Chapter 7 1 страница

I love him, you know. I mean, he really has made me secure enough. I do have money for the first time ever, really. . . He's a great guy, highly sensitive, highly intelligent.

John Lennon on Allen Klein, June 1971

He's a naughty boy, and he's too greedy, and he didn't do what he said he'd do, which was manage our affairs, which are in a worse state than when. . . well, according to the accountants, anyway.

John Lennon on Allen Klein, November 1973

On 2 April 1973 Allen Klein issued a statement from his office on Broadway: 'It is not now felt in the best interests of ABKCO to put forward a proposal for its continued management of Apple Corps and Messrs Harrison, Lennon and Starkey. Under these circumstances, ABKCO has terminated its efforts with respect to its possible acquisition of Apple Corps. We wish Harrison, Lennon and Starkey continued success. ' With those carefully phrased sentences Klein acknowledged that his quest for control of the Beatles was over. Divorce was inevitable, but it could be achieved with dignity.

Klein had seized the initiative, suggesting that the decision was entirely his own. His former clients disagreed. That morning John Lennon and Yoko Ono called a press conference to announce the formation of Nutopia, an imaginary country with no borders. As the self-appointed Nutopian ambassadors to the United Nations, they were claiming asylum in New York. It marked a last despairing effort to outwit US immigration officials and a symbolic farewell to their roles as political activists. It was significant that the official emblem of Nutopia was the white flag of surrender.

Lennon was asked whether it was true that Allen Klein was no longer his manager. 'We separated ourselves from him, ' he confirmed. Why? 'Why do you think? ' he snapped. 'We will go into that next time. ' Later, Lennon was slightly more forthcoming:

There are many reasons why we finally gave him the push, although I don't want to go into the details of it. Let's say possibly Paul's suspicions were right, and the time was right. . . Although I haven't been particularly happy personally for quite a long time with the situation, I didn't want to make any quick moves, and I wanted to see if maybe something would work out.

This vague comment masked the truth: for several months Lennon, Harrison and Starkey had been taking legal advice about severing their ties with Klein. He had certainly caught the scent of betrayal in the wind, as he had already asked his accountants to prepare detailed profit-and-loss figures for the Beatles' companies during his reign. In late February he pleaded his case with

Richard Starkey and George Harrison in New York. He warned them that the Beatles were in danger of failing to fulfil their obligations to EMI/Capitol, and so he had asked Allan Steckler, head of Apple's US division, to assemble two compilations of the Beatles' best-loved songs. Klein also reminded Starkey that the three Beatles and Apple still owed ABKCO a considerable sum in managerial commissions. Could he guarantee that ABKCO would get paid? Starkey unhesitatingly agreed that they would always live up to the terms of their agreement. But as he already knew, the agreement was doomed. Apple renewed the management contract for two more weeks, and then another two, before Klein's reign as manager of the Beatles Group of Companies ended on 31 March 1973.

Of the three Beatles who had signed the contract, Starkey had least reason to reject Klein. 'No matter what everyone says, he's fair, ' he had said of the American in 1971. 'He doesn't wanna shit on anyone, really. ' Klein had recognised Starkey's precarious position after the demise of the Beatles and encouraged him to pursue his acting career, even financing the Western Blindman, in which the drummer had a leading part. ^*31 Starkey was promised $150, 000 for his role, placing him among Hollywood's higher earners. But in any division of loyalties Starkey would always favour the Beatles over an outsider, and so it proved with Klein.

As Allan Steckler recalled, Klein's tragic flaw with the Beatles was not his financial ability but his handling of tiny details:

Things would happen that seemed unimportant to Klein, but much more important to the artist. I remember having a phone conversation with Klein when Ringo came in the room. I hung up, and Ringo said, 'I wanted to talk to him, can you get him back? ' So someone in the office made the call for Ringo, and was told that Klein wasn't in. Klein didn't realise that Ringo had already heard me talking to him! That kind of thing made him really pissed.

