Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney (80 page)

With a detonation of fireworks, the home town celebration of the greatest pop band ever was over. In the club’s trophy room, Sir Paul greeted the selected friends, celebrity guests and relatives who’d been gathered to meet him briefly after the show, going down the line shaking hands and exchanging friendly words with everyone. ‘Even though I’ve known him all these years, I’m still in awe of the fact he’s a Beatle,’ says Sam Leach, a promoter from the early days who was among the guests. ‘If I call him Sir Paul, he laughs.’ Outside, the rest of the audience shuffled away down the narrow, red-brick streets of Anfield, chanting with drowsy happiness, ‘Liverpool! Liverpool!’

FURTHER ON DOWN THE ROAD

The musician’s life is on the road, and for an artist who loves to perform, tours are a pleasure, an opportunity to cast the happy spell of music over an audience and bask in their appreciation. ‘I think it’s basically magic,’ Paul has said. ‘There is such a thing as magic, and the Beatles were magic.’

Later that summer Paul indulged himself, and offset the cost of his recent divorce, with massive one-off shows in Kiev and Quebec (the latter to celebrate the province’s 400th birthday).
En route
to Canada, he joined Billy Joel on stage at Shea Stadium for the final concert at that famous venue before it was demolished to make way for a new home for the New York Mets. Afterwards, he got his old Ford Bronco out of his Amagansett garage, took Chuck Berry’s tip and motored west with Nancy Shevell on Route 66, via Chicago, St Louis, Flagstaff, Arizona (not forgetting Winona), 2,000 miles and more to LA. Everyday folks found themselves bumping into Sir Paul and his girlfriend at gas stations and diners along the way, the couple apparently happy together and happy to pose for pictures. It was a road trip he’d always wanted to make.

That autumn saw the release of a welcome third Fireman album, the records Paul made with Youth being among the most interesting of his later career.
Electric Arguments
was more song-based than their previous projects, with proper lyrics that seemed to criticise an ex-love - references to betrayal, lies and a woman who went looking for a pay daddy (‘Highway’) - without identifying Heather. Paul was always careful that way. Although a more mainstream offering than
Rushes
, the record was still too different for Macca traditionalists. ‘I don’t like this
Electric Arguments
,’ says New Yorker Linda Aiello, who otherwise lives in a state of McCartney devotion. ‘It’s not him, because it really isn’t him. It’s the Fireman … I can’t get into it.’

In the spring of 2009 Paul appeared on stage at Radio City Music Hall in New York with Ringo Starr, in support of Transcendental Meditation, one of the dopier Sixties’ crazes, but something the men had carried with them into old age. More North American shows followed. Having helped mark the closure of Shea Stadium, Paul played three sell-outs at the new home of the New York Mets, Citi Fields, promoted with an appearance on David Letterman’s
Late Show
at the Ed Sullivan Theater where the Beatles first electrified America. Paul performed a special homecoming set from the marquee, later releasing a live CD of the New York concerts,
Good Evening New York City
. Excluding the Radio City benefit, Paul played a dozen shows across the USA in the year, grossing almost $41 million (£26.7m). Together with the other concerts he’d given recently, the divorce was paid for.

Two old foes died that summer, first Michael Jackson in suspicious circumstances aged 50, never having given Paul a pay rise on Northern Songs, part of which Jackson had sold to Sony to help fund his excessive lifestyle, putting the songs beyond Paul’s grasp. It seemed he would never get them back now. Paul insisted in his tribute that he and Jackson had never really fallen out, despite all his grousing. Ten days later, almost unnoticed amidst the Jackson news, a true enemy, Allen Klein, died aged 77. As old friends and foes alike dropped away, McCartney rolled on, looking spry for a man approaching 70, popping over to Paris with Nancy to attend Stella’s latest fashion show, casting a paternal eye over son James as he recorded his first album at Hog Hill Mill, while Dad worked on a guitar concerto and oversaw the endless exploitation of the Beatles’ back catalogue, being the driving force behind the
Beatles Rock Band
video game, released in the autumn of 2009, around the same time as a complete digital reissue of the Beatles’ studio albums. Although almost everybody already had all this music, and the box sets cost almost $300 (£196), they sold strongly, helping make the Beatles the second best-selling act of the decade in America, just behind Eminem, a remarkable achievement for a group that split 39 years ago.

Always busy, Paul recorded a song for a new Robert De Niro picture,
Everybody’s Fine
, and had a movie of his own in the works - the animated film about Wirral the Squirrel he and Linda had decided on years back based on stories he used to tell the kids. To introduce the character to the public, Paul and Geoff Dunbar created in the first instance an illustrated children’s book,
High in the Clouds
, the plot of which harked back to the death of Mary McCartney - a trauma Paul still spoke of as if he were an orphaned child. ‘That association [is] very, very strong in
High in the Clouds
,’ says Dunbar. ‘For us in our childhoods, Mum was this great thing.’ In the book, Wirral loses his mother, as Paul had, after which the creature goes off into the world to find adventure, music and love with a cute little red squirrel named Wilhamina. At the end, the two characters stand together, looking at the stars. ‘If only Mum was with us,’ says Wirral.

‘She is,’ replied Wilhamina, clutching his paw.

This little story expresses much of Paul’s own life: a sentimental man formed by his childhood experiences in Liverpool, from whence he had gone searching for love in a musical world. (For Wilhamina read Linda.) Now his squirrel story was to be made into a 3D Hollywood film. Hopefully it would be ready in time for Bea to appreciate, before she began to realise the enormity of who Daddy was.

THE ROAD GOES EVER ON

On a frosty night in December 2009, with Christmas in the air, Sir Paul McCartney opened his latest tour - a European tour - in Hamburg, second city of his musical genesis. It was way back in 1960 that Paul first drove here with the boys, in Allan Williams’s overloaded van, to play the Indra. A lifetime later, Paul flew back by private jet to play the Color Line Arena, five subway stops from the Reeperbahn, declining an invitation to meet the city’s mayor, and keeping his fans waiting as he played a late sound check and ate his customary vegetarian pre-show supper. Although the animal rights group PETA, which McCartney had long been associated with, had stalls at the Hamburg show, distributing Eat No Meat literature, the intense animal activism of Linda’s day was gone. Once upon a time the McCartneys screened fierce antivivisection films before their shows, and banned meat products from gigs. Tonight, fans munched
schinkenwurst
at the concessions, while those who’d purchased €319 ($440) VIP ticket packages tucked into gourmet meats in the Platinum bar.

Germans are a punctual people, so when the advertised start time came and went, and they were obliged to wait a further 80 minutes for the show to begin, they became disgruntled, slow-clapping, booing and hissing the unseen star. Finally, Sir Paul stepped up on the stage - dressed in the dark suit, white shirt and braces he favoured these days for live performances - greeting his audience with a supremely confident shrug as if to say: ‘What’s up?’ Eleven thousand grumpy Germans were immediately pacified, then brought to their feet by the upbeat sound of ‘Magical Mystery Tour’, Paul as ever following Uncle Mike’s advice to him and John at the Fox and Hounds, Caversham. ‘A good act is shaped like a W,’ Mike had told the boys. You had to start on a high.

The sound quality was poor in Hamburg, as it invariably is in sports arenas, reedy at the top and boomy at the bottom, Paul’s vocals echoing off the back rows - these seats being so far from the stage that he put his hands to his eyes, peered down the hall and asked the people down there if they were all right - and his voice sounded thin at first, like an old man’s. But as he warmed up his voice strengthened, the band complementing and covering for the star while never presuming to upstage him.

‘Danke schön! Guten tag, Hamburg,’ said Paul, venturing a little schoolboy German, soon reverting to English. ‘It really is interesting to be back here in Hamburg.’

‘What about a trip to the Reeperbahn?’ asked a fan in front.

‘Hmmm.’ Paul considered it. ‘
Not tonight
.’

He spoke about when the Beatles first came to town, ‘when we were children’, and how they had met up with other ‘slightly older children’, name-checking old friends in the audience. In the first few rows sat Horst Fascher, Astrid Kirchherr and Klaus Voormann, little old people wrapped up warm on a cold December night. Indeed, the audience was mostly comprised of the late middle-aged, chubby, affluent and grey, glancing occasionally at their watches to make sure they didn’t get home too late. Although of an age with these pensioners, and despite his skin hanging down like the jowls of an old dog, Paul looked younger than them all, thanks principally to the art of his hairdresser. Apart from being dyed chestnut brown, his hair was so lustrous and thick these days one wondered if he was wearing a wig.

Taking off his jacket, and rolling up his sleeves, Sir Paul also looked more than ever like a nineteenth-century mill owner. This was not a young artist who needed the audience’s approval. He was here because he enjoyed playing music and revisiting the past, and those lucky enough to have a ticket were fortunate to share the moment with him. Between songs he regaled us all with stories from the old days, like the night his mate Jimi (Jimi Hendrix, that is) played ‘Sgt. Pepper’ at the Saville Theatre, and asked Eric (Clapton, you know) to come up and tune his guitar. Everybody, audience and band included, listened attentively to an elder telling tales of a vanished age. Linda was never far from Paul’s mind. As he played ‘The Long and Winding Road’, photos Linda had taken of their Arizona ranch, including the desert trail they rode just before she died, were shown on the screens. ‘Here Today’ was performed ‘für meinen freund, John … Are you listening?’ Paul asked suddenly, glancing up at the roof as if to find his friend’s ghost sitting in the rafters. ‘Something’ was done again on the ukulele for George, while pictures of the other departed Beatle were shown. Paul held his arms up to the last picture, a huge blow-up of a young smiling George, murmuring ‘Georgie! Georgie!’ in salute. When Paul turned back, his face was wet with tears.

With both John and George gone, and Ritchie always of lesser importance, it had fallen to Paul to carry the Beatles torch. Along with the sadness, there was a sense that he felt liberated by the fact John and George weren’t around to snipe at him any more. He could say and play whatever he liked now, including putting two Beatles numbers in his set for the first time, ‘And I Love Her’ and ‘Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da’, both of which went down a storm with the Germans even if John had mocked the latter as ‘granny music’.

After ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Helter Skelter’, Paul informed his audience that it was time for him to go home. The Hamburgers, who’d booed two hours previously, groaned. ‘It’s time for you to go home, too,’ Paul reminded them; it was almost midnight. He thanked his band and his crew. ‘But most of all, tonight, we want to thank
you
,’ he said, before playing ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’, segueing into ‘The End’, pictures of a sun going down on the screens as Paul sang the sublime last lines about the love you take being equal to the love you make, after which everybody exhaled a happy
Ahhhhh
.

‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.’

As one fan remarked, ‘the best music -
ever
’.

‘Danke schön, Hamburg. We’ll see you next time!’

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With this book I set out to write a better-balanced, more detailed and more comprehensive life of Paul McCartney than has previously been achieved. I did not have an agenda to find fault with Sir Paul, nor did I seek to glorify his career glibly. Rather I have tried to tell the epic story of his life truthfully and fairly as I have found the facts to be from studying him closely, as an entomologist might put another kind of beetle under the microscope.

As a foundation for my work I travelled extensively, visiting the places that feature in Sir Paul’s life, collecting documentary material (family records, real estate, financial and legal papers), and conducting interviews with approximately 220 people, including his friends, neighbours, family members and fellow musicians. I also read everything in print about the musician and his close associates, and I would like to acknowledge the published sources I found most helpful.

More books have been written about the Beatles, probably, than any act in show business. Hunter Davies’s
The Beatles
, first published in 1968, retains its interest, as does Philip Norman’s 1981 history
Shout!
It is, however, the reference books by Mark Lewisohn that stand apart for the author’s fastidious attention to detail, with his
The Complete Beatles Chronicle
(1992) being the Bible of Beatles reference. Despite the fact that it glosses over or misses out important parts of the Beatles’ story, the Beatles’
Anthology
- by which I mean the documentary series and the companion book published in 2000 - is also an invaluable record of the band members’ thoughts and recollections. Regarding magazines and fanzines, I turned repeatedly to
Melody Maker
in the UK and
Rolling Stone
in the USA, while Paul McCartney’s own
Club Sandwich
was a useful resource.

Several previous full-length biographies have been written of Sir Paul. Aside from Barry Miles’s very good 1997 book
Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now
, none are of much note, and despite its undoubted strengths, not least as a record of the artist’s views on every aspect of the Beatles’ story,
Many Years from Now
is mostly a book about the Sixties. It is also a partisan book, written in close conjunction with and indeed vetted by its subject. Working without Sir Paul’s cooperation, I have striven to create a more impartial biography that is also broader in scope, taking equal account of the artist’s time in the Beatles and his life during the decades that have followed. For this reason
Fab
is divided into two halves, with the second part of the book telling the story of his adventures since 1970.

I am grateful to the following people for giving me information: Jane Abbott (formerly Brainsby), Linda Aiello (
née
Magno), John Aldridge, Carlos Alomar, Lord (Jeffrey) Archer, the late Al Aronowitz, Anthony Bailey, Geoff Baker, Marty Balin, Christine Barnwell, Tony Barrow, Bob Bass, Sid Bernstein, Roag Best, Douglas Binder, Jamie Black, Kate Black, Tony ‘Measles’ Bramwell, Geoffrey Brand, Al Brodax, Peter Brown, Yolanda Byrne (
née
Ventre), Ian Campbell, Howie and Sheila Casey, Clem Cattini, Natalie Clark, Maureen Cleave, John Coates, Mary and Rory Colville, Bob Cote, Alastair Cousin, Rosemary Crouch, Carl Davis, Rod Davis, Len Deighton, Prince Stanislas Klossowski ‘Stash’ de Rola, Ken Dodd, Joe Dolce, Barbara Doran (
née
Eves), John Duff Lowe, Geoff Dunbar, Michael Eavis, Dudley Edwards, Ron Ellis, Royston Ellis, Geoff Emerick, Eldon Erwin, Bernie Evans, Horst Fascher, Mark Featherstone-Witty, Brenda Fenton, Iris Fenton (
née
Caldwell), John Fenton, Danny Fields, Bill Flanagan, Joe Flannery, Herbie Flowers, Ray Fooks, Bruce Forsyth, Frank Foy, Steve Gadd, Johnny Gentle, James ‘Brickhead’ Gillat, Brian Gregg, Brian Griffiths, Adrian and Evelyn Grumi, Jim Guercio, Rosi Haitmann (later Sheridan), John Halliday, Colin Hanton, Ian Harris, Bill Harry, Billy Hatton, Jann Haworth, Peter Hodgson, Derek Holgate, Steve Holley, John ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins, Philip Howarth, Erika Hübers (
née
Wohlers), Edward Hunter, Frank Ifield, Neil Innes, Ian James, Glyn Johns, Mickey Jones, Laurence Juber, Susan Justice (
née
Aldridge), Alfie Karmal, Norman Kauffman, John Kay, Paddy and Lyn Kearney, Gibson Kemp, Astrid Kirchherr, Barbara Knight (
née
Wilson), Marijke Koger-Dunham, Al Kooper, Jonathan Kress, Bettina Krischbin (
née
Hübers), Denny Laine, Carla Lane, Veronica and Bob Languish, Sam Leach, Sir John Leslie, Sir Michael Lindsay-Hogg, Andrew Loog Oldham, Graham Lowe, Barbara Lyon (
née
Lunt), Doug Mackenzie, E. Rex Makin, Imelda Marcos, Gerry Marsden, Lilian Marshall, Salvatore ‘Pico’ Martens, David Mason, David Matthews, the late Victor Maymudes, Joan McCartney, Henry McCullough, Jim ‘the Rock’ McGeachy (Senior) and his son Jimmy, John McGeachy, Robbie McIntosh, Ian McKerral, George McMillan, Barry Miles, Fiona Mills, Elliot Mintz, Maria Mohin, Paul Morrisey, Billy Morton, Brian Moses, Kate Muir, Len Murray, Bill and Maggie Nelson, Mike Nesmith, Dr Roy Newsome, Ann Nicholson (
née
Ventre), Steve Nieve, Frieda Norris (
née
Kelly), Steve Norris, Ray O’Brien, Boston O’Donohue, Richard Ogden, Hugh Padgham, Dick Page, Major Peter Parkes, Eryl Parry, Graham Parting-ton, Tom Pickard, Charlie Piggott, Ian Pillans, Simon Posthuma, Claude ‘Curly’ Putman Jr, Lord (David) Puttnam, Joe Reddington, Ruth Reeves (
née
Lallemann), Gillian Reynolds, Mike Robbins, Brenda Rothwell, Willy Russell, Lord St Germans, Sir Jimmy Savile, Nitin Sawhney, Helga Schultz, Denny Seiwell, Brian Sewell, Ravi Shankar, Gene Shaw, Tony Sheridan, Jane Shevell, Don Short, Anthony Smith, Murial Smith, Sir James Douglas Spooner, Philip Sprayregen, Alvin Stardust, Eric and Gloria Stewart, Alda Lupo Stipanoe (and family), Hamish Stuart, Pauline Sutcliffe, Wolfgang Suttner, Sir John Tavener, Marga and Ted ‘Kingsize’ Taylor, Peter Tomkins, Pete Townshend, Isabel Turnbull, Walter van Dijk (and his mother Jeann), Janet Vaughan, Peter Vogl, Lisa Voice, Jürgen Vollmer, David Waite, Edie Warren, Donald Warren-Knott, Peter Webb, Nat Weiss, Kevin Wheal, Andy White, Gaz Wilcox, Beverly Wilk, Allan Williams, June Woolley, David Young, Youth and Debra and Sherry Zeller.

Thank you additionally to the following individuals and organisations for help and advice: Abbey Road Studios; Rebecca Chapman at the British Society of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA); Lt Deanna Coultas of the Tucson, AZ, police; Caroline Cowie at the National Union of Teachers (NUT); Geoff Garvey for Sussex research; Matthew Davis for translating in Hamburg, and Harald Mau for being our Hamburg guide; Dr Bob Hieronimus for
Yellow Submarine
help; Spencer Leigh at BBC Radio Merseyside; Ken McNab for Scottish connections; Pete Norman for Heather Mills and the Old Liobians for Liverpool Institute information. Particular thanks to Kevin Roach and Andy Simons at Liverpool Record Office; also to Richard Farnell at Liverpool City Council; Edda and Heidi at the Hans Tasiemka Archives; and the staff of the British Film Institute, the Barbican and Guildhall libraries, the British Library/British Newspaper Library, and New York Public Library. Thank you also to my editors, Natalie Jerome at HarperCollins in London; Ben Schafer at Da Capo in New York and Tim Rostron at Doubleday Canada; to Nick Fawcett and Helen Hawksfield who worked on the copy-editing of
Fab
; and to my agents Kate Lee at ICM in New York and Gordon Wise at Curtis Brown, London.