BIOGRAPHY Fab: An Intimate Life of Paul McCartney By Howard Sounes Harper Collins, 634pp. £20Why did Paul McCartney listen to nobody when it was clear that his marriage to Heather Mills would be a disaster? Was he adrift after the dath of Linda - or was it sex, as his new biographer suggests?
EVEN WITH SUCH a voluminous range of literature, from adoring fanzines to near-libellous criticism, already published, the appetite of the book trade for The Beatles never seems to falter. Feeding it have been the memories of fans and groupies, publicists and producers, musicians and managers, wives and girlfriends, journalists and spectators. Some are begrudgers, adding little to the folklore but hoping to earn a quick buck by spilling a few beans.
The first Beatles biographer, Hunter Davies, whose book was “authorised”, and so also censored by the Fab Four, estimates that 2,000 or more such books have since been published, and that “the further we get from them, the bigger they have become”. This is surprising, given the opportunity provided now by the internet to broadcast so freely the secrets and the gossip. One would have thought that the publishing industry might indeed have faltered, if not given up.
Certain books, such as Albert Goldman's The Lives of John Lennon, have been obvious attacks, whereas others have been more defensive. Paul McCartney, who described Goldman's book as trash, was also aware at one time that the iconic Lennon, particularly after his murder, was receiving a more favourable press than himself, and arranged that his own side of the story be told by his friend Barry Miles.
This latest book, by Howard Sounes, who scored a success with his biography of Bob Dylan, takes McCartney's story almost to the present day, with Sir Paul and his band embarking on another tour in December 2009. In a previous life as a film-maker, your reviewer had the chance to see the character of McCartney at close quarters. A telling memory was during the shooting in 1967 of the film Magical Mystery Tour. Irritated by crowds of fans, McCartney gave instructions in four-letter words to remove them. "I can't do it," he said. "I'm supposed to be the nice Beatle."
For his book, which looks critically at the “nice” guy, Sounes has done his research, having interviewed more than 200 people. He also adds an extensive bibliography, from which each previous book can provide a source for the next. And, as a bonus, he gives a careful, if personal, analysis of McCartney’s music. Claiming new insights, he inhabits his pages with typical rock-star themes, such as wealth, infidelities and excess, but he also includes details of McCartney’s care for his family in Liverpool, his wider interests and his generosity. His gifts to charitable causes that appealed to him, such as a threatened cottage hospital near his home or the Institute for Performing Arts in Liverpool, or paying legal costs for his friends and assisting his second wife, Heather Mills, and her family, are now on the record. Less well known are the smaller gestures: your reviewer was among a small audience from a local housing estate in Elstree at an impromptu concert given by Paul McCartney and Wings, in a less-than-soundproofed studio over their wall, as a thank you for patiently enduring the noise of rehearsals before a world tour.
This decency is tempered, however, by his desire for control of others, his feeling of responsibility and his determination to have things done as he wants them, no matter who stands in the way. It is no wonder that, with the 1970 break-up of The Beatles as a band, and also as a brand, McCartney, who took advice from his wife’s lawyer father, severed himself from the other three and their manager, Allen Klein. As a unit The Beatles were finished.
His mother, Mary, whom McCartney adored and for whom he wrote many songs, died when he was 14, and from then on he and his brother were reared by his father alone. In his long-term relationships with three women, of which Sounes indeed gives an "intimate" portrayal, McCartney somehow expected the stability that was impossible in his youth. His song When I'm Sixty-Fourimagines a desirable old age: "Will you still need me, will you still feed me . . ."
His first serious girlfriend, the Titian-haired actor Jane Asher, was equally ambitious in her career, and was therefore unwilling to look after the young celebrity who was her partner. However close they were, marriage was never an option. It was his first wife, Linda Eastman, who provided him with that stability and gave him three children. The worldly daughter of a wealthy lawyer who also enjoyed rock'n'roll, she was a "tough broad" who stood no nonsense. It is unlikely that she would have tolerated his long trip to India to meditate with the Maharishi, about whom Lennon wrote the song that later became Sexy Sadie. Even when Linda's various careers as a photographer, advocate for animal rights and vegetarian cook began to climb there was always time for her husband at the kitchen table. From their homes in Scotland and Sussex she watched his back, advising him until her death in 1998 on his changing relationships with Lennon, Harrison and Starr.
Sounes tackles the fluctuating connections between these four egos with some skill. At times there must have been frustrations,when each had other things to consider. A minor irritation with the book is that he has insisted on calling Ringo Starr Ritchie. This may be the name that was used by family and friends, but to most readers of this book it is unfamiliar. It is as if it is used to prove some privileged knowledge.
For a figure so well advised, it is extraordinary that McCartney listened to no one when it was clear that the impending marriage to his second wife, Heather Mills, would be a disaster. One can only imagine that the strong and guiding relationship that he had shared with Linda, broken by her death, had cast him adrift. Perhaps it was sex, as Sounes suggests, that drove him relentlessly towards Mills, but the ostentatious wedding in Co Monaghan, from where his mother’s ancestors had come in poverty, took them both to a great height, from which he would inevitably fall. This hero remains as fallible as the rest of us.
Gerry Harrison is a biographer, shortly to open a second-hand bookshop. As a film-maker he worked sporadically with The Beatles, together and individually, for eight years. He now lives in Co Clare
