Wednesday, May 15, 1968
Paul and John fly from New York to London
Last updated on October 12, 2024
Wednesday, May 15, 1968
Last updated on October 12, 2024
Location: New York, USA
Interview May 14, 1968 • The Beatles interview for WNDT
Article May 15-18, 1968 • The Apple shop mural is being removed
Article May 15, 1968 • Paul and John fly from New York to London
Session Late May 1968 • The Esher recordings
Interview May 16, 1968 • The Beatles interview for The Village Voice
Next article May 17, 1968 • "McGough & McGear" album is launched with a lunch party
May 11, 1968 • Paul McCartney and John Lennon fly to New York to promote Apple
May 12, 1968 • Paul and John meet Ron Kass in New York
May 13, 1968 • Paul and John give interviews to the US business press
May 13, 1968 • Interview with Larry Kane
May 14, 1968 • The Beatles promote Apple Corps in New York
May 14, 1968 • Press conference announcing Apple
May 14, 1968 • The Beatles interview for NBC
May 14, 1968 • The Beatles interview for WNDT
May 15, 1968 • Paul and John fly from New York to London
The Beatles hire Alexis “Magic Alex” Mardas
Aug 24, 1967
Apple Corps open offices in London
Jan 22, 1968
Designing the Apple Records logo
February - July 1968
Mar 29, 1968
Paul McCartney meets American scriptwriter Francie Schwartz
April or May 1968
Apple publishes an ad to find new talent
Apr 19, 1968
Paul and John meet Ron Kass in New York
May 12, 1968
The Beatles promote Apple Corps in New York
May 14, 1968
The Apple shop mural is being removed
May 15-18, 1968
May 23, 1968
Paul McCartney celebrates his 26th birthday
Jun 18, 1968
On May 11, 1968, John Lennon and Paul McCartney, joined by ‘Magic’ Alex, Neil Aspinall, Mal Evans and Derek Taylor, travelled from London to New York to promote their newly formed company, Apple Corps.
Following a day of business meetings on May 12 and interviews on the 13th, a press conference was held at 1:30 pm on the 14th at New York’s Americana Hotel. There, John and Paul shared their vision and aspirations for Apple. After the press conference, they recorded an afternoon interview with New York’s educational TV station WNDT / Channel 13, and made a special appearance on Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, hosted by Joe Garagiola.
On the evening of May 15, John, Paul, and ‘Magic’ Alex returned to London, arriving in the early hours of the 16th. Nat Weiss, who had hosted them at his New York apartment, and Linda Eastman, upon Paul’s request, accompanied them to the airport.
Paul was set to return to the US in June 1968 for promotional activities with Apple. This trip would also provide another chance for him to spend time with Linda.
It was at the Apple press conference [on the 14th] that my relationship with Paul was rekindled. I managed to slip him my phone number. He rang me up later that day and told me they were leaving that evening [sic – on the 15th], but he’d like it if I was able to travel out to the airport with him and John. So I went out in their limousine, sandwiched between Paul and John.
Linda McCartney – from “Linda McCartney’s Sixties“, 1992
At the party, Linda told me that she thought Paul was smiling at her. ‘What shall I do?’ she asked. I told her to slip Paul a piece of paper with her phone number. He called her that night. Until then, Paul had never responded hugely to her. In fact, she really preferred John. She used to say, ‘John is very exciting.’ Linda went with them to the airport the next day.
Lillian Roxon – Linda Eastman’s friend – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman, 2008
On the day Paul and John flew out of JFK, Linda rode back from the airport with Nat Weiss, her first time alone with him since they’d flown from London to New York in adjacent seats after the Sgt Pepper press conference at Brian Epstein’s almost exactly a year earlier. Once again, and even more so than before, Weiss was impressed with the intensity of Linda’s feelings for Paul. “She kept going on about how much she
From “Linda McCartney – A Portrait” by Danny Fields, 2000
loved him, and wanted to know if Paul had said anything about her. Actually, Paul took me aside at the airport and asked me if Linda really owned a horse in Arizona. I told him I didn’t know,” says Weiss, who
wonders to this day why he wanted to know that, of all things. “So I told her he obviously thought she was good company, or she wouldn’t have been in my apartment in the first place, and she seemed sort of satisfied with that but insisted on knowing if there was anything else. There was nothing else, but of course his asking her to accompany him to the airport was very significant, very significant. When you look back now to the beginnings of it all, Linda was made for Paul.“
101 Hours with John Lennon & Paul McCartney
[…] As John and Paul were preparing to catch the 8 P.M. flight back to London one couldn’t help speculating on how little they saw in New York. [But] they did enjoy themselves, not repainting Weiss’ apartment as the otherwise reliable Leonard Lyons reported in his New York Post column, but autographing his door with Magic Markers: “Nathaniel means love, Paul McCartney” and “With love, John Lennon.” And they did hear a lot of records, though no one seems to remember any of them except Nilsson and also that they asked for two copies of Leonard Cohen’s album.
Really, they had a good time, they did what they came to do, and they did what they wanted to do, and not what was expected of them. All the same, next time, they should see New York — properly. As Paul said rather sadly on his way to the airport in the musical Cadillac as he passed all those graves, “I don’t feel as if we were really here at all.” That’s it. They came, they saw, but they didn’t stoop to conquer.
From “101 Hours with John Lennon & Paul McCartney” by Lillian Roxon
It was the spring of 1968 when John Lennon and Paul McCartney came to New York City to promote Apple Corp. They stayed at the apartment of their American manager Nat Weiss, who was a business partner and good friend of Brian Epstein. Nat packed a suitcase and stayed at the St Regis hotel, giving John and Paul their privacy. When Nat returned to the apartment a week later, John and Paul were gone. Opening his closet door, he found a surprise. A huge autograph was written on the inside of his closet door which read,”Nathaniel certainly is. love Paul McCartney and John Lennon much love.” This is the largest known autograph of John Lennon.
George Harrison also stayed at Nat’s apartment when in New York City. Not to be outdone, he autographed Nat’s closet door. George wrote, “To Nat, the king and queen of FUH. Love from George Harrison 30/11/68”. Does anyone get George’s reference to FUH? FUH is from a song by Brute Force an Apple recording artist.
Nat’s door was also autographed by Amhet Ertegun, who was the President of Atlantic Records. Ahmet wrote, “To My Dear NOT, He is not only Love, he is also your date. Amhet”. In addition, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Cat Stevens and I believe John McLaughlin also autographed the door. There are a few other autographs but I am not sure whose they are. I took this picture in 1969 and it is difficult to read.
Richard Adler (an early member of the Ramones) – From The Beatles Secret NYC Hideaway | The Cruise For Beatles Fans (wordpress.com)
Why Ringo calls himself the office boy … IT’S ALL IN THE APPLE GAME
IT’S been another of those Beatle weeks. John and Paul flew to New York, decided that their Guru, the Maharishi, was a human being after all, that the Queen was freaky and that she too was a human being, and then flew home again. Meanwhile, George and Ringo went off to Cannes to see a film called Wonderwall for which George composed the music.
The whole world had been waiting for a sign of disillusionment with the Indian mystic cult, but when it was blurted out with such naive honesty, who could say: “I told you so?” The ever-so-charismatic Beatles, with inbuilt sixth sense in public relations, had confounded their critics again.
What now for the Beatles? The screaming is pretty well over; the LSD “confessions” are forgiven; public ridicule over their TV film Magical Mystery Tour is forgotten, and their amusing flirtation with things Indian is behind them.
Says Paul McCartney: “When we first started off, our idols were Elvis and Chuck Berry. Now they’re Marks and Spencer.”
The Beatles are, in fact, in business — and in quite a big way. When I caught Ringo in a pinstriped suit a few days ago, he explained: “I’ve been at the office, you see. That’s what I am these days. An office boy.”
Under their corporate holding company Apple Corps (get the pun) they set up separate divisions to handle music publishing, recording, film making, inventions and electronics, and merchandising, and there’s even an Apple Foundation of Arts, “for the encouragement of talent in literary, graphic and performing arts.”
Already Apple Films have four projects in hand including a film based on John Lennon’s books In His Own Write and A Spaniard in The Works, for which John is preparing screen and stage adaptations (the stage production will be at the National Theatre later this year).
Both their next films (to be made in the late summer) and the animated cartoon film Yellow Submarine, which will have its London premiere in July, are Apple productions.
Not that everything has gone too smoothly for them — despite their large investments in two shops and offices in the West End, and a house in Savile Row. This week The Fool, the dressdesigning team of Simon and Marajke, decided to leave their Baker Street boutique, complaining that too many of the Beatles friends were being employed rather than experts in the separate fields.
There may be something in that. Just look at the list of Merseysiders now working at Apple. There’s former road manager and accountancy student Neil Aspinall as managing director; Terry Doran, Liverpool car salesman and protege of Brian Epstein, heading the music publishing company, while Peter Sutton, Alistair Taylor and Derek Taylor, old friends from Liverpool, are all Beatle assistants of one kind or another. Other friends are: Wendy Hanson, Epstein’s former personal assistant now in charge of public relations; Peter Asher (Jane’s brother) who is a record producer; and Leslie Cavendish (Paul’s barber) who is heading an Apple hairdressing salon.
But already, with or without the experts, Apple is established in Canada, New York, West Germany, Italy, Sweden, France, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
“We want to make Apple more of a business — something of a social and cultural environment,” says Paul. “We want to have a happy organisation where everyone gets a decent share of the profits. I suppose it will be a sort of Western Communism.” More of a benevolent Capitalism, I would have thought.
The Apple concept — with dozens of shops all over the country — could be an exciting new form of business enterprise. But even the Beatles aren’t made of money and one must wonder whether they will be able to gather around them people with the necessary business acumen.
Next week they go back into the recording studios to make their follow-up album to Sgt. Pepper. Had you forgotten — they started off as a pop group.
From Evening Standard – May 18, 1968
The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years
"With greatly expanded text, this is the most revealing and frank personal 30-year chronicle of the group ever written. Insider Barry Miles covers the Beatles story from childhood to the break-up of the group."
We owe a lot to Barry Miles for the creation of those pages, but you really have to buy this book to get all the details - a day to day chronology of what happened to the four Beatles during the Beatles years!
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