Magical Mystery Tours

by Tony Bramwell

  There were trips to America with Ron Kass to discuss business. The Beatles still weren’t mature enough or experienced enough to treat Apple seriously. This was hardly surprising considering that they were still only in their twenties. Apple was like a leaky bucket, a personal plaything that was on the verge of collapse. The company was expanding wildly out of control, with no one in charge of it overall. The accountants—the same ones who had told them that they had to spend money or it would be taken away, now told the Beatles that for every £10,000 spent, they had to bring in £120,000 because of their huge tax exposure.

  To add to their woes, when the Beatles had moved out of the old building in Wigmore Street to Savile Row, all their financial paperwork and tax returns were put into that London taxi, never to be seen again, and now the taxmen were breathing heavily down their necks. One of the biggest problems that emerged was that the Epsteins had substantial estate duties to pay on Brian’s estate. Despite saying he would never “sell them down the river,” Clive quickly tired of the confusion, the muddle and the bickering and wanted a simpler life. He started looking for a buyer for Nemperor, the company that had absorbed NEMS and the part of Northern Songs that he and Queenie had inherited. Thanks to Brian’s underhand personal insurance deal with EMI, Nemperor didn’t have to do anything but they’d still collect 25 percent of the Beatles’ earnings for a further nine years. When the Beatles heard that a city investment company, Triumph Investment Trust, had offered a million pounds for Nemperor, they were enraged at the idea that some big anonymous corporation could take them over through the back door. Almost any sacrifice would be worth it to get out from under such an insult.

  Paul immediately got on the telephone to Linda’s father, Lee Eastman, to ask if he could come over as a matter of urgency to help sort things out, but Lee was so busy he made the tactical error of sending his son. John Eastman had studied law at Harvard. He was sharp, but young and the other three Beatles wanted someone with gravitas. They discussed it among themselves and came to the conclusion that while Eastman Jr. might lack his father’s status when put up against the big-city guns, he was all they had. John Eastman set up a meeting with Sir Joseph Lockwood and Lazards, the merchant bankers, to work something out. All four Beatles, plus Yoko—who had a high and lonely opinion of her business acumen, and perhaps she was eager to find out about the money—met at EMI to discuss Nemperor and Apple matters over tea and biscuits.

  Eastman had a solution. He suggested that the Beatles buy Nemperor themselves. “How much of an advance do you need?” Sir Jo asked. When told the amount was £1.25 million, he looked at Lord Poole, who nodded. He said they would look at the figures, but it appeared a sound investment. He further said he would help sort out their affairs at no charge. It was a generous offer and the Beatles should have accepted; but they dithered and a monster moved in.

  Allen Klein was a multimillionaire but sometimes used to wear filthy white poloneck sweaters under food-stained jackets. From the moment he had heard the news of Brian’s death, he had tried to get his foot in the door, but he had only one telephone number, that of our office manager, Peter Brown, whom he had first met on the Stones’ boat in New York. He called repeatedly, begging to be allowed to talk to John. Why John. I don’t know. Perhaps he had already figured out that Paul would be a hard nut to crack where fraudsters like himself were concerned. But Peter, who had no intention of letting this brash New Yorker in, continued to stonewall him. Klein tried another route. He got Tony Calder, a former comanager of the Stones, to approach Derek Taylor, with whom he was friends. Tony came by the offices, and over a glass or two of vodka, broached the subject. Derek passed on the message to John that Allen Klein was staying at the Inn on the Park and urgently wanted to meet with him.

  “What for?” said John. “What for?” said the echo.

  In all innocence, Derek said, “Look, he got an amazing deal for the Stones with Decca. They gave them a huge advance and a heavy percentage on their record sales, unlike Brian, who got you no advance and a joke royalty. He wants to help you.”

  “He’s American,” said Yoko. “I like Americans.”

  John and Yoko turned up at the brand-new glass and marble hotel that evening for dinner with Klein. Instead of being put off by Klein’s squalid appearance, they decided they liked his down-to-earth attitude. I had met him around the Stones before his assault on Apple and there is no doubt that he was amusing and good company. He had cleverly prepared his brief by heavily researching his target. First, he had asked Mick Jagger who was who and what was what in the Beatles’ social structure. Mick was the one who, early on, when he was pro-Klein and their business affairs were a mess, unwittingly told him to focus on John, something he regretted.

