Neil Aspinall is Dead

[JoJo]

Good article: www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/03/25/OBIT_ASPINALL.html

Would be something if:

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.

Ya never know.. He might have been busy scribbling away.

[ramone]

jojo said:

Good article: www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/03/25/OBIT_ASPINALL.html

Would be something if:

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.

Ya never know.. He might have been busy scribbling away.

Qwerty wordy, lines in a box-
never know what it all unlocks

[TotalInformation]

The rapid nature of the cancer is suspicious and should be inquired into. To dismiss the notion of murder would be disrespectful to Mr. Aspinall and his family.

[JoJo]

I wouldn't dismiss anything out of hand, but his departure from his duties at Apple lead me to believe he wanted to spend his remaining time doing something other than being stuck behind a desk. Assuming he left when he knew he had lung cancer, the time it took to succumb wasn't unusual.

[blackbird]

I do pray his soul is at peace. "Rest in peace Neil."

[LOVELYRITA]

With all due respect, may he rest in peace.

But this is suspicious that he dies of lung cancer too? And the number thing?

Sorry, but there's something fishy here. He's one of the few who were still alive...or willing to share the truth of what went down with the Beatles. The public deserves to know the truth, not all of the cover ups. Now he's gone...

It does bring up a good point, thanks to JoJo for saying that he may have had some sort of memoirs...if not written, perhaps on recorded....but if there is, who has it now?

Hmmmm.

[mindgames]

Macca rushed to his death bed perhaps to tie up some loose lips, I mean ends.

[B]

Or if you believe Iamaphoney, to send him on his way.

[lenmac]

07/04/08 - TV & showbiz section

Stella McCartney and Yoko Ono's tearful embrace at funeral of 'Fifth Beatle'

Stella McCartney and Yoko Ono both turned out to farewell Neil Aspinall, the man known in the music industry as "the Fifth Beatle," at his funeral in Twickenham today.

Sir Paul McCartney's daughter was tearful as she hugged Ms Ono, the widow of John Lennon, outside the Church of St Mary the Virgin following the service.

The Who rocker Pete Townsend and Ringo Starr's wife Barbara Bach were also among the crowd of mourners.

Aspinall, who controlled The Beatles' music empire for more than 40 years, passed away in hospital in New York last month following a two-month battle against lung cancer.

Sir Paul McCartney flew to the US on to be at the bedside of the 66-year-old as his condition deteriorated, but he did not appear to be in attendance at today's ceremony.

In a statement released on behalf of Sir Paul and Ringo Starr and Beatle widows Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison, the company said following his death: "As a loyal friend, confidant and chief executive, Neil's trusting stewardship and guidance has left a far-reaching legacy for generations to come.

"All his friends and loved ones will greatly miss him but will always retain the fondest memories of a great man."

Aspinall started work for the band as the £1-an-hour driver of their battered blue Commer van.

He became their confidant and accountant, as well as contributing to some recordings, playing percussion on Magical Mystery Tour and singing backing vocals on Yellow Submarine.


In 1968 he took over Apple Corps, the company set up to manage the Beatles' business interests.


Aspinall resigned as chief executive of Apple Corps 11 months ago to run a small film company from his home in South-West London.


A former smoker, he was being treated at Manhattan's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre after being transferred from a London hospital. Suzy, his wife of 39 years, was at his bedside along with his five children when he passed away.

[lenmac]

another article:

April 7, 2008 -- Daily Mail

Stella McCartney and Yoko Ono's tearful embrace at funeral of 'Fifth Beatle' - but Macca stays away

Rock's aristocracy turned out mourn of the man they knew as the 'fifth Beatle' yesterday.

Some 250 mourners paid their respects to Neil Aspinall, the Beatles's original road manager who went on to run the group's business empire for 40 years.

John Lennon's widow Yoko Ono, 75, was seen warmly embracing Sir Paul McCartney's fashion designer daughter Stella, 36, and also Beatles producer Sir George Martin, 82, outside the funeral at the Church of St Mary the Virgin near Aspinall's home in Twickenham, south west London.

Ringo Starr's wife Barbara Bach, 60, and original Beatles member Pete Best, 66, also attended, as did The Who's guitarist Pete Townshend who arrived with a guitar under his hand to perform at the ceremony.

Townshend, 62, played along to Mr Tambourine Man and then to late Beatle George Harrison's solo hit My Sweet Lord which marked the end of the service as Aspinall's coffin was taken from the church to be buried.

