The Beatles:
Resolving The Paul Is Dead Controversy
by
R.E. Prindle
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| The Album |
Sometime around or after the death of Tara Browne in an automobile accident in 1966 the rumor that Paul McCartney of the Beatles had died being replaced by a double began to circulate. The rumor itself, of course, is a fact that has been a center of controversy since 1966 although it didn‘t bloom in full until 1969 when a Detroit DJ spread the rumor through the colleges via UofM.
For my part I dismiss the notion that Paul did die and can find no solid evidence that the post-accident Paul is a double. Still the rumor calls for explanation especially in connection with the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s that depicts the demise of the whole group while it is reborn as Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The reborn group is surrounded by the pictures of, one presumes, the lonely hearts.
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| Who Can Explain These Things? |
I can’t say that I have the solution for the rumor to be sure. What I offer here is a plausible explanation based on an interpretation of the social situation created by the phenomenal success of the Beatles. That success was too great a burden for the band members to bear. If anything caused the breakup of the band that overwhelming success was a principal cause. The success far exceeded the capability of any one of the members, in other words the whole was greater than its parts. But, to recreate the environment to some extent let us consider the members of the whole entourage.
At the base we find, I think, the notorious London criminals the Kray Twins,. Ronnie and Reggie. Their gang that they called The Firm terrorized the London of the Sixties.
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| David Bailey Portrait Of Reggie And Ronnie Kray |
The Kray twins were born in 1933 making them seven to twelve during the war years. They experienced all the bombing and hardship of the war years as well as the post-war deprivation of rationing through 1954. They came from London’s East End rising through the crime ranks in the fifties to finally come into their own from 1960 to 1968. A short reign but one that coincided with the golden age of English rock and roll. The rockers were born mainly in 1942-43 making them nine or ten years younger than the Krays but still close enough in age. The rockers missed the war but faced the deprivations of the post-war years. These were character forming years for both the Krays and the rockers, primarily for us the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
The Krays were heavy handed protection racketeers moving into gambling. They, especially Ronnie, were enamored of the NYC and Philadelphia Mafia families. The Mafia families had many singers and performers under their control most notably at this time Judy Garland. When Garland performed in England the Mafia used the Krays for protection. Thus the Krays got used to associating with certain celebrities which they found exhilarating.
It was suggested to Ronnie by the Mafia that the Krays suborn English acts much as the Mafia had done with the US performers. For a good visualization of the process the 1958 film The Girl Can’t Help It is an accurate fictionalized account. The movie even features a couple of Mafia groups such as Teddy Randazzo And The Gumdrops. Right! We’d never heard of them either. Even the Mafia couldn’t promote them to fame.
Who better for the Krays to begin to build their stable than the premier English group, the Beatles?
The front line protecting the performers is always their management. The groups or singers themselves are artists not businessmen. As artists their concern is their art. They have to concentrate on their art to be successful. To realize the benefits of their art is a business. Hence managers who are businessmen enter in. The artists must trust the businessmen who are nearly all crooks so the artists were born to be fleeced. In the case of the Beatles producing all those millions and millions, they were a manager’s dream. Plus the hangers on.
Enter Brian Epstein, the manager and Robert Fraser, art dealer and hanger on.
Just as background the English managerial caste, as well as the US, were with very few exceptions Jewish and homosexual. In the late fifties and early sixties there were no groups, there were solo singer acts. These guys in most cases were not artists they were just kids off the street. Managers like Larry Parnes cast their eyes over good looking guys on the street and selected the ones that appealed to them such as Cliff Richard and the various Furys and Storms. They taught them a little stage presence, got them a good song, usually from a Jewish homosexual songwriter, put a band behind them and ballyhooed them into stardom.
Being Jewish they looked at the goi boys as so many cash cows and so they were. As Bob Dylan famously sang in Ballad Of Thin Man, ‘Give me some milk or go home.‘ However much was made from the singers efforts most went to the managers and pittances to the boys. But, then they were only created creatures, mere employees anyway.
The Beatles were dedicated artists who had a fairly long apprenticeship learning their craft in a tough environment in the red light district of Hamburg Germany. They not only developed a sound but Lennon and McCartney became a most prolifically successful songwriting team. That’s where the real money in records is and that’s where the Beatles got skinned the worst.
