Sunday, July 29, 2012

Had The Wrong "Rose D'or": Here's The Right One

I had a post on March 5, 2011 talking about the Rose D'or song competition in France and how I thought it might be connected to a Time magazine cover that showed a papier mache Paul holding a yellow (gold) rose.  I didn't know until I was reading the KRLA Beat magazine (a fan magazine published in the mid-1960's by Los Angeles station KRLA) that there was another European competition called Rose D'or. 

This one has been held in Montreux, Switzerland since the early 1960's.   The KRLA Beat of March 12, 1966 (v.1, #52, p. 1) said the following:  "'The Music of Lennon and McCartney' will represent the U.K. in this year's [1966] Golden Rose of Montreux contest.  The festival takes place in Montreux, Switzerland throughout the final week of April."  See photo below.

There are several interesting aspects to this information.  The Lennon/McCartney entry did not win an award.  BUT, the winning entry was of an interview with a French director by the name of Paul Seban.  I did a little research on this man and found that in 1963 he was an assistant director for American director Orson Welles' film, The Trial.  In my second to last post I was talking about Paul's day in York, England on November 27, 1963 as reported by two authors, Michael Braun and Martin Creasy.  Creasy in his book, Beatlemania! also says about Paul on that day:
     "Paul was holding court about a film called The Trial which he had recently seen." [!]

I swear, you can't make these things up.  The plot of The Trial is about a man in a nightmare situation of being charged with some crime, but not knowing what the crime is and who his accusers are.  Was Paul commenting on one of the former Beatles in a situation like that or was he fearful that something like that would happen to him?

                                      More on this in the next post   ---paulumbo

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Hints To Us--And The Ball, Dropped (1966)

As I have tried to show, The Beatles were making anything but subtle hints in 1966 that they had trouble.  The American and English press were making strong hints that one or more of The Beatles had been, or were being, replaced.  The Beatles young fans were not aware there was that kind of trouble until Penny Lane came out and the new Paul was unveiled. 

I've found instances that the press was aware or suspicious that changes had happened within The Beatles.  The really crucial thing in my mind is that the press could have investigated what was happening to The Beatles and, at minimum, let the world public know what they found.  They did not--they dropped the ball--and it looks as though several of those Beatles suffered.

Here are three examples of what I found:

1.)  In the fan magazine put out by Los Angeles station KRLA, the March 12, 1966 issue has a cover drawing of Paul captioned "The Three Faces of Paul McCartney".  (See photo below.)
            The article in the magazine talks about Beatle marriages, but the cover drawing isn't followed
up with a story, so it is, essentially, a visual quote without comment.

2.)  English reporter Maureen Cleeve did an article for The New York Times published July 3, 1966 called "Old Beatles -- A Study In Paradox."  One of photos in the article (see below)
had the caption:  "Ye Olden Tempos -- There was a time when The Beatles weren't even famous.  Certainly they have come a long way since the days they were known as, from left:  John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney and Peter Best (later replaced by Ringo)."
Again, it was a a visual quote without comment because the article dealt with the current Beatles and made no reference that any of them had been replaced.

3.)  At The Beatles August 28, 1966 press conference in Los Angeles (see the video at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGbBAGzB7dw ), there was a question from a girl (possibly a young fan "reporter".)  She read the question as if it had been written for her:
5:33-5:36   Girl:  Have you ever trained or used Beatle double as decoys?
5:37-5:40   Paul: No.  John:  No.  Paul:  No, no.  We tried to get Brian Epstein
to do it.  He wouldn't do it.

Some people on discussion boards believe that Paul and John of the 1966 tour were our Paul and John but I think they were replacements.  (See my post of December 7, 2010:  from the photos I looked at in the Bob Bonis collection, our Paul (and John) never made it to America in 1966.)

Care to speculate why the world press left The Beatles hanging?



    


Saturday, July 21, 2012

Our Paul Had An Ulcer

This could be included in odds and ends about Paul, but it could point to more serious health problems that Paul had . . .