Despite the judge's damning portrayal of Klein's actions during the 1971 court case, Lennon, Harrison and Starkey had chosen to keep faith with their manager. 'He made them feel financially and artistically secure, ' Steckler reckoned. So why did they decide that Klein had to go? Steckler believed he knew the answer. 'George called me and said, " We're not re-signing with Klein, " ' he recalled. 'I asked him why, and he said, " The only way the Beatles can get together again is if Allen isn't there. I'm ready to do it, so is Ringo, and I think we can persuade John to go along with it. But if we're going to work with Paul, we need to get rid of Klein. " '

McCartney certainly felt that Klein's departure had opened a vital channel of communication. 'The only thing that has prevented us from getting together again has been Allen Klein's contractual hold over the Beatles' name, ' he commented, ignoring the personality clashes that predated Klein's arrival. Three of the four Beatles were now prepared to consider a reunion. But the fourth member quickly dampened their enthusiasm. 'The chances are practically nil, ' Lennon declared. 'And imagine if they did get together' – the choice of personal pronoun was telling – 'what kind of scrutiny would they be under? Nothing could fit the dream people had of them. So forget it, you know, it's ludicrous! '

The dream that scared Lennon was about to reveal its financial power. Early in 1973 US national magazines such as Penthouse and American radio and TV stations in the ABC network ran advertisements for The Story of the Beatles, a multi-record set that offered a rich sampling of the Beatles' 1960s catalogue alongside the pick of their solo singles. This was not an officially sanctioned replay of the past, however, but a strictly black-market affair, prompting Allen Klein to shut it down. George Harrison, Apple and Capitol Records duly filed a joint lawsuit against the distributors of the record, alleging 'illegal pirating' of the Beatles' music. One of Klein's final acts as Apple manager was to authorise two official collections of the group's greatest hits, 1962– 1966 and 1967–1970. They appeared in matching jackets, the first using the photograph from the Beatles' first album, the second opting for the near-facsimile taken in 1969 and originally intended for their Get Back album. The public appetite was voracious, and soon the two sets were jockeying for chart supremacy around the world.

Klein had originally intended the albums to accompany Neil Aspinall's documentary history of the Beatles and had consulted all four members about the track listing. McCartney refused to cooperate, however, while Lennon offered little of value. 'George controlled the choice of material on those albums more than any of us, ' he admitted. 'They sent me lists and asked for my opinion, but I was busy at the time. ' McCartney demonstrated even less interest: 'I still haven't heard them, ' he said several months later. EMI/Capitol, who released the albums for Apple, were anxious to rush the records into the stores, but a series of mysterious delays meant that they didn't appear until early April, after Klein's contract had expired, removing the obligation to pay him a percentage of the profits.

Lennon and Harrison had been less careful about their dealings with Klein. They retained the same naivety about business affairs that they had displayed during the launch of Apple, imagining that they operated in some magical dimension where their actions had no consequences. It was what allowed them to maintain their friendship with Klein and simultaneously work for his overthrow – a talent for duplicity that might have brought them success in Caesar's Rome. But they were dealing with a man who enjoyed nothing more than the forensic examination of music business accounts.

As late as March 1973 Harrison was still treating ABKCO like a bank. While he was in New York the journalist Al Aronowitz came to him with a hard-luck story and an empty wallet. Harrison agreed to lend him $20, 000, ostensibly from the funds of his US publishing company, although the cash actually came straight from Klein. The Aronowitz loan was merely the most recent example of the Beatles' generosity with Klein's money. By Klein's calculations, he had lent Harrison approximately $270, 000 over the previous two years. Lennon's debts to his manager were equally profound. Klein claimed that Lennon had borrowed almost £ 50, 000 since 1971. In addition, Klein had funded Lennon and Ono's fruitless quest to obtain custody of Kyoko Cox, which had involved travel between several countries. Those costs came to $34, 000, alongside further loans to the Lennons' company Bag Productions totalling $48, 000. Between them, Harrison and Lennon had borrowed almost $500, 000, all of which was now due for repayment.

