Taylor joined Epstein's NEMS company in April 1964, working initially as his personal assistant. However, he was soon put in charge of The Beatles' press releases, and worked as a point of contact for the world's press at a time when the group was the world's hottest property. His effectiveness in handling the many demands from the media made him an invaluable member of the group's inner circle.
His tenure with NEMS wasn't always a happy one. The demands from the media were unceasing, and Epstein was often cruel in his possessive behaviour towards The Beatles.
I'd been told he could be cruel. I only realised it when I came to organise a Fab Four press conference. Brian didn't want it to work. If I made a mess of it, even thought the Beatles would be in that mess, he'd be happy - because I'd gained no control over them. He said, 'Go ahead - but this is doomed. I look forward to speaking to you about it afterwards.' I joined in April; here he as in May, treating me with massive cruelty.
Shout!, Philip Norman
Taylor resigned from NEMS in September 1964, but Epstein demanded he served out his notice until the end of the year.
I left in New York. I resigned at the end of the tour, in September, but Brian made me work three months' notice, though, until just before Christmas. He tortured me by sending me to America on tour with Tommy Quickly and a song called The Wild Side Of Life.He made me work out my time, but he also asked me to stay, with, 'Derek, you and I, we do get along, when we get along.' - 'Well, we do, Brian, but...' And it was such a relief to leave, I couldn't imagine why I'd ever wanted to join them. As long as we could still be friends, that was fine, let's get out of here and go back to newspapers.
So I went on to the Daily Mirror as a reporter, almost as just an ordinary reporter: happy, too.
Anthology
In 1965 Taylor and his family moved to California, where he started his own public relations company. Among his new charges were The Byrds, The Beach Boys and Captain Beefheart, and he co-founded the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.
That year George Harrison wrote Blue Jay Way during a visit to California. The song was inspired as Harrison waited for Taylor and his wife, who had become lost in fog, to arrive at the rented house Harrison was staying in Los Angeles.
Taylor was also present during the same trip when Harrison visited San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. The pair, plus Pattie Harrison, Neil Aspinall and Alexis Mardas were visiting Pattie's sister Jenny Boyd, who was living in the city.
Harrison's presence quickly drew large crowds of people, one of whom handed Harrison an acoustic guitar. He performed Baby You're A Rich Man, flanked by Taylor and Mardas.
Photographs tell the story of this great visit by one of the Fab Pied Pipers; it is one of the best-known moments in The Great Novel. The crowds that gathered, well-meaning though they were, pressed upon the English visitors and made life difficult and a little dangerous. George didn't enjoy Haight-Ashbury, yet it was right and inevitable that one of Them should have been there in those times.
Anthology
In 1968 Taylor returned to England, to take up the position of press officer at The Beatles' newly-created Apple Corps. He enjoyed a key role at the company, holding court at the offices at 3 Savile Row, London, and helping to shape the character of the organisation. His shadow looms large across The Longest Cocktail Party, Richard DiLello's highly-regarded memoir of the Apple years.
Taylor was mentioned in the lyrics of the Plastic Ono Band's 1969 single Give Peace A Chance. He was present at the song's recording at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal, Canada.
It was Derek Taylor who wrote the famous Apple press release in the wake of Paul McCartney's announcement that The Beatles were no more. It was issued to the world's press on 10 April 1970.
Spring is here and Leeds play Chelsea tomorrow and Ringo and John and George and Paul are alive and well and full of hope.
The world is still spinning and so are we and so are you.
When the spinning stops — that'll be the time to worry, not before.
Until then, the Beatles are alive and well and the beat goes on, the beat goes on.
After Allen Klein overhauled the structure of Apple in 1970, Taylor found himself a free agent once more. In 1973 he published As Time Goes By, his first memoir of his time with The Beatles. The same year he co-produced Harry Nilsson's album of standards A Little Tough Of Schmilsson In The Night; Taylor had introduced Nilsson's music to The Beatles in 1967, and wrote the liner notes for his second album Aerial Ballet the following year.
In later years he worked with British jazz musicians George Melly and John Chilton. He became director of special projects at WEA Records rising to vice president of Warner Brothers by 1977.
Taylor left Warner in 1978 to return to writing. He worked on numerous books including George Harrison's 1980 autobiography I Me Mine, and Michelle Phillips' memoir California Dreaming. Taylor's own autobiography, Fifty Years Adrift (In An Open Necked Shirt), was published by Genesis in December 1983. Harrison wrote the introduction to a signed edition, which was limited to 2,000 copies.
His 1987 book It Was Twenty Years Ago Today documented the 1967 release of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and the wider cultural and social events surrounding it. Three years later his As Time Goes By: Living In The Sixties was published in the US, and in the UK his books What You Cannot Finish and Take A Sad Song followed in 1995.
In the 1980s Taylor worked with George Harrison at Handmade Films before returning to Apple Corps. There he helped mastermind the hugely successful Live At The BBC album, and The Beatles' Anthology project.
Derek Taylor died of cancer on 8 September 1997. His funeral was held in Suffolk four days later. He left a wife, Joan, and grown-up children Timothy, Dominic, Gerard, Abigail, Vanessa and Annabel.
I absolutely did believe - as millions of others did - that the friendship The Beatles had for each other was a lifesaver for all of us. I believed that if these people were happy with each other and could get together and could be seen about the place, no matter what else was going on, life was worth living. But we expected too much of them.
Anthology
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Related articles:
- Live: Odeon Cinema, Manchester
- Travel: John, Paul and George fly to Paris
- The Beatles' final press release
- Alistair Taylor
- George and Pattie Harrison fly to Los Angeles
During his time in LA, one of Derek Taylor's clients in his public relations company was Mae West.
I wonder if Derek is still alive? I was one of four young men who broke into the Pigman Ranch compound on Sept 19, 1964 when the Beatles were staying there for a rest. My home was about 30 miles south in Hardy, Arkansas. We saw on TV early that morning that the four had landed at nearby Walunt Ridge and were headed to the ranch in Alton, Mo.
We drove up there and could not get in the main ranch gate, so we drove aroung the back of the ranch, where it was totally ungarded and crawled thru the cattle and over a hedge fence. There we jumped down close to a large swimming pool, were four or five men were setting in pool chairs. A large man, who apperared to be a guard came out of the fenced pool after us. Then one of the other men told him to stop and he would "take care" of the matter. It was John Lennon and he called us to come over to the pool. He was so nice to us and talked with great interest in who we were and etc. It was a wonderful evening that I will never forget. Only the few of us saw this happen.
I have read that Derek Taylor was with them on this trip. If so, I would like to contact him to see what his memory was of the event. I know those at the pool were Lennon, McCartney, and Ringo, because we coulde see them very well, although they never showed us any attention or spoke. Lennon told us one of them was the manager, and I assumed it was Epstein. He did tell us George was in the farmhouse, which was a couple hundred feet away.
Derek Taylor died in 1997, as it says at the end of this article.
There's a page on 19 September 1964 here. If you're able to, could you take a look at the map at the bottom of the page and let me know if the location is correct (and if not, where it should be)?
Thanks for sharing your memories of that day. You're so lucky to have met John Lennon.
Jo, thanks for the reply. I have looked at this map quite extensively but can not get the detail to say for sure. Since 1964 a whole lot of the timber (oak) in the Ozarks has been cleared for pasture. This site does not look exactly right because, while it was off Highway 160, we had to drive on a gravel road for about 5 or six miles. We had just about given up, when we came upon several cars parked around the gate of a farm. Then we were sure we had the right place because there were about 15 or 20 kids milling around the gate but the guard would not let them in. I remember that from the gate a road went up a hill for about one-quarter mile to the house and compound. While we did not come in that way, we did leave from this road, so I am certain about that.
I visited with a life-long resident of Alton, about two years ago and we discussed the Pigman Ranch. Being a person interested and involved in politics, I was fasciated to learn that the Pigman Ranch was originally owned by a Medical Doctor, who had his practice in Kansas City, and he was a pilot and flew a small plane to KC to work every week. This Dr. whose's name I can not remember, was a big player in the Old Pendergrass Democratic Party Political Machine from which our President Harry Truman came from.
I will look at some other maps, and If I can find a more accurate description, I will email to you.
Ed Wiles
Great anecdote Ed!
That "large man" who chased you - I wonder if that was Mal Evans?
Wish it was me!... But then, I would have only been three years old! I'm not certain that I would have been able to hurdle the cows or scale the fence!... Lucky Sod!