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| From | Marty Rudnick <mrudnick@marturo.com> |
| Subject | Beatles 'were to come together again' |
| Date | Fri, 09 Dec 2005 03:06:31 -0800 |
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This is from London's Times.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1915287,00.html
Beatles 'were to come together again'
By James Bone in New York and Adam Sherwin
IT WOULD have been the sensational return of the Fab Four. But the
bullet that killed John Lennon 25 years ago today destroyed plans for a
Beatles reunion, according to new claims.
Lennon was making secret plans to record an album with the other former
Beatles when he was killed, Jack Douglas, the producer who was working
with him until minutes before his death, told The Times.
He said in an interview in New York: "He and Paul planned to play on
a Ringo album and that's how they were planning to do it, and George
had not come aboard yet."
The sticking point, however, was with Harrison. "George was already
in a lot of hot water with John because of George releasing his
autobiography and not really mentioning much of John in it," Mr
Douglas said. "But I think they assumed that George would come along
as soon as the thing got going."
Mr Douglas, who won a Grammy award in 1982 for producing Lennon's
Double Fantasy album, said that Lennon had already begun sending him
material "earmarked verbally" on tape for the planned Ringo album.
But he said that Yoko Ono was unhappy about the proposed reunion.
"Yoko discouraged Paul coming around," Mr Douglas said. "There
was a writing session somewhere in the Dakota [the apartment block
where Lennon and Ono lived] and there was one cancelled which John did
not know about, cancelled by a third party," he said. "He was
waiting for Paul to show up. He was told that Paul did not show. Paul
was told that John was too busy."
The revelations were given credence by a new claim that a £6 million
record contract, which McCartney signed with CBS in 1978, contained a
clause that allowed him to record with the Beatles at any time.
But Beatles experts said they were unaware of any Lennon reunion plans.
Ray Connolly, author of The Beatles Complete, said: "John liked to
help Ringo and this could have been a way he saw to get the guys back
together in the studio.
"But George and Yoko had rows and she would probably have tried to
stop a reunion."
Eliot Mintz, Ono's longtime spokesman, confirmed last night that
Lennon and Ono had planned to go on a limited tour with Double Fantasy,
but added that he knew knothing about the ex-Beatles playing together
again.
Mr Douglas, now 60, said that Lennon spent his final day finishing off
a track featuring Yoko called Walking on Thin Ice. After weeks of work,
they finally finished the mix at the Hit Factory studio and agreed to
meet at 9am the next day to make a master tape.
"We were all thrilled with it. His [Lennon's] feeling was that this
was the one that was going to take Yoko over the top and make her
critically acclaimed, and cut him loose so that he could do his things
with 'the boys' without Yoko tagging along. She could do her own
thing," Mr Douglas claimed.
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