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Post by beatlesfan284 on Jul 6, 2013 9:16:24 GMT -5
There was a Canadian Billy Shepherd musician who died in the late 80s. There use to be a bio on a website somewhere but I think it suddenly disappeared. He was supposedly a jazz musician but, going by memory, he looked alot like the guy on the back of the MMT bus. I wish it was still up so we could compare them. anyone remember the web page I'm talking about? Wait, WHAT!! This might be the key to the mystery, (I think) |
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Post by beatlesfan284 on Jul 6, 2013 9:21:03 GMT -5
My theory... Bill Shepherd is none other than a made up name for........ NEIL ASPINALL!! He looks like Bill on the album, which could only mean that it was his band along with Mal Evans' brother!
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Post by B on Jul 6, 2013 11:35:50 GMT -5
beatlesfan284, have you been to TKIN/60IF ? If not, you may want to pay it a visit.
Also, what can you tell us about Mal Evans' brother?
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Post by cherilyn7 on Sept 1, 2013 11:14:31 GMT -5
Did anyone ever see "Billy Pepper and the Pepperpots" perform live? There were many obscure groups in the sixties who had minor hits, one hit wonders, etc but I never heard of them at all or read of them in the music papers. The publicity pictures look like montages of different people stuck together but don't look right. People jumping about reminiscent of Freddie and the Dreamers. Some of the album covers are interesting: 3 cowboys wearing same boots as the Beatles wore in the Hamburg days but the fourth cowboy is cut off the picture....another has a gun at the top: guns feature in so many Beatles publicity photos.
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Post by linus on Sept 2, 2013 2:27:02 GMT -5
Here's an album cover for a group called The Primitives, associated with John Cale and Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground (which are associated with Andy Warhol), and one of the photos from the MerseyMania Lp by The Pepperpots. They are two photos from the same shoot. Why did Reed & Cale they use it for their album cover? Neither of them are in the photo.  Here is the full album cover for MerseyMania. They have another album which is titled "More MerseyMania" but neither this album or the other one include band personnel names etc.  the backs of both albums.  The only time the name Bill Sheppard appears on the Lp is on the disc label as the composer, along with Jimmy Fraser.  Also notice, the Pickwick name is on both the Primitives and Pepperpots albums. And to tie this in with Andy Warhol even more, here are some Warhol paintings.  In agreement with many of the statements in this thread, I would venture to say that this band was not an actual band, and their recordings were hastily assembled to cash in on the Beatles craze. And that the men in the photos on the record cover could be the studio musicians who performed the music, but are most likely models. Though the 'pepper' coincidence deserves acknowledgment, I would guess it's either a coincidence, or it's all part of the PID motif.     |
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Post by linus on Sept 2, 2013 4:28:30 GMT -5
B mentioned that the Beatles film clip of them standing in the field at Lennon's place (last photo shoot) started off with the same white dots that a Warhol film started off with. Anyone remember which Warhol film that was? I want to eat green apples and bananas  Pepper Potts from the Iron Man comics  Paltrow plays Pepper Potts the Iron Man films  Paltrow named her child Apple. ‘70s tv show “Police Woman”, the main character is named Sgt. Pepper Anderson, played by Angie Dickinson en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Woman_(TV_series)www.imdb.com/name/nm0001141/She also plays a police woman who arrests Ringo in the 1978 tv movie Ringo.  Here's a bit of Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable at The Factory, which, imo, was an inspiration for some of the scenes in Magical Mystery Tour, particularly Blue Jay Way, as well as the video for "A Day in the Life". part 1part 2-------------------- |
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Post by linus on Sept 23, 2013 23:30:07 GMT -5
More stuff to put with Warhol’s Pepper imagery. Artwork from Brian Jonestown Massacre’s 2010 album   that is the name of the album. |
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Post by B on Apr 12, 2015 13:51:46 GMT -5
Can I put you out of your misery? Bill Shepherd was my father - he is now dead. He was indeed the main writer for the Billy and the Pepperpots album which was his and friends jokey attempt to cash in on the Beatlemania. He was the same man who produced the early Bee Gees records in Australia, and then came back to England with them as their musical arranger. He was English and we emigrated to Australia in the 60's - where he subsequently got a job as a recording engineer at Festival records - and took over recording the Bee Gees. He had his own radio show for a while, then a TV show called One More Time, before moving to Munich and then LA (where he eventually worked for Muzak). He did lots of other arranging work - mostly at IBC studios in the 70's where I eventually got a job as a tape op - and did a lot of French artists. There is no Beatles or Paul connection - although interestingly he worked with a character called Brian Chalmers who claimed to be a cousin of Paul and Mike (Paul's brother). There was some resemblance - although he was extremely camp and involved with producing an Italian singer called Little Tony, and apparently had connections with the mafia. And he was notorious for pushing the story of Paul being replaced after his death by Bill Campbell. I should not be surprised if he was the main instigator of the story - we heard it from him several times - and in those days it seemed plausible. It was supposed to have been a car crash - cover of Abbey Road 28IF and all that. Certainly there is an attraction to the theory that the man who wrote Yesterday could not be the same man who wrote The Frog Chorus. Anyway - had to clear that up about my Dad - I had not seen the picture before so that was interesting. By the way the Bee Gees Authorised Biography has an index section just on Bill Shepherd. He was an interesting man - but he wasn't Paul or Paul's replacement I'm afraid - otherwise I'd be rich - and I'm not! I'd sure love to know more about Brian Chalmers!  I believe that the Bill Shepherd in the video below may be guitargaz's father, but I could be wrong. Below the video I have posted the YT responses. Bill Shepherd toured in comfort with Chris Farlowe posted by UKRockHistory www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VbO28YDR2A  boobah1067 11 months ago This is Bill Shepherd? Of Billy Pepper and the Pepperpots band? TheRealBonk 2 months ago Yes I believe it is....which makes him not Faul... (comment by B: Not necessarily! ) boobah1067 2 months ago I think the Beatles used the name Pepper and so on, because it was a spoof band in some ways (an impersonation). Faul is Bill, however, by name as well, though: he uses the name in many ways, long after and in subtle ways which indicate he is William, but Campbell, not Shepherd. He is a shepherd, though: likes farming and lived in Campbelltown, Scotland. It is possible he's from there. More than that we cannot say about his name. |
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Post by B on Apr 13, 2015 4:47:07 GMT -5
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Post by cherilyn7 on Apr 13, 2015 14:52:54 GMT -5
I would aver that the sleeve notes of "Merseymania" was written under a pseudonym "Roger Easterby".....Easter Bunny springs to mind! These type of LPs, as they were called in those days, did not sell very well; who wants a cover by unknowns when you can have the real thing?
I've thought all along that Billy Pepper/Shepherd/Shears was a studio musician/sometime songwriter (many of the "Lennon/McCartney" songs in my opinion were penned by others; faceless people behind the scenes who were contracted to write songs and waived the right to the royalties). I think this man was working for EMI as a session musician and his similarity to JPM had been noticed. It is obvious that is where "Sgt Pepper" came from. \\\
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Post by B on Apr 13, 2015 19:55:22 GMT -5
I've thought all along that Billy Pepper/Shepherd/Shears was a studio musician/sometime songwriter ... I think this man was working ... as a session musician and his similarity to JPM had been noticed. It is obvious that is where "Sgt Pepper" came from. Exactly. As far as it goes...  |
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Post by cherilyn7 on Apr 14, 2015 14:57:44 GMT -5
Thankyou ,and it could be anyone behind those masks. I've got the original MMT book and I think it has been altered now. I think this Billy Pepper LP is somewhat of a red herring. They will have sold very few as these sort of records were not popular with the record buying public, for obvious reasons, so this has been blown out of proportion somewhat. The cartoon illustrations in the MMT book appear to have been done by the same person/artist who did similar cartoons for the Beatles Monthly Book. It did occur to me that they were not very good likenesses of the "boys" (notice the term "boys" that Brian Epsein used to call them ceased to be used after the mid-sixties). It's as if those cartoons were just caricatures that could be "one size fits all" so to speak, if you get my drift. PS. I trust you got my reference to Easter Bunny - Easterb-y, just saying.....
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Post by cherilyn7 on Apr 14, 2015 15:09:13 GMT -5
Following on from that, it seems that "Bill" was close to George Martin, they were often photographed sitting closely together at the piano, "composing" film scores (I'm sure JPM though a fine musician of his type would not have got into composing film scores or, for that matter, writing daft ditties like "The Frog Song", "Mary Had a Little Lamb" or "The Lovely Linda"; it just was not his style). As for those film scores, I think they were composed by George Martin and put out as Faul's work, just as the many Lennon/McCartney so called compositions that were probably written by others. Also, it is strange that Paul (Faul) got a Knighthood as did George Martin, but not the other Beatles (Featles). (Americans may not realise that the MBE is not a Knighthood at all). This closeness to George Martin seemed to override the closeness to John or the others; this was not the case 1962-66; John and Paul had an almost telepathic relationship/understanding. So these are other factors showing it was a different individual from 1966.
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Post by B on Apr 14, 2015 23:24:52 GMT -5
Thankyou ,and it could be anyone behind those masks. I trust you got my reference to Easter Bunny - Easterb-y, just saying..... Why yes! It could even BE the "Easter Bunny" aka Mr. Easterby. In fact, one way or the other, it appears that the Easter bunny is on that very Easter-ly looking Magical Mystery Tour album cover. Even overtly! (That's him in the back row!)As for Mr. Easterby himself, I have always found his comment on the back of the "Mersey Mania" album to be oddly conspicuous! "I specially recommend that you take a listen to the boys' brilliant revival of 'Jericho' , for this Spiritual,
given the Mersey treatment, just about sums up what this music is all about."Huh? What does that mean? What a strange thing to say! I'm guessing: a spiritual message being passed in a rock and roll format. Perhaps a statement about "breaking down walls" (Jericho) figuratively and literally. Does that sound like something the Pepperpots managed to accomplish in any meaningful way? (No.)Does it sound like something that the Beatles managed to accomplish in any meaningful way?  I say "Mr. Easterby" (Easter being the story of a man who death could not hold down) made a very curious statement. And who would know better than a man who "was" Easter ("Easterby"/"Easter-be") ? Perhaps a statement by an Easter Be-atle. Or an Easter Wanna-Beatle, but someone who seems to have known what was coming down the bunny trail!  |
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Post by beacon on Apr 15, 2015 4:51:09 GMT -5
I would aver that the sleeve notes of "Merseymania" was written under a pseudonym "Roger Easterby".....Easter Bunny springs to mind! These type of LPs, as they were called in those days, did not sell very well; who wants a cover by unknowns when you can have the real thing? I've thought all along that Billy Pepper/Shepherd/Shears was a studio musician/sometime songwriter (many of the "Lennon/McCartney" songs in my opinion were penned by others; faceless people behind the scenes who were contracted to write songs and waived the right to the royalties). I think this man was working for EMI as a session musician and his similarity to JPM had been noticed. It is obvious that is where "Sgt Pepper" came from. \\\ I am not so convinced that Roger Easterby is a pseudonym. There is a Roger Easterby who worked with bands such as Vanity Fair and Chicory Tip and who was a press officer for CBS. Clearly this is not proof that they are the same but I wouldn't mind betting they are.   However, this guy is on Twitter; why doesn't somebody ask him what he can remember about Billy Pepper and the Pepperpots. P.S. The Bill Shepherd in the YouTube video is not the same guy as guitargaz's father; the video is from 2011 and 'our' Bill Shepherd was dead a long time before that. |
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Post by B on Apr 15, 2015 9:39:12 GMT -5
The top picture of Roger Easterby made me think of  Funny thing is, the top picture of Roger in that article doesn't look like the picture of him at the bottom of the article. And the question arises, "What would a CBS press officer be doing, writing an album description on a non-entity record album?" |
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Post by B on Apr 15, 2015 10:12:50 GMT -5
this guy is on Twitter; why doesn't somebody ask him what he can remember about Billy Pepper and the Pepperpots. I'm not on Twitter, but that's a great idea! Someone here who tweets, please do. looking at some of his tweets:Apr 3 Happy Easter(by) everyone.Mar 31 Out canvassing today and a woman opened the door in her nightdress. I thought that's a funny place to have a door!  If no one wants to do it, I'll understand. |
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Post by cherilyn7 on Apr 15, 2015 15:16:04 GMT -5
What a laugh! This guy "Easterby" looked in his thirties at least in those photos (I agree they do not look like the same person, one has moustache, one doesn't for a start) That would make this guy about 90 now!
It must be a different person surely, also, if he was the Press Officer for CBS, was this record released on a subsidiary of CBS maybe? The plot thickens and does anyone know how many copies were sold? Not many, I would aver. There was no reason for anyone to purchase Beatles songs by unknowns when they can buy the real thing which is what people did then when the Beatles were the best thing since sliced bread in pop music. This group did not really exist, they were most likely session musicians having a bit of fun, otherwise their real photos would have been put on the album cover.
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Post by cherilyn7 on Apr 15, 2015 15:30:19 GMT -5
As regards "Jericho"; I think this description was poetic license and just a metaphor for the sound they were endeavouring to re-create. If there is no pictures of the musicians on the cover, how does anyone know who they are? Also, there were no names of the group members either apart from the pseudonym "Billy Pepper". People who make an album want recognition and, hopefully, fame; why would they hide away?
The whole exercise seems fairly pointless really. Also, regarding CBS, this was an American record label and the people in the photos at the party are all Americans; wasn't this Roger Easterby Press Officer American also? How does this fit in with a British record by unknowns? Why was Mr Easterby asked to do the sleeve notes? These types of records were the ones you would find on market stalls, probably finding their way there due to buying a job lot that no one wanted in the first place and still no one wants them.
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Post by cherilyn7 on Apr 15, 2015 15:44:53 GMT -5
The newspaper cutting states that Roger Easterby and partner Des Champ signed Bruce Channel to their Santa Ponsa Productions Company and they were still operating in 1972 with groups like Chicory Tip, Vanity Fair and others but only achieved moderate success. It looks like he was also a record producer; so maybe he produced that record by Billy Pepper and the Pepperpots as well as doing the sleeve notes, otherwise why would he?
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Post by B on Apr 15, 2015 15:48:43 GMT -5
cherilyn7 wrote: *sob*How can you say such a thing? Don't be breaking Bill's heart! Hava listen, and see if your life isn't toadily transformed! Billy Pepper & The Pepperpots - Jericho (UK beat) www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUdQEiryxQcI mean... Who wants to see these guys vvvv after they've heard The Pepperpots sing "Jericho"? BEATLES Live at Hollywood Bowl 1964www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqOsmUthz74
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Post by B on Apr 15, 2015 17:12:06 GMT -5
OK, maybe I will give the Pepperpots another chance; play something written by Mr. Shepherd: May be I Will www.youtube.com/watch?v=deBpDEPjBMEEverybody sing along! "If she tells me I'm a fool, what can I say?" ------------------ |
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Post by beacon on Apr 16, 2015 4:28:39 GMT -5
Just to come back on the Roger Easterby thing; I am not saying the people in the photographs are the same people, or that this was the guy that wrote the liner notes for Billy Pepper but, suppose it is. Here we have a guy who became, at some point, a press officer for CBS, so penning liner notes would be exactly the type of thing a bright, up and coming young buck might do to get a name in the industry. In time he gets opportunities elsewhere which include promoting and producing other bands. Let us consider then what Pickwick Records was, it existed to knock out compilation records of cover versions of other people’s hits. It was a parasitical organisation that existed to exploit the talents of others for a quick profit. To do this they used session musicians, including, apparently, Lou Reed and John Cale. I have found an interesting quote from a guy called Alan Crawford who ran Pickwick Records. Here he is talking about the production of a series of Seventies compilations called ‘Top of the Pops’, named after the famous TV show of the time, which the BBC had neglected to trademark, and which my fellow UK based posters of a certain age will no doubt remember. For this ‘Top of the Pops’ series they utilised the talents of musicians like Elton John and Trevor Horn. "We ended up with a system, it was like a railway station, with trombone players, violin players arriving. We were doing one hit copy every twenty- three minutes.
My favourite singer of them all was a man called Ross Macmanus, father of Elvis Costello, who was Joe Loss’s main vocalist, and he used to always be there recording for me. Whenever we did Elvis Presley’s numbers, he was magnificent and better than Presley. Presley often used to sing off key - I don’t know why he was such a worldwide success, because he was not very good in my opinion".So, returning to Roger Easterby, the following quote from a biography on Chicory Tip explains more on how the system then worked. ….But it got them noticed and the fourth single, "I Love Onions", was expected to do better. The song had just been released on November 5th 1971 when all promotion was stopped because producer Roger Easterby, who was in charge of their productions with Des Champ for their whole career, was given a copy of Giorgio Moroder's version of a song called "Son Of My Father." Giorgio was a German singer-producer who had written the music to the song and his partner Pete Bellotte wrote English lyrics to it. It was a German hit record by Michael Holm (who wrote the German lyrics for the song called "Nachts Scheint Die Sonne." Easterby was a record plugger at the time and decided that he wanted his band to record the song and get it out as a single before Giorgio's version got up a head of steam.
Back then anyone could cover a song as long as it had already been played on the radio in the UK, so he took it along to his local station, got it played, and then set to work getting Chicory Tip in the studio to record it. It was such a secretive operation that he daren't even get a copy of the proper lyrics. Instead they jotted down what they thought were the words - they were ALMOST right! - and away they went….
…The single was recorded in George Martin's own studio, Air Studios. George was probably the most famous producer in the world having worked with The Beatles and produced some of the best work ever to come out of a studio in the 1960s, so when he arrived at the session to give his verdict on "Son Of My Father" his actual words were "It smells like a hit to me!"Chicory Tip "Son Of My Father" www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YaND4j2ePQAs an aside, but perhaps of greater interest – to me anyway – is that Alan Crawford, the guy that owned Pickwick Records, also jointly owned the pirate radio station Radio Caroline. I am working on a separate blog piece on Caroline, however, there is tentative, but thus far unsubstantiated, evidence that some of its funding came from the CIA as part of its Gray Broadcasting programme as part of a, not unsuccessful, attempt to Americanise the UK. However, the ramifications are that if you find a record you think will be a hit you can simply play it on your own radio station and that then entitles you to produce a cover version from your own studios! A literal licence to print money and, most likely, the origin of the Merseymania record. Billy Pepper and the Pepperpots were a simple exercise in exploiting a situation for profit and their only connection, ultimately, with The Beatles comes via the coincidental involvement of a guy called Bill Shepherd. |
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Post by ramone on Apr 16, 2015 9:05:41 GMT -5
Billy Pepper and the Pepperpots were a simple exercise in exploiting a situation for profit and their only connection, ultimately, with The Beatles comes via the coincidental involvement of a guy called Bill Shepherd. And coincidentally Sgt Pepper? |
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Post by B on Apr 17, 2015 11:25:16 GMT -5
I have a lot to say about this, but no time to do it right now.  |
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