So they had talent but without management the talent would die on the vine. Enter manager Brian Epstein who saw their potential and acted. He was a Jewish homosexual flake but without him the Beatles would probably have become unemployed layabouts rather than wealthy rock and rollers. Brian Epstein’s rock and roll empire was born on the Beatles backs.
Brian had a couple weaknesses, drugs and gambling, other than his homosexuality that was then illegal, a crime, hence to be carefully concealed. Combined with the temptation of all those millions, there’s a recipe you’ll never find again.
Another character in the story is the avant garde art dealer Robert Fraser, also known as Groovy Bob, impeccably English but homosexual and a drug addict and, sure enough, an inveterate gambler. Fraser spent the first couple of years of the Sixties in the NYC art scene. There he was heavily influenced by Andy Warhol, less impeccably American, homosexual, but as far as we know free of the vices of gambling and drugs.
Fraser was also involved in the burgeoning Satanist scene that would take prominence beginning in 1966. He was involved with the American Satanist Kenneth Anger and through Anger the literary influence of the English Satanist Aleister Crowley and San Francisco’s Anton La Vey.
Wanting to be with it, Groovy Bob created a sort of salon for the young rock and rollers. Apparently the whole crowd, Beatles, Stones, Marianne Faithfull, Jimmy Page and the rest all hung out at Groovy Bob Fraser’s. Bob always had a plentiful supply of the best drugs.
To supply him with those drugs enter the young ambitious criminal, Spanish Tony Sanchez. Tony worked the gambling joints of the West End for the early fifties criminal Albert Dimes, an Italian. Dimes was a huge man, a fearsome enforcer, who successfully weathered his times until he died in his nineties. Either no or little jail time too.
Spanish Tony recorded his life in the Sixties in his two books, Up And Down With The Rolling Stones and I Was Keith Richards’ Drug Dealer. The latter is an updated edition of the former with additional material so the two are similar but not identical.
Tony met Groovy Bob in a bar before going to work his shift. The friendship developed and Tony began to hang at Fraser’s becoming acquainted with the Beatles, Stones and Marianne. Tony had access to drug suppliers.
Groovy Bob Fraser was the frivolous sort who found the minor details irrelevant. Thus while losing heavily in the Kray’s West End gambling joint, Esmeralda’s Barn, he paid for his losses with checks drawn on air. Any check may bounce once but Groovy Bob’s were the super balls of checks, they just kept bouncing.
I don’t have to tell you this irritated the Krays. They threatened grievous bodily harm. Bob appealed to the incipient criminal Spanish Tony to try to straighten things out. Dimes was Tony’s introduction to the Krays and according to him he worked out an agreement but Groovy Bob, well, honestly, just couldn’t find the money.
At the same time Brian Epstein had gambled and lost, gambled and lost, gambled and lost. One surmises that he made inroads into those Beatles millions that would have been difficult to explain in court. His contract with the group would expire in 1967 at which time it wouldn’t have been unreasonable for the Boys to call for an audit of the books. Not being businessmen and trusting Brian implicitly they probably wouldn’t have but the guilty Brian couldn’t count on it. Under pressure from the Krays to turn the Beatles over to them, probably suffering the pangs of guilt and befuddled by drugs, Brian either committed suicide in the summer of ‘67 or he was erased by other interested parties.
In the interim the Krays were increasing the pressure to get the Beatles from him. They had a sit down with Brian in a homosexual bar to force the issue. Brian patiently tried to explain to them that management was no bed of roses; there were a million nagging little details, heartbreaks and frustrations.
Maybe so. The Krays had earlier broached the subject of taking over the Beatles to the UK crime kingpin Arthur Thompson of Glasgow. He had advised them against it pointing out they were criminals who as a caste gave little thought to business details as did Groovy Bob Fraser and besides when it got out that the Beatles were criminally controlled it might kill their popularity. The Krays brushed the latter objection aside but paid attention to the former.
Now, the Krays had an associate named Laurie O’ Leary who had a clean record and could therefore function above ground and obtain licenses to manage clubs and an older brother Charlie who also had a clear record who could learn the management skills and establish a talent agency. That should take care of both of Arthur’s objections.
