[ad_1]
On January 30, 1969, the Beatles – a group that redefined music and popular culture in the space of just eight years and with whom I worked during this early period – realized a major show at the top of a London building, immortalized as "the concert on the roof."
The six-song show is featured at the top of number 3 on Saville Row, a building we bought to serve as headquarters for Apple Corps, the adventurous multimedia company created by the group. . Although none of us knew it at the time, it would be their last concert as a band. And in the case of rock concerts, it was excellent.
At the icy summit of this London building, I saw and heard all that the Beatles had to say. The humor, the "look" (John and Ringo did the show wearing their women's coat) and, of course, the music. But I also noticed the weariness and bitterness that already feasted on my Apple desk, which I had been named general manager a year ago, after spending most of the 1960s working for Brian Epstein, the group leader. .
I heard "One After 909" – a song that the band used to play in the early nightclubs – as a plea for innocence and loneliness. optimism of the years before the time of Fab Four, when they dreamed of doing it someday. higher than there is more pop. "I heard" Do not let me down ", John Lennon's call to communion with his great love and artistic partner , Yoko Ono: Compared to the pure Beatles of the early 1960s, the band seemed more relaxed and exhausted, ending the decade and its career with a bang and a sigh of relief., There will undoubtedly be discussions about This day's events and their importance The end of the Beatles chapter as a live band A desperate effort to "come back" to the joy of the early days An attempt to close the documentary "Let It Be" in the best way. The Beatles swan song The idea of Paul The idea of John The idea of the engineer A long production Spectacular show None of these answers
Like music History is more an art than a science.By remembering the "rooftop concert", it is possible to record r the number of songs played. Whoever was there, who made the recording, who played the chords with George at the closing of "Dig a Pony", etc. In fact, Beatles scholars, such as Mark Lewisohn, have dedicated their lives to recording the group's history, based on scribbled notes and all written records. The memories are gone. They are distorted by prejudices or altered by alcohol or drugs. In the case of the Beatles, one of the most discussed and documented cultural phenomena of all time, the history of the group has always been particularly sensitive to fables, on the one hand, and to the 39, sanitation, the other.
The love of the fable is intense. . In the late 1960s, I had to look for Paul McCartney in the Scottish Highlands to "prove" to the media that he had not died. And all those who know the Beatles up close know that Yoko Ono did not end the band. Sanitation is also contrary to the facts. Countless complimentary biographies have eliminated the most unpleasant aspects of The Beatles, in order to show them from the fans' favorite point of view, as people of indefatigable and almost superhuman kindness.
The Beatles themselves were aware that there would be disputes to tell their story and had a personal and commercial interest in telling it according to their terms. John, Paul, George and Ringo would each write an autobiography or give lengthy interviews in which they would promote their version of the story. From the mid-1970s, I worked with each of them on "The Love You Make", which was finally published in 1983. With content extracted from thousands of interviews, the The book was the group's first organized effort to dictate narrative in his film. words.
But this intimate glance at the group's rising, falling, and immortal immortality was too crude, and the surviving members returned to the book. With the pbadage of time and the healing of wounds, the death of John Lennon in 1980 and an avalanche of stories and biographies, The group made a second effort to consolidate its collective version of the story: Anthology, 1996, a collection of books and music featuring two unpublished Beatles songs, featuring Lennon's voice and accompanying George, Paul and Ringo. [19659002] "Anthology" represents what is closest to a Beatles consensus about the Beatles. But he did not put an end to uninformed stories. A filmmaker I know recently made contact with me about the rooftop concert and insisted that the police "were done with the show".
That would be good, but not quite true. The police arrived, yes. But I found them at the top of the building and said we were the owners of the property and that there was no way that they would force us to suspend the show. The police discussed the matter with each other and politely asked us to turn down the volume in order to avoid traffic problems in the area and a possible subpoena for disturbing public order. At that time, Paul had already got the third take "Take Back" and the series was coming to an end.
In recent years, with the death of my friend and companion in charge of Apple, Neil Aspinall, and producer and "fifth Beatle" George Martin, we only had Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and myself, from the beginning of the group, to signal less and less clear details to posterity. The rest belongs to historians and the ever-growing legion of Beatles admirers. Fortunately, nothing wrong with understanding in the initial agreement of "A Hard Day's Night", the sweet melody of "Yesterday" and the final crescendo of "A Day in the Life". It belongs to us all.
Peter Brown is the Managing Director and Board of Directors of the public relations consulting firm BLJ Worldwide. He was executive director of Apple Corps, the Beatles' holding company, from 1968 to 1970.
Translation by Paulo Migliacci
Source link