  As they chitchatted over dinner, Klein artlessly told John and Yoko about his struggle in life, how he was an orphan who had clawed his way up out of the gutter to become a highly successful accountant with top clients in the music field. John admired that. Then Klein discussed every one of the Beatles’ records, cleverly picking out the lyrics that John had written. Klein couldn’t have known that John was sensitive about being slightly dyslexic, but he had guessed correctly that John resented being seen as the junior partner. John and Yoko were very pleased with Klein’s obvious interest in music. None of the other possible managers had a clue what they were about. Most of all, they were taken in by his magnificent promises. He trotted out the old chestnut he used on all potential clients of how he had approached Bobby Darin at a wedding where they were both guests. “I can get you one hundred thousand dollars,” he told Bobby.

  “How?” Bobby asked suspiciously.

  “No catch—no cost to you. Let me just go through your books.” The story of how he had then conjured the money out of thin air unrolled like a magician’s Persian carpet. He concluded by telling them he could get them Nemperor Holdings for nothing; he could get a deal from EMI similar to the Stones’ deal with Decca and—the clincher—he could get Yoko a huge distribution advance for her films. He hadn’t seen one, but called them great.

  John and Yoko were beguiled. John immediately wrote on the piece of hotel notepaper that Klein proffered, From now on Allen Klein handles all my stuff. He signed it and gave it to Klein. When a copy of this note was handed around our offices the next day, it really put the cat among the pigeons.

  “We haven’t agreed to this,” Paul said. “We’ve got John and Lee Eastman to help sort us out.”

  “No,” John said. “You’ve got John and Lee. I’ve got Allen Klein.”

  John and Yoko somehow convinced George and Ringo to appoint Klein in charge of their affairs as well. He said that Klein knew a great deal about music, managed their buddies, the Stones, and, crucially, he was independent, while the Eastman clique of Paul-Linda-John-Lee was all one sided. When news got out of the ill-advised appointment, Mick Jagger came straight round and told the Beatles under no circumstances should they go with the shady accountant. The Stones had been with Klein for some time and wanted out.

  Mick and Keith both had exotic houses in Cheyne Walk in Chelsea down by the river, each of them decorated in rich fabrics and dark, sludgy colors. When John and I dropped in to one of Mick’s parties, the conversation soon got around to Klein. Mick immediately said, “Keep away. He’s messed us right up, man.”

  Keith agreed. “We had to escape to the Matto fuckin’ Grosso to get away. It’s how ‘Honky Tonk Women’ came about.”

  John was instantly interested, because he loved everything about it. Keef smiled and said, “We’re in the Matto fuckin’ Grosso on this ranch, and there’s more cowboys around than in Texas. And me and Mick are like, hanging out on the front porch and doin’ all this country stuff which I love. We’re doin’ our Hank Williams thing drinking loads of Jack Black and beer and wearing all the gear. Three sheets to the wind, I play him a thing I’ve got called ‘Country Honk.’ We did it really slow and we work it up and we’re thinking, Jesus! Can’t give this to the Stones. They’ll
take the piss. What? Charlie? Bill? No way! They’ll down tools and fuck off to the pub.

  “But, we did. We took a chance and it might have been the words or whatever, I don’t know, but they just locked into that offbeat and it got louder and it changed and it got more raucous but it was still country.”

  At this point Keith picked up an acoustic and played it as it started out, Hank Williams’ style, like “Your Cheating Heart.” Then he played it how it ended up.

  “But only the Americans really cottoned on,” said Mick. “They sussed us out and they didn’t care. They worked it out and took it to their bosom but in those days in England if you said you’re doing a country song they laughed their bollocks off. Still do.”

  John said, “Yeah. You’re right. Good song that, but if me and Paul wrote it we would have had to give it to Ringo to sing. Then, next thing you know, because he fancies himself as a fookin’ dancer he’d wanna be out front like Mick giving it all the moves and all the pouting and—I mean, we can’t be having that in the Beatles can we?”