Several years ago, I was reading Love Me Do:  The Beatles' Progress, a 1964 book by American author Michael Braun.  He spent at least three days traveling with The Beatles on their late November, 1963 UK tour.  In the 2010 book, Beatlemania!  The Real Story of The Beatles UK Tours 1963-1965, by author Martin Creasy, Creasy mentions Braun traveling with them on November 26, 27, and 28, 1963.   According to Braun, after the November 27th. concert, Paul ran off the stage shouting, "'Oh my God, my ulcer.'"  Our Paul replaced the real Paul McCartney in early November, 1963, so this was definitely our Paul who had the ulcer.  Paul was approximately 21 at the time (because he obviously didn't have real Paul's birth date and--as far as I'm aware--no one has yet  tracked his birth date down.)  A young age to have an ulcer!  A Paul-is-dead discussion board speculated that Paul had another intestinal disease--a possibility.  As the pressure of Beatlemania built, Paul could have had other health problems and this might lead to another approach at finding out what happened to him.  But I do not think it was health problems that led to his being replaced.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Odds and Ends

As I do the research I come across interesting bits of information that do not directly have to do with the Paul mystery but are fascinating nevertheless and might fill in a blank for someone else doing research on The Beatles.  So here is the post Odds and Ends, where I'll put those tidbits I find.  Here are three I've found to start----

1.)  I was looking at the England & Wales Death Index 1916-2006 with the off chance that one of The Beatles not known as officially dead might have had his death index entry transcribed there.  I found the following:
                         Name:                             John Ono Lennon  [!!!]
                         Birth Date:                      27 Aug 1965
                         Date of Registration:      Jan 1996
                         Age at Death:                  30
                         Registration district:        Portsmouth
                         Inferred County:              Hampshire
                         Register Number:            E48A
                         District and Subdistrict:  4971E
                         Entry number:                 234
I could speculate on this, but I haven't done enough research on name changing to know how easy or difficult it is for anyone to change his or her name in England.  I did  look in the England & Wales Birth Index and didn't find a John Ono Lennon listed.  There is a possibility that our John and Yoko Ono had a son in 1965, but I don't have the time to track this down.  For someone who does, happy hunting!

2.)  There has been alot of speculation on one of the Paul-Was-Replaced boards about the egg-shaped trophy on the cover of the Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album.
On the diagram on the right it's the little figure below and between the drum (#81) and the bust of the man (#78) and right above the "L" in "BEATLES".  I was reading The Beatles:  The True Beginnings by Roag, Pete, and Rory Best, and on p. 173 they have a photo of the "trophy" and they identify it as a Cash Box International Award and say it was given to Mona Best (their mother) as a thank-you gift by John Lennon.                                  
3.)  Brian Epstein (the manager of The Beatles, in case you don't know) went to see a Dr. John Flood, a psychiatrist, on June 8, 1967.  Dr. Flood admitted him to a hospital in Roehampton, England, gave him antidepressant drugs, and--on Epstein's release from the hospital two weeks' later--gave him prescriptions for Tryptizol and Carbrital.  The bromide in the Carbrital built up in Epstein's system and caused his death on August 27, 1967.  I wanted to know what happened to Dr. Flood and found his obituary in the British Medical Journal of August 16, 1980 (p. 513):
"Dr. Flood fought a long illness with courage and it was tragic that he should have been stabbed by intruders in his own home four days before his elder daughter's wedding earlier this year." [!] 
I haven't tried to track the incident down any further, but someone else might want to.


Thursday, July 12, 2012

Who Was OUR Paul?

If you look at the videos immediately following The Beatles' "Royal Command Performance" on November 4, 1963, you will see that Paul McCartney changed:  the man who I call "our Paul" took the place of real Paul.  There have been many photo comparisons on several Paul-Was-Replaced discussion boards, and I'll add mine on the blog in the future.  So in my research, I have been trying to get an idea of where our Paul came from--who he was.  I've come up with three references spanning ten years that suggests that our Paul was an English World War 2 orphan.

1.)  From 1965:  Youtube has a video that I commented on in my November 28, 2011 post of outtakes from The Beatles' 1965 Christmas fan record.  Listen to the entire video at:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=50dI7WJZbBo .  Beginning at 5:18, George is commenting on a "Virgil Glyn" that he's seen at the "Labor Club" in Blackburn, England:
     5:47-5:52 (George):  "And so, here he is . . . here he is . . . "
     5:52-5:53 (Paul):       "And what is his name?"
     5:54-6:01 (George):  "We've had trouble finding his name due to the fact that he lost his birth certificate when he was born, you see."
     6:01-6:02 (Paul):       "Ooh, yes."
     6:02-6:05 (George):   "So, anyway, whoever he may be . . ."
***Note:  during this entire segment on the video, there is a photo of Paul.  Do you think the poster knows something?
I originally thought this exchange might be a biting comment on the fact that replacements for Paul and John were being contemplated, but I now think that they were referring to the fact that our Paul was an orphan.

