Ringo’s Rotogravure. Even so, Ringo was contracted to make another album for Atlantic.
Sticking with Mardin, Ringo decided to ride the disco boom for the next
album, to be titled Ringo the 4th, counting, as Ringo did, from his 1973
self-titled hit. Even assuming that disco was the way to go artistically and

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 Ringo admitted he had no interest in going to meetings or the

routine of business. He had even been accused of just dabbling . . .

Above: Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr

at the Who’s Tommy premiere in 1975.
Clapton would later contribute a song
to Ringo’s Rotogravure album.

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 commercially, Mardin’s arrangements were ever so slightly dated—right
for 1974 but not 1977. And the album’s all-important first track and single,
a version of Joe Simon’s 1972 Philly soul smash “Drowning in the Sea
of Love,” cruelly contrasted Ringo with someone who could really sing.
When the pace changed to “Gave it all Up”, one of the album’s six
Ringo-Poncia cowrites, the only thing wrong was that the song deserved
a better singer; and there was the rub. In the context of the Beatles, the
public would be charmed by one song in 14 sung by the hangdog moptop
as proof of the teamwork and friendship so core to their appeal. But 14 out
of 14 songs? Ringo would admit in interviews that he had the vocal range
of “a fly—a large fly,” but the follow-up question was never asked as to why
anyone would pay to listen to a large fly. Above: Album cover for
With Atlantic dropping their fallen star, Ringo and his musical partner Ringo the 4th.

Vini Poncia felt they had to get back on the horse as fast as possible,
cutting the former Fab’s next album quickly all over the world as his tax
exile and jet-set lifestyle allowed. Beatle-free and devoid of hangers-on
and party animals, the sleeve of the album Bad Boy nonetheless traded
on Ringo’s playboy image. However marketed, the chances of reviving
Ringo’s record-selling fortunes were slim, with the market looking for
fresh sounds and stars, whether New Wave, disco, or older acts radically
rebooting themselves, like Fleetwood Mac or the Rolling Stones. An over-
bright, synth-driven sound with bolted-on vocal and orchestral sweetening
was not going to convert Ringo’s sincere but clumsy attempt on the
Supremes’ unmatchable “Where Did Our Love Go” from pointless dross
to commercial gold. Despite a TV special with Carrie Fisher, fresh from
Star Wars, Angie Dickinson, Vincent Price, and George Harrison, plus a
silly doppelganger storyline with Ringo playing both roles while singing
some of his best-loved numbers and tunes from his new record, Bad Boy
flopped all over the world. It was unloved even in today’s spirit of eager
rediscovery.
But even at this point, Ringo had not yet touched bottom.

Left: Ringo Starr relaxing with a Right: Arif Mardin at Atlantic

drink at his home in Los Angeles, Records studios in New York on
California on October 22, 1976. January 19, 1978. Mardin did the
arrangements for Ringo’s disco
albums, including Ringo the 4th.

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 Chapter 7
From Stone Age
to Steam Age

“I like kids, I used to be one.”

—Ringo Starr

Left: A movie still from Caveman in 1981,

starring (from left to right) Dennis Quaid,
Ringo Starr, and Shelley Long.

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 W Ringo had an
ith an awful instinct by now for taking part in foreseeable
flops if there was a party to be had in the process, Ringo made

awful instinct
a cameo appearance in screen legend Mae West’s last movie,
Sextette. The former mistress of vamping innuendo was by

for taking part

now 84 years old, and this musical sex comedy—in which Tony Curtis, Dom
DeLuise, and George Hamilton, as well as the rock stars Alice Cooper and,
in foreseeable
inevitably, Keith Moon, also appeared—was always intended as an exercise in
high camp and knowing bad taste. But while this had been enough to entertain
in the Hays Code 1930s, the liberated 1970s needed more to titillate its funny flops . . .
bone. Though proficiently made—Ringo even plays Mae’s “husband number
four,” a movie director named Laslo, with aplomb—Sextette failed to amuse,
which was all it had needed to do to justify its existence.
A no less feeble movie made in Mexico in early 1980 was, however, to
give Ringo his first starring role and, more importantly, to introduce him
to his second wife. Back in 1966, the movie One Million Years B.C. starred
Raquel Welch in an animal-skin bikini and made a lot of money. Fourteen
years later, Caveman, a feeble spin on the same gag, starred Ringo in animal
skins and made a rather smaller splash: less than $16 million in the U.S.
For Ringo, Caveman’s screenplay offered the supreme advantage of having
virtually no lines to learn, as the cavemen had a vocabulary of 15 words
(such as macha, meaning “monster”) plus ad-libbed grunts. In supporting
roles, Dennis Quaid and Shelley Long would be able to put this behind
them and go onto stardom later in the decade. But the most significant
supporting role was a former James Bond girl, Barbara Bach, who’d played
KGB Major Anya Amasovain in 1977’s The Spy Who Loved Me and who
was to confess to being no great fan of the Beatles; she would nonetheless
become the second Mrs. Starkey in 1981.
Caveman was released in April of 1981. In the opening frames we’re
informed that it’s “One Zillion Years B.C.—October 9.” October 9 was
John Lennon’s birthday, and this was the movie’s tribute to the Beatle shot
dead in the previous December.

Left: A movie poster for Caveman in 1981. Ringo met

his future wife, Barbara Bach, on the set of the movie.

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 Until then, John and Ringo had been in close touch, with John, who was
back to making music for release after his lengthy hiatus, donating two
songs for Ringo to sing on his album in the making, with the working title
“Can’t Fight Lightning.” Once more, Ringo would enlist the help of his
Fab friends in a bid to restore his recording fortunes.

Stopping for Roses

Recently returned from ten days’ imprisonment in Tokyo on a dope bust
and having restored his dignity with the U.S. number-one hit success
of “Coming Up,” Paul was the first to step up to the plate that summer
with two original songs—“Private Property” and “Attention”—and he
also played on a cover of countrybilly hero Carl Perkins’ “Sure to Fall.”
Recording in France took them ten days; no one was in a hurry. After
a short break, Ringo resumed recording in August, with Stephen Stills
contributing “You’ve Got a Nice Way,” and then in September Rolling
Stone Ronnie Wood brought “Dead Giveaway” to the table, a curiously
finger-pointing effort for one party animal to give another.
In November, a flurry of activity saw Harry Nilsson bring in two of the
album’s better songs, then, while Ringo was staying at George’s house, his
old Beatle pal penned him another now that all had been forgiven, with
both ex-Fabs happily married the second time around. Ringo then went
off to New York at the end of November, where John gave him the demos
of a pair of terrific new songs that suited Ringo to a T: “Nobody Told Me”
and “Life Begins at 40” (the age both men turned that year), with a date to
record them together penned in for January of 1981.
Less than two weeks later, John was dead. A devastated Ringo flew straight
from the Bahamas to comfort Yoko when he heard the news, and he then,
Above: Album cover for like George and Paul, collected himself and resumed recording, but not the
Stop and Smell the Roses. songs John had gifted him. Ringo felt it would have been disrespectful and
wrong. He finished the album in February, as the airwaves still resounded
with to the grieving nostalgia of John and the Beatles, and presented his

Right: Ringo Starr and Barbara Bach leave the Dakota

Building on December 9, 1980, at the entrance of
which John Lennon was killed. Ringo had abandoned
his vacation and flew immediately to New York upon
hearing of his old friend’s death to comfort John’s
widow and young son.

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 Right: Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh,
and Clarence Clemons
performing at the Greek
Theatre in Los Angeles,
California in September of
1989.

