Neil Aspinall RIP
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Mark Arnold
Mar 25, 2008, 4:07:50 PM3/25/08
to Mark Arnold Reviews The Beatles
Neil Aspinall, 66, Beatles' manager
By ALLAN KOZINN
New York Times News Service
Published on: 03/25/08
NEW YORK -- Neil Aspinall, who left an accounting job to become the
Beatles' road manager when the group was still a local dance band and
who went on to manage its production and management company, Apple,
died Sunday night in Manhattan. He was 66 and lived in Twickenham,
England.
Geoff Baker, a spokesman for the family, said the cause was lung
cancer. Aspinall had been undergoing treatment at Memorial Sloan-
Kettering Cancer Center. He retired from Apple last year.
Of all the people in the Beatles' orbit, Aspinall had the most durable
relationship with the group; he had already been a crucial member of
the Beatles' entourage for about 18 months when Ringo Starr became the
drummer. When the Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame, in 1988, George Harrison made a point of saying that Aspinall
should be considered the fifth Beatle.
In November 1967, when the Beatles formed Apple to oversee their
creative and business interests, they asked Aspinall, by then a
trusted assistant of long standing, to manage it.
He never took a formal title, but he ran a company that, in its first
years, included a record label, a film production company, and
electronics, publishing and retailing divisions. He also quickly put
the Beatles' complicated contractual commitments in order.
But when expenses at Apple spun out of control and the American
manager Allen Klein was brought in to sort out the Beatles' finances,
Klein fired much of the staff but was told by John Lennon, "Don't
touch Neil and Mal; they're ours," referring to Aspinall and his
assistant, Mal Evans, who had also been with the group since its
Liverpool days.
Aspinall oversaw a succession of lawsuits at Apple. In 1969, the
Beatles sued EMI Records in a royalties dispute that took 20 years to
settle. Apple also sued the Broadway show "Beatlemania" for
unauthorized use of the Beatles' name and logo, and it fought several
court battles against Apple Computer for trademark infringement. The
last was settled in 2006, in favor of the computer company.
Aspinall was often blamed for the slow pace at which Beatles archival
projects were released. There was something to that: Several projects
have never been released, including a home video of the Beatles' 1965
concert at Shea Stadium and a remastered version of the film "Let It
Be" as well as both CD and digital download versions of all the
Beatles' studio recordings.
What the complaints did not take into account is that Aspinall could
release only what Apple's principals -- Paul McCartney, Starr, Olivia
Harrison and Yoko Ono (the widows of Harrison and Lennon) --
unanimously agreed should be released. And the interpersonal politics
at Apple are such that unanimity has been hard to come by.
Even so, Aspinall did oversee several important releases since 1993.
These include "Live at the BBC," a two-disc compilation of the group's
radio performances; "Yellow Submarine Songtrack," a remixed version of
the music from the "Yellow Submarine" cartoon film, which Apple also
restored and reissued; "1," a single-disc hits compilation; and
"Love," a multimedia collaboration with Cirque du Soleil (and a
matching recording).
His biggest achievement was "The Beatles Anthology." The idea was to
use performance film and interview clips to let the Beatles tell their
own story. Originally meant to be a theatrical film, the project was
begun in 1970 but shelved until the final EMI lawsuits were settled in
1989. By then, Aspinall had proposed that instead of making a film,
the Beatles should contribute new interviews (with archival interviews
with John Lennon, who was murdered in 1980) to a six-hour television
series and a nearly 13-hour home video edition.
When the Beatles agreed, he assembled an extraordinary archive of
television and concert film, photograph collections and other
materials for use in "The Beatles Anthology" and other potential Apple
projects. He was credited as executive producer.
Aspinall also ran a film production company, Standby Films. Among its
productions is a 1999 film, "Jimi Hendrix: Band of Gypsys."
Aspinall's history with the Beatles reached back to their earliest
days as a band, when he hung fliers around Liverpool advertising their
performances. In February 1961, with the group's popularity in
Liverpool soaring, Aspinall gave up his job as an apprentice
accountant and began driving the group from job to job, often three
performances a day.
