Published by Plumray Books
Now available in print and as an ebook from Amazon
Ray Connolly writes: ‘Most books about the Beatles are by writers who never met them. I was a journalist and knew all of them, using my little Sony cassette machine to record interview after interview with them. This book contains many of those interviews.
‘As a journalist I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time, John Lennon confiding in me that he’d left the band months before it became public knowledge, and Paul McCartney later asking me to interview him so that he could explain his side of the break up.
‘Before that I’d been to Beatles’ recording sessions, was a frequent Apple visitor, followed the Magical Mystery Tour around England and later was in the front row of George Harrison’s concert for Bangla Desh in New York – while Ringo appeared in a movie I wrote called That’ll Be The Day.’
Now republished for the first time since originally written – and some later never published before, the articles include:
The Magical Mystery Tour – ‘Maybe we goofed,’ says Paul;
Home, culture and Lady Madonna – Paul; Ringo back from meditating – ‘It was just like Butlins’;
‘Sometimes I go to John’s house and play with his toys and sometimes he comes and plays with mine’- Ringo;
The Apple boutique…from take-away to give-away;
The enigmatic Yoko;
Paul talking about the White Album;
Great and turbulent times at Apple;
‘If George leaves, he leaves…’ said John, during the unhappy filming of Let It Be;
On the roof – the last gig;
Paul marries Linda and John marries Yoko;
The Ballad of John and Yoko;
There are various ways of doing business…and there’s Allen Klein’s way.
Elvis, Dylan, John Lennon and me;
Paul talks about the Abbey Road album;
‘Paul is dead’ and John’s MBE goes back to the Queen;
The day the Beatles died;
‘I’ve left the Beatles…’ said John;
A weekend in Canada with the Lennons;
‘You’re the journalist, not me…’ said John;
Paul on ‘Why the Beatles broke up’;
A note about George;
John and the Ignoble Alf;
John talking about his songs;
John…‘performing flea’ or ‘crutch for the world’s social lepers’?;
Beatles in court;
George and the Concert for Bangladesh;
Imagine that’s the B-side;
John and Yoko’s early days in New York;
Michael X and John;
‘No more four gods on stage’, says John;
Ringo in the movie That’ll Be The Day.
Paul on how he turned down John’s invitation for them to play together again;
John’s Lost Weekend;
Paul and his favourite songs;
Paul – the Japanese Jailbird;
Unimaginable – December, 1980;
Mark Chapman and what turns a fan into a killer;
The story of ‘Working Class Hero’ – the Beatles movie that never was;
Twenty years after Sergeant Pepper – hit and myth?
Paul talks about the Beatles Anthology;
Linda McCartney 1941-1998;
The story of Paul and Linda;
‘That’s the youngest tramp I’ve ever seen,’ when George first went to the Cavern;
Paul back at the Cavern.
George is stabbed;
John, the FBI and MI5;
Hospitals, gangs, drums and Ringo;
Has Yoko whitewashed John’s image?;
George the reluctant Beatle 1943-2001;
Paul in Las Vegas;
Liverpool Dr Winston O’Boogie Airport;
Mal Evans – the gentle giant;
‘That was so cruel, inhuman…’ Cynthia Lennon;
Whatever happened to Ringo;
Pete Best…the man with a knife in his back;
My lost Beatle interviews;
A degree in Beatleology;
‘Save Abbey Road’;
Lennon the Unfunny – never;
Produced by George Martin;
Afterword: ‘What if they’d failed the audition…?’