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 new album to his record label, Portrait, at this sadly newsworthy moment
After John died, for an ex-Fab’s latest work. Astonishingly, they passed. Another label,
’ Boardwalk, decided to take a chance, conditional upon a new running
Ringo didn t feel order, a new sleeve, and a new title, Stop and Smell the Roses, shortened

right recording
from Harry Nilsson’s stand-out track, “Stop and Take the Time to Smell
the Roses.” A funny, demented hymn to living in the moment, its fade-out

the songs John

rant about how he, the record business, and the listener, all want to quit is
both disarmingly honest and depressingly prophetic.

had given him . . .

And when it came to Ringo’s new album, a work of surprising swagger
(if not great song quality), the public let it be known that they did indeed
want him to stop. It sadly only sold enough copies to reach number 98 in
the U.S., despite heavy promotion, including a 10-minute mini-movie, The
Cooler, casting Ringo as a jailbird in solitary, with Paul and Linda as well
as Barbara playing cameos. Ringo was dropped like a very cold potato, and
this time no record company seemed interested in how he might follow up
his third flop album in a row.
Perhaps, Ringo reasoned, the problem with Stop and Smell the Roses was
too much variety, with his globetrotting pals producing the songs as well
as writing them. Next time, he would stick with one main collaborator and
record in one place, at John’s old mansion Tittenhurst Park, where Ringo
felt safer than he did in the U.S.

Out with the Old (Wave)

If the Beatles had been the biggest act of the 1960s, then the Eagles were
certainly among the biggest acts of the 1970s. But as they had broken up,
too, guitarist Joe Walsh needed no second invitation to fly to England to
help salvage Ringo’s recording career, assisted by the Who’s virtuoso bassist
John Entwistle and Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker, who was also a member
of George’s musical circle. Eric Clapton even cropped up, playing one of the
album’s few cameos on “Everybody’s in a Hurry but Me.” However deficient
any previous Ringo offerings had been, at least the music swung. Not this
time, as Ringo dumbed down his drumming to a fill-free thud in line with the
era’s vogue for drum machines. Patchily released in 1983 in various countries
but not the U.S., the album, defiantly but belatedly titled Old Wave—New
Wave music having peaked four years earlier—sold accordingly.
His next effort was so bad that Ringo himself vetoed its release, embroiling
himself in a lawsuit with the producer Chips Moman in the process. Like

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 Ringo, Moman had seen better days back when he had produced some
of Elvis’s finest music and written several soul classics. Memphis was
Moman’s base, and he had sold Ringo on the idea of making a record in
this citadel of rootsy rock and soul, just as the ex-Beatle had done in nearby
Nashville back in 1970 with Beaucoups of Blues.
The problem was that by then Ringo the party animal had completely
overtaken Ringo the recording artist, and the law agreed that he was
within his rights to avoid the damage the release of these overlubricated
sessions would do to his career by withholding them from public hearing.
That said, his unreleased cover of Billy Swann’s country smash “I Can
Help” is no disgrace.
By this time, in 1987, Ringo was trying to resist his worst impulses, not
least because he had, out of the blue, rediscovered his gift as a children’s

Left: In this undated photo

(circa 1969) released by
Sony Music, Elvis Presley
is shown with Chips
Moman, right, at American
Sound studio in Memphis,
Tennessee. Years later,
Moman would convince
Ringo to make an album
in Memphis, too, but the
two would get involved in
a bitter lawsuit when Ringo
refused to let the album
go public.

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 entertainer. When Beatlemania broke, Ringo was by far the most popular
Ringo had Fab among preteens, a position cemented by the 1966 kids’ singalong
classic, “Yellow Submarine.” Eleven years later, Ringo voiced a Liverpool-
rediscovered his accented singing rodent named Scouse the Mouse for a children’s album
’ that would have been animated if it weren’t for a BBC strike. But his luck
gift as a children s
changed again when, in an inspired moment of casting, Ringo was invited

entertainer . . .
to revisit his role as the voice of exotic transportation. The popular British
children’s book series starring Thomas the Tank Engine was being adapted
for television, and a narrator (renamed Mr. Conductor when the show was
modified for U.S. TV as Shining Time Station) was needed. Having never
read the stories as a child, Ringo was charmed to come to them as a new
grandfather (his son Zak had just fathered Tatia Jayne Starkey).
Children’s fond memories of beloved TV shows are indelible, and Ringo
won back a lot of lost popular affection from the mid-1980s when the first
two series were broadcast and then repeated as staples all over the world.
Behind the playboy shades, there was a lovable moptop after all.

Right: Grandpa Ringo!

Ringo Starr holds up
a sign reading “Wow!”
as he embraces his
son, Zak Starkey. Zak is
feeding his newborn
baby daughter (and
Ringo’s granddaughter),
Tatia Jayne Starkey, in
September of 1985.

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 Above: Ringo Starr (circa 1985) with train models and
characters from the TV series “Thomas the Tank Engine,”
which Ringo narrated.

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 Chapter 8
Back in the
Swing of Things

“I drank all the way to the clinic and

got off the plane totally demented.”
—Ringo Starr

Right: Ringo Starr performing at the

Greek Theatre on September 4, 1989, in
Los Angeles, California.

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 J
ust as Ringo got by with a little help from his friends, in turn he
was, as he told this author, “there for you, brother” when a swinging
backbeat sensitive to the nuances of the song was needed. He had
played on numerous pals’ recording sessions and had made a well-
received star-guest appearance at the Band’s 1976 farewell concert, filmed
“
l came to one
by Martin Scorsese as The Last Waltz, as well as on the 1985 televised
tribute to Carl Perkins, at which George made his first live appearance
Friday afternoon
in the U.K. for 19 years. Nor was Ringo slow in coming forward for
the various charity benefit shows that his 1960s and 1970s peers, such
’
and . . . l d as George, Jeff Lynne, Eric Clapton, Elton John, and Phil Collins were
beginning to perform in the 1980s. But, unlike even the audience-shy John
trashed Barbara in his solo years, Ringo had never shone in the spotlight to a paying crowd
in his own right.
so badly, they It would require a detox undertaken with Barbara, who had slipped into
her husband’s bad habits with him, before Ringo was ready to contemplate
thought she the hard work and routine that going on the road would involve. Ringo
”
was dead.
was in a bad state, later confessing, “I came to one Friday afternoon and
was told by the staff that I had trashed the house so badly they thought

—Ringo Starr
there had been burglars, and I’d trashed Barbara so badly, they thought
she was dead.”
Despite the intrusive and distracting attentions of the press during the
six weeks of 1988 that the celebrity couple was treated for alcoholism in
a clinic in Tucson, Arizona, they both got sober and stayed sober. Indeed,
Barbara threw herself into helping other addicts to recover when, after
getting a master’s degree in psychology at UCLA in 1993, she not only
started a recovery program but also works with various other charities.

A Clean Start
A clean and sober Ringo was open to the suggestion of the promoter
David Fishof—who in 1986 had successfully reunited the Monkees for a
Right: Ringo Starr and tour—that Ringo should return to the stage as the big-name backbeat and
Barbara Bach in 1987 at ringmaster of a band of celebrity musicians helping out on each other’s
the AIDS Crisis Trust Charity
Auction at Christie’s in hits. The show would be a human jukebox of living legends.
London, U.K. The following Having just turned 49 in July of 1989, Ringo Starr debuted with his All-
year, both Ringo and Starr Band in Dallas, Texas, to 10,000 fans. Since then, 12 All-Starr Bands
Barbara would be treated
for alcoholism at a rehab have toured, spinning off ten souvenir live albums and a DVD of their
clinic in Tucson, Arizona. show on Ringo’s seventy-second birthday on July 7, 2012, in the process.

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 An All-Starr Band show is all about familiarity, playing the hits
of yesteryear, with the common factor of nostalgia for the soundtrack of
vanished youth always trumping any seeming mismatches of genre and
style. Cream’s virtuoso jazz-rock bassist Jack Bruce (All-Starr Band
Marks IV, V, and VI) forming a rhythm section with the drummer whose
style least resembles that of his old 1960s sparring partner Ginger Baker?
Why not? Musically, theirs may not have been the best version of the 1967
Cream hit “Sunshine of Your Love” ever played, but you couldn’t fault the
compromise between authenticity and celebrity as a satisfying attraction
for fans of anyone in the line-up. Indeed, playing the Eric Clapton guitar
part, Peter Frampton, who had been an enormous live and multimillion
record-selling attraction in 1976, was to conjure more than a little of the
original’s firepower.
The tours also had another dimension: with the first line-up including not
only Dr. John but the Band’s Rick Danko and Levon Helm, Ringo was not only
inviting old friends to play with him but also musicians who’d struggled with
alcohol and substance abuse. Though each line-up boasted many musicians
who’d never faced that struggle, there was the sense that Ringo was not the
only legend on stage for whom playing on tour offered both occupational Above: English musician
therapy and a sense of community in doing well together what each of them Peter Frampton circa 1987.
Frampton joined Ringo
had done famously with others in the past. in his All-Starr Band in the
Then there was the simple commercial fact of life that Jack Bruce 1980s, and he brought a
without Cream or even Ringo without the Beatles might struggle to fill lot of power and popular
appeal to the show.
some theaters. But put the two together, plus other legends who’d seen
better-selling days—in recent years the rule has been that every guest
artist has to be able to perform two number-one records—and the All-
Starr Band would have appeal for several fanbases and so aggregate a
bigger draw.
Beyond such considerations was the simple fact that, one way or another,
there is no rock musician who doesn’t owe some of their success to the
inspiration of the Beatles; if not directly, then at least in how the Fab Four
electrified popular culture worldwide to create a mass audience hungry

Left: Musicians gathered at Limehouse studios in

London to record the 1985 TV show “Blue Suede Shoes,”
spotlighting veteran rockabilly songwriter and guitarist
Carl Perkins. In the back row (from left to right), Eric
Clapton, Carl Perkins, and George Harrison; in the front
row (left to right) are Ringo Starr and Dave Edmunds.

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 Ringo was not

only inviting old

friends to play

with him but

also musicians
’
who d struggled

with alcohol

and substance

abuse . . .

Right: Ringo Starr and his

All-Starr Band on June
20, 1989. From left to
right: Clarence Clemons,
Nils Lofgren, Billy Preston,
Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh,
and Rick Danko.

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 for the excitement, adventure, and spiritual and emotional nourishment
of rock music. When a Beatle called, people jumped. “I would have done
it for nothing. It was a privilege,” said Randy Bachman of the Guess Who
and Bachman-Turner Overdrive fame (All-Starr Band Mark III). “Playing
guitar on Ringo’s songs every night and looking back over my shoulder
and hearing and seeing him play drums on my songs was the highlight
of my career,” Bachman explains. To commemorate the experience and
celebrate the great man’s birthday, Randy and his wife named a newly
discovered star after him—the Ringo Starr.
“There were times when I had to pinch myself,” recalled Eric Carmen,
of the Raspberries and later a successful solo artist (All-Starr Band Mark
VI), “notably, when we performed on The David Letterman Show, taped in
the Ed Sullivan Theater where the Beatles were the first time I saw them
[on TV], the 14-year-old sitting on the floor in Lyndhurst, Ohio. Now,
here I am, on that very same stage, playing in a band with a Beatle!”

Above: The album cover of The All-Starr

the limited-edition release, Though Ringo remained rooted in the 1950s rock ’n’ roll of his teens, his
Ringo Starr and His Third
All-Starr Band-Volume 1. tastes were far broader. After all, by 1966 his old band the Beatles were
on a voyage of stylistic exploration across numerous genres simultaneously.
And if Ringo could play on both “Tomorrow Never Knows” and “Yellow
Submarine” on the same album that year, then drumming on both Mr.
Mister’s 1985 smash “Broken Wings” and Santana’s 1969 hit “Evil Ways,” as
he does on tour with his All-Starr Band in 2013, is hardly a challenge at all.
Ringo, of course, was the star, typically in the spotlight as singer on
12 songs out of an average of 24 in the All-Starr Band’s set. Performed
unfailingly would be his old Rory Storm and the Hurricanes’ (the Liverpool
band he was in even before the Beatles) live cameo, a cover of the Shirelles’
“Boys,” and his classic Paul-and-John-penned signature tunes, “Yellow
Submarine” and “With a Little Help from My Friends.” Of his solo material,
only his biggest hit, “Photograph,” would never drop from the set.
Strikingly, on stage the most famous drummer in the world would always
share his “riser” platform (this makes drummers on a crowded stage clearly
visible to the audience) with another. At 1971’s Concert for Bangladesh,
Oklahoman session drummer Jim Keltner—who’d played on George and
John’s solo sessions—had already been chosen to play throughout the show,
such was his quick-study versatility. In rehearsal, rather than relinquish

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 “ ’
Playing guitar on Ringo s songs every night . . . and

seeing him play drums on my songs was the highlight of

”
my career. —Randy Bachman

Above: Renowned singer-songwriter Randy Bachman

performs at the Songwriter’s Circle as part of the
Canadian Music Week on March 12, 2011, in Toronto,
Ontario. Bachman has played in Ringo’s All-Starr Band
and considers it a privilege.

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 his stool for Ringo when it came time for the former Beatle’s skinsman’s
“
spot, the two found that they thoroughly enjoyed doubling up. Consistently Ringo mucks
unstinting in his praise for the quiet professional as his favorite drummer
in the world, Ringo was to invite Keltner to play on several of his solo around with
albums, and in 1989 called up his old friend to sit beside him on the first
All-Starr Band tour. Subsequent companions riding shotgun with Ringo everyone on

tour rather
include Free and Bad Company’s Simon Kirke, Sheila E of Prince fame,
and, most heart-warmingly, Zak Starkey, before he took up the sticks with

than remaining
the Who and Oasis.

in a superstar
Drummers and Friends
”
bubble . . .
Since 2008, Ringo’s codrummer has been Gregg Bissonette, who saw the
Beatles as a seven-year-old in 1966 when his dad, a jobbing drummer in
Detroit, used his music connections to procure tickets for the sold-out —Gregg
show at the city’s Olympia Stadium. Working with his idol has not been
a disappointment for the hugely respected and versatile session drummer. Bissonette
Bissonette applauds Ringo as a bandleader who works out and sticks to a
vegetarian diet, who sits up straight when playing, who mucks in with everyone
on tour rather than remain aloof in a superstar bubble, and who prepares his
parts on songs by other stars just as respectfully as if they were his own.
“His drumming makes people dance,” says Bissonette, “he has this natural
cool Liverpool swing.” And when Paul McCartney called Bissonette to
recruit him for a surprise appearance at New York’s Radio City Music Hall
to celebrate Ringo’s seventieth birthday with a performance of the Beatles’
“Birthday,” the fan who joined Ringo’s band was moved to tears by “one
of the greatest days of my life.”
But as Ringo was to continue to find, all the nostalgia and love in the
world did not necessarily translate into massive record sales, even when,
emboldened by the box-office success of the All-Starr Band, he once again
started to make some seriously good records—with a little help from his
friends, of course.

