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General Statements: •"The following April the Apple headquarters was established at 95 Wigmore Street. Grey suits were conspicuous by their absence, though the Beatles emulated the corporate way in one respect. The 15 directors were all men. The Managing Director and his Assistant were the bands two roadies" (information courtesy of 'New Internationalist' article by new internationalist on-line issue 212 - October 1990. Authors: Alan Hughes and Chris Brazier). •In February '68 The Beatles, Ltd. changed its name to Apple Corps, Ltd. Apple Corps, Ltd: Apple Electronics, Apple Films Ltd., Apple Management, Apple Music Publishing, Apple Overseas, Apple Publicity, Apple Records, Apple Retail, Apple Tailoring Civil and Theatrical, Apple Television (planned), Apple Wholesale (planned). •In January 1968, Beatles Ltd. changed its name to Apple Corps. Ltd. and registered the Apple trademark in forty-seven countries (Granados, M. Those Were the Days. p. 24). •Apple took out a one-year lease on offices in an eight story building at 95 Wigmore Street (Granados, M. Those Were the Days. p. 24). •Apple had five divisions: Electronics, film, publishing, records, and retailing. •It is important to note that Apple was not set up to replace Epstein and NEMS. It was created as a tax shelter to compliment, rather than replace, the existing business structures (Granados, M. Those Were the Days. p. 6) •The first thing The Beatles did to create a new company was form Beatles and Co. in April 1967. It was more or less the same as their original Beatles Ltd. But under the new system each Beatle would own 5% of Beatles and Co. and a new corporation owned collectively by the four Beatles (which would soon be known as Apple) would be given control of the remaining 80% of Beatles and Co. Individual songwriting royalties would still be paid directly to the writer or writers of a particular song, All of the money earned by the Beatles as a group would go directly to Beatles and Co. The money earned as a group would be taxed at a far lower corporate tax rate (Granados, M. Those were the Days. p. 6). •Ringo: We tried to form Apple with Clive Epstein, but he wouldn't have it...he didn't believe in us I suppose...he didn't think we could do it. He thought we were four wild men and we were going to spend all his money and make him broke. But that was the original idea of Apple-to form it with NEMS...we thought now Brian's gone let's really amalgamate and get this thing going, let's make records and get people on our label and things like that. So we formed Apple and they formed NEMS, which is exactly the same thing as we are doing. It was a family tie and we thought it would be a good idea to keep it in, and then we saw how the land lay and we tried to get out (Granados, M. Those Were the Days. p. 11). •Although a few artists like The Tokens and Frank Sinatra had formed their own labels long before, The Beatles were the group that started the trend toward artist companies in the sixties. They used Apple as the economic unit spring their ideas on the world. Set up with $2 million after Brian Epstein's death in 1967, it had five divisions: records, music publishing, films, electronics, and retailing (Chapple and Garofalo. Rock and Roll is here to Pay, p. 81). •The Apple label was distributed by Capitol from the beginning. As Phil Spector pointed out the group would have been "fighting their old Capitol product" if they had chosen to distribute with another company. Capitol would even have been able to release tapes from sessions that the Beatles judged inferior (Chapple and Garofalo. Rock and Roll is here to Pay, p. 82). •To promote Apple's inaugural singles, Apple hired the prestigious Wolfe and Ollins advertising agency to develop a campaign to introduce Apple to industry VIPs and the press (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 49). •It would have been very easy for Apple to have barred these people [a band of hippies called Emily's Family] from the building, but instead, they were given day time use of the fourth floor guest lounge and access to the Apple kitchen (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 51). •Ron Kass wanted to establish Apple Publishing in the U.S.. In late 1968, he hired an American named Mike O'Connor to oversee Apple's American publishing operations (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 54). •Mortimer's Guy Masson: So we told our manager and he followed up, and the next thing you know, they bought us off Mercury, and we're signing contracts with Apple Publishing and Recording (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 59). •Since Harrison-like the other three Beatles-was unable to read or write music notation, he had to hire an outside music arranger to assist him with the "Wonderwall" recording sessions. His arranger of choice was London native John Barnham (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 59). •Concerning the move in 1969 from Wigmore Street to Saville Row: While most of the furniture and files from the Wigmore Street office would arrive intact at Savile Row, important paperwork was mislaid and some even lost. Terry Doran recalls that he and other Apple employees simply dumped all of their paperwork into the back of a black cab and had it driven over to Savile Row (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 65). •All of them left with some choice merchandise [from the boutiques free giveaway], except for Ringo Starr, who lamented to Rolling Stone that he had been unable to find anything in his size (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 44). •Apple Books would actually put out one book in early 1970, which was the book that accompanied the initial pressing of the