The origins of the hoax

[pennylane]

Most Paul is dead websites credit the origins of 'hoax' to Fred LaBour. Which is simply not true. Beside the fact that the rumour of the death of Paul McCartney was rampant in 1966 in Liverpool, there are more earlier recounts of the 'hoax'.

Now we've touched on Jay Marks.. who had geard the rumour as early as 1967. Now I've come across another two name I am unfamiliar with; Dartanyan Brown and Tim Harper.

The first documented written source for the hoax was in (Iowa) Times-Delphic article written by Tim Harper, published on 17 September 1969, nine days before the release of Abbey Road. Has anyone seen this?

It's worth noting, as well, that Tim Harper, author of the first-ever printed story on the hoax, was not the source of any of these clues. Tim said that at the time he published his article, he wrote it article for informational purposes only.

Tim says he got his information from a fellow Times-Delphic writer, Dartanyan Brown. Dartanyan had said that in 1967 he lived in a rooming house in the UK frequented by musicians, and that one of them recounted the story to him. Dartanyan also recalled having read about the hoax in some underground newspapers at the time, though this cannot be substantiated. No published source prior to Tim Harper's Times-Delphic piece has been found as yet.

[DarkHorse]

Good job PL.

Well we can surmise that the 'official' version of PID that came out in the fall of '69 was done to prevent the the truth from leaking out from one of the other sources. Just invent an official story and that's what people will think of when they think of PID. After the phony story came out, anything related to it, even if it was before the fall of 1969, would get lumped with that story.

[-Wings-]

That would make sense too, if the plan was for them to break up in 1970 (per The Story). Burn that bridge at the last moment you can realistically do it, with their planned final album, and then never have to cross it again.

[JoJo]

Sounds like that loaded word "hoax" wasn't in the lexicon until the story became widespread, which I think can be credited to Fred L. Until then, it was a word of mouth thing, and you can't be certain how this information was taken pre-Fred, but I bet it was discussed as a fact, or at least a strong possibility. Perhaps it was about to reach critical mass, or perhaps Fred L. just stombled on it, and it was shaped and formed in a way that..gives us the hoax label that we have to this day.

Of course there was the friend of Linda who told his story about Linda and he being told casually in 1967 that the current Paul was a replacement. Of course he recounted this in 1969, and he tended to spin it into "yeah it's a hoax of course".