Left: Is it bright in here? From left Above: A limited edition

to right: Alex Van Halen, Levon album of Ringo Starr and
Helm, Ringo Starr, and Jim Keltner his All-Starr Band.
all sporting shades in a studio
shot in the early 1990s.

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 Chapter 9
The Wilbury Effect

“Sometimes you get really tired of

being famous. I’ve been famous an
awfully long time.”—Ringo Starr

Right: Ringo Starr and his All-Starr

Band perform on stage at Le Zenith
in Paris on July 8, 1992.

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 T
he death of John had hit Ringo hard. Marking the tenth
anniversary of his friend’s death in the fall of 1990, Ringo
remembered “the biggest heart of any man I’ve met to this day . .
. a giving, loving, caring human being” on a TV special. He then
cheered up to sing and drum on John’s “I Call Your Name,” one of his
fallen comrade’s first compositions as a teenager but only recorded by
the Beatles in 1964. Ringo’s buddy Joe Walsh played a slide-guitar solo
,while part-time Traveling Wilburys Jeff Lynne, Tom Petty (on whose
video for the 1989 hit single “I Won’t Back Down” Ringo had appeared
to play drums), and Jim Keltner (also Ringo’s sidekick in the All-Starr
Band) played rhythm guitar, bass, and cowbell respectively. The success
of the Traveling Wilburys at the end of the 1980s confirmed that the
1960s generation of musicians, who’d seemed so lost in a wilderness of self-doubt, falling
status, and creativity since the early part of the decade, could recover in a spirit of mutual
support and enjoyment and prove themselves once more capable of delivering quality and
value, rather than an old guard’s sense of permanent entitlement.
There were Wilbury connections as well as their spirit and sound in Ringo’s first solo
album release in nine years, 1992’s Time Takes Time. Ringo’s swinging rhythm chug suited the
sunny, breezy, top-down, and well-upholstered retro-modern sound, similar to that with which
the Wilburys had topped charts worldwide in 1988. And the various producers, Jeff Lynne,
Don Was, Peter Asher, and Phil Ramone, ensured a solid package of catchy tunes, radio-
friendly hooks, and welcoming familiarity. In collaboration with the former Ring O’ Records’
recording artist Johnny Warman, whom he’d not forgotten in the years since, Ringo cowrote
three sturdy songs for his new album, while members of the Beatles-influenced power-pop
bands the Posies and Jellyfish helped out with a song from each. The biggest potential hit,
“In a Heartbeat,” was written by the songwriter with the Midas touch, Diane Warren, and
boasted Beach Boy Brian Wilson on backing vocals.

Above: Album sleeve of Time Takes Time.

Right: Ringo Starr and Tom Petty embrace at

a special screening of the movie Concert
for George at the Steven J. Ross Theater on
September 24, 2003, in Burbank, California. The
documentary celebrates the music of former
Beatle George Harrison through performances
by legendary musicians.

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 Why Time Takes Time was only a modest hit remains a mystery. Full Below: Ringo’s first wife,
of the kind of music that sounds perfect wafting out of car radios on a Maureen Starkey, at
Sticky Fingers restaurant in
sunny day, getting radio play in the first place was critical, a dark art London in 1992 for a third
in which the label that released it, Private Music, might not have been birthday party. Maureen
masters. Back in 1992, there was no digital file-sharing or streaming— passed away in 1994 from
leukemia.
indeed, there was barely any Internet. CDs were sold by profiteering
record companies as “premium-priced” luxuries, so for the music fan, the
radio was essential to hearing, familiarizing yourself with, and liking a
new record enough to make the investment in buying the CD. Acts initially
denied mainstream radio play, such as Nirvana was at the time, would get
played on college radio and then on MTV, while word spread in the time-
honored organic way with teenage fans excitedly turning on their friends
to the amazing new sound in bedrooms and rec rooms all over the country.
At the age of 52, Ringo would be wasting his time trying to appeal to the
teenage demographic, so he depended on mainstream radio to reach old
fans and the generations who’d come to the Beatles after the breakup; if he
wasn’t getting played, he wouldn’t be bought.
Such an underwhelming public response to what was certainly among
his most enjoyable albums was to deter Ringo from trying again unless
he had something more than the mere revival of his sense of purpose and
popular appeal from touring with the All-Starr Band. Such an opportunity
came with the huge surge of interest and recruitment of young fans the
Beatles were to enjoy with the Anthology project starting in 1995.
Sadness was first to shadow his next few years. Shortly after she
divorced Ringo in 1975, Maureen had started living with the Tennessee-
born cofounder of the Hard Rock Cafe chain, Isaac Tigrett, marrying him
soon after the birth of their daughter in 1987, her fourth child in total.
But in the early 1990s, Maureen was diagnosed with leukemia. Despite
Zak donating bone marrow and vital blood elements, she died at the end
of 1994 with her family, including first husband Ringo, at her bedside.
Maureen had been one of the original working-class Liverpool girlfriends,
and Paul was moved to mourn her loss and offer comfort to her family in
a lovely song, “Little Willow,” which was to appear on his 1997 hit album
Flaming Pie. Ringo played on the album’s big ballad, “Beautiful Night,” and
the following day he and Paul worked up their first McCartney-Starkey
cowrite to get official release on an album, “Really Love You.”
With the three remaining Beatles—the “Threetles,” they jested—
reunited during the making of 1995’s Anthology TV documentary series

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 and spin-off book and singles, Ringo was to feel inspired by Paul’s revived
success as a solo artist, with Flaming Pie riding in the slipstream of the
Beatles’ latest popular resurgence.
Whereas Time Takes Time was entirely easygoing, Vertical Man had a little
more edge. Ringo cowrote most of its songs, with a new collaborator who
would last far longer than his short-lived creative partnership with Johnny
Warman. From Portland, Oregon, songwriter and producer Mark Hudson
had been a middleweight recording and TV star in his own right in the
1970s with the Hudson Brothers Trio (his older brother Bill is father to the
actress Kate Hudson), and his solo career had enjoyed an upsurge when he
cowrote Aerosmith’s big 1993 hit “Livin’ on the Edge” with Steve Tyler and
Joe Perry. Ringo was to enjoy working with Hudson, citing the “fun” he was having as the two
cowrote songs and started recording them in a studio above a Thai restaurant.
What is notable about the songs of this second wave of solo Ringo recordings, starting
with Times Takes Time, is how comfortably he fell in with the emphasis the record industry
at the time placed on formula rather than genius. With Diane Warren as the queen of the
scene, Los Angeles thronged with song doctors dedicated to helping name acts align their
music to the expectations of the radio industry and what was deemed to constitute a hit
record. Aerosmith’s “Livin’ on the Edge” exemplifies this trend, with Hudson pushing the
band toward the softer, Bon Jovi end of hard rock in search of a hit song. At best, such
records are immediately attractive, slip down easily, and are as moderately satisfying as a
chain-bought burger and fries. But there will never be the quirks or wild originality that can
deter conservative listeners yet rivet a record forever as uniquely great. Ringo’s “Goodnight
Vienna” is far from the best song John Lennon ever wrote, but it is memorable in a way that
the best song on Vertical Man, the Richard Starkey/Mark Hudson/Dean Grakal/Steve Dudas
cowrite “La De Da,” fails to manage, for all its rueful warmth and essence of Ringo.
Recorded with a core backing band Ringo called the Roundheads, Vertical Man abounds
with guest cameo contributions from pals popping by the studio, stellar credits for backing
vocals, and the occasional instrumental lick going to Paul and Linda, George, Steve Tyler,
Ozzy Osbourne, Tom Petty, Joe Walsh, Brian Wilson, and, the new kid on the block, Alanis
Morissette. All that star power helped hoist Vertical Man to Ringo’s highest U.S. chart position
since 1976’s Ringo’s Rotogravure, but still only to number 61.