On international tours, he left the business of equipment setup to Mal
Evans and became the Beatles' principal aide. One of his later jobs
was to round up the pictures of the celebrities and other influential
crowd members for the cover of the 1967 album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band."
On occasion, he was drafted as a performer. He was among the singers
in the celebratory chorus of "Yellow Submarine," and he played tambura
(an Indian drone instrument) on "Within You Without You," harmonica on
"Being for the Benefit of Kite" and percussion on "Magical Mystery
Tour."
Aspinall was born in Prestatyn, Wales, on Oct. 13, 1941, and grew up
in Liverpool, where he attended the Liverpool Institute with McCartney
and Harrison. He became friendly with the Beatles through Pete Best,
their drummer from 1960 to 1962.
Aspinall, originally a boarder in Best's house, had started a romantic
relationship with Mona Best, Best's mother. Their son, Roag Best, was
born in 1962. Aspinall accompanied Pete Best to the meeting with the
Beatles' manager Brian Epstein at which the drummer was fired, but he
decided to continue working for the group.
In 1968, Aspinall married Suzy Ornstein, whose father, Bud Ornstein,
was head of European production for United Artists, the company for
which the Beatles made the films "A Hard Day's Night," "Help!" and
"Let It Be." She survives him, as do their daughters Gayla, Dhara and
Mandy; their son, Julian; and Roag Best.
During his years as the Beatles principal aide, Aspinall made several
films for the Beatles. One was a promotional clip for Ringo Starr's
1970 single, "Sentimental Journey"; another film accompanied the
group's 1969 single "Something," for which Aspinall showed the Beatles
and their wives walking placidly through an English garden (or, in
McCartney's case, the grounds of his farm in Scotland). What the film
avoided showing was that the Beatles were at that point barely on
speaking terms; in the film, no two Beatles are seen together.
Virtually alone among Beatles insiders, he resisted the temptation to
publish his memoirs, but joked that if he did write them, he would
arrange to have them published only after his death. He is not known
to have undertaken the project.
By ALLAN KOZINN
New York Times News Service
Published on: 03/25/08
NEW YORK -- Neil Aspinall, who left an accounting job to become the
Beatles' road manager when the group was still a local dance band and
who went on to manage its production and management company, Apple,
died Sunday night in Manhattan. He was 66 and lived in Twickenham,
England.
Geoff Baker, a spokesman for the family, said the cause was lung
cancer. Aspinall had been undergoing treatment at Memorial Sloan-
Kettering Cancer Center. He retired from Apple last year.
Of all the people in the Beatles' orbit, Aspinall had the most durable
relationship with the group; he had already been a crucial member of
the Beatles' entourage for about 18 months when Ringo Starr became the
drummer. When the Beatles were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame, in 1988, George Harrison made a point of saying that Aspinall
should be considered the fifth Beatle.
In November 1967, when the Beatles formed Apple to oversee their
creative and business interests, they asked Aspinall, by then a
trusted assistant of long standing, to manage it.
He never took a formal title, but he ran a company that, in its first
years, included a record label, a film production company, and
electronics, publishing and retailing divisions. He also quickly put
the Beatles' complicated contractual commitments in order.
But when expenses at Apple spun out of control and the American
manager Allen Klein was brought in to sort out the Beatles' finances,
Klein fired much of the staff but was told by John Lennon, "Don't
touch Neil and Mal; they're ours," referring to Aspinall and his
assistant, Mal Evans, who had also been with the group since its
Liverpool days.
Aspinall oversaw a succession of lawsuits at Apple. In 1969, the
Beatles sued EMI Records in a royalties dispute that took 20 years to
settle. Apple also sued the Broadway show "Beatlemania" for
unauthorized use of the Beatles' name and logo, and it fought several
court battles against Apple Computer for trademark infringement. The
last was settled in 2006, in favor of the computer company.