Bear in mind that part of the deal Tony worked out was that Groovy Bob was to work to bring the Beatles over to the Krays. There was a large homosexual ring recruiting young boys from orphanages for their criminal pleasure. This ring involved some notorious people of the period. One was the homosexual Tom Driberg. Driberg had made himself familiar with Mick Jagger who he tried to recruit as a politician. A fellow called Lord Boothby seemed to be the guiding light of this group. The group also included Ronnie Kray and members of the so-called Music Mafia including disc jockeys and many of those presiding over the music scene. As events have recently shown those involved in the music industry were heavily into pedophilia. How they link up to the Krays’ invasion of group management isn’t clear but I’m sure there is a connection.
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| A Picture Of Kevin MacDonald, 29 year old advertising executive according to caption.
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A Beatles fan who wishes to remain anonymous sent me a package of press clippings dealing with Kevin MacDonald. The interview below appeared in the Evening Standard of 7/28/66. Kevin MacDonald Associates included himself Terry Howard and Bruce Higham. The interview gives some idea of the nature of the enterprise.
But the ultimate fascination of Sybylla's lies in its interest to the amateur sociologist. The three founders Terry Howard, Kevin MacDonald and Bruce Higham, all young professional men in their twenties who arranged bankers and backers to support their dream, claim that their club symbolizes a social revolution personified by the linkup between Marshall Field's great grand daughter, Miss Sibylla Edmonstone and Beatle George Harrison whose respective spheres of fashionability assured the club's success.
If the success needs an explanation it gets one from the most eloquent of the founders, 28 year old advertising executive Kevin MacDonald, a great-nephew of Lord Northcliffe, who was lyrically evangelical as what Sibylla's is doing for Britain when he told me using finger clicking for punctuation: "Sibylla's is the meeting ground for the new aristocracy of Britain (click) and by the new aristocracy I mean the current young meritocracy of style, taste and sensitivity. (click) We've got everyone here. (click) The top creative people. (click) The top exporters. (click) The top brains. (click) The top artists. (click) The top social people. (click) and the best of the PYPs (swingingese for pretty young people.) We're completely classless. (click). We are completely integrated. (click) We dig the spades man. (click)
Relationships here go off like firecrackers. Everyone here's got the message. (click) Can you read it, man?"
I confess to having originally looked upon the above statements of Mr. MacDonald as complete gibberish. However, although it may be due to the heady atmosphere of Swallow St., after three nights of Sibylla's I now admit to being converted to something near to Mr. MacDonald's doctrine.As to MacDonald's death, the newspaper account state simply that it was a suicide from the tenth floor of a building that MacDonald had apparently never visited before. He was defenestrated.
It was said by finger print experts from Scotland Yard that he had been hanging from a window. Suicide is possible but defenestration is a favorite murder method of criminals such as the Krays.
MacDonald who was seeing a psychologist is alleged to have been depressed but as I read the above the guy was an A-head and probably on the down side of elation when his psychologist saw him. We do now have some idea of who MacDonald was. By the way advertising executive is a generous way of describing someone with no clients.
At this point MacDonald and others decided to open a club for the 'hipoisie' called Sibylla's. They chose to open on Swallow St. in Piccadilly. The street was a Kray hangout with three clubs already in existence. While the choice of street seems strange it may have been deliberate. In addition to all the other tops MacDonald had the top gangsters. The scene had a fascination with gangsters. David Bailey the famous fashion photographers had celebrated the Krays in his photographs so possibly Kevin thought he could play with fire and not get burned.
In addition the three mob clubs on the street a Kray associate, Laurie O' Leary was chose as the manager. He was fresh from managing the bars at the Krays gambling joint, Esmeralda's Barn.
While O' Leary professes a sort of innocence in regards to his connection to the Krays he quite clearly was operating under their umbrella. It seems probable that the club was formed and the ownership group was formed to put pressure on the Beatles through Harrison. MacDonald doesn't seem to have known the Beatles but Brown was very close to both the Beatles and Stones.