Above: Album cover for Ringo Right: Paul McCartney and Ringo
Starr’s Vertical Man. Starr at the Earth Day Concert on
April 16, 1993.

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 In 1998, Ringo gave a well-received VH1: Storytellers live show on VH1, the music channel
where he introduced and performed four Vertical Man songs as well as his best-loved hits with a
backing band drawn from that album’s band plus All-Star regulars Joe Walsh and codrummer
Simon Kirke. His next studio album of brand-new material celebrated the last Christmas of not
only the twentieth century, but of the second millennium. As rock ’n’ roll Christmas albums
go, I Wanna Be Santa Claus betters Bob Dylan’s effort a decade later, being for the most part a
drum-powered party album for the paper-hat, kiss-under-the-mistletoe season, and in singalong,
shouty vigor harks back to the glam rock of “Back off Boogaloo.” For fans of Ringo’s swinging
rock ’n’ roll drumming, this collection of Yule-themed Starkey/Hudson originals and seasonal
standards—including, of course, one of the most stirring versions of “The Little Drummer
Boy” you’ll ever hear—may be the best showcase of his career. Relaxing the beat, “Pax Um
Biscum” evokes George’s Sgt. Pepper highlight “Within You Without You” with its sitars,
tabla, and Mellotron orientalisms, while, digging deeper into 1967’s annus mirabilis, the Beatles’
surprisingly little-known fan club Christmas record “Christmas Time (Is Here Again)” gets a
thumping reboot. Despite the push of his record company, Mercury, I Wanna Be Santa Claus
stuck to the record store shelves, a sorry fate for the only Christmas album ever made by a Beatle.

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 And Then There Were Two
In November of 2001, George died. He and Ringo had in recent years
found another connection, as Ringo joined the guitarist in a passion for
gardening. While Paul had made it to the dying man’s bedside, Ringo had
not, as he’d had an even more pressing priority: his youngest child, daughter
Lee, had already recovered from a brain tumor in 1995, just months after
her mother’s death from leukemia. But in 2001, the tumor returned, and
the family rallied around as she underwent further treatment. She made
a full recovery and in 2009 gave birth to triplets with her boyfriend, Jay
Mehler, bass player in Beady Eye and formerly of the British rock band
Kasabian.
A year after George died, Ringo performed their cowritten song
“Photograph” and a cover of Carl Perkins’ “Honey Don’t” at the Concert
for George held at the Royal Albert Hall, London, and in tribute to his
friend Ringo cowrote a new song, “Never Without You,” which blended
sentiment with humor, just as the Beatles always had. With its guitar solo
played by Eric Clapton, whose life had been so entwined with George’s
since 1968, the song appears on Ringo’s 2003 album Ringo Rama, released Above: Ringo Starr and
by the German label Koch. Mercury had dropped him after none of their daughter, Lee Starkey,
at the Concert for the
three albums succeeded commercially. Natural Law Party at the
Ringo Rama reflects a man in his autumn years at peace with himself. Royal Albert Hall in London,
“English Garden,” for example, simply celebrates the flowers, the England, in April of 1992.
Lee had recovered from a
rain, Barbara, and Buster the dog, whose bark is to be heard, as is a brain tumor by 1995, but it
quote from Paul’s Wings’ hit “Let ’Em In.” And at the end of the song returned in 2001. She went
“Elizabeth Reigns,” the 1965 Member of the British Empire elaborately on to make a full recovery
with the support of her
but affectionately mocks the Queen (as had the Beatles in 1969 with “Her family.
Majesty”), who had a few years before knighted Paul, throwing in the line,
“There goes the knighthood.” Though Ringo had never pretended to be
deep, he was witty, and that wit was in its fullest bloom on this, his twelfth
studio album. References from Ringo’s past abound on an album dense with Left: Old friends . . . Ringo
licks, harmonies, textures, and fills to an almost dizzying degree. Since even Starr and George Harrison
at Heathrow Airport in
universal Beatle love and his status as one of only two survivors seemed not London, 1990. George
to translate into record sales, was he trying too hard to attract attention? Harrison passed away
What cannot be denied is that, however workmanlike and self-referential in November of 2001,
and Ringo performed
the songs—every one of which was written by Ringo and Mark Hudson “Photograph” at the
with contributions from the other studio Roundheads—the finished concert in memory of his
record did not stint in energy and detail. As ever, no one could turn down old friend.

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 an invitation to play on a Beatle’s album, with cameos from country legend Willie Nelson,
jazz veteran Charlie Haden, singer-songwriters Shawn Colvin and Van Dyke Parks, Pink
Floyd’s Dave Gilmour, and Timothy B. Schmit of the Eagles. Now 62, Ringo the singer was
appreciably smoother on the ear than three decades previously. Even so, Ringo Rama failed to
crack the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
Two years later, Ringo and the Roundheads followed up the album with what had every
appearance of being a continuation, albeit a shade less attention-seeking. Again, every song
on the album, entitled Choose Love, was a Starkey/Hudson/sundry Roundheads’ composition,
and its every drolly, clunky word celebrated nothing more nor less than His Ringoness, the
aging rocker baffled by the speed of events and the world’s trickiness, but still clinging to the
beat and his innate cheerfulness. He clung to his innate Beatleness, too, which his younger
musicians audibly relished in their recreations of signature sounds, licks, and other Fab
echoes. There were fewer guest cameos: Ringo’s fellow vegetarian rocker Chrissie Hynde, and,
making one of his very last appearances on disk before his death at the end of 2005 after years
of ill health, the veteran friend and occasional guest keyboardist of the Beatles both together
and apart, Billy Preston. Happily, the song on which he played organ, “Oh My Lord,” is one
of the album’s stand-outs, with a simple but irresistible melody to carry its devotional weight.

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 Again, the latest Ringo album failed to light up the charts, but it was
becoming evident that its maker was not too bothered; he had lost close
friends and almost lost his daughter, and as he approached his seventieth
birthday he was happy to count his blessings, which included the ability
to make new music whenever the spirit moved him. However, whether the
records sold or not, he would not slide back into the indifferent quality
control that had blighted his wilderness years’ output.
But just when Ringo seemed thoroughly settled into a stable creative
groove that would make the most of what he had to offer as a recording
artist forever in the giant shadow cast by his younger self, he and Mark
Hudson—with whom he had cowritten 64 songs and who had coproduced
82 Ringo recordings—parted ways. Whether it was over letting down Ringo at short notice
for a promotional tour with the Roundheads or an unbridgeable difference of opinion on how
to arrange their next album collaboration, the reason for the split depended on who you
believed in the statements each made afterward.
Hudson’s latter account is given some credence by the way hit producer Dave Stewart entered
the scene to “re-produce” the final Ringo-Hudson project, the 2008 album Liverpool 8. The
former Eurythmics star also helped Ringo write the last-minute title song, which compressed
the story of Ringo’s life—from his humble origins in probably the most impoverished district
of the English port to fame and fortune—into words that wouldn’t tax the comprehension of a
nine-year-old. Otherwise, much of Liverpool 8 lacks the easy warmth of its predecessors; the
song “Gone Are the Days” has an edgy, anxious drive to reflect (not for the first time) Ringo’s
self-quotation in the repeated phrase “It don’t come easy.”
Surprisingly thoughtful, “Harry’s Song”—perhaps a tribute to his beloved stepfather Harry
Graves—is a nostalgic song about nostalgia itself, and is followed by “Pasadobles,” which
wistfully pursues the same feel and theme: a man looking back half a century to a lost world
before rock ’n’ roll. Closing the album, “R U Ready?” jokily asks if the listener is “ready to
face the final curtain,” offering, camouflaged in humor, a glimpse into Ringo’s spiritual beliefs,
which he was happy to concede were “old hippy.”
For all the fuss that surrounded its making and release, Liverpool 8 did not trouble the charts.
But exactly two years later, just months shy of Ringo’s seventieth birthday, his album Y Not
did just that, peaking just outside the U.S. top 50. A feat all the more remarkable for it being a