Four years after Klein was deputed to save the Beatles from bankruptcy, their corporate affairs were in chaos. The facade was impressive: the two retrospective packages were selling in vast quantities, providing a platform for imminent albums by McCartney and Harrison. But who was managing the store? Although Apple's headquarters was still ostensibly in London, Klein had been handling its affairs from New York, where ABKCO held many crucial contracts and files. Meanwhile, the four founders of Apple were still locked in an enervating legal battle about the precise status of their joint partnership, and Apple's business affairs were under the supervision of the UK official receiver. He granted the four Beatles an increase in their monthly allowance from the partnership funds in May 1973, to protect them against the rampant inflation affecting the British economy. They were now being paid a 'salary' of £ 3, 000 apiece every month, three times more than before. But John Lennon, in particular, was in trouble, struggling to maintain a New York lifestyle while maintaining a mansion in England that he hadn't seen for nearly two years.

In late spring 1973 he and Ono negotiated the purchase of an apartment in the Dakota Building, a grandiose block on Manhattan's West Side overlooking Central Park. Their break with Klein had interrupted their cash flow, so they were forced to sell their house in Ascot, Tittenhurst Park, to Starkey and his wife. Starkey also took over the recording facility that Lennon had built but hardly ever used. Their English home wasn't their only sacrifice. For more than a year they had been paying each of the members of Elephant's Memory $200 a month. Now Lennon told the band, 'It's costing too much bread to keep you on a retainer – and I/we have no plans to tour or anything money making. ' But these savings didn't balance Lennon's books: with Klein's money now unavailable, he had to look elsewhere for personal loans.

One person retained the trust of all four Beatles. In 1967 Neil Aspinall had been asked to rescue the group from the disarray left by Brian Epstein's death. During Klein's reign he had remained on salary, keeping a discreet eye on the London office while leaving Klein's supremacy unchallenged. Now his moment had come, and all four Beatles were happy to reinstall him as Apple manager, under the supervision of the official receiver. Aspinall couldn't repair the Lennon/ McCartney relationship, but he could ensure that both men were equally informed. His position was only tenable if he didn't take sides: he might once have been closer to Lennon, but now he had to maintain a diplomatic show of neutrality. And so he slipped into a routine of constant attention to the Beatles' demands which required him to be on call throughout the 16hour transatlantic working day. It was a role that won him their undying trust and a handsome salary but took a fearful toll on his health. And trust did not always equal respect. 'You have to remember that Neil started out as their roadie, ' one insider said. 'Even when he was running the company, they still regarded him as the guy who carried their amplifiers and got them sandwiches. ' There could be no complaints about his commitment, however. 'He worked very hard to preserve the Beatles' legacy, ' said publisher Sean O'Mahony, who often negotiated with Aspinall. 'He could be a difficult bugger, but that was his job. '

As early as mid-April 1973 lawyers and accountants began to meet regularly in New York to discuss the consequences of Klein's departure. McCartney's interests were protected by the Eastmans, but the other Beatles now needed personal representation. There would no longer be any collective management; each man picked his own adviser. Lennon chose US lawyer Harold

Seider, who had previously worked for Klein and had an intimate knowledge of the contractual web. Starkey opted for Hilary Gerrard, a 40-year-old Londoner who became his personal manager and ultimately his representative on the Apple board. Harrison, meanwhile, had been introduced to Denis O'Brien, an American lawyer and banker who had previously handled Peter Sellers' affairs. In early July 1973 Harrison asked O'Brien to become his business manager. In a hint of the contractual complications to come, Harrison signed the deal on a personal basis with O'Brien, who then officially commissioned his own company, Euroatlantic Ltd, to do the work. Meanwhile, O'Brien was not paid by Harrison, but by his publishing company, Harrisongs Ltd. This arrangement depersonalised the contract between the two men and ensured that lawyers would struggle to understand its full ramifications.

Unbeknown to the Beatles, the British government was taking a keen interest in their financial affairs. The Inland Revenue was pursuing Harrison for tax from the Bangladesh film and album; as he had been warned, the proceeds from both projects were treated as his personal income, even though he donated all the money to charity. He eventually fed the government's uncharitable greed with a personal cheque for one million pounds – bitter reward for his generosity. Under the circumstances it seemed somewhat churlish that Harrison and Lennon were also under investigation by the Bank of England. There were precise rules limiting the money that British citizens could carry in and out of the country, and the bank had unearthed the loans from ABKCO, which appeared to breach UK law. For several months officials were employed to delve into the details of these loans, before deciding that although the transfers were technically illegal the sums involved were too trifling to repay any further effort.

No amount of money was too small, however, to escape the attention of those who were squabbling over the Beatles' fortunes. The four now inhabited two mutually antagonistic worlds, as pawns of the legal profession, and as flourishing artists and entertainers. Their music produced the money that paid for the businessmen, while Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starkey tried to pretend that none of the problems touched them or their work. Their fans had no inkling that their lives were now dominated by business and legal disputes. In retrospect, it is amazing that any of them managed to function under this pressure, let alone that two of the group were able to create their most enduring solo work.

Lennon faced additional burdens: he was still being pursued by the US immigration department, and was close to exhausting his possible grounds for appealing against deportation. 'I tried to call him, ' said his friend Gail Renard, 'and I got a message back from his people, which said, " I'm in a bad way and I'm not seeing anyone. " ' Meanwhile, his marriage was failing. It didn't help that while he was experiencing a creative drought Yoko Ono was recording a dozen feminist songs, just six months after completing her last double album. This time Lennon kept his distance from the sessions, though he was inveigled into making a cameo appearance as a henpecked husband. 'I was just having fun, ' Ono explained, 'but also I was trying to show what we go through, what men tell women. How do you like it when we say it? ' In an attempt to keep pace, Lennon used Ono's band to cut his own Mind Games album, exploring familiar themes in conventional ways. It did nothing to alter his status as the least commercially successful Beatle. Yet he displayed no appetite for the obvious solution to his financial problems: 'The only talk about Beatle reunions comes from people at the side of the Beatles who want to put us together and make millions and millions of dollars. And I'm not interested in that, or in playing with the old team again. '

On the title track of his Living in the Material World album George Harrison devoted a laboured but affectionate verse to his Beatle colleagues, before pledging his allegiance to 'the spiritual sky' rather than the terrain of dollars and pounds. To reinforce his lack of interest in the objects of this earth, he diverted the proceeds to the Material World Charitable Foundation Trust, which continues to fund worthy causes to this day. Both the album and its single, 'Give Me Love', topped the US charts, repeating the success of All Things Must Pass two years earlier. But the prevailing tone of the record was moral disapproval, never an attractive quality in a popular entertainer.

There was no underlying message on Starkey's first pop album, simply titled Ringo. Besides the collaboration with Lennon and Harrison on 'I'm the Greatest', it included one hit single co-written with Harrison ('Photograph') and another featuring McCartney ('You're Sixteen') – both also reaching No. 1 in America. As Starkey explained, he was able to force McCartney's hand: 'I said, " John and George have written me a song. You're not going to be left out, are you? " So he wrote me a song. And whoever wrote the song worked on it. ' The album set a precedent for Starkey's entire career: he would rely on his friends and his charm, and if both were on tap, then the results were usually appealing. The appearance of all four Beatles on his album reinforced the hope that they might soon collaborate in a more formal setting. Even Lennon was gradually warming to the idea: 'There's always a chance. As far as I can gather from talking to them all, nobody would mind doing some work together again. But if we did do something, I'm sure it wouldn't be permanent. We'd do it just for that moment. '

While Lennon, Harrison and Starkey continued to draw on the same reservoir of musicians, producers and studios, collaboration was always a possibility. Paul McCartney, however, remained defiantly in his own orbit. His band Wings had taken time to settle. EMI Records advised him not to release a proposed double album, Red Rose Speedway, because the material was substandard. McCartney must have been irked when Yoko Ono issued her own two-record set on Apple. The shortened version of Wings' album was little more impressive, though it did spawn one of the year's four chart-topping singles by an ex- Beatle, the sickly 'My Love'. (Lennon was the only Beatle who missed out on this achievement. ) It was accompanied by an insipid TV special unrecognisable as the work of the man who had conceived MagicalMystery Tour. And Wings finally undertook a British tour, their deliberately brief performances convincing most critics that the band did have an artistic purpose.