Probably pressure was put on both to force them to work on Harrison to bring the Beatles in. The two either failed or refused to do so. MacDonald, the first to go, was obviously thrown to his death from a rooftop as a first warning. When that was ignored Tara Browne died in an equally suspicious way in a late night car crash. This is important because Lennon and McCartney wrote A Day In The Life included on their Sgt. Pepper’s album to describe it. It was probably this song that gave some sort of credence for Browne replacing a dead McCartney.
The only witness to the crash was Browne’s companion in the car, a tiny Lotus, a girl named Suki Potier. While there are a plethora of details circulating about the accident such as Browne was racing McCartney down the street at 106 miles an hour, there would have been no witnesses to confirm this save McCartney and Potier and neither have anything substantial to say.
The Lotus is said to have hit a van. The wreck of the Lotus certainly indicates a very high speed yet we have no picture of the van to indicate how the crash occurred. By van is meant I suppose what we USers would call a panel truck or something equivalent to a SUV.
While Browne was killed Miss Potier escaped the really horrendous looking crash with nothing but a few bruises. This seems incredible. As the picture shows the roof is torn off the car while the hood or bonnet is driven up. The window on her side is intact. At the very least her head should have broken the windshield. It would seem probable that she would have been thrown through it or over it. The timing of the roof ripping off would have been important there.
The question is, was there an accident or was Browne killed and the accident staged. The intent of his death may have been meant as a second warning to the Beatles to surrender. So, now, why was the Paul Is Dead rumor circulated. Perhaps the first two warnings having failed Paul was targeted as next. Of course that would have been counter productive.
But if one connects the Paul Is Dead rumor to the Sgt. Pepper’s cover a possible Kray involvement through Groovy Bob Fraser is possible. The cover of Sgt. Peppers had been assigned to a Dutch commune called The Fool and had actually been completed, but Fraser persuaded the ‘Boys’ to switch to a group of his friends who then came up with a cover depicting the whole group as dead and buried.
The symbolism of the cover had never really engaged my attention till recently. On the lower right corner is a rag doll wearing a Rolling Stones sweater. The aspiring gangster and Fraser friend Spanish Tony Sanchez now indebted to the Krays through his association with Fraser had been hired by Keith Richards of the Stones as his factotum and drug procurer at a salary of 250 pounds a week as recorded in his Up And Down With The Rolling Stones and I Was Keith Richards Drug Dealer thus putting a Kray agent in the Stones. A coincidence perhaps but a mighty good paying job. I have no evidence but it is likely that Tony was forced on Keith by the Krays.
At any rate on this bizarre, less than hip cover, the Beatles are dressed in their Sgt. Pepper’s garb standing looking down at a grave labeled Beatles. Surrounding them are pictures of a band of lonely hearts, mostly dead people. So, what is the message? Join up or your group will be dead for real? In fact Paul’s Mini was involved in a crash but it was being driven by his factotum while bringing drugs to a party Paul was attending. It was likely thought that Paul was driving.
What is clear is that Fraser was unable to pay his gambling debts and had to make some move to show he was cooperating. The cover could be a very discreet attempt to show the Krays he was working on it. As he was involved in the Redlands bust of 1967 and sent to prison that at least got him off the street for a period of time. Then the Krays were busted in May of 1968 perhaps removing an immediate threat. Fraser chose the time after his release to vanish in India perhaps to avoid punishment.
Brian Epstein, dazed and confused, by his drug taking, continuing to rack up gambling debts was making his situation worse. He was probably deep into money that contractually belonged to the Beatles. In other words he had embezzled or misappropriated vast sums.
In a desperate move to generate more cash, perhaps, he had opened a Fillmore type rock emporium that would be competing with the Roundhouse. He also apparently attempted to sell his firm NEMS to RSO the Robert Stigwood Organization. As he was giving NEMS up for the fire sale price of 500,000 pounds it would seem that he was desperate for a way out.
Post-Sgt. Peppers the Krays seem to have been no closer to annexing the Beatles than before. Epstein died on August 27, 1967 from an apparent drug overdose. He intended to spend that weekend with friends at his home but suddenly changed his mind and left to return to London. No one knows what happened in London or who he may have met. It’s possible the Krays called him and commanded a meeting. A sort of now or never thing. He returned home, locked himself in his room and died in bed. Never. The door was broken down the next morning when he was found dead in his bed.
