Read Online Beatles' Let It Be (33 1/3) by Steve Matteo - Free Book Online Page A

of Apple Corps. Aspinall began life with the Beatles back in their Liverpool days as a roadie and then as a driver. Apple consisted of many divisions. Among them were the studio, the record label (which was run by Ron Kass and employed Peter Asher as A&R Director), Apple Electronics (headed not so successfully by Alex Madras), and Apple Films (run by Denis O’Dell). There were many other divisions as well. They were individually responsible for retail, wholesale, television, and even tailoring. Other key people employed by Apple were press officer Derek Taylor and his assistant Richard DiLello (affectionatelycalled the “House Hippie”). Several others, such as Tony Bramwell, Brian Lewis, and Jeremy Banks, held various positions for differing lengths of time. Peter Brown, in his roles as the Beatles’ personal assistant and later general manager, was also a significant figure at Apple.
    Gene Mahon designed the Apple logo, and Alan Aldridge came up with the lettering. Paul Castell took the various photos of the logo that were used for record album labels and singles.
    Alistair Taylor weighed in on Apple:
    Apple was chaotic. Times there were not pleasant. Everyone remembers the Savile Row building. It’s now the headquarters of the U.K. Building Societies Association. I wasn’t happy at Apple after the discipline of NEMS.
    I remember Derek Taylor, in his huge peacock chair, and Richard (DiLello), his assistant, perching on the filing cabinet. Antiques and expensive office furniture abounded. Petty theft was rife. Expensive pieces of art were bought—and then stolen.
    The air was filled day after day with the unmistakable aroma of cannabis. Alex (Madras) decided to turn the basement into a studio. The building almost collapsed when he began knocking down a supporting wall. Sheer and utter chaos!
    The Beatles made some of their greatest music during the Apple years, but as a business it was a shambles. It was a massive, chaotic, drug-addled businesswith no controls and no direction. Money was wasted every second of every day, and if I said anything I’d be told, “Don’t be a drag, Al.”
    The building quickly drew the attention of Beatles fans, who would hang around outside, hoping to catch a glimpse of a Beatle. George Harrison affectionately immortalized the rag-tag throng in his song “Apple Scruffs,” which appeared on
All Things Must Pass.
    The relationship between the Beatles and Abbey Road has been well documented and makes up a large part of the entire history and myth of the group. The fact is, though, that for some time the Beatles had been growing tired of Abbey Road. The opening of Apple Studios was partly the result of the Beatles’ festering unhappiness with Abbey Road.
    Abbey Road was run very efficiently. Engineers who worked there were highly trained. They began their training by filing tapes for three months or so at the vast EMI tape library (located at Abbey Road), or by working at the company’s factory in Hayes. The record engineering development division was located at Hayes and was where much of the electronic equipment used at Abbey Road was designed, built, modified, and fully tested before being installed at Abbey Road. The fledgling engineers would then move on and shadow someone already installed as an assistant engineer at Abbey Road. At that point they would be known as secondengineer (or, alternately, as “tape-op”), and in many cases their job would involve nothing more than turning the tape machines on and off and keeping logs of the sessions. They would then graduate to the title of engineer or, as it was called, balance engineer. As such, they would assist the producer, who, in the case of the Beatles, was usually George Martin, and run the mixing board. The engineers would also be trained in very specific methods of sound recording. In keeping with the emphasis on efficiency and orderliness, the engineers and especially the technical staff were expected to wear white lab coats