Those members of Wings whose surname wasn't McCartney continued to chafe at his non-democratic working methods, and viewed the mounting speculation about a Beatles reunion with resignation. 'I don't suppose we'll be forever together, ' commented guitarist Henry McCullough. 'I'm sure Paul's got more of a tie to the Beatles than to Wings. ' In fact, McCullough acted first, leaving the band (with Denny Seiwell) shortly before they were due to fly to Nigeria to record another album, in August 1973. This offered McCartney the perfect excuse to abandon his group and resume his solo career. Instead, he elected to continue as the leader of a trio, assuming the roles of drummer and lead guitarist himself.

Separation was in the air during the final months of 1973. Wings' personnel crisis paled alongside the traumas confronting the other Beatles. George Harrison's marriage to Pattie Boyd had been stale for several years, and their mutual friend Eric Clapton was still encouraging Boyd to leave her husband. Boyd attempted to refresh her marriage, but felt increasingly estranged by Harrison's spirituality and cocaine use. During 1973 their house became a haven of adulterous intrigue. While Harrison holidayed with Krissie Wood, Boyd enjoyed a brief affair with Krissie's husband Ronnie. Clapton visited the house regularly, barely attempting to conceal his desperate passion for Boyd. To complete the circle of dangerous liaisons, Harrison began a relationship with Richard Starkey's wife Maureen. 'She was the last person I would have expected to stab me in the back, ' Boyd recalled, 'but she did. ' Boyd tried to warn Starkey, who didn't believe her until – as she wrote later – 'George, in front of everyone, proceeded to tell Ringo that he was in love with his wife. Ringo worked himself up into a terrible state and went about saying, " Nothing is real, nothing is real. " ' When the affair ended, the Starkeys' marriage soon collapsed. Maureen Starkey was so upset that she deliberately drove her motorcycle into a brick wall, causing such extensive facial injuries that she had to undergo plastic surgery. By February 1974 the Harrisons had also separated, and Boyd began a long and eventually traumatic relationship with Clapton.

Only the barest details of these marital upsets reached the media. It would be many years, for example, before Harrison's affair with Starkey's wife was revealed. Neither of the Beatles hinted at a rift, and time eventually repaired the wound, as it did the friendship between Clapton and Harrison. John Lennon could not escape so easily. He had chosen to portray his relationship with Yoko Ono as one of the century's great love affairs, and when it failed he had nowhere to hide. The vast majority of the public had no idea who Harrison or Starkey had married, but the single identity of Johnandyoko was burned into the global retina. By September 1973 gossip columnists were reporting that the Lennons had separated. His childhood friend Pete Shotton recalled, 'He said it was just that Yoko and he had been getting on each other's nerves, so they'd decided to take a break for a year. I asked him where Yoko was, and he said, " Oh, just screwing around somewhere. " ' It was generally assumed that, as the man, Lennon was the motivating force behind the break-up; only after his death did it emerge that Ono had not only expelled him from their New York apartment, but also arranged for him to seek consolation with their young assistant May Pang. Lennon wrote optimistically to Derek Taylor, 'Yoko and me are in hell, but I'm gonna change it, probably this very day, ' but this was a wildly unrealistic assessment of the situation.

Journalist Chris Charlesworth met Lennon soon after his separation from Ono. 'I got the impression that he seemed to be very isolated, ' he recalled, 'or rather he had chosen to isolate himself. It was almost as if he was homesick, though he would later deny that. ' Lennon could have abandoned the immigration case and returned to Britain, and possibly even to McCartney, but that would have meant accepting that his relationship with Ono was over. Instead, he insisted that nothing serious was happening, that Pang was merely an aide, not a lover, and that (as he told Charlesworth) he and Yoko were 'just playing life by ear, and that includes our careers. We occasionally take a bath together and occasionally separately. . . I know people are calling from England suggesting we've split up. It's not so. '

Lennon had now broken his ties with the Beatles, banished Klein (like so many father figures in the past) and was separated from Ono, on whom he had depended for five years. His new companion was charming, beautiful – and a former employee, many years younger than him, who could not provide the psychological security that was his greatest need. For the first time since his teens he was effectively alone, forced to trust his own logic and rely on his own resources. He had no idea where to start. So he stumbled into an ill-fated project in California, recording vintage rock 'n' roll tunes under the extremely erratic guidance of Phil Spector, who facilitated Lennon's penchant for alcoholic and chemical excess, and outstripped it with his own. Outside the studio Lennon's life was now dominated by legal hearings. Even his work was being shaped by the lawyers, who had negotiated a truce in the case regarding 'Come Together' and Chuck Berry's 'You Can't Catch Me'. Rather than claiming royalties, Berry's publisher, Big Seven Music, agreed that Lennon would cut three of their songs on his oldies album.