  And the night went on, singing, pantomiming, dancing and dissecting the song and apportioning lines and parts to various friends. Funnily enough I still love the song. Written by two very talented hillbilly shouters from Dartford Kent while they drank and played at being cowboys out on the Matto “fuckin” Grosso. That’s the music business for you.

  That night was a welcome relief from what was still a big issue yet to be resolved. Despite Mick and Keith’s warning, John had this sort of New York/New Jersey “street-fighting” idea of Klein being his champion now against the London accountants, upper-class crooks, and against Paul’s choice of the gentlemanly Eastman as their new white knight. Yoko always professed to being a businesswoman. It’s possible she may have picked up a few financial buzzwords along the way; after all, she was a banker’s daughter. She also had John’s money to play with; but it was obvious she knew nothing. She hadn’t proven herself yet. At the time, even the arts community didn’t take her seriously. In my opinion, Yoko thrived on conflict. Voting for Klein was another way of stirring things up. It was a matter of: “You want to get through to John? Then talk to me. I have his ear.”

  We mocked her around the office: “I have his caviar. I have his toast. I was on the barricades. I played Middle Earth, you know. Call me number one. Bring me my ladder. Bring me my hammer of burning gold. Bring me, bring me . . .”

  Meanwhile, Yoko and Tony Cox had been hard at work negotiating their divorce. John had rather unwisely told Yoko that he would settle with Cox for whatever it took, so perhaps not surprisingly, what it took was a very large amount of money. During their time in London Mr. and Mrs. Cox had earned next to nothing. Mr. Cox had charmed money out of banks and film labs. In a similar way, long before they had a real relationship, Yoko had used John’s name as collateral for her art exhibitions and numerous other expenses. They owed money for back rent, and loans. It all came to a massive £100,000. In addition, John agreed to give Cox a substantial sum that would enable him to resettle himself and Kyoko in comfort in the Virgin Isles. John’s lawyers and business advisers at NEMS winced, but John Winston Lennon didn’t care what it cost. He wanted Cox gone and he was convinced that he wanted Yoko. Later, it may have been love, but I have no doubt that, from the start, at least where the Coxes were concerned, it had all been about money.

  The Beatles had changed dramatically in appearance and attitude from the lovable “moptops.” Since its inception, they had been at the forefront of the hippie movement. But since the offices were in Savile Row, it was an upmarket kind of peace, love and brown rice. In fact, it was a bank waiting for Butch and Sundance to turn up and rob it. As it turned out, the robbers were not nearly as charming and well mannered as Butch and Sundance. Helplessly, our hands tied, we stood there and watched it happen.

  Klein moved to London early in 1969 for a solid block of time. In the U.S. he used to manage Sam Cooke and the Cameo Parkway label. Many of the big British acts he owned a part or all of ended up under his banner because initially he had negotiated contracts for what was called the British Invasion. He had signed the Stones to Atlantic, Herman’s Hermits to MGM, and Dave Clark to Epic in the U.S.—and then he signed them to himself.

  He took a flat nearby at Hyde Park Gate—paid for by Apple—so he could be in early and out late. He basically moved into Apple from that moment. He didn’t go to lunch, had sandwiches at his desk, while he pored over the vast amount of paperwork that had accumulated over the years. What he saw must have filled his heart with joy. Page after page of bank statements with rows of zeroes at the bottom showed him the hundreds of millions that had poured in, and were still pouring in. But, where was it going? Who had it all? Klein told the Beatles he would get to the bottom of everything and make them richer than they believed possible. In the process, he would enrich himself as well, since three of the four Beatles had blindly agreed to give him 20 percent of everything extra he brought in over and above what they had already been earning. In effect, he had become an equal shareholder with them, all on his unproven assurance that he was equal to the job and without having to expend any of Brian’s early efforts.