The Krays themselves were arrested in May of 1968 and never released spending the rest of their lives in prison, or, in Ronnie’s case, Bedlam.
Prior to the Krays’ arrest in May the Beatles chose February of that year to visit the Maharishi in India thus out of the country for those months.
Spanish Tony continued with Keith Richards after the Krays were sentenced although his relationship became more strained. The Krays are said to have had influence in the underworld from prison so Keith may not have thought it wise to dismiss Tony at that time. The relationship was ended in 1976 when Tony was refused backstage entry at a concert.
When Reggie Kray died at the end of the century thus leaving Tony without any protection Tony is said to have died in 2000 also.
There is a chance his death was merely rumored. There are people who think he is still alive. I have comments from a T. at the end of my essay Who Is Spanish Tony Sanchez. The email address purports to be from Spanish Tony. My email to the address went unanswered. You may read T.’s comments and see what you think. I think it is likely that Tony is still out there. Maybe actually in Spain where all good English criminals seem to go.
If anyone has definite proof of Tony’s demise don’t hesitate to communicate the fact.
There you have it. To my mind there is no question that the man killed in the car crash was Tara Browne. I find it improbable to impossible that McCartney died somehow or was killed with his being replaced by Browne after plastic surgery while the Paul Is Dead story didn’t actually gain credence until 1969.
The murders of MacDonald and Browne have to be explained. The above is my attempt to do it. More information is certainly a desideratum.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Faithfull, Marianne: An Autobiography with David Dalton: 1994, Cooper Square Press Edition, 2000
Fry, Colin: The Krays, The Final Countdown, 2001, Starlyte Limited, Reprinted 2006
Fry, Colin: The Krays, A Violent Business, 2011, Mainstream Publishing Co.
Hodkinson, Mark: Marianne Faithfull, As Tears Go By, 1991, Omnibus Press.
Hodkinson, Mark: Marianne Faithfull, As Years Go By, 2013, Omnibus Press
Kray, Charlie with Colin Fray: Doing The Business, 1993 John Blake Pub. 2011 Edition
Kray, Reggie, with Peter Gerrard: Reggie Kray's East End Stories, 2010, Sphere
O' Leary, Laurie: Ronnie Kray, A Man Among Men, 2001, Headline Book Publishing
Oldham, Andrew Loog: Stoned, 2000, Seeker and Warburg, 2001 Vintage Edition
Oldham, Andrew Loog: 2Stoned, 2002, Seeker and Warburg, 2003, Vintage Edition
Oldham, Andrew Loog: Stone Free, 2012, Escargot Books
Sanchez, Spanish Tony: Up And Down With The Rolling Stones, 1979, Da Capo Press
Sanchez, Spanish Tony: I Was Keith Richards' Drug Dealer, 2003, John Blake
Thomas, Donald: Villain's Paradise, A History Of Britain's Underworld, 2006 Pegasus
Umland, Rebecca and Sam: Donald Cammel, Life On The Wild Side, 2006, FAB Press
Vyner, Harriet: Groovy Bob, The Life And Times Of Robert Fraser, 1999, Faver and Faber
Numerous blogs but most prominently The Beatles, Conspiracy, A Dandy In Aspic, Invanddis and Another Nickel In The Machine, all outstanding blogs.
Lord Boothby was literally untouchable as he was a close friend of Winston Churchill .He was bisexual and shared boys provided by Ronnie Kray .He was extremely versatile as he was also the lover of the wife of Prime Minister Harold McMillan.The Krays felt as long as he was their associate they were safe.This turned out to be true as they actually won a libel action against a newspaper which had called them gangsters. Boothby is played by Sir Derek Jacobi in a fictionalised BBC dramatisation of the events called The Long Firm.The Krays are also portrayed in the Mick Jagger 60s film Performance.By the time the film came out they were behind bars so no doubt Mick felt safe.Micks friend Tom Driberg was a homosexual KGBagent or possible KGB/MI6 double agent and friend of Crowley.He introduced Ian Fleming to Crowley during the war so Fleming could use Crowley's occult skills in entrapping Rudolf Hess to fly to Britain.Some of JFKs women were also involved with Stephen Ward the high society pimp in the Profumo scandal that brought down the McMillan Conservative government .McMillan was followed by Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson who honoured the Beatles by giving them MBEs was later suspected of being a KGB agent and was a friend of a definite KGB agent a Lithuanian Jew called Victor Kagan.
ReplyDeleteRoy, I'll get back to you a little later. I have just posted a picture of Kevin MacDonald and new information that identifies him to some extent. Scroll down for the picture. This also changes my perception of the situation somewhat. Tell me what you think.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting piece. Can you post scans of the newspaper clippings?
ReplyDeleteYeah. I'm still organizing so it will take a couple days.
ReplyDeleteRoy: Thanks for the tip of the Long Firm. I ordered a copy. Relatively accurate, I presume?
ReplyDeleteHarold Wilson KGB? Wow. Are you following David Kynaston's post-war history? The next volume begins the sixties. It will be interesting to see his interpretation,
The Crowley connection to Driberg is new to me.
Are you suggesting Performance was held up to clear retaliation from the Krays? I was in the record business but didn't get to England until the seventies. The Krays were still feared then. I thought they were still active and was in some apprehension.
Are you aware of any biographies or histories that deal with the period that get into Driberg and Boothby. Driberg certainly seems like a sinister presence. Do you think Jagger steered clear of him or just didn't want to get into politics?
This is probably some pretty deep stuff.
Redwel: Can I post scans? I don't want to. I tried to email a copy or post them to your site but you're not taking comments.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about the scans - I managed to get them from the same source as you.
ReplyDeleteThe Boothby and Driberg angles are well worth looking into - they seem to be the kingpins in a major child sex ring at that time and Driberg tried to persuade Jagger to stand as a Labour MP. Not sure that Performance was held up for fear of retribution though there are Krays links everywhere around that film. David Litvinoff is the link that one should research if you want to join the dots: the link between east and west London. Driberg was a student of Crowley's and Crowley, apparently, wanted to meet Hess but the conspiracy there is that he was secretly brought across by members of the British royalty to negotiate a peace deal with the Nazis behind Churchill's back.
It is also true that some of the bit part players in the Profumo affair were involved with JFK but the lilkelihood is that Ward was silenced because of what he knew about the bedroom antics of the Establishment and Royalty. It is no coincidence, in my opinion that the term Beatlemania was coined to get the Profumo thing off the front pages, equally it is no coincidence that the Beatles should land in America just after the JFK assassination, for the same purpose.
Harold Wilson was the target of a right wing plot to oust him and his government: a plot instigated by the likes of Airey Neave and Mountbatten. Mountbatten, who was a member of the Thursday Club with Stephen Ward, seems to have been a key player in a conspiracy to overhrow the British monarchy and place Prince Phillip on the thrown and seems to have been another who enjoyed the company of young boys. Ultimately Mountbatten and Neave may well have been victims of the CIA rather than the IRA. It is my belief that there is a massive conspiracy concerning events in London in the Sixties and that Stephen Ward seems to be the link to it all.
Redwel: You've jelled my thinking on the Beatle phenomenon. Like you I have thought their success so weird that it had to be a conspiracy. But to think such a conspiracy could be a success seemed impossible also. I've come to the conclusion, tentatively at least, that it was just a perfect storm, everything came together at once but the elements were there.
ReplyDeleteAt the base Lennon, McCartney and Harrison were a perfect fit. Their apprenticeship in Hamburg was there for the moment. They honed their craft. Lennon and McCartney turned out to be one of the songwriting teams of the century which could not have been planned or predicted. Epstein appeared at the precise psychological moment. Starr was added who was a perfect fit. The window was open at that time. As it was said: There is a tide in human affairs; if you catch it at the right moment success is inevitable. If you miss the tide your efforts will be futile.
Epstein carpied the diem, doggedly sold the Beatles and was grudgingly assigned to George Martin. Martin who was the perfect producer for the Beatles saw the potential and exploited it. Couldn't have been planned. Epstein secured bookings; the records caught on. Epstein expanded the market getting his group a tour of Sweden.