2.)  From 1967:  I posted the lyrics to Procul Harum's song Lime Street Blues on the June 19, 2012 post.  This song was the flipside of their song, A Whiter Shade of Pale which has backmasked references to Paul.  Lime Street Blues has lyrics that are referenced in the Bonzo Dog Band's record, We Are Normal and I believe all three songs are about Paul. 
Lime Street Blues talks about a man being charged with--apparently--indecent exposure and defending himself in court:
     "'Mr. Judge,' I said, 'Won't you please be kind?
       Have pity on me, a poor orphan child?'
       Mr. Judge, he says with a long, mean frown,
      'Orphan or not, you're going down!'"

3.)  From 1975:  The Hollies, an English pop/rock group (in case you don't know), recorded a song called I'm Down.  Pretty remarkable title, huh?, given that Paul recorded a song with the same name 10 years' before.  I haven't found backmasked references to Paul in The Hollies' songs, but I think the group wanted to pay tribute to Paul--if nothing else--by doing a song about him, giving it the same title as his song, and maybe getting people to ponder if the song was biographical of Paul.  Here are the relevant lyrics:
     Had my ways
     With days of sunshine.
     Life came easy, it all fell in line.
     But then again, I didn't realize
     When you're used to one thing
     It's hard to accept another.
     Like the woman who brought you up:
     Well, she ain't your mother.
     How do you cope
     With a thing like that?
         ---- ----- -----
     To the folks who brought me up
     I'm not ungrateful.
     Kept the secret from me:
     Thought it was shameful.
     It hurt me so
     To be the last one to know.
     Maybe someone's out there
     Looking for me.
     Left on their own.
     Couldn't afford to clothe me
     And I . . . I don't even know my real name
     I'm down,
     I'm down,
     I'm down.

I think Paul was an orphan.
    
  

Friday, July 6, 2012

Dr. Robert (cont. from 6/26/2011) and Paul

I said in my last post that I would be writing about what I found in regards to our Paul's identity.  I think he was a World War 2 war orphan adopted by a family probably near Liverpool.  But, before I get to that-- I wrote a post last year about our John's song, Dr. Robert and how I found an interview in 1966 that definitively identifies Dr. Robert as an English National Health doctor.  I think the "Robin, the butterfly stomper" in the animated film, Yellow Submarine is supposed to be Dr. Robert; (the name Robin is a nickname [diminutive] for Robert.) 

In the film, Robin is wearing a t-shirt with the number 7 on it.  (See
image on right.)  I was watching a video on Youtube that featured our John and "poetry" from his book, In His Own Right.  John appeared on the English comedians Peter Cook and Dudley Moore's BBC television program, Not Only . . . But Also.  The program was filmed in late November, 1964.  See the entire segment at:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmjvoXeP2Pg  .
From 5:12-5:29 in the segment, John and actor Norman Rossington recited John's poem, "Good Dog, Nigel":

5:12-5:18 (Rossington):  Arf, arf, he goes, a merry sight, our little hairy friend.  Arf, arf upon the lamppost bright.
5:18-5:25 (John):  Arfing 'round the bend.  Nice dog, goo boy, waggy tail and beg:  Seven, Nigel, jump for joy . . .
5:25-5:29 (John and Rossington):  Because we're putting you to sleep at 3 o'clock, Nigel!
In the original poem, John used the word clever instead of seven.

In my post of 3/3/2012, I was talking about the impromptu song, There You Are Eddie that Paul's replacement recorded in January, 1969.  Again, the whole song can be heard at:  www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijwI7wgXbxE .  At 2:05 in the song it sounds like George suggesting that Faul sing about NIGEL, so from 2:06-2:17, Faul sings, "There you go, Nigel, Nigel, Nigel.  There you go, Nigel, Nigel you dog."

Sooo, connecting the dots, Nigel was code for our Paul and he was being abused by a National Health doctor with--I'm guessing-- the real name of Robert.