Left: From left to right: Ringo Starr, Barbara Bach, Above: Album cover
Dhani Harrison, Olivia Harrison, Heather Mills, and for Ringo Rama.
Paul McCartney at the premiere of the “Concert for
George,” a documentary film celebrating the music of
George Harrison through performances by legendary
musicians on September 24, 2003

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 virtual self-production. A return to the little-help-from-his-friends method,
Ringo always Y Not features Dave Stewart, Benmont Tench, Don Was, Edgar Winter,
Ben Harper, Richard Marx, and many more names from both the All-Starr
chose to embrace Band and the Los Angeles studio scene. Helping out on guitar, Joe Walsh
had bonded even tighter with Ringo as his brother-in-law, having married
his past . . . Barbara Bach’s sister, Marjorie (“He’s always been family but now he can’t
say no!” jested Ringo when asked if the working relationship had changed).
Paul was there to play bass on Ringo’s syrupy tribute to John, “Peace Dream,”
but the most entertaining song on what was actually a dip in songwriting
form after the long Mark Hudson run, was the duet with Joss Stone that
closed the album, “Who’s Your Daddy,” a funny and raunchy addition to the
genre of straying-guy/not-standing-for-it-gal soul-style stomper.

Celebrating Yesterday and Today

Again almost two years to the day after Y Not ’s release, Ringo 2012,
amusingly working-titled “Motel California,” felt like a simple continuation,
featuring as it did many of the same personnel and a return of some other
familiar figures. Not even half an hour long, and remaking two of the
lesser songs from his 1973 eponymous chart-topper as well as wistfully
improving on Liverpool 8 in another cowrite with Dave Stewart, “In
Liverpool,” Ringo 2012 suggested that the loss of Mark Hudson spelled
the end of a warm songwriting streak but not a consistent run of enjoyable
if hardly world-beating albums. It made it to number 80 in the U.S. chart.
Portraying Ringo on the cover giving what was by then his signature
V-for-victory sign, Ringo 2012 started stompingly with “Anthem,” which
Above: Ringo Starr and then, typical of latter-day Ringo, burst into a song of earnest hippy striving
Dave Stewart in a live before surrendering to a guitar solo quoting the Beatles’ “Day Tripper.”
performance of “Liverpool
the Musical” at the Echo The glowing version of the Buddy Holly classic “Think It Over” added to
Arena in Liverpool, England, Ringo’s trove of enjoyable tributes to the golden age of jukebox rock.
on January 12, 2008. Ringo himself, of course, is a historical monument, and his has been a
struggle to find a working relationship with a past that will forever tower
over the present. Ringo always chose to embrace his past, the more so as he
has aged and lost friends with whom he’d shared that time. Though Ringo
would always leave the deep thinking to others, he would surrender to no
man in celebrating the good old days in a way that, rather than casting a
shadow over the here and now, bathes it in golden sunshine. To put a smile
on your face and a spring in your step, Ringo has always been the daddy.

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 “
l naturally

have a great
’
time, and that s

the rhythm of

my heart and
”
my soul.

—Ringo Starr

Left: Ringo
celebrates his
seventieth birthday
in Times Square on
July 7, 2010, in New
York City.

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 Index
Page numbers in italics split 6, 17, 20, 27 Concert for the Natural Law Party,
indicate photographs. see also under individual album 1992 87
and song title Connelly, Ray 39
A Beaucoups of Blues (Starr) 22–23,
22, 44, 65
Cooler, The (minimovie) 64
Cooper, Alice 59
Bee Gees 18 Cream 73
Abbey Road studios 17, Bernstein, Elmer 18 Crosby, Stills & Nash 26, 52
20–21, 27 Bissonette, Gregg 79 Cruikshank, Robin 15, 52
Aerosmith 84 Blindman (movie) 23, 23
AIDS Crisis Trust Charity
Auction, Christie’s, 1987 71
“Blue Suede Shoes” (TV show) 72
Boardwalk 64 D
All Things Must Pass Bolan, Marc 34, 35, 35, 36, 47
(Harrison) 22 Bon Jovi 84 Daltrey, Roger 48, 49
Andrews, Nancy 46, 48 Bonham, John 39 Danko, Rick 73, 75
Anthology (the Beatles) 83–84 Born to Boogie (movie) 35–36, 35 Dark Horse 52
Apple 12, 20, 24 Bowie, David 37 “Dead Giveaway” (Wood) 60
Apple Films 36, 39 Boyd, Pattie 44, 47, 52 Delaney & Bonnie 26
Asher, Peter 82 British Steel 15 “Devil Woman” (Starr) 44
Atlantic Records 52, 55 “Broken Wings” (Mr. Mister) 76 Dickinson, Angie 55
“Attention” (McCartney) 60 Brooker, Gary 64 Dolenz, Micky 41
Aulin, Ewa 11 Brookfield 26 Dr. John 73
Autry, Gene 15 Bruce, Jack 73 Drake, Pete 22
Axton, Hoyt 48 Burnette, Johnny 44 “Drowning in the Sea of Love”
(Simon) 55
B C Dylan, Bob 29, 85

Bach, Barbara (wife) 58, 59, Candy (movie) 10, 11, 12 E

61, 64, 71, 88, 90 Capitol Records 17
Bach, Marjorie 90 Carmen, Eric 76 Eagles, the 64, 88
Bachman, Randy 76, 77, 88 Carmichael, Hoagy 18 Earth Day Concert 85
Back off Boogaloo (Starr) 36, Caveman (movie) 56, 58, 59 “Easy for Me” (Nilssen) 48
39, 85 Charles, Ray 52 Eckemyr, Agneta 23
Bad Boy (Starr) 55 Choose Love (Starr) 88 Edmunds, Dave 72
Badfinger 12 Clapton, Eric 47, 52, 53, 64, 72, Elton John 27, 35
Baker, Ginger 73 73, 87 Entwistle, John 64
Band, the 47, 70, 73 Clemons, Clarence 74 Essex, David 39
Beatles, the: Cocker, Joe 26 “Evil Ways” (Santana) 76
George Harrison quits 12 Coltrane, John 52
“Get Back” sessions 12, 18
“Red” and “Blue”
Colvin, Shawn 88
“Come and Get It” (McCartney) 12 F
compilation albums 44 Concert for Bangladesh, 1971
Ringo feels left out of 8 27, 28–29, 76 Faith, Adam 40
Ringo leaves 9, 12 Concert for George, 2003 82, 87, 88 Fisher, Carrie 55