Now, coincidentally, Ed Sullivan, the producer of his own show in the US happened to be at the airport when the Swedish girls were mobbing the Beatles. Always on the qui vive for a new sensation Sullivan chatted the Beatles up then, I presume, acting intuitively, he arranged the booking.
I never saw anything great about the Beatles but everyone else did. To me they were on a par with Dickie Do and the Don'ts or Barry De Vorzon and his song about his school colors and sister Barbara Jean. Not bad but nothing out of the way. When the Beatles; songs were released on VJ they were received as I thought they should have been, sank without a trace.
But Sullivan was a master of ballyhoo. When he signed the group Capitol Records sat up and noticed. An appearance on the Sullivan Show, the really big shoo, was the kind of break a record label prayed for. There would be sales. A reception was set up at the airport.
Now, the US had spent a tense thirteen years since the Soviets got the Bomb. The Cold War was wearing, then that idiot Kennedy was elected with his string of potential disasters for three long hard years that drove us up the wall. It was no surprise that he was assassinated, a significant percentage was praying for it including me. Eight years of that bastard would have destroyed the country especially followed by eight of that dipstick Bobby and another eight by the moron brother Teddy. So there was a feeling of relief and release after 11/22/63.
Since the death of Buddy Holly American music had been either boring or a bunch of car songs by groups like the Beach Boys. Tiresome. I turned to C&W which was healthy then 1964 revived pop.
From Kennedy's death 'til the arrival of the Beatles their was a kind of dithering not knowing what was next.
Then we were informed that the Beatles were coming like it was the return of the Savior. The build up was intense. Who the hell were the Beatles? Oh, they're all the rage in England. Yeah? When the English ever show they could rock?
The Beatles' landing was incredible, it was like something from Peter Sellers. The 707 itself was something new; the Beatles were nearly the first jet setters. Lennon and his group struck just the right note with their insouciance; that kind of bemused what's this all about? Whether you liked their music or not you liked the Beatles. They were a relief.
ReplyDeleteEd got his way, quite pleased with himself, it all worked out. Like I say, a perfect storm. It couldn't have happened any earlier or later, it was the moment, the high tide. That's my take now. What do you think?
David Litvinoff who plays Harry Flowers in Performance was a connected guy who played numerous gangster roles in TV and movies in the 1970s. He even has a bit part in Macolm Mclaren's The Great RocknRoll Swindle about the great manufactured pop hoax of the late 70s The Sex Pistols . Another interesting guy in Performance is the gangster John Bindon who also appears in the classic Michael Caine film Get Carter. Bindon plays one of the enforcers who at first work with James Fox then hunt him down. Bindon was later acquitted of murder after he carved up a rival in a nightclub. Before this however he had acquired some powerful protection in I kid you not Princess Margaret the Queens sister. Bindon met Princess Margaret on the island of Mustique the hang out of the jet set in the 60s and 70s .Princess Margaret was fond of coke and also of a bit of rough as we say in England including it is rumoured black men with their added attractions for the female of the species.When I worked for a mental health charity I met some former patients from Broadmoor the hospital for the criminally insane where Ronnie Kray was incarcerated.They all said he was a perfect gentleman who was basically treated like royalty by staff and patients alike.Monty Python once did a sketch on the Krays calling them Doug and Dinsdale Pirranha ,the infamous Pirranha brothers.One of their victims describes how they nailed his head to the floor but that he probably deserved it and that they were vicious but fair.When the Kray brothers died they were given lavish funerals with horse drawn hearses in the East End of London.Numerous Cockneys have told me over the years of how they made the streets safe by cracking down on any petty criminals who attacked women or old people.Organised crime can have its upside.On Performance I believe another connection is underground film maker Kenneth Anger who used Marian Faithful in one of his films and got imprisoned Manson Family member Bobby Bosoleil to write the musical score for another.A good and blackly humorous account of the occult scene in late sixties London is the novel Satan Wants Me by Robert Irwin.
ReplyDeleteGreat comment Roy, though I think you're thinking of Johnny Shannon in Performance. Litvinoff was a 'dialect coach'.
ReplyDeleteRoy: You certainly took the lid off the box with that one. This may take three or four posts. Jump in whenever you like. You too, Redwel.
