Hunter Davies

From Wikipedia:

Edward Hunter Davies OBE (born 7 January 1936) is a British author, journalist and broadcaster. His books include the only authorised biography of the Beatles. […]

Writing career

After he left university, Davies worked as a journalist, and in 1965 he wrote the novel Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, which was made into a film of the same name in 1967. He raised the idea of a biography of the Beatles with Paul McCartney when he met him to discuss the possibility of providing the theme song for the film. McCartney liked the idea of the book because inaccurate information had been published about the group but he advised him to obtain the approval of Brian Epstein. Epstein agreed to the proposal and the resulting authorised biography, The Beatles, was published in 1968. John Lennon mentioned in his 1970 Rolling Stone interview that he considered the book “bullshit”, though Lennon at the time was vigorously debunking the Beatles’ myth and anyone who had helped to create it. […]

In 1966, Hunter Davies, a journalist for the Sunday Times, had already authored two books, including the novel “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.” Moved by the Beatles’ song “Eleanor Rigby,” Davies visited Paul McCartney in September 1966, intending to feature the song prominently in his newspaper column. During a subsequent meeting at Paul’s residence, Davies sought to persuade Paul to compose the theme song for the film adaptation of “Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush.” While this idea did not materialize, their conversation sparked the possibility of an official Beatles biography.

Recalling their discussion in a 2002 interview for MOJO Magazine, Davies noted that there had been only two previous books about the band, “both paperbacks and neither substantial.” He suggested to Paul that an official history would prevent the Beatles from constantly answering the same questions posed by the media.

Through Paul’s introduction, Davies met with Brian Epstein, the Beatles’ manager. Epstein granted Davies full access to the band members and exclusive rights over any other writer seeking to write a similar biography within the next two years. Their contract, signed on January 25, 1967, stipulated that the Beatles had the authority to revise the submitted manuscript.

“The Beatles – The Authorised Biography” was published in September 1968. Hunter Davies published revised editions of the book in 1978, 1982, 1985, 2002 and 2009.

Everything started the day I met Paul. I’d interviewed him once, as a journalist, and got on OK. I went back later, in a different capacity, to ask him to do the music for a film I was involved in. It was through chatting about that — he said no to the film — that I got to know him and put the question: once and for all, wouldn’t it be best if someone got it all down before they forgot about it? He said great, but he was just one of the four. I would have to ask Brian, but he would tell me what sort of letter to write to him.

Little did I know that if by chance I’d become friendly with one of the others, it might not have worked. Paul has always been the keeny, the one who can be bothered, and most of all, the one who goes on to make things happen. I also didn’t know at the time that Brian always went to great lengths to please Paul most of all. The reasons for this are subtle and complicated. (And all in the book, hurrah.)

After a bit of chat, I signed a contract with Nems to do the book. It is my book, written as I wanted to do it, but they had to read it and make any “reasonable suggestions”. Clever wording, that.

Hunter Davies – From the Beatles Monthly Book, N°60, July 1968

In 1966, I was working at The Sunday Times when ‘Eleanor Rigby’ came out. I interviewed Paul about it because I thought the words and the music to the song were absolutely brilliant. I wrote a big piece in the paper saying, ‘I thought these were the best lyrics and the best poetry written in the Sixties.’ A few months later, I had written a novel, called Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush, and that was being turned into a film, and I was the screenplay writer. And because Paul had written the soundtrack to The Family Way, I went to see Paul again, this time with the director of Mulberry Bush, a bloke called Clive Donner, at his house in Cavendish Avenue. But, this time I went to see Paul with a different hat on. Rather than being a journalist, I was there as a screenplay writer. We discussed with Paul whether he would do the music. In the end he didn’t. But, it was during that discussion with Paul, that I said, ‘There should be a proper biography on The Beatles.’ At that stage, I had written three books, and I was actually in the middle of another. What I said to Paul was, ‘You should have a proper hardback serious book, which gets you from A to Z and, for the rest of your life, when people ask you the same boring questions, such as, ‘Where do you get your hair cut?’ or whatever, you can say, ‘It’s all in the book.’ At this stage, there were only two books about The Beatles, Love Me Do, The Beatles Progress (1964), by Michael Braun, and The True Story of The Beatles, which was a fan club paperback. So Paul, there and then, said, ‘What a brilliant idea! Yes, you can do it. I’ll back it, but you’ve got to talk to Brian.’ So, he helped me write a creepy letter to Brian, asking, ‘Can I do the book?’ I had a meeting with Brian, and he cancelled three of four times. At the time, I didn’t know why he was cancelling, but I finally went to see Brian, and I took my agent and we signed the contract. I got a contract from Brian to be the official Beatles biographer, and, on the contract, it actually said that, ‘The Beatles can’t give interviews for another book for two years.’ Brian had never seen a literary contract before, so that was the most amazing clause to put in.

I came back to my publisher and told him that I had the exclusive contract to be The Beatles’ biographer, and he said, despondently, ‘Oh … the bubble’s going to burst. This is 1967, we know everything that we possibly want to know about The Beatles, and they’ll disappear soon.’ There was a book on Cliff Richard that had just come out, and nobody had bought it. So, I said, ‘This is more than pop music. This is social history.’ He said, ‘Sociology? Who needs sociology?’ My contract for the book was just £3,000. This was my total advance for doing it. I got my contract and I thought that I would spend the first few months not interviewing The Beatles, I would just simply hang around them.

Hunter Davies – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

All four Beatles read it. George moaned on that I hadn’t done enough on the spiritual side and the Indian mysticism. So, I said, ‘Well, it’s a biography on a group. It’s not your views on the subject.’ Paul liked it, Ringo liked it, and John liked it and they insisted on no changes.

Hunter Davies – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

I stayed with Jim McCartney, Paul’s dad, a couple of times at his Cheshire home, along with his new wife, Angie. One night, Paul had sent up an advance copy of ‘When I’m Sixty-Four,’ written with his dad in mind. We must have played it about twenty times, dancing round the room, till I thought Jim might have a heart attack.

Hunter Davies – From “The Beatles, Football and Me“, 2007

While working on the book, the Beatles in turn visited our house for tea or a meal. When Paul and Jane Asher came, Paul insisted on walking round the corner to the local shop to buy something. I tried to stop him, knowing he would be recognised and be pestered and followed back to the house. I think he was still at the stage when he quite enjoyed being spotted – and also being seen as an ordinary guy, who could still walk the streets.

Hunter Davies – From “The Beatles, Football and Me“, 2007

The most enjoyable part of the book was being in the studios at Abbey Road while they were recording. John and Paul would usually assemble beforehand at Paul’s house nearby, going up to his top floor where they would try out any ideas they had had on their own, sparking off each other. In Abbey Road, John or Paul would write out the latest versions of a new song on the back of an envelope or scrap of paper, so that George and Ringo would know what was happening. At the end of the sessions, I would often pick up these scraps from the floor, ask if I could have them, as otherwise the cleaners chucked them out. The Beatles themselves had no interest in such items, concerned only with the next thing, not what they had done.

Hunter Davies – From “The Beatles, Football and Me“, 2007

When I finished the book, the big thing was that I didn’t want to finish it. I was so enjoying interviewing The Beatles; I wanted the research to go on forever. I had worked on it for eighteen months and I thought I had to call it a halt. The reason was that it was changing all the time. Every day I met The Beatles they always disowned what they said yesterday. Their views were changing. The Beatles were always changing in their views. Under my deal with Brian Epstein, they, The Beatles, had to read the book to make any factual corrections. But, of course, Brian was dead. This meant that his mother, Queenie, inherited my contract. I had in the first draft that Brian was gay, but his mother denied this. I had it in that Brian was gay because it was one of the most interesting things about The Beatles, how a public schoolboy, who loved classical music, who had been to RADA, had been really fascinated by The Beatles. My theory was that it was John gyrating on stage that really attracted him to The Beatles. And Brian, roughly, admitted that in the end, but I couldn’t spell it out. I did use the phrase ‘gay bachelor.’

Hunter Davies – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

In December 1968, Hunter Davies was staying in Portugal with his family when, unexpectedly one night, Paul McCartney and his new girlfriend Linda Eastman knocked on the door. They spent a couple of weeks as guests in his home.

During that stay, Paul started composing a song about Hunter Davies called “There You Are Eddie.” It was played during The Beatles’ “Get Back” sessions in January 1969.

I had been in correspondence with all four Beatles, from Gozo and then from Portugal, telling them what I was doing, what I was working on, just chatty letters. In turn, they often sent me postcards, from wherever they were. I had issued a general invitation, to come and visit us, but I’d forgotten that.

Hunter Davies – From “The Beatles, Football and Me“, 2007

In the middle of one night, Paul McCartney arrived with his new girlfriend, Linda, whom we had never met. When we left London he had been engaged to Jane Asher and we thought they made a very good couple. They had with them a girl called Heather, aged about eight, who was Linda’s daughter by a previous relationship.

That evening in London, Paul had suddenly thought it would be a good idea to take his new girlfriend and her daughter to see us, as he knew we had young children, having been to our house. All service flights to Faro had gone, so he told Neil, their roadie, to hire a private jet. Which was why they arrived in the middle of the night.

We might well have not been in, or had even left Portugal, gone somewhere else. They had not rung, for we did not have a phone, nor had they written. Typical Paul. He would not have been fazed if we had not been there, seeing it as an adventure, take life as it comes, let it all hang out.

When he arrived, out of the blue, at two in the morning, he had no money and an irate taxi driver who had driven them 80 kilometres from Faro airport. Paul had landed at Faro with a £50 note, but had given it to someone to change for escudos. Then he noticed a taxi driver, waved him across, and jumped into his taxi, forgetting to pick up his currency.

They stayed for two weeks. At first we had assumed Linda was a groupie, a one-night stand, who appeared to be hanging on to him all the time, but as we got to know her, we realised she was a strong character, better for Paul than we had imagined.

Hunter Davies – From “A Life In The Day“, 2017

Almost from the day Paul and Linda appeared in our house, people were arriving from Lagos bringing flowers, baskets of fruit, bottles of wine, all from shops and restaurants, wanting him to visit. I couldn’t understand at first how they had found out who he was. It was all to do with the £50 he’d given away at the airport. A story had gone round about this idiot Englishman giving money away – then one person had said, ‘Oh no, I recognised him, he’s not an idiot, he’s a Beatle.’

Hunter Davies – From “The Beatles, Football and Me“, 2007

On their third day with us, the press arrived from Lisbon. Paul was very good with them. He agreed to an impromptu press conference outside our front door, on the beach, on condition that they would not bother him again on his holiday. Which they stuck to. After that, when wandering round the Algarve, he never got pestered or bothered. It was of course December, out of season. though there was not much of a season in those days.

Hunter Davies – From “The Beatles, Football and Me“, 2007

Despite that last-minute dash from London, Paul had not forgotten one vital thing – his guitar. In odd moments, including going to the lavatory, we could hear him playing away. It happened to come out one day that my first christian name is Edward, which amused him, though I don’t know why. His first christian name is James, not Paul. He went off to the lavatory and when he came back he played us a little song which went ‘There You Go Eddie, Eddie, Eddie; There You Go Eddie, Eddie You’ve Gone.’

He had only got the first part of the song, the first few bars, but I thought it was charming. Some years later, I heard it on one of the bootleg tapes, recorded during the ‘Let it Be’ sessions, and it was clear he had worked on it a bit more. He is singing and playing it to John, who seems quite impressed. But it never appeared on any album. What a shame. I would love to have been the inspiration and subject of a Beatles song. Even if no one had ever known it was me

Hunter Davies – From “The Beatles, Football and Me“, 2007

While he was staying with us, Paul started a novel, probably inspired by the fact that Margaret and I were each bashing away. He borrowed my typewriter, when I wasn’t using it. I did try to sneak a read at the odd page, behind his back, but didn’t manage it. (I have asked since about his aspirations to write a novel, as he has now done a book of poems. He says he has completed a work of fiction, but it’s locked in a safe while he decides whether to have it published or not.)

Hunter Davies – From “The Beatles, Football and Me“, 2007

Paul writes songs in TOTAL privacy… says the Beatles’ biographer HUNTER DAVIES

WHEN Paul McCartney feels a song idea coming on, he picks up his guitar, locks himself in the lavatory and
strums away on the seat!

And that is one gem about the Beatles that escaped the intricate attention to detail of Hunter Davies in his best-selling biography of the Beatles published last year, and which has reaped over £150,000 in royalties.

“It wasn’t in the book, simply because I completely forget about it until Paul came to Portugal to stay with my family for a few days just before last Christmas,” says 33-year-old Davies, himself just back in Britain — and also back on the Sunday Times — on completion of a new novel, “The Rise And Fail Of Jake Kelly.”

“Paul decided to fly over with Linda Eastman and her daughter Heather on the spur of the moment, which is typical of him. He hired a plane at fantastic expense, as there were no other available flights, arrived in the middle of the night, shouting ‘Wake up b——, it’s me,’ and when we let him in he headed straight for the loo with his guitar!”

Appropriately it was Paul, the Beatle best known to Davies, who helped Hunter to get official approval from the late Brian Epstein to go ahead with a book about the Beatles phenomenon.

“I’d first met Paul through interviewing him for my ‘Atticus’ column in the Sunday Times, and when I came to do the screenplay of my book, ‘Round The Mulberry Bush,’ I asked him if he’d write the music. He wouldn’t — Traffic did instead — but, being involved in something outside journalism, I suppose, we became that much more friendly and eventually I asked him if there was any chance of my writing a biography of the Beatles.

“This was around the end of 1966 and they’d just stopped touring. It was the end of a huge phase in their lives and a good time to do such a book.

“Paul liked the idea and even took the trouble of helping me write a suitable letter to Brian Epstein proposing the idea. ‘Stress that you work for the Sunday Times’, he said, ‘and mention all the snobbish sort of things you can think of.’ It worked, of course, and I worked on the book for the next 18 months, which takes their story up to shortly before they became disillusioned with meditation.”

By the time “The Beatles” reached the bookstalls, however, a lot had happened and already dated the biography. John and Cynthia had split; Yoko Ono had emerged; the police had started their drug-swoops purge; Paul was beginning to see a lot of Linda; the Apple boutique had opened and closed.

If he had to append and update his book today, Davies would have a humorous personal story to stick into the section on John and Yoko. “I met her before John did. She phoned me at the Sunday Times to say she’d like to use my bottom in her film on the subject. I said I couldn’t very well allow her to do that, but, as a compromise, I’d write a piece on her for ‘Atticus.’

“I suppose I was amazed when it all came to pass that John and Cyn had broken up. But then none of the Beatles is really married in the accepted sense of the word. With them it’s equality in originalness. In fact, the Beatles are closer to each other than to their wives. They can communicate with each other without needing to speak — Jane (Asher) didn’t want to be the fifth Beatle, she wanted to be married to Paul, not four blokes.

“John meeting Yoko was really meeting a piece of himself because he’s a freak-out bloke. She is very intelligent and funny, serious and genuine. He was always the raver and completely selfish and I thought their coming together might mean John moving away spiritually from the other Beatles. But it hasn’t seemed to affect their relationship at all.”

Davies thinks the idea their Apple organisation “eminently commendable.“

“I meet a lot of intelligent progressive people in my job but the Beatles are light years ahead of them all in goodness. They’re conceited, but don’t believe they’re God’s gift to us. They don’t want to stash away their money. Their idea is to give back something from what they’ve got. They felt ‘Why can’t we help others which is great, but really talented people don’t want charity. They have conceit and don’t want help because the have the conviction that they will make it anyway.

“Can it come off? I don’t know. What matters is that they are trying.”

He says that, for him, the big fascination at the moment is whether they will go out “live” again. “Paul and George are keen — Ringo and John against the idea.“

And Paul and Linda? “I like them both. But why Paul preferred to marry Linda is impossible because you can’t describe love. It was just smooth — they gelled, whereas with Jane there were always deep discussions and arguments. Jane has this compulsion to work, to base a career and be a person — Linda, too, but photography is not the most important thing in the world to her.“

From Disc And Music Echo – May 17, 1969

Recording sessions Hunter Davies participated in

Albums, EPs & singles which Hunter Davies contributed to

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