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 Fishof, David 70
Flaming Pie (McCartney) 83, 84 K Beatles split and 9, 17, 19,
20, 27
Frampton, Peter 73, 73 fight with Ringo over release
Keltner, Jim 76, 78, 78, 82 dates of solo albums 20
G Keys, Bobby 47
Kingston, Larry 22
Harrison death and 87
marriage 17
Kirke, Simon 79, 85 Maureen Starkey death, reaction
Gibb, Maurice 18 Kisses on the Bottom (McCartney) 17 to 83
Gilmour, Dave 88 Klein, Allen 17, 23 overbearing 9
“Give It All Up” (Starr-Poncia) 55 Koch 87 solo albums 17, 20
Goodnight Vienna (Starr) 47, 48, 48, songwriting for Ringo 19, 44,
52, 84
L 52, 60, 83, 84, 90
Mercer, Johnny 18
H “La De Da” (Starkey/Hudson/
Mercury Records 85, 87
Moman, Chips 65, 65
Grakal/Dudas) 84 Moon, Keith 30, 33, 39, 40, 41, 59
Haden, Charlie 88 The Last Waltz (movie) 70 Morissette, Alanis 84
A Hard Day’s Night (movie) 35, 39 “The Long and Winding Road” Mothers of Invention 27–28
Harper, Ben 90 (Lennon-McCartney) 18 MTV 83
Harrison, George 22, 26, 44, 72, 86 Led Zeppelin 17, 35, 39, 52
Beatles split and 12, 17, 18, 20
confesses love for Ringo’s wife
Lennon, John 8, 9, 18, 27, 40,
47, 84 N
death 82, 87, 88 Allen Klein and 17
Maureen 44, 47 Beatles split and 17, 20, 27 Nashville 22
Ringo recordings and 26, 27, “Lost Weekend” 44 Nelson, Willie 88
36, 44, 47, 52, 60, 87 murder 60, 61, 64, 82, 90 “Never Without You” (Starr) 87
“Have You Seen My Baby” Ringo leaving the Beatles and 9 Nilsson, Harry 36, 36, 39, 41, 44,
(Newman) 44 songwriting for Ringo 44, 47, 47, 48, 60, 64
Helm, Levon 73, 78 48, 52, 60, 76 Nirvana 83
Hentschel, David 52 Let It Be (the Beatles) 18, 20, 44 “No No Song” (Lennon) 48
“Hey! Baby” (Chanel) 52 “Life Begins at 40” (Lennon) 60 “Nobody Told Me” (Lennon) 60
“Hey Bulldog” (the Beatles) 48 Lisztomania (movie) 48, 49
Howard, Chuck 22
Hudson, Mark 84, 85, 87, 88,
“Little Willow” (McCartney) 83
Liverpool 8 (Starr) 88, 90 O
89, 90 “Liverpool the Musical” 90
Hynde, Chrissie 88 “Livin’ on the Edge” “Octopus’s Garden” (Starr) 9
(Aerosmith) 84 “Oh My Lord” (Hudson/Starr) 88
I Lofgren, Nils 74
Los Angeles 27, 33, 48, 54, 62–63,
Old Wave (Starr) 64–65
“Only You” (the Platters) 48
69, 84, 90 Ono, Yoko 9, 17, 27, 60
“I Call Your Name” (Lennon) 82 Lulu 37 Osbourne, Ozzy 84
“I Can Help” (Swann) 65 Lynne, Jeff 82 “Our World” (live TV broadcast)
I Wanna Be Santa Claus (Starr) 85 20–21
“I Won’t Back Down” (Petty) 82
“I’m the Greatest” (Lennon) 44, 47 M P
“In a Heartbeat” (Warren) 82
“It Don’t Come Easy” (Starr) Magic Christian, The (movie) 10, 12,
26–27, 27 12, 13 Page, Jimmy 35
Magical Mystery Tour (movie) Parks, Van Dyke 88
J 7, 36, 39
Mardin, Arif 52, 55, 55
“Peace Dream” (Starr) 90
Perkins, Carl 60, 70, 72, 87
Martin, George 16, 16, 17, 18 Perry, Richard 18, 18, 44
Jagger, Mick 42 Marx, Richard 90 Petty, Tom 82, 82, 84
Jellyfish 82 McCartney, Linda 64, 84 “Photograph” (Starr) 47, 76, 87
Jones, Quincy 18 McCartney, Paul 12, 18, 21, 27, 64, Pickard, Sorrells 22
Jordanaires, the 22, 22 76, 79 Plant, Robert 35

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 Polydor 52
Poncia, Vini 52, 55
Starr, Ringo:
acting 9, 10, 11, 12, 23, 30, 38, V
Porter, Cole 18 39, 40, 44, 48, 49, 56, 58, 59
Portrait 64 alcohol and 48, 68, 70, 73 Van Halen, Alex 78
Posies, the 82 All-Starr Band and 70, 73, Varèse, Edgard 30
Presley, Elvis 22, 65, 65 74–75, 76, 78, 79, 79, 80–81, 82, Vertical Man (Starr) 84, 84, 85
Preston, Billy 74, 88 83, 85, 90 VH1: Storytellers 85
Price, Vincent 55 Beatles, feels left out of 8 Voorman, Klaus 18, 26
Private Music 83 Beatles, leaves 9, 12
“Private Property”
(McCartney) 60
Beatles members and see under
individual name W
Beatles split and 6, 17, 18,
R 20, 27
childhood 17
Walsh, Joe 64, 75, 82, 84, 85, 90
Warman, Johnny 82, 84
divorce 44, 45 Warren, Diane 84
Ramone, Phil 82 family see under individual family Was, Don 82, 90
“Really Love You” member name West, Mae 59
(McCartney/Starr) 83 movie production 36, 36, 39, The Whale (Tavener) 52
Ring O’Records 52, 82 42, 44 “Where Did Our Love Go?”
Ringo (Starr) 44, 47, 48 Rory Storm and the Hurricanes (the Supremes) 55
Ringo Rama (Starr) 87, 88, 89 and 76 White Album (The Beatles) 9
Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band vocal range 17, 52, 55, 88 Who, the 39, 40, 48
70, 73, 74–75, 76, 78, 79, 79, see also under individual album Wilson, Brian 82, 84
80–81, 82, 83, 85, 90 and song title “Wine, Women and Loud Happy
Ringo the 4th (Starr) 52, 54, 55 Stewart, Dave 89, 90 Songs” (Starr) 22
Ringo 2012 (Starr) 90 Stills, Stephen 26, 26, 47, 60 Winter, Edgar 90
Rolling Stones, the 17, 47, 52, 55 Stone, Joss 90 “With a Little Help from
Rory Storm and the Hurricanes 76 Stop and Smell the Roses (Starr) My Friends” (Lennon-
Rotogravure (Starr) 52, 52, 53, 84 60, 64 McCartney) 76
Roundheads 84, 87, 88, 89 “Stop and Take the Time to Smell “With a Little Help from My
Russell, Leon 26 the Roses” (Nilssen) 64 Friends” (TV show) 17
Russell, Ken 48 “Sunshine Life for Me (Sail Away “Without Her” (Starr) 22
Raymond)” (Harrison) 47 Woodstock (movie) 30
S “Sure to Fall” (Perkins) 60
Y
Schmit, Timothy B. 88 T
Scorcese, Martin 70 Y Not (Starr) 89–90
Scouse the Mouse 66 T. Rex 35 “Yellow Submarine”
Sellers, Peter 9, 10, 12, 13 Tench, Benmont 90 (Lennon-McCartney) 66, 76
Sentimental Journey (Starr) 17–18, That Will Be the Day (movie) 38, Yes 52
17, 20, 23, 26, 44 39, 40 “You’re Sixteen” (Starr) 44
Sextette (movie) 59 Thomas the Tank Engine 66, 67 “You’ve Got a Nice Way” (Stills) 60
Sheila E 79 Tigrett, Isaac 83
Son of Dracula (movie) 36, 39, 42
Son of Schmilsson (Nilsson) 36
Time Takes Time (Starr) 82, 83, 84
Tittenhurst Park 40, 64 Z
Southern, Terry 12, 13 Tommy (movie) 39, 48, 53
Spector, Phil 18 Traveling Wilbury’s 82 Zappa, Frank 27, 28, 30, 31, 35
Starkey, Lee (daughter) 87, 87 Trident Studios 27
Starkey, Maureen (wife) 19, 42, 44, 200 Motels (movie) 30, 31, 35, 39
45, 47, 48, 83, 83 Tyler, Steve 84
Starkey, Tatia Jayne
(granddaughter) 66, 66
Starkey, Zak (son) 19, 40, 66, 66,
79, 83

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 Picture Credits
Special thanks to Bruce Spizer (www.beatle.net), Associated Press
author of The Beatles Solo on Apple Records for use p18, Richard Perry, © Lennox McLendon /
of the following images: Associated Press
p31, Ringo Starr and Frank Zappa, © Associated
p17, Sentimental Journey album Press
p22, Beaucoups of Blues album p45, Ringo and Maureen at the airport, © AP /
p27, “It Don’t Come Easy” single sleeve Associated Press
p39, Back off Boogaloo album p54, Ringo relaxing at home with a drink, © RRS /
p49, Good Night Vienna album Associated Press
p52, Ringo’s Rotogravure album p65, Elvis Presley and Chips Moman, © Associated
p55, Ringo the 4th album Press
p60, Stop and Smell the Roses album
p76, Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band, Volume 1 Corbis
album p61, Ringo and Barbara Bach leaving the Dakota, ©
p79, Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band, Limited Bettmann/CORBIS
Edition album
p82, Time Takes Time album Getty
p84, Vertical Man album p4, Ringo playing the drums, © Rob Verhorst /
p89, Ringo Rama album Redferns
p7, Ringo filming Magical Mystery Tour, © David
Alamy Redfern/Staff/Redferns
p8, Beatles at men’s store, © Pictorial Press Ltd. / p10, Movie poster for Candy, © GAB Archive /
Alamy Redferns
p11, Ringo Starr and Ewa Aulian, © Interfoto / p14, Ringo at preview for “Steel”, © Central Press/
Alamy Stringer / Getty Images
p24, Ringo at his office, © Trinity Mirror Pix / p16, Ringo Starr and George Martin, © Photoshot /
Mirrorpix / Alamy Contributor / Hulton Archive
p26, Crosby, Stills & Nash, © Pictorial Press Ltd. / p19, Ringo with Maureen and Zak Starkey, ©
Alamy Keystone-France / Gamma Keystone via Getty
p28-29, Concert for Bangladesh, © Keystone Images
Pictures USA / Alamy p22, The Jordanaires, © Michael Ochs Archives/
p38, Ringo starring in That Will Be the Day, © Stringer
Trinity Mirro Pix / Mirrorpix / Alamy p23, Ringo Starr and Agneta Eckemyr in Blindman,
p42, Ringo Starr and Maureen Starkey, © Daily Mail © Getty Images / Archive Photos / Stringer
/ Rex / Alamy p30, Movie poster for 200 Motels, © Redferns
p46, Ringo Starr and Nancy Andrews, © Daily Mail p33, Ringo Starr and Keith Moon, © Michael Ochs
/ Rex / Alamy Archives / Stringer
p49, Ringo playing the Pope in Lisztomania, © AF p34, Marc Bolan performing at Empire Pool, ©
archive / Alamy Estate of Keith Morris / Redferns
p50, Ringo playing drums on Dutch TV, © Pictorial p35, Ringo Starr and Marc Bolan in Born to Boogie,
Press Ltd. / Alamy © Estate of Keith Morris / Redferns
p77, Randy Bachman, © Paul McKinnon / Alamy

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 p36, Harry Nilsson, © Michael Putland / Getty Rex
Images P10, Ringo and Peter Sellers © Rex USA
p37, Ringo Starr, Lulu, David Bowie, and Edgar P21, Ringo and Paul McCartney © David Magnus /
Broughton, © John Rodgers / Redferns Rex USA
p47, Bobby Keys © Estate of Keith Morris / P41, Ringo, Harry Nilsson, Micky Dolenz, and Keith
Redferns Moon © James Fortune / Rex / Rex USA
p55, Arif Mardin at Atlantic Studios © Bobby Bank P44, Ringo, George Harrison, Maureen Starkey, and
/ WireImage Pattie Boyd © Bill Howard / Evening News / Rex
p66, Ringo Starr, Zak Starkey and daughter, © USA
Terry O’Neill / Getty Images P53, Ringo and Eric Clapton © Rex USA
p67, Ringo Starr and Thomas the Tank Engine, © P56, Ringo, Dennis Quaid, and Shelley Long ©
Terry O’Neill / Getty Images c.United / Everett / Rex USA
p69, Ringo at the Greek Theatre, © Ron Galella / P62-63, Ringo performing at the Greek Theatre ©
WireImage Andre Csillag / Rex USA
p72, Ringo, George Harrison, and others at the Carl P71, Ringo with Barbara Bach © Richard Young /
Perkins benefit, © Terry O’Neill / Getty Images Rex USA
p73, Peter Frampton, © Denis O’Regan / Getty P83, Maureen Starkey © Richard Young / Rex USA
Images P86, Ringo and George Harrison embrace © Dennis
p74-75, Ringo with Clarence Clemons, Billy Preston, Stone / Rex USA
etc., © Ron Galella / WireImage P87, Ringo and daughter, Lee © Richard Young /
p78, Ringo with Alex Van Halen, Levon Holm, Jim Rex USA
Keltner, © Robert Knight Archive / Redferns P90, Ringo and Dave Stewart performing © Brian
p81, Ringo performing in Paris, © Rob Verhorst / Rasic / Rex USA
Redferns
p82, Ringo Starr with Tom Petty, © Frazer Harrison Tracks (Memorabilia)
/ Getty Images P12, Movie poster for The Magic Christian
p85, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney at Earth Day P58, Movie poster for Caveman
Concert, © Ron Galella / WireImage
p88, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Olivia Harrison, Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
etc. © L. Cohen / WireImage P49, Roger Daltrey and Ringo Starr in Lisztomania
p91, Ringo at his 70th birthday party, © Ben Hider / (Licensed by: Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. All
Getty Images Rights Reserved.)

The Image Works All reasonable attempts have been made to contact the
P13, The Magic Christian © TopFoto / The Image copyright holders of all images.
Works
P35, Marc Bolan on a tiger © Ronald Grant Archive
/ Mary Evans / The Image Works

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 A division of Book Sales, Inc.
276 Fifth Avenue, Suite 206
New York, New York 10001

RACE POINT PUBLISHING and the distinctive Race Point Publishing logo
are trademarks of Book Sales, Inc.

© Mat Snow 2013

All photographs from the publisher’s collection, unless otherwise noted on page 95.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from
the publisher.

This publication has not been prepared, approved, or licensed by Apple Corps Ltd. or
Ringo Starr or his representatives. This is not an official publication. We recognize,
further, that some words, model names, and designations mentioned herein are the
property of the trademark holder. We use them for identification purposes only.

ISBN (4-volume set): 978-1-5526-7936-4

Author: Mat Snow

Project editor: Jeannine Dillon
Copyeditor: Steve Burdett
Interior designer: Rosamund Saunders
Cover designer: Brad Norr/bradnorrdesign.com

Front and back cover illustration: Brad Norr

Printed in China

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

www.racepointpub.com

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