- Needed: Paid Research Assistant(s) for a Beatle Project - October 28, 2023
- From Faith Current: “The Sacred Ordinary: St. Peter’s Church Hall” - May 1, 2023
- A brief (?) hiatus - April 22, 2023
“Look John! Nuns!”
MIKE GERBER • Commenter Annie McNeil just turned me on to a great Beatles Tumblr: Amoralto. It’s quite Dullblog-like, and I am very grateful to Annie (and the anonymous, dare I say mysterious proprietor of Amoralto) for the good word on this treasure trove.
A small aside: Are there any other types of troves? If so, you never hear about them. A subject in need of a Tumblr!
Anyway, thanks Annie—my career may never recover, but Dullblog will be so much the better for what Amoralto saves from the Beatle memory hole.
Though Annie brought it up in re: the Nativity story referenced in our earlier post on John’s eyesight (Amoralto has an excerpt from “The Lost Lennon Tapes” where Paul tells the story to an interviewer), what caught my eye was this item, an excerpt from a four-page handwritten letter from Paul to Brian Epstein, written in 1966 or ’67, in which the Caretaking Beatle gave the older man some advice and support during a time of unspecified troubles. (Perhaps the Diz Gillespie thefts?) Epstein willed the letter to his chauffeur/bodyguard Bryan Barrett, who auctioned it along with other Epstein diaries and ephemera in 2000. Amoralto—who apparently has a Highbeam account—copied out some.
So go check it out! We’ll wait here until you get back.
Related posts:
Interview with Lennon biographer Tim Riley
David Bailey documentary: Four Beats to the Bar, and No Cheating
I love LA!
The Brian Epstein Story
Socal Dullbloggers: Beatles on the Pier!
More on the breakup…
David Bailey shoots Brian Epstein and the Beatles
Great pic!
Send good vibes to Neil Aspinall
Beatles singles that never were?
Attention Millionaires: Beatles for Sale! (including John and Yoko’s Sexual History)
Time-Lapse Photography
Her work on the Get Back session audio is also quite fascinating.
My pleasure, Mike! I’m so glad you dig the goldmine that is Amoralto. And I echo your praise and gratitude to its mysterious proprietor; I find her eccentric pedantry totally charming. Like a Boho-Victorian Oxbridge academic beamed into the future and set loose on the internet. With Beatles stuff. 🙂
Yeah, how ’bout that letter, huh? I sure hope we get the whole thing someday, somehow. It was auctioned, right, so it’s somebody’s private possession now? Grrr. Maybe Lewisohn got a look at it? I’d really like to know what event Paul was responding to — the Gillespie incident crossed my mind, too, or maybe it was Brian’s suicide attempt?
Annie, weren’t there multiple suicide attempts? I know Peter Brown found a note; but weren’t there others?
That chunk of letter that Paul wrote to Brian Epstein is fascinating on many levels. People always portray Paul as so cold and calculating in the Beatles period. Yet here he is trying to take care of the manager who should be taking care of Paul! I would love to read the whole letter. I wonder if Paul himself bought the letter?
I’ve been enjoying the Amoralto blog, too. For the most part, he/she seems pretty fair to all of the Beatles (though I sense a John bias now and again). It was reading some of Amoralto’s posts on the Get Back sessions that I realized — for the first time — that Don’t Let Me Down wasn’t just a John song, and that Paul had not only had a major hand in the song’s arrangement but in the lyrics as well. Such a surprise.
Oh my God, I can tell I’m going to spend way too much time digging around on Amoralto! So much fascinating stuff here. On the letter from Paul to Brian, I had a couple of thoughts. Annie, I absolutely think that Paul’s signing the letter “Rev. James Paul McKenzie” is another indication of how much he identifies with the characters in his story songs. Also an indication of his knowingly playing different roles. And Drew, I agree that it shows Paul caring for Brian. It’s interesting that there’s a kind of role reversal here, with Paul playing the parental/advisory role (hence his joking reference to acting like “Rev. McKenzie”). And that also reveals that along with the caring there’s an attempt to shape and control events, especially to keep the group going.
And Paul drew a little bird at the end of the letter!
I don’t sense any John bias on that site, but I guess if I had a Paul bias maybe I would. It’s not a blog where he/she gives their opinions on the information, articles and interviews posted within. If someone doesn’t bow down to one’s favorite Beatle, there must be a bias.
Mike, I don’t know if there was more than one attempt. I only know the one where John sent the “You know I love you” note afterwards. But then I haven’t read Brown’s book, or the one by the other guy who was superbuds with Brian — oh geez, Alistair Taylor, I think (bad fan!).
Question: George Martin is quite adamant in his ’78 book that the Beatles were definitely going to cut Brian loose. What do we think about that?
What I find perhaps most fascinating about the letter is that Paul signs it “Rev. James Paul McKenzie.” More fodder for the theory that Paul identifies with his characters and stories and reveals himself through them.
Commenter Annie McNeil, I wish you’d come back to Dullblog! 🙂
[…] MIKE GERBER • Commenter Annie said this in a recent comment: […]
Michael, do you know anything about the “semi-hiatus” status? Whenever I’ve tried to enter Amoralto, that has been posted.
I do not, @Linda. I hope she’s all right, that’s a wonderful blog.
amoralto has been posting lately! Send her encouragement to keep her posting. Her blog is an absolute treasure.