Red Rocks Revisited: I Don't Think I'm Reaching

I was reading the F.B.I. files on The Beatles, which are informative, enlightening, and funny, sometimes.  Check them out at:  http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS97576 . 

The relevant one to Paul research is part 9 which describes the FBI's investigation of a threatening letter sent apparently to the promoter of their August, 1964 concert at Red Rocks (spelled right here and wrong in the interview I quoted from in my immediately preceding post) Amphitheater.  Take a good look at the file.

There are all kinds of things going on in the incident.  The FBI said the promoter Vern Byers had an office at May D&F Company.  That company is a department store, and I could not find any mention that Byers ever had an office at the store.  The man had been in big band orchestras, owned night clubs and was a promoter.

The threatening letter itself was a classic crime fiction thing of cut out magazine letters pasted on plain white paper.  It began:  "I[f] you know what's . . ."  Interestingly, the first word read more like:  "I", so it read:  "I you . . .", and this interpretation of the letter was repeated several times in the FBI's investigation of it.

Remember, Magical Mystery Tour?  One of the Paul-is-dead clues was where the Paul replacement was sitting at a desk in a military uniform with a name plate in front that read:  "I you WAS."  (See photo on right.)

I'm speculating that there might have been a Denver connection to the Paul replaced/Paul dead mystery.

Two More Hints About The Hyperbaric Oxygen Chamber

In several earlier posts I theorized that Paul was experimented on in a hyperbaric oxygen chamber nicknamed the Lotus bed and manufactured by the English company, Vickers.  I found two more hints that suggest just that. 

In the Los Angeles radio station fanzine, KRLA Beat, they had an interview of Paul that they published April 21, 1965.  Dave Hull of KRLA did the interview.  The relevant part is:
     DAVE:  When you returned, Derek told me you were impressed with the performance in Hollywood and
                   also that you were impressed with one other place, and that was the Red Rock Stadium in
                   Denver.  Is that correct?
     PAUL:   Yes, actually we were impressed with alot more places than that.  But we enjoyed Red Rock.
                   It was funny playing there because it's the mile-high city and the air is different a mile high.  It's
                   much harder to breathe.  We felt sort of drunk or something on stage.  We were sort of falling
                   about.
     DAVE:   Because of the oxygen, I suppose.
     PAUL:   Somebody said it was that.  Sounds feasible.  Might not be true.  Might be we were just
                   imagining it.  Very hard to sing.  None of us could get any breath.

This exchange is interesting because  Derek Taylor, The Beatles' former press secretary specifically mentions Red Rock and Hull gets to quiz Paul on the physical effects of oxygen on all The Beatles.  It's possible that Hull heard rumors about Paul being experimented on in an oxygen chamber and wanted, in a round-about way, to get him to comment on it.
 

The second clue about the Lotus bed comes from a travel book about London that Hunter Davies edited  called The New London Spy:  A Discreet Guide to the City's Pleasures copyrighted in 1966 and published in 1967.  Hunter Davies was the author of the official Beatles biography first published in 1968.
In the Specialty Services section of the book, Davies writes the following:
     XZIT
     Should you want Xzit, you must ring HYD 1875.  Wait a minute.  What is Xzit?  Xzit is the trade name of
     a firm with American connections who make refractories.  Coatings for tanks.  Well, it might come in
     handy.

The coatings for tanks that Davies mentions is fireproofing.  Davies might have been trying to be hip and just pull something out of the air to talk about.  But there are suggestions that Paul might have been burned in an hyperbaric oxygen bed accident and oxygen is very flammable.

A Paul Look-Alike

I was reading Ray Davies' autobiography, X-Ray:  The Unauthorized Autobiography (1995), and he was talking about the bass guitarist The Kinks hired to temporarily replace Pete Quaife.  His name is John "Nobby" Dalton, and Davies called him a Paul McCartney look-alike.  (Dalton replaced Quaife permanently in 1969 and stayed with the group until 1976.)
Dalton was bass guitarist for several groups before joining The Kinks: 
     1959-1961  Danny King and The Bluejacks
     1961-1962  Jimmy Virgo and The Bluejacks

     1962-1965  The Mark Four

I found a Kinks-era photo on Dalton's website:  http://john-dalton.kastoffkinks.co.uk/ under the link "My Musical History."  Check out the 4th. photo. In that photo, he really does not look like Paul.  The telling photo is the 5th. photo. (I'm sorry, I can't upload those photos because they are embedded in the document.)

To get a quick idea of Dalton when he really looks like Paul take a look at these 3 photos:

REALLY, a Paul look-alike! 