ReplyDeleteGet Carter has a very interesting history. Stop me if you know it. Carter is part of a three part interpretation of Hemingway's short story The Killers. Read it first.
The first movie, that I know of, was Ronald Reagan starring in the movie of the same name. Good film, just short of terrific. The second effort was by John Boorman, Point Blank, staring the great Lee Marvin. Point Blank was used by Cammell as a matrix for Performance. He advised his cast to see the movie before they began filming. If they did you can measure Jagger's performance somewhat by Marvin's Walker.
Great movie, top notch. Great work by both Boorman and Marvin. I discuss Performance in a couple places, most fully in my Marianne Faithfull Chapter VII, I think.
The final film, so far as I know, was Get Carter. That resolves the bit about Walker trying to get his money referring back to the Boorman film. A good film but great if you've seen the first two.
Finally Boorman made a great V2 film called The Hope And The Glory about the bombing of the London corridor. Terrific stuff.
I've got to talk about Tony Sanchez in the mob connection and Litvinoff. I'll be back.
My apologies for confusing Shannon with Litvinoff.I think Shannon was at home in that milieu of villainy without being active in it.Whereas John Bindon was both of it and actively involved in serious villainy within it. Bindon was also involved with Angie Bowie and supplied bodyguards to Led Zeppelin. He eventually died of AIDS in the 90s ,not a particularly glamorous way for a high profile gangster to go. Hope And Glory is an excellent film which I have a DVD of.In the area of London where I live you can see the effect of the bombing because in a row of Victorian or Edwardian housing you get a few obviously post war houses mixed in .Those houses show you where the bombs fell.Also in the area both the Anglican and Catholic Churches are new because the original historic churches were destroyed in the Blitz.On the subject of Ronnie Kray there is another film where he is fictionally depicted called Villain made in 1971.It has Richard Burton in the title role.
ReplyDeleteRoy: I've been watching The Long Firm. Very nice recommendation. I am especially taken by the Jimmy segment.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting interpretation of the Billy affair. Seems entirely plausible although whether close enough to the truth or not I can't say.
I can't agree with you that there is a positive side to mobsterism though.
In the seventies I visited England a dozen times or so. Even though the Krays were in prison they were still a living presence on the street. Their reputation was terrifying although I didn't have a clue who they were.
At the time I was in the record business. In the US anyone in the record business was automatically considered a drug dealer. My store was in Eugene, a smallish town. As implausible as it may seem I was considered a major international marijuana smuggler. Of the course the Sunshine crowd were active down in Josephine County which might have rubbed off on me. I was followed everywhere. The cops was on my tail even in London. You see, I was supposed to be international so London was forewarned of my presence. It was fairly incredible.
As the cops were on me word apparently filtered down to the criminal element that I was a major smuggler. If so, I was unconnected which was not a good thing in someone else's territory. So, then I had both the cops and the crooks tailing me. I think the only thing that saved me was that nobody could figure out how I was doing what I was thought to be doing without anyone knowing how. A real Daddy Warbucks mystery figure. Not a pleasant situation, believe me. I don't know which group was worse. Not nice people even if the streets of the East End were safe for mothers with prams.
When I was young I had some run ins with British cops ,Mooney the bent cop in The Long Firm is a pretty good depiction of how they were at the time.I agree with you that gangsters are worse and are too be definitely avoided.I am glad you liked The Long Firm,the Jimmy section is definitely the best one.I thought Jimmy's acid trip with the hippy chick was particularly funny a type I remember well.There was even a small piece on the origin of skinheads.I thought the Ruby Ryder section was weakest though the Judy Garland stuff was interesting.Ruby Ryder is based on the actress Barbara Windsor star of the Carry On films of the 60s and 70s who was married to a crook in the Kray circle,I also thought Lenny the Marxist sociology professor was quite interesting.I could imagine him going on to a minor post in Tony Blair's government which was full of ex communists.The Teddy Thursby story is quite timely as a lot of that organised political pederasty is coming to light here at the moment though more in regard to the Thatcher government than the 60s.Cameron has even ordered a public enquiry. These enquiries like the commissions on your side of the pond are generally organised to put the lid on things and ensure the public that everything is under control.
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