Let It Be album. Although the book was credited to Apple Publishing, all of the work on the project was actually done by freelancers (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 44). •After several months of negotiations, Apple finally signed a worldwide manufacturing and distribution deal with EMI in late June of 1968. Under this agreement, Capitol Records would distribute and promote Apple in the United States and EMI would handle the distribution and promotion for the rest of the world (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 44). •Ken Kessey was supplied with a typewriter, a tape recorder,and a small back office in the Apple building to record his thoughts on the sixties. The tape was allegedly submitted to Peter Asher, but no further work was done on the project. The tape remains unreleased (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 77). •The group's decision to lay the foundation of this ambitious project was twofold. The first was purely financial. The Beatles, like all top earners in sixties Britain, were extremely highly taxed...The second reason for the creation of Apple was at once personal and philanthropic. In the wake of Brian's death, the Beatles thought they should take a greater part in managing their affairs and artistic output. They envisioned that founding their own company with a number of different departments would do just that (O'Dell, Denis. At the Apple's Core, p.62-63). •Stephen Friedland (Brute Force King of Fuh) claims to have never signed a contract with either Apple Records or Publishing (although he has a letter from Mal Evans that mentions that Peter Asher had received his contract), nor did he receive any money from Apple (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 75-76). •Since Apple's inception, Paul McCartney and John Lennon had been very interested in launching a budget-line label to issue what would essentially be known three decades later as "audio books". In October 1968, Apple hired Barry Miles, who co-owned the Indica bookshop with John Dunbar and Peter Asher, to manage the proposed spoken-word label. The initial idea of Zapple was that it would release avant-garde and spoken word records at a reduced price that would be comparable to that of a paperback novel. While the idea looked good on paper, the reality was that when the few records actually put out by Zapple finally made it into the shops, they were priced like any other full-priced music album (Granados, S. Those Were the Days. p. 76). •Neil Aspinall: We didn't have a single piece of paper. No contracts. The lawyer, the accountants and Brian,whoever, had that. Maybe The Beatles had been given copies of various contracts, I don't know. I didn't know what the contract was with EMI, or with the film people or the publishers or anything at all. So it was a case of building up a filing system, find out what was going on while were were trying to continue doing something (Granados, M. Those Were the Days. p. 19). •Rockmine.com includes a well-written account on the history of Apple Corps Ltd. •The establishment of Apple involved the Beatles collateralizing themselves by buying and incorporating a stake in their own worth for the same price at which their existing company, The Beatles, Ltd., was valued. This meant no capital gains, thus no capital gains tax (O'Del, Denis. At the Apple's Core, p. 63). •For the first few months of Apple's existence, it did not even have an office-most Apple business was conducted from the NEMS building. It was not until the autumn of 1967 that Apple finally opened a London office. Since the Beatles already owned a four-story building at 94 Baker Street that had been purchased as an investment property by their accountants, they decided that Baker Street was as good a location as any for Apple. They set up an office for Apple Publishing in the Baker Street building in September (Granados, M. Those Were the Days. p. 11-12). •Denis O'Del: It turned out that the Beatles were in the process of forming a new organization. The group's decision to lay the foundations of this ambitious project was twofold. The first was purely financial. The Beatles, like all top earners in sixties' Britain, were extremely highly taxed...The second reason for this creation of Apple was at once personal and philanthropic. Apple was conceived gradually but evolved gradually, on the principal that it would be a multi-faceted master company with a number of divisions encompassing records, films, clothes retail, books and other sectors. It also meant that they could diversify into other areas via a company that could manage and finance aspiring artists from a range of formal disciplines,including musicians, film makers, designers, and writers. (O'Dell, Dennis. At the Apple's Core. p. 63). •We set up an "Executive Board" of Apple before Brian died, including Brian, the accountant, a solicitor, Neil Aspinall, myself, and then sat down to work out ways of spending the money. One big idea was to set up a chain of shops designed only to sell cards; birthday cards, Christmas cards, anniversary cards. When the boys heard about that they all condemned the scheme as the most boring yet. Sure that they could come up with much better brainwaves, they began to get involved themselves. Their idea was that business should be fun. Why should businessmen glare at each other across desks? I quite agree (Taylor, A. p. 108). •Geoff Swettenham (Grapefruit): Apple paid for our house and gave us a retainer every week. They kept us alive basically. They got us a great flat just off Baker Street...except for George, who got his own flat because he was married with a kid, but the three of us lived there and Apple paid for everything (Granados, M. Those Were the Days. p. 15). •John Perry (Grapefruit): Nems basically put us on a retainer and also gave us a car and accounts in various restaurants and clubs, so we could just sign for stuff. It was help yourself to be honest. We were told to go to Martin Wesson at Nems-who was the accountant-and we were told to go tell him how much we wanted. Nems also paid for our flats (Granados, M. p. 15). •The property in Saville Row cost a fortune to renovate and to install a recording studio. Luxurious furnishings were ordered and delivered. Drink cabinets were filled to overflowing. Every comfort was contained in that building, but the whole venture lacked a man such as Brian to take charge. It was like a ship without a captain and it sank lower and lower supporting the dead weight of numerous freeloaders. It became a Mecca for drop-outs and out-of-work aspiring musicians. I could see us all being swallowed up in a quagmire of inefficiency. Big business was not their forte, and they had found themselves losing a game that they didn't know how to play (Lennon, Cynthia. Twist p. 152). •Beatles: A Fab Four in Partnership. Dr. Andrew Jackson 1996 (First published Australian Doctor January 1996). The Beatles embraced the management philosophy of incremental and continuous improvement in quality, in critical areas relating to output -Total Quality Management- long before its acceptance and implementation outside of Japan in the late 1980s. •John: "The aim of the company isn't really a stack of gold teeth in the bank. We've done that bit. It's more of a trick to see if we can actually get artistic freedom within a business structure, to see if we can create nice things and sell them without charging three times our cost". •Reporter in 1963-64: Would you ever have your own record
company? •Beatles to record for their own Apple label: Apple Records, a branch of the music division of the Beatles' Apple Corps., Ltd., announces that contracts have been signed between Apple and Capitol Records (for the USA and Canada) for Capitol to manufacture and distribute all record product for North America in New York and Los Angeles. The deals were concluded this week after prolonged negotiations between the Beatles and their representatives and the heads of Capitol. The Beatles will henceforth be released on their own label, "Apple". •Caleb, a psychic, reportedly authorized some business deals for Apple. •Although the Beatles were under contract to EMI, the Beatles were free to align Apple with any label they wanted (S. Granados. Those Were the Days. p. 32). •Alistair Taylor: NEMS Enterprises has been decisively upstaged by the Beatles' new company, Apple. Apparently, the government takes a kindly view of new businesses being set up and there are generous financial concessions. An operation like this was planned well before Brian died, but Brian wasn't interested in the workings of it at all, although he approved of the idea in principal (Taylor, A. p. 108). •Apprentices Of The Beatles. From the Danish magazine "Vi
Unge" (We Young) Dec. 1974. •John declared: "If we let Apple go on the way it is we'll be broke in six months". •John Lennon later told me that Apple was in reality a product of management. "See", John said, "one thing people never knew was that Apple was not our idea and was certainly never Paul's idea, as he has gone on about. Apple was presented to us as a reality by the Epsteins in '67 before Brian died. Brian and his furniture salesman brother Clive. And they hadn't the slightest f***ing idea what they were doing. It was really just a loony tax scheme in the end. They said we had all this cash about to come in and the only way around paying the taxes was to invest in businesses. But we never would have come up with the notion of running a clothes store. The Beatles pushing rags? Right. Right. No, it was pure and simple a tax kite. Our incomes would be hidden inside Apple. Then the money would be moved around" (Flippo, p. 248). •Alex Millen, a 'loitering pavement fixture', said that the Beatles "did strengthen the belief that Joe Soap was important and, yes, you too could have something to say" (Sunday Times and Clayson). •At one point it was suggested that this be a real estate company: That was the original idea for lack of anything else (Granados, M. Those were the Days. p. 7). •One of the early ideas for the Beatles' new company was to set up a chain of record shops across England, the idea that the Beatles would be able to amass sizable property holdings under the pretext of purchasing shop space (Granados, M. Those Were the Days. p. 7). •Derek Taylor: "Instead of paying nineteen and six on the pound. We paid only sixteen shilling...Apple was set up purely and simple as a tax saving project...Apple was never meant to try to save the world despite popular myth". •Dennis: You went with Warner Bros. because Apple was folding
at the time?
Credit/Debit Figures: •Apple was declared the most successful new record company of the year for 1968. •The building at 3 Saville Row cost an estimated £500,000. •The Apple label lasted until 1976. •The Beatles were advised that they would lose £2 million if they didn't invest in a business...thus Apple. •'Those Were The Days' sold 4,000,000 in four months worldwide. •Apple's world sales since August '68 now total some 16,192,126
(Press release to UPI, AP, and Reuters). |
•"Lennon
called it a psychedelic Woolworth" (information courtesy of
'New Internationalist' article by new internationalist on-line issue
212 - October 1990. Authors: Alan Hughes and Chris Brazier).
•The
idea Brian came up with was a company called Apple. His idea was
to plough their money into a chain of shops not unlike Woolworth's
in concept-Apple boutiques, Apple posters, Apple records. Brian
needed an outlet for his boundless energy (Lennon, Cynthia. Twist
p. 146).