Aspinall was often blamed for the slow pace at which Beatles archival
projects were released. There was something to that: Several projects
have never been released, including a home video of the Beatles' 1965
concert at Shea Stadium and a remastered version of the film "Let It
Be" as well as both CD and digital download versions of all the
Beatles' studio recordings.
What the complaints did not take into account is that Aspinall could
release only what Apple's principals -- Paul McCartney, Starr, Olivia
Harrison and Yoko Ono (the widows of Harrison and Lennon) --
unanimously agreed should be released. And the interpersonal politics
at Apple are such that unanimity has been hard to come by.
Even so, Aspinall did oversee several important releases since 1993.
These include "Live at the BBC," a two-disc compilation of the group's
radio performances; "Yellow Submarine Songtrack," a remixed version of
the music from the "Yellow Submarine" cartoon film, which Apple also
restored and reissued; "1," a single-disc hits compilation; and
"Love," a multimedia collaboration with Cirque du Soleil (and a
matching recording).
His biggest achievement was "The Beatles Anthology." The idea was to
use performance film and interview clips to let the Beatles tell their
own story. Originally meant to be a theatrical film, the project was
begun in 1970 but shelved until the final EMI lawsuits were settled in
1989. By then, Aspinall had proposed that instead of making a film,
the Beatles should contribute new interviews (with archival interviews
with John Lennon, who was murdered in 1980) to a six-hour television
series and a nearly 13-hour home video edition.
When the Beatles agreed, he assembled an extraordinary archive of
television and concert film, photograph collections and other
materials for use in "The Beatles Anthology" and other potential Apple
projects. He was credited as executive producer.
Aspinall also ran a film production company, Standby Films. Among its
productions is a 1999 film, "Jimi Hendrix: Band of Gypsys."
Aspinall's history with the Beatles reached back to their earliest
days as a band, when he hung fliers around Liverpool advertising their
performances. In February 1961, with the group's popularity in
Liverpool soaring, Aspinall gave up his job as an apprentice
accountant and began driving the group from job to job, often three
performances a day.
On international tours, he left the business of equipment setup to Mal
Evans and became the Beatles' principal aide. One of his later jobs
was to round up the pictures of the celebrities and other influential
crowd members for the cover of the 1967 album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely
Hearts Club Band."
On occasion, he was drafted as a performer. He was among the singers
in the celebratory chorus of "Yellow Submarine," and he played tambura
(an Indian drone instrument) on "Within You Without You," harmonica on
"Being for the Benefit of Kite" and percussion on "Magical Mystery
Tour."
Aspinall was born in Prestatyn, Wales, on Oct. 13, 1941, and grew up
in Liverpool, where he attended the Liverpool Institute with McCartney
and Harrison. He became friendly with the Beatles through Pete Best,
their drummer from 1960 to 1962.
Aspinall, originally a boarder in Best's house, had started a romantic
relationship with Mona Best, Best's mother. Their son, Roag Best, was
born in 1962. Aspinall accompanied Pete Best to the meeting with the
Beatles' manager Brian Epstein at which the drummer was fired, but he
decided to continue working for the group.
In 1968, Aspinall married Suzy Ornstein, whose father, Bud Ornstein,
was head of European production for United Artists, the company for
which the Beatles made the films "A Hard Day's Night," "Help!" and
"Let It Be." She survives him, as do their daughters Gayla, Dhara and
Mandy; their son, Julian; and Roag Best.
During his years as the Beatles principal aide, Aspinall made several
films for the Beatles. One was a promotional clip for Ringo Starr's
1970 single, "Sentimental Journey"; another film accompanied the
group's 1969 single "Something," for which Aspinall showed the Beatles
and their wives walking placidly through an English garden (or, in
McCartney's case, the grounds of his farm in Scotland). What the film
avoided showing was that the Beatles were at that point barely on
speaking terms; in the film, no two Beatles are seen together.
Virtually alone among Beatles insiders, he resisted the temptation to
publish his memoirs, but joked that if he did write them, he would
arrange to have them published only after his death. He is not known
to have undertaken the project.
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