Allan Klein dies

Maybe I should have entitled the thread "RIP Allan Klein," but I'm not sure anyone here would agree that this sleazebag, who did as much as anyone (and more than most) to break up the Beatles, deserves to RIP.

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/music/article/661087

 

Yeah, Yoko has always gotten the rap for breaking up the Beatles, but Klein forming a wedge between Paul and the other three was the main reason. And it happened quickly.

 

You're right. The other guys had already shown that they could more or less live with Yucko, but there was no way in hell that Paul was going to allow Klein to represent his affairs.....not when he had Linda's father and brother ready to step in.

Eventually he was proven right, but the partnership had been irreparably severed by then.

 

Paul did more than anyone to break up the band, because what he did affected the music and the "product" of the band. Re-enter the studio to re-record his own drums over Ringo's during the White Album sessions (after six years as a band? really?) Attempt to take control of the band after Epstein's death through stoned-out non-starters such as the Magical Mystery Tour film? Make another attempt at same, the aborted "Get Back/Let It Be" sessions? Release his own solo debut around the same time as the finished Let It Be?

Check, check, check and check. What a guy. What a leader.

It is absolutely amazing what a free pass Paul gets because John DARED to bring his girlfriend into the studio. Which was a bad move, sure. And Klein was a prick, though it must be noted that when Mr. Control Freak McCartney says, "Hey, I've got a smashing idea for our management! How about my in-laws!" I can understand why the others saw through that particular line of bullshit.

Throw in the fact that it was a letter from the younger Eastman that killed the band's chance to buy their songs back in the last 1960s, and . . . there's just plenty of blame to go around. And in the band itself, McCartney spearheaded the breakup.

 

To be the more influential and most important band, and they certainly are, in rock and roll history - my what a short time they had together.
Was it even 10 years?
Astounding, the brevity of that group.

 

If you count Beatle history as the moment Paul joined the Quarrymen, that would be 1957. (Of course, they didn't break big in Britain until early 1963 and in the U.S., a year later.)

So a dozen years, depending on where you pinpoint the moment the Beatle breakup as final: John leaving the band on 9/20/69, or Paul's announcement on 4/10/70.

Personally, I don't see the Beatles' breakup as permanent until 12/8/80.

 

I think when John Lennon was killed, The Beatles were put on the pup list retroactive to 1970.

 

The Stones catalog is still screwed up as a result of Klein, though because of it, many more bootlegs from the Abkco recordings are available than the post-Abkco stuff since the Stones themselves are greedy as fuck.

 

His explanations in later years generally centred around the idea that they had to do something after Epstein died, and no one else was coming up with any ideas. Which is basically true - they were all drifting in very different directions. They had all recorded solo projects.....except for Paul, that is, who got justifiably pissed off when, in the wake of Phil Spector's butchering of his song "The Long and Winding Road," Apple scheduled the release of "Let It Be" and Ringo's solo album ahead of his own work.

John had no fucking business bringing his girlfriend into the studio. Period. Especially if she wasn't going to keep her bloody mouth shut. Nobody had previously been welcome in the studio while the Beatles were recording, other than George Martin and various EMI engineers..... not Brian Epstein, not Dick James, nobody. So one could and should forgive Paul, in particular, as John's primary musical partner up until that point, for not being very happy about the permanent intrusion of Yucko Oh-No.

Except it wasn't bullshit. Lee Eastman, Paul's father-in-law, was an entertainment lawyer with a long history of success prior to his daughter hooking up with the Cute Fab. Lee and his son John are two pretty big reasons why Paul wound up the richest ex-Beatle by far.

John Eastman's letter was ill-advised, but the actual Northern Songs deal killer was John Lennon, with his infamous outburst about "being fucked about by men in suits sitting on their fat arses in the City."

Not really. Lennon had basically already quit the band himself but just hadn't announced it publicly - the group was seeking a higher royalty rate from EMI, so he kept his mouth shut - and so he was furious because Paul had stolen his thunder by announcing his own departure. As far as John was concerned, the Beatles were still his band and he should have been the one to say they were done. Regarding Paul's announcement and his subsequent legal motion to dissolve the Beatles' partnership, both were designed (and the latter move was legally necessary) to free himself from Allan Klein's management. It's really not that difficult to understand.

 

Double J:

Amazing how being the One Who Lived has gotten Paul a pass. Ringo and George have never wanted to argue about the veracity of anything said in the last 40 years. So "his explanations in later years" are the only ones we hear. "No one else had an idea, so I said, let's get stoned and ride around in a bus, film everything that happens!"

Overall, we will have to agree to disagree. I am not a Paul person, mainly because it took a lot of gall for him to try to take over the band after Epstein's death, and frankly who the heck cares how "qualified" the Eastmans might have been to manage a rock band. They were the in-laws of the dude who had repeatedly attempted to enforce his will on the rest of the band (note that no one can explain why he was playing the drums on his Beatles tunes on the White Album). I can see why the others dismissed the idea.

Allen Klein was a contemporary of Peter Grant: a guy who would get his client a lot of money, protect that client from outside money grubbers, then have his own act run its course and end the relationship in rancor. A better choice than someone's in-laws, to be sure. I can see why three of the four went along with what he was saying.

I have no issue with the legal action that officially broke up the band; it was necessary for the contracts.

But . . . everyone is a fan of whichever Beatle. You want to spin it Paul's way, I want to spin it John's way. I just like John's stuff slightly better.

I will say this: in their post-Beatles careers, John was smarter. While Paul formed a "band" (was Wings REALLY a "band"?) with the virtually talentless Linda as a prominent backup singer (just listen to Silly Love Songs; great song with absolutely grotesque backing vocals), John was more clever. He said, "Yoko, you are indeed talented! In fact, you are SO talented, you should go make your own records! So go into that other studio, and me and Eric will be along shortly!"

Of course, he tainted his songlist with songs directly to her.

 

LOL, good assessment.

Truth is, I don't particularly care for Paul over John......they were both immensely talented megalomaniacs who were geniuses on their own - flawed geniuses, but geniuses nevertheless - and, together, formed an absolutely unbeatable combination. No.....an unapproachable combination. Mick and Keith wish they were half the team in 40 years that John and Paul were in 12.

And I agree that perhaps Paul was wrong to step in and take over after Epstein died - maybe Sgt. Pepper should have been their swan song - but the truth is the truth, and no one else had any better ideas; splitting up at that point might have been on some of their minds, but no one would have dared say it aloud.

It would really have been interesting to see how they would have fared had Epstein lived. His role undoubtedly would have changed, since the group had made it clear they would no longer "suit up" and tour. Alas, we will never know.

In the post-Beatles years, really, you can make cases for both John and Paul as being the smart one. John very much did his own thing, including a five-year retirement, and before he became a martyr, he cemented his reputation and legacy as something he never actually was, a "working-class hero" - when the fact becomes legend, print the legend, right? Paul, meanwhile, hit a commercial goldmine that he has continued to plunder through the decades, which is exactly what he had intended to do. And say what you want about Linda, who absolutely had no business being anywhere near a stage or a recording studio, and Wings, who I agree weren't much more of a group than had been the Plastic Ono Band, but Paul wrote and performed some damn good songs without the rest of the Fabs. So, who was smarter? It's all subjective.

 

The one who lived? I thought Paul was dead!