The Beatles vs. the Taxman: A Former Manager Recalls Yesterday
July 6th, 1964 -- Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, John Lennon (1940-1980), and George Harrison (1943-2001) of the Liverpudlian pop group The Beatles with their manager Brian Epstein (1935-1967) at the premiere of their first film "A Hard Day's Night."
The small, framed photograph might not strike visitors to Peter Brown's Manhattan home as noteworthy. It features indiscernible figures lounging about a grassy estate under a high sun. But those figures -- which include the four Beatles, their significant others, plus their personal assistant Neil Aspinall and Brown -- are captured in repose at the peak of the band’s creativity and influence.
The picture was taken in July 1967 at Kingsley Hill, the country home of manager Brian Epstein in Sussex. The album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band had been released six weeks earlier. The single "All You Need Is Love," which the band had performed live three weeks earlier during the first global television broadcast via satellite, would be released in the U.S. within days.
The Beatles and their inner circle gathered for the weekend of July 15 to begin planning what to do with their wealth and their future, a rare undocumented moment in the band’s biography. The photograph shows a moment of tranquility, just before the storm clouds gathered. They would soon become aware of the many shortcomings of deals that had nonetheless made them rich. The band’s management agreement with Epstein was itself due to expire toward the end of the year. That increasingly weighed on him, though there was little reason to suspect they would drop him.
After its release on June 1, 1967, " 'Pepper’ had kind of exploded the world, and Brian was very conscious they had to have a plan for the future," recalled Brown, Epstein's assistant and friend, and later an executive of the Beatles’ company, Apple Corps. Ltd. "One of the problems was this enormous amount of money" in back royalties they were to get from EMI "and what should they do with it to avoid paying taