(Editors Note: Through my friendship with Bill Holdship, I've become buddies with folks like Steve Crawford who, with Jeff Ivester, runs the excellent "45 Revolutions A Minute": "A discussion group for pop music and rock 'n' roll. America's Only Facebook Page That Matters." A closed group but Steve's a good guy, I am sure he will let you in if you friend him! I had posted about the George Harrison Early Takes album and former Executive Editor Of Musician Vic Garbarini mentioned interviewing all four Beatles. I asked if Vic's interviews were available on line and here is his reply reposted… maybe he will allow us to post the Geoff Emerick -Geoff produced Imperial Bedroom as well, interview one day!)
The Harrison is not online, as far as I know (I should check Google, I find my McCartney and Ringo online, usually with typos and mistakes, every year of so, and my Lennon, which I was more a consultant on ) I Have the tapes stored away. Also have a George Martin and engineer Geoffrey Emerick tapes,
The Macca was in Musician in 80, Columbia was gobsmacked that he talked to me about the Beatles, (first full interview since the breakup – about 6 months before John died) They asked if they could print up 60, 000 of it just to see if it would sell, which it did, I got almost nothing, except a call from Greg Geller's wife, the VP of Publicity who arranged for me to do the interview, who told me that Columbia was out to SCREW me on this. As, it turns out, was Macca's manager. She urged me to get a lawyer. I was too young and naive, but , boy, was she right. Did Macca know? I'm not sure. (See TK's remarks for good assessment of him) He sure loved doing the interview, acted everything out, relived stuff, once I got him talking, he wouldn't stop – for two hours ! We were both nominated for a Grammy for the record, under Best Spoken Word in 81.
Ringo was also all Beatles and done for MUSICIAN in 82,
Harrison, my fave, was with an hour's notice thanks to Bob Merlis and was in Guitar World in 92 and later more printed around 98.
George Martin was in GW around 99, Emerick never printed.
Helped on last John interview with NEWSWEEK, which was huge, and we turned the interview into the centerpiece of a book, "Strawberry Fields". I didn't take a % , and gave half the meager fee away to charity. I was a bit of an idiot. Yoko latter told me and my co-writer she liked the book, no problem . I just felt guilty taking almost any money .
I will try and see if I can find the Harrison, maybe GW has it at least on computer file, and send ya one if I do.
And yes, I found out a number of things, confessions, (like who Martin thought might have really written music for In My Life,) and who Lennon, perhaps subconsciously, DID borrow the whole idea for "Norwegian Wood" from). where and how Paul copped Idea for "Penny Lane" and a number of later songs from. The thing about the Beatles – and McCartney did joke that they "were the biggest thieves going, " – even when they thought they were copying something , their immense creativity almost always molded it into something unique anyway, – Then there's secret hidden studios, and other stuff I am saving up if I should ever write it all up as a book. IF we still have books !