Former EastEnders actor John Altman, 56, who played Albert Square's resident bad boy Nick Cotton, gave a reading during the service.

He had become good friends with Mr Aspinall as they were neighbours in Twickenham.

Neither Paul McCartney nor Ringo Starr attended the ceremony. Best had been Aspinall's best friend.

Yet he never saw eye to eye with Starr, who replaced him in the band, or indeed McCartney, which might have gone some way to explain their absence from the funeral yesterday.

Sir Paul managed to visit Aspinall in a New York hospital, days before he died from lung cancer two weeks ago. McCartney's spokesman said he was out of the country on a pre-arranged trip yesterday.

No hymns were sung during the service conducted by Rev Dr Kerry Samuel.

The 50 minute funeral service began just before 1pm after the coffin arrived in a black hearse with the word "Papa" in flowers inside the car.

The red brick church was surrounded by local residents keen to pay their respects after Aspinall's passing.

Verger John Evans said: "His friends and family sang along to the chorus including Mary and Stella it was very moving."

After the ceremony Mr Aspinall's family went on to Teddington Cemetery for a private burial before joining friends at a party to celebrate his life.

Mr Evans said: "'It was a lovely service with so many people in attendance. There were no Beatles songs, I suppose he must have been a Bob Dylan fan."

Aspinall died two weeks ago in New York after a battle with lung cancer.

He earned the much-used title of "fifth Beatle" perhaps better than any other.

He became guardian of the Beatles' shambolic business interests at Apple Corps in 1968, on the condition that he would do it "only until they found someone else". He quit the position only last year.

For some 20 years following the break-up of the group in 1970, Aspinall applied his astute business acumen to fighting lawsuits on their behalf and unravelling their tangled financial affairs.

His flair for figures helped to transform them into the wealthiest entertainers in the world, with a estimated combined fortune of £2 billion ($4 billion).

A notoriously reclusive accountant, Aspinall made a rare public appearance last year in the course of a lengthy legal dispute involving Apple Corps, the Beatles' business organisation.

But a matter of weeks after settling the row with the Apple computer firm over the use of a trademark, Aspinall abruptly resigned as chief executive, reportedly frustrated that the band's musical legacy was being compromised in the quest for profits.

One of his last tasks had had been to remaster the group's back catalogue for legal downloading on the internet.

Sir Paul's friend and former PR advisor to the Beatles, Geoff Baker, said: "Neil Aspinall was the man who was closer to all of The Beatles than anyone.

"Under his creative and caring direction, The Beatles business phenomenon and its trademark Apple transcended far beyond the Sixties.

"He was the Beatles' friend who became their roadie who became the chief of their empire and the unassuming, modernising mastermind behind the band's enduring appeal and influence for four generations.

"Although he would deny it, he was long considered to be 'the real Fifth Beatle' by the music and entertainment industries which for 40 years revered and respected him as one of the wisest men in the record business."

Baker said Aspinall became friends with McCartney and Harrison at the Liverpool Institute for Boys where they formed the "Mad Lad Gang" that John Lennon later joined.

The others formed the Beatles while Aspinall became an accountant, but he soon rejoined his friends.

Mr Baker added: "Neil remained at the centre of the gang that was to change the world.

"Always he was right at the Beatles side, captaining their flagship Apple for 40 years after beginning as their first road manager and driver of their old Commer van, doubling up as The Beatles' minder, spotlight operator, confidante, fixer, personal assistant and, moreover, their mate."

Aspinall's wife, Suzy, and his five children were at his side as he died

[iburiedpaul]

"Best had been Aspinall's best friend."

I guess pete will always be a Best friend to anyone he's friends with <smirk>

[iameye]

Pete Townshend Plays George Harrison At Neil Aspinall Funeral

by Paul Cashmere - April 9 2008

The Who's Pete Townshend turned up at the funeral of his friend Neil Aspinall clutching a guitar. The guitar hero brought the instrument along to farewell Neil with a version of George Harrison's 'My Sweet Lord'.

Neil Aspinall was the head of the Beatles' empire for 40 years. He died a few weeks back of lung cancer at the age of 66.

Townshend also played Bob Dylan's 'Mr Tambourine Man' at the funeral.

Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr did not attend the funeral but Paul's daughter Stella was there. Ringo's wife Barbara represented the family.

John's wife Yoko Ono and George's wife Olivia both attended the service.

Paul had flown to New York to see Neil only days before his death.

The funeral took place the Church of St Mary the Virgin in Twickenham, in London.

Neil was buried at Teddington Cemetery near-by.

www.undercover.com.au/News-Story.aspx?id=4528

[iameye]

Mar 25, 2008 17:51:02 GMT -5 JoJo said:

Good article: www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/03/25/OBIT_ASPINALL.html

Would be something if:

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.

Ya never know.. He might have been busy scribbling away.

wouldn't that be something? Like a suitcase full of words?

[65if2007]

Apr 19, 2008 23:33:00 GMT -5 iameye said:

Mar 25, 2008 17:51:02 GMT -5 JoJo said:

Good article: www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/03/25/OBIT_ASPINALL.html

Would be something if:

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.

Ya never know.. He might have been busy scribbling away.

wouldn't that be something? Like a suitcase full of words?

Well although I have definitely become an Iamaphoney skeptic, I have a half-baked theory that the man (Aspinall) about whom every obituary described as the keeper of the Beatles secrets is -- or is SUPPOSED TO BE -- the guy from RA's 42 and 45 (also see "A Lie Adds Up" by "Bill Shepherd").

That is, the guy who states with certainty that Paul McCartney, world renowned musical genius and trend-setting pop star of Beatle fame, died in a car crash in 1966 and that it would shock those who knew him (the speaker) for he, of all people, to "break rank" and speak the truth about this.

That's why I would like to pin Iamaphoney down on this point.

[JoJo]

Found this article:

Title:
MY FRIEND THE FIFTH BEATLE. By: Norman, Philip, Daily Mail, 03077578, 3/26/2008
Database:
Newspaper Source

MY FRIEND THE FIFTH BEATLE
Section: Features

Friend, bouncer, procurer and part-time band member, Neil Aspinall was so close to The Beatles that he even had an affair with the mother of one of them. PHILIP NORMAN recalls the man who kept their innermost secrets to the very end.

NEIL ASPINALL, THE DESERVEDLY-NAMED 'FIFTH BEATLE' WHO HAS DIED IN NEW YORK AGED 66, WAS NOT AN EASY MAN FOR A JOURNALIST TO BEFRIEND.

As roadie and personal assistant to The Beatles, he was wearily wise to all the scams and subterfuges of the international Press corps who dogged their every step, both on and off the road. He was so close to them that Paul McCartney flew to the States this weekend to be by his bedside when he passed away.

Anyone who approached Aspinall more than likely did so to wheedle special access to John, Paul, George or Ringo. And the Liverpudlian who looked like a poet while talking like a bouncer generally gave them short shrift.

The point about The Beatles -- hard to believe amid today's drunken, charmless pop musical pigmies -- was that they were nice to everyone. After every show, their dressing-rooms would be packed with visitors, not only journalists and TV crews but lord mayors in ceremonial chains, officious police chiefs and countless others, all on the make in some way.

The Beatles themselves never told these eager intruders to get the hell out, nor indeed did their original manager, the image-conscious and old-worldly courteous Brian Epstein. That was Neil Aspinall's job.

I well remember him ejecting me from their dressing-room in Newcastle upon Tyne during their last ever UK tour in 1966. I had already spent half an hour talking to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, both of whom were amazingly friendly to an unknown local journalist, despite having been through it all a thousand times before. Paul even threw me his violin bass guitar so that I could test how light it was.

'Can I stick around with you a bit longer?' I asked. 'Sure,' they nodded. A moment later, Aspinall appeared and brusquely showed me the door.

'But they said I could stay,' I protested.

'Well, I say you've gotta go,' he snapped.

Aspinall started as The Beatles' roadie in the days when the term did not even exist. He ended up as boss of their company, Apple Corps, and steward of their incalculable musical legacy.

Most remarkably, in a world where internecine lawsuits and blood feuds are the norm, he managed to remain liked and trusted by all four.

In 47 years as their closest friend and confidant, he never betrayed them, never sold them out for his own profit, never spoke so much as a single word out of turn.

A remarkable pop autobiography will now, sadly, never be written. Born in Prestatyn, North Wales, in 1941, Aspinall received his secondary schooling at Liverpool Institute, the gas-lit Victorian grammar school also attended by Paul McCartney and George Harrison.

Next door to the school was Liverpool College of Art, where John Lennon was a legendarily rebellious student. The Beatles as we know them really began to take shape when McCartney and the younger Harrison would creep through a connecting door into the college to join Lennon in illicit guitar practice.

Although Aspinall was part of their circle, he initially seemed bound on a very different course. Leaving school with eight O-levels, he began to study accountancy with a firm in central Liverpool.

In 1960, he was boarding at the home of The Beatles' original drummer, Pete Best. Pete's mother, Mona, had turned her basement into a club called the Casbah, at which the band appeared and which they also used as their base.

ASPINALL owned a red and white van which he'd bought for £8 and, for a few shillings a night, would drive them to their other gigs around Liverpool. He'd drop them off, return to Mrs Best's for a couple of hours' accountancy study, then return after midnight to pick them up.

Aspinall was a close friend of Pete Best, and when he was brutally fired as The Beatles' drummer and replaced by Ringo Starr on the eve of their first UK chart success, the band seemed fated to lose their driver, too.

In a further plot twist worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan, Aspinall had been having an affair with Pete's mother, 20 years' his senior, and she became pregnant. She later gave birth to a son, whom she named Roag. Aspinall never denied paternity and grew close to Roag, although the boy was brought up in the Bests' home.

Aspinall's decision to stay with The Beatles despite this agonising conflict of loyalties was a huge lucky break for them. Together with a second roadie, 'Big Mal' Evans, he was the little bit of Liverpool that accompanied them around the world; a breath of home in foreign parts and of sanity when everything else was madness.

His duties were manifold, from positioning mikes and lights in theatres without proper sound systems to fetching their food, pressing their clothes and ensuring that supplies of willing girls (no one yet talked of 'groupies') were on hand whenever needed.

Nor was he himself ever stinted in this department. He told of one visit to New York in the mid-Sixties when he ended up with Rita Moreno, the star of West Side Story -- 'or someone who was Rita Moreno's exact double'.

JOHN Lennon was widely condemned in 1966 for saying The Beatles had grown 'bigger than Jesus', but by then their fame had become Messianic. After shows, especially in America, handicapped children in wheelchairs would be brought into their dressingroom as if a touch from them might work some Lourdes-like miracle. Sometimes the wheelchair occupants or their 'carers', or both, would be imposters.

Lennon, who hated all physical infirmity, took refuge in black humour, calling anyone who outstayed their backstage welcome a 'cripple'. The coded message 'Cripples, Neil' was the signal for Aspinall to clear the room.

When the band stopped touring in 1966 and withdrew into the studio to create album masterpieces like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the former roadie fulfilled a new, even more crucial role in their lives.

Indeed, the theme of this pioneering concept album -- a mock-Victorian brass band giving a 'live' show on record -- was suggested by Aspinall after Paul McCartney brought the one-off title track into Abbey Road studios.

He also took minor musical roles on other classic Beatles numbers, joining the background vocals on Yellow Submarine, playing an Indian tamboura on Within You Without You, a harmonica on Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! and percussion on Magical Mystery Tour.

John Lennon, in particular, came to rely on the man he called 'Nell' rather than Neil. When Lennon went to Spain to make his only non-Beatle feature film, How I Won The War, Aspinall accompanied him, shared his rented house and even appeared as an extra on screen.

When The Beatles started their Apple organisation in a philanthropic but doomed attempt to encourage young talent across the arts, Aspinall seemed natural executive material. For a time, he was managing director of the company at its Georgian mansion in Savile Row, Mayfair.

But, over-run by freeloaders and shysters -- who even stole the lead off the roof -- the company soon began spinning out of control. Aspinall showed the strain, as I recall from my visits to the house during the summer of 1969.

One afternoon, he recounted a nightmare he'd recently had, in which he was running for his life from nameless pursuers, clutching a supermarket carton full of shiny, wriggling silver fish. The faster he ran, the more tightly he held the bag, the more silver fish dropped out and were lost. It was an apt metaphor for a conscientious accountant, trying to stop his employers' money draining away.

When Lennon brought in a tough New York accountant named Allen Klein to sort out the mess -- precipitating a terminal rift with McCartney and, ultimately, the break-up of The Beatles -- Aspinall's day seemed to be over.

Klein's strategy was to get rid of anyone else who had any influence over the band. But in this case, he was deterred by a blunt instruction from Lennon: 'Leave Neil alone!' Instead, Klein chose attrition, turning over Aspinall's office to one of his own executives. Aspinall boxed clever, working on projects with George Harrison, his other great ally within the band, yet remaining as close as ever to John, Paul and Ringo.

By the mid-Seventies, Klein had gone, and for the four ex-Beatles there was only one possibility -- to run Apple in a new, pared down and rational form.

For the next 20 years, little was heard of Apple or Aspinall. He was rumoured to be putting together a film documentary on The Beatles from footage never shown during their career -- a project that seemed as epic as Gone With The Wind or J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion.

At music industry parties you'd occasionally see him: a gaunt, balding figure, still with a cynical eye for any journalist who tried to chat to him.

Then, in 1995, Apple released The Beatles Anthology, a definitive album set, video documentary and book, whose combined sales proved Beatlemania to be as potent in the Nineties as it had been in the Sixties.

Under Aspinall, every subsequent Apple product took 'patience and time' (to quote George Harrison's solo hit single) but was well worth the wait -- whether it was the film of Harrison's 1971 charity Concert For Bangladesh, or The Beatles 1, their album of past chart-toppers, which sold 30 million copies, or the Cirque du Soleil's sell-out Beatles tribute show in Las Vegas.

Last year, he made a rare public appearance during a court action against the Apple computer firm over the use of the fruit as their trademark. Just weeks after the case was settled, he astonished the music business by resigning from his job.

Taciturn as ever, Aspinall gave no reasons, merely saying that his departure had been by mutual agreement and quite amicable.

Within the business, it was said he had become frustrated by attempts within the company to cheapen The Beatles' legacy in pursuit of profits.

Although I had known him on and off since that night he chucked me out of The Beatles' dressing-room in 1966, we had become much more friendly in recent years.

One reason was Derek Taylor, The Beatles' former publicist, a lovely, idiosyncratic man whom we both liked immensely, and who came out of retirement to work on The Beatles Anthology.

When Taylor died of cancer in 1997, I wrote a tribute to him for Rolling Stone magazine. Next day, I got a call from Neil Aspinall, thanking me for the piece.

Four years ago, when I started my biography of John Lennon, I sent Neil a written request for an interview -- but without hope. This untapped repository of Beatle secrets never talked to writers or, if he did, added the rider: 'You mustn't quote me.'

SURE enough, a polite verbal turn-down came from his assistant. However, I decided to ring his home number and ask him personally. To my amazement, he said: 'Yes.' We had several lunches at a little Italian restaurant around the corner from his office in Knightsbridge. There, finally, I began to learn what a sensitive as well as loyal and honourable man lay behind the tough, blunt-spoken roadie.

He clearly still missed Taylor, as he did George Harrison, who died from cancer in 2001. Nor had he ever quite recovered from John's murder in New York in 1980.

A few years ago, he suffered a serious heart attack, no doubt partly induced by the stress of running Apple. After life-saving surgery, he woke up in hospital and -- he swore -- saw John standing beside his bed.

'It's OK,' John told him, then disappeared. Aspinall wondered ever afterwards whether that appearance meant 'don't be afraid' or that John was OK, wherever he was now.

Even in his roadie days, I learned, there was more to Aspinall than humping guitar cases and amps. In untold hours of hanging around backstage with The Beatles, he used to draw and paint -- images that often reflected the hysteria or paranoia at the time.

He had hundreds of such images in every size, and was thinking of putting them into a book. And maybe a conventional autobiography, too, I suggested. He admitted he would like to tell his story 'for my grandchildren'. But first he needed quality time with his wife, Suzy, to whom he'd been married since 1968.

Suzy's father was Bud Ornstein, producer of The Beatles films A Hard Day's Night and Help! and her great-aunt was the silent screen star Mary Pickford -- as big a draw as The Beatles in her day. 'I just can't seem to get away from world-famous icons,' Aspinall commented drily.

On his wrist when we last met was a gold watch, the traditional symbol of appreciation to a long-serving employee on retirement.

Given to him by Sir Paul McCartney, it was engraved with a very Liverpudlian thank you for those 47 years of unswerving loyalty -- 'Ta, la.'

~~~~~~~~

By Philip Norman

[jarvitronics]

Apr 26, 2008 10:52:26 GMT -5 JoJo said:

Found this article:
<snip>
He told of one visit to New York in the mid-Sixties when he ended up with Rita Moreno, the star of West Side Story -- 'or someone who was Rita Moreno's exact double'.

Do I even have to say anything? Oh the irony.

-j