That Day Is Done: Did Paul Finally Get Back The Songs?
It's being reported that the confidential settlement that Paul McCartney and Sony reached means that Paul has finally done what he's been looking to do since 1985; Regain the full rights to the full Beatles Catalog.
This is a story that started back in 1969 when Dick James, who owned a majority share in Northern Songs, the publishing company set up with Brian Epstein and John Lennon and Paul McCartney in 1963, sold the songs without giving John and Paul a chance to buy them. Dick sold them to ATV music. In 1985, ATV was put up for sale and was bought by Michael Jackson, much to the displeasure of Paul, who originally had advised Jackson on the value of owning publishing rights.
Jackson, of course, didn't spend his money wisely and had to sell most of the catalog to Sony in the 90s and then with Jackson's death in 2009, Sony bought the songs outright and this January, McCartney began the process to regain them and they have reached a settlement which people are reporting is to McCartney's full benefit.
So, HAS Paul gotten back the full rights? So far, nothing has been officially confirmed. What do you think?
Well, he's finally doing it. Thanks to the US Copyright act of 1976, Paul McCartney is set to finally claim the publishing rights on most of the early Beatles songs. Songs he co-wrote with John Lennon.
However, it won't be the full catalogue and it'll only be the publishing rights in the USA. Sony/ATV will still control it in the rest of the world.
For those who are unaware of the whole saga, here it is simplified:
In 1963, Brian Epstein did a deal with Dick James and set up 'Northern Songs' to publish the Beatles songs which at the time were being written by Lennon & McCartney. When Harrison and Starkey started writing, they too had their songs published by the company but later formed their own companies while the Lennon and McCartney tunes stayed with Northern Songs.
After Epstein's death, Dick James was under enormous pressure from Lew Grade's ATV music to sell the catalogue to them, which he did without even giving the Beatles the chance to buy back their own songs. ATV were purchased by none other than Michael Jackson in the 1980s.
Jackson's purchase of the songs came after Paul McCartney advised him to get into song publishing, Jackson turned around and told him "I'm going to buy your songs!" which understandably annoyed Paul.
While Paul's bid to get the songs back in the US looks to be successful, the John Lennon Beatles rights publishing rights won't return to his estate. Yoko Ono sold them to Sony in 2009.
I wanted to talk about the fact that there is no footage to go
along with this fantastic audio of the Beatles very first appearance on
'Val Parnell's Sunday Night at the London Palladium' in 1963.
This
appearance is what is widely regarded as the beginning of the
Beatlemania phenomenon as a whole in Britain. It certainly attracted the
attention of the newspapers who ran stories the next morning of the
scenes inside and outside of the Palladium of screaming fans and
fainting. Of course, the papers and journalists were months behind the
times as this had been going on, in Liverpool at least, for 3 years
already! But now the term 'Beatlemania' was coined (by the Daily Mirror,
no less) and it was "Happening everywhere... even in sedate
Cheltenham!"
Beatlemania: The Daily Mirror noted that it was 'Happening everywhere' in November 1963.
Sunday Night At the London
Palladium was a variety show in Britain similar to The Ed Sullivan Show
(that the Beatles would debut in America on in February of 1964) in the
United States. The show usually opened with a performance from The
Tiller Girls but this evening, the 13th October, the curtains went up
and the Beatles appeared briefly. The place went insane! Host Bruce
Forsyth (Yep, the same Brucey, he was the same age as Paul is now, back
then!) tried in vain to quiet them and when they finally did he told
them "And if you want to see them again, they'll be back in 42 minutes!"
The
audience, both at home and in the theatre, had to sit through all the
other acts that appeared, which included Singer/comedian Des O'Connor
and American R'n'B singer Brook Benton.
“I went on just before they did and had six minutes for my act, I could barely hear myself. I knew the
audience wanted me out of the way as soon as possible so I made jokes
and sang bits of Beatles songs. When I heard Paul warming up on bass
behind the curtain, I cut my act short by two minutes.” - Des O'Connor
After
Des had done his bit, Bruce Forsyth came back out in a collarless
jacket and Beatle wig, saying; "I thought I'd be a dead ringer for
Ringo! Are you ready?! 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! Here they are! The Beatles!" and
finally the curtains came back up and the Beatles performed.
The
songs they performed were; 'From Me To You', 'I'll Get You', 'She Loves
You' (Their most recent hit) and ending with 'Twist & Shout'. Just
before the last song, Paul's introduction was drowned out by the screams
from the audience, to which Lennon screamed "SHUURRRUP!" to more
screams and a round of applause from the older members of the audience
who were no doubt getting extremely fed up of the teenage girls'
shrieking and screaming.
The Beatles performed once more on the show in January 1964 but after that, never again.
ATV
(Which was later to become ITV in Britain) produced the show and I was
hoping that, since we all know about the BBC and their policy of wiping
in the 1960s and 70s, that ATV wouldn't have done the same thing.
Appears they did. Why? Well because back then, everything that was recorded was bigger and took up much more space and when colour TV came around in the late 60s. The BBC and ITV thought that monochromatic footage was of even LESS VALUE and they couldn't re-use the tapes and subsequently....destroyed the tapes. Yes people. The Beatles' appearances on BBC shows like 'Juke Box Jury' and 'Top Of The Pops' are missing, probably wiped. I can only imagine when the BBC started their archiving in the late 70s and discovered that almost all of their output from the beginning of television in the 1930s to the 1960s was gone, you could probably hear their collective heads banging against the wall.
The
footage is listed as missing and this audio was captured by a TV viewer
who hooked up his record player to record the audio to vinyl. I'd like
to say on behalf of Beatles fans everywhere, Thank you to everyone who
experienced the Beatles first hand and recorded footage or audio of
their appearances! Corporations like the BBC and ATV/ITV obviously
decided posterity wasn't in their best interests! I always say that if I could travel back in time. I'd bring a camera and camcorder for the future!
