Recently found legal documents that shed new light on the demise of The Beatles are to go on sale next week, UK auction house Dawsons said Monday.
While creative differences, the strain of stardom and John Lennon’s girlfriend Yoko Ono have all been blamed for the Fab Four’s break-up, the documents reveal the numerous convoluted legal battles that also weighed on the band.
The documents, which were discovered in a cupboard where they had been stored since the 1970s, include copies of The Beatles advisor’s minutes of meetings, legal writs and a copy of the band’s 1967 Original Deed of Partnership. They show that after manager Brian Epstein died in 1967, the band realized that money was unaccounted for and that they were being pursued by tax authorities. Another damaging legal battle erupted when Paul McCartney opposed the decision by other band members to hire Allen Klein as their new manager.
Photo: AP
The uncovered stash of files document the subsequent 1970 High Court battle launched by McCartney against the band in London, which exposed Klein’s mismanagement.
“It would be almost impossible to exaggerate the actual complexity of the various legal arrangements which have been entered into by Messrs. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starkey (Ringo Starr),” said notes on one document.
Other legal difficulties besetting the band included deciding when Pete Best left the group and Ringo Starr joined, royalties for film and music rights and Klein’s inability to produce accounts for the tax authorities.
“Even though John, Paul, George and Ringo had grown tired of being The Beatles and wanted to record and perform as individual artists, this must have been a difficult time for each of them,” said Denise Kelly, head of Dawsons Entertainment and Popular Culture department.
“I could sense panic in the room as more and more complexities came to light. One of the lawyers even suggested during one meeting when they had gone round and round and round in circles: ‘would it be easier if The Beatles just retired?’”
McCartney said in 1970 that he was no longer working with the group, but the legal process of breaking up the band was only finalized in 1974.
A 1971 letter written by Lennon to fellow UK music titan Eric Clapton, to be auctioned on Thursday, showed his desire to plot a new course after The Beatles, inviting him to join a “nucleus group” with super-producer Phil Spector.
The documents will be offered in Dawsons upcoming Entertainment & Memorabilia auction on December 12, and are expected to sell for more than US$6,353.
The breakwater stretches out to sea from the sprawling Kaohsiung port in southern Taiwan. Normally, it’s crowded with massive tankers ferrying liquefied natural gas from Qatar to be stored in the bulbous white tanks that dot the shoreline. These are not normal times, though, and not a single shipment from Qatar has docked at the Yongan terminal since early March after the Strait of Hormuz was shuttered. The suspension has provided a realistic preview of a potential Chinese blockade, a move that would throttle an economy anchored by the world’s most advanced and power-hungry semiconductor industry. It is a stark reminder of
May 11 to May 17 Traversing the southern slopes of the Yushan Range in 1931, Japanese naturalist Tadao Kano knew he was approaching the last swath of Taiwan still beyond colonial control. The “vast, unknown territory,” protected by the “fierce” Bunun headman Dahu Ali, was “filled with an utterly endless jungle that choked the mountains and valleys,” Kano wrote. He noted how the group had “refused to submit to the measures of our authorities and entrenched themselves deep in these mountains … living a free existence spent chasing deer in the morning and seeking serow in the evening,” even describing them as
As a different column was being written, the big news dropped that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) announced that negotiations within his caucus, with legislative speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT, party Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chair Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) had produced a compromise special military budget proposal. On Thursday morning, prior to meeting with Cheng over a lunch of beef noodles, Lu reiterated her support for a budget of NT$800 or NT$900 billion — but refused to comment after the meeting. Right after Fu’s
What government project has expropriated the most land in Taiwan? According to local media reports, it is the Taoyuan Aerotropolis, eating 2,500 hectares of land in its first phase, with more to come. Forty thousand people are expected to be displaced by the project. Naturally that enormous land grab is generating powerful pushback. Last week Chen Chien-ho (陳健和), a local resident of Jhuwei Borough (竹圍) in Taoyuan City’s Dayuan District (大園) filed a petition for constitutional review of the project after losing his case at the Taipei Administrative Court. The Administrative Court found in favor of nine other local landowners, but
RSS