Lennon knew that he was walking on fire. 'He didn't used to drink with Yoko, ' recalled his friend Steve Gebhardt, 'maybe just an occasional glass of wine at dinner. He said, " I have a problem if I do this. It doesn't do me any good. " ' But now those self-imposed boundaries were erased. 'John would drink a bottle of brandy or vodka a day, ' May Pang said of these troubled sessions. 'I was so naive at that time that I did not realise that John was also on heroin. ' Lennon's vocal performances were certainly raucous and chaotic, such as the take of 'Just Because' that subsided into a drunken rant about the charms of his backing singers. 'I want to suck your nipples, baby, ' he leered, before admitting, 'I need some relief from my obligations. A little cocaine will set me on my feet. ' And all the while Spector's gargantuan arrangements matched the incoherence pouring from Lennon's mouth. Within weeks the sessions had collapsed.

Lennon's 'obligations' in 1973 were headed by a barrage of lawsuits from his former manager. On 16 June, ABKCO sued George Harrison for the money he had borrowed from Allen Klein. Two days later Lennon sent May Pang to ABKCO's office to collect dozens of master tapes for Apple releases that Klein had accumulated since 1969. Lennon and Klein corresponded amicably over the summer, Lennon signing one note, 'Love John, President, Apple Records Inc(apacitated! )'. Meanwhile, Klein fired lawsuits at Lennon and Apple: an action to recover loans of $226, 000 from one of the company's US subsidiaries; another to regain $153, 000 from Apple Films; a third to reclaim the money Lennon owed Klein; and a bumper bundle of no fewer than 42 suits, filed in a single action against all four of the Beatles, Yoko Ono, nine of their companies, a lawyer and a further ten John Does. Klein demanded the immediate settlement of his management commissions and expenses from 1969 onwards, which he alleged had been underpaid by more than $6 million, and a further $23 million that he claimed was due for services rendered. The final charge was that all the defendants had been involved in a conspiracy to deprive ABKCO of its rightful income, for which it was now claiming more than $10 million in punitive damages.

All these cases were filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, and entailed depositions, affidavits, subpoenas and all the rigmarole associated with the legal machine. Apple's lawyers began to assemble an equally vigorous defence, claiming that the personal loans had all been repaid, that the demands for management commission were either erroneous or overblown, and that in any case several of the companies named in ABKCO's suit could not be sued in America, as they did not trade there. There were countless hearings and conferences, all of which ate away at both sides' capital without any progress being made.

On 18 October 1973 a special meeting of Apple executives was held at the London offices in St James's Street, into which they'd moved earlier in the year, vacating their more expensive home at Savile Row. Two weeks later Apple opened a second front, hoping to isolate Klein in foreign territory and cut off his retreat. Besides suing the Beatles in New York, he would now have to defend himself in London. The primary case featured Klein and ABKCO as defendants, under fire from no fewer than 32 plaintiffs, including all the Beatles except McCartney, plus Ono and every imaginable member of the famous Beatles Group of Companies. Apple alleged that Klein had failed to tell Lennon, Harrison and Starkey that they needed to take independent legal advice before they signed their management deal with him, and failed to ensure that they understood the full implications of what they were signing. It was a curious line of defence, giving the impression that they were no more than children, incapable of acting in their own best interests without constant supervision. (Embarrassingly, Lennon and Harrison had signed an affidavit in February 1971 confirming that the deal had been fully explained to them. ) Apple asked for the original management deal to be annulled, and for Klein to return much of the money he had already been paid in commissions – some of which, they said, he had calculated at a grossly excessive rate.