  Paul was the only thorn in his side. Paul refused to sign the contract and walked out of the offices. This left things in limbo, since according to the terms of the Beatles’ partnership agreement, all their business decisions had to be agreed by quorum. It might seem remarkable that Klein so quickly acquired this degree of power over the Beatles’ affairs. But bizarre at it might seem, the matter of the quorum was totally ignored. It might even have been that none of the Beatles were really aware that this clause had been written into their partnership contract by Brian. I doubt if at that stage any of them even had a copy. Three Beatles backed Klein, blindly following John’s lead, and he had walked in, given himself an office and corralled all the paperwork. Some of the old-timers, like Neil Aspinall and Peter Brown, had objected, but Klein was a like a Panzer tank—solid, aggressive and ruthless—and besides, three Beatles supported him. For Paul, it was wildly frustrating, but he simply didn’t know how to get rid of him without physically ejecting him and changing the locks, and obviously he couldn’t do that on his own without support. Paul even shouted at Klein and told him to go away but Klein baldly ignored him and continued to take charge.

  Paul didn’t want what was happening at Apple to overshadow a more important event in his life. He and Linda were married at Marylebone Registry Office on March 12, 1969. I knew his plans, as did Mal and Peter Brown, who were Paul and Linda’s witnesses, but apart from that, very few people were informed. The press heard and arrived in force at an affair so low key that Linda dressed in an old tweed overcoat, tailored plain wool frock and sensible shoes. George and Pattie rushed in late for the wedding breakfast because the drug squad had raided them that morning. Once again, the raid was led by Sergeant Norman Pilcher, the same policeman who had raided John and Mick Jagger and Keith Richard, accompanied by his notorious drug-sniffing dog, Willie.

  George was at the office with us when Pattie telephoned about the bust. He was very angry, but calm. He asked to speak to Sergeant Pilcher and said, “Birds have nests, animals have holes, but man hath nowhere to lay his head.” He told Pattie to give them the grass kept in a box on the mantelpiece, “or they’ll wreck the joint.”

  By way of a honeymoon, Paul and Linda flew to New York to introduce Paul to the family. They spent two weeks at the handsome Eastman house in the wealthy suburb of Scarsdale where Linda’s father, John, and her stepmother lived. They also went to see Linda’s mother. On their return to the U.K., they disappeared to Scotland, a country Linda had fallen in love with. The run-down farmhouse with its primitive furniture—much of it made by Paul from orange boxes and mattresses—was a big contrast to the luxurious houses the Eastmans lived in, but Paul and Linda felt far more relaxed there. They remained out of sight for months. Paul wanted to get away from everything while he secretly wrote and recorded an album entirely on
his own, to be called McCartney. He completed it himself in Cavendish Avenue, assisted by Linda, using hired recording and mixing equipment.

  Two days after Paul and Linda were married, as if scoring points, John and Yoko attempted to do the same, on a ferry sailing out of Southampton. They drove to Hampshire to pick up Mimi for the event (later Mimi was to say about Yoko, “I should have told John what I really thought”) but their plans were thwarted because the captain didn’t “do” weddings at sea; and more importantly, Yoko’s U.K. visa had long expired. Instead, they flew to Paris in a private plane, neatly evading passport control, but they couldn’t marry in Paris either and ended up on “the Rock.” Gibraltar was British territory, and finally they married on March 20.

  Cynthia had divorced John in the High Court of London on the grounds of his adultery with Yoko on October 28 the previous year. This first stage is known as a decree nisi. The decree absolute comes through six months later, which allows time for a reconciliation or for any legal issues to surface. When Yoko announced that she was pregnant—although she shortly miscarried—it seems that the judge made the decree absolute with immediate effect. Had this not happened, since Gibraltar was British territory, they would have married while John was still technically married to Cynthia. John and Yoko had already tried a marriage of sorts in an artistic event they described as “An Alchemical Wedding” on December 18, 1968, at the Royal Albert Hall. Dressed entirely in white, they writhed around a bit within a large white bag while their Two Virgins tapes played away in the background.

  The other Beatles told the press that they didn’t know John and Yoko had married until they bought the record, “The Ballad of John and Yoko.” They were making a point because Paul, who had worked on it, was credited, not in his name but as “A Beatle.”