Marmalade Skies--Something To Ponder

I was listening to an audiobook called Ticket To Ride.  It had four recordings that jounalist Jean Shepherd made for broadcast on radio station WOR while he was touring with The Beatles on their Scottish/English tour in the fall of 1964.  He lived with The Beatles on tour and interviewed them for an article--a Playboy magazine interview--that was published February, 1965.
He had an interesting broadcast describing the eastern Scottish city of Dundee--which he said is world famous for MARMALADE.  He described a train trip to Dundee:  ". . . all those long marmalade-strewn miles to Dundee."
For a description of Dundee marmalade see:  http://eatscotland.visitscotland.com/food-drink/traditional-dishes/dundee-marmalade.html
Dundee hasn't figured into the Paul Replaced/Dead research before, but it may be something to explore.

Paul in New Delhi, July, 1966

I found a photo taken of real Paul (with George) when The Beatles were in New Delhi, India from July 5-July 8, 1966.

This is the first photo I have seen of The Beatles in India.  The article is in the TribuneIndia issue of September 14, 2002 and can be found at http://www.tribuneindia.com/ .  The article describes The Beatles visiting an Indian musical instrument shop and says Paul bought an Indian instrument, a tanpura.

Note that Paul looked extremely grim and I think people investigating what happened to Paul should also start taking note of people around and in the background on Beatle photos.  For instance, the man in the shadows behind Paul.

An Interesting Side Issue OR We Are All Beatle Fans Here

This blog is dedicated to finding out what happened to Paul McCartney.  But, if you read this blog you are undoubtedly a Beatles' fan.  There have been theories that Paul wasn't the only Beatle to be replaced and I agree.  I think John definitely and Ringo possibly were also replaced. 

The website TMZ has a feature about an application that John or replacement John made to become a permanent citizen of the U.S.  It was up for auction and the sale was blocked by the F.B.I.  The application can be seen at right.  (For document detail, check:  http://www.tmz.com/ under subject search "john lennon.")

The Lennon address listed is the Dakota apartment building.  But note farther down in the document is what very well could be Lennon (or Fennon's) social security number:  127-52-1582.  The first group of numbers--"127"--are within the numbers issued for New York state.  Also note that the "8" in the last group of numbers looks like it has been changed.  I searched the Social Security Death Index and couldn't find a listing for the listed number and variations for the last group.  (Okay, I think Yoko Ono would be cheap enough to apply for the death payment.)

If you, dear reader, are a Lennon fan and researcher, you might want to try to track down documents on Lennon (or Fennon) by that social security number and the last group number variants.  Happy searching.

Paul? "Paul"?

At Getty Images' blogsite, I found an article about photographer Duffy who did a photo shoot of Paul or "Paul" for the Sunday London Times when the musical track for the film The Family Way was being scored.  Take a look at the November 1, 1966 photos at:  http://blog.gettyimages.com/2009/12/28/duffy-captures-paul-mccartney .  I took a close look at the two photos. (There are additional photos at the getty images website with the subject search "paul mccartney 1966".)  I don't think it's Paul.

Tony Bramwell's Fabulous Story

In Magical Mystery Tours  My Life With The Beatles (2006), Tony Bramwell--who was The Beatles' road manager and the ex-CEO of Apple Records--gives a colorful and inaccurate account of the Paul-is-Dead controversy.

Bramwell said Michigan disc jockey who broke the story was John Small on Detroit radio station, WKNR.  The DJ was Russ Gibb.

More importantly, Bramwell said that he discussed with Derek Taylor and a couple of others an idea to call a Canadian radio station and pretend to be Paul.  He said he "telephoned Richie Yorke, an English deejay we knew on CING-FM, at Burlington Ontario, and said, 'This is Paul McCartney.  As you can hear, I'm alive and kicking.'"  According to http://www.broadcasting-history.ca/  CING-FM did not start broadcasting until September 24, 1976, which would have been nearly seven years after the Paul-is-Dead controversy began.

Bramwell, in discussing the PID clues mentioned the famous Abbey Road cover where Beatles and Featles (replacement Beatles) crossed the street and "Paul" was barefooted, said that Paul liked to walk around bare-footed.  Real Paul was a meticulous dresser and the only times you could see him barefooted were in beach photos.

The kicker is Bramwell saying that, according to the clues, Paul died on November 9, 1966 and HE WAS BURIED SEPTEMBER 27, 1968.  In all of my research, I have never run across that date given as Paul's burial date.

At his official website http://www.tonybramwell.com/  Bramwell calls himself a childhood friend with three of The Beatles.  He quotes Sir "Paul":  "If you want to know anything about the Beatles, ask Tony Bramwell, he remembers more than I do."  Bramwell obviously has a short memory when it comes to the events around the Paul-is-Dead research.   BUT,  he WOULD have known information on Real Paul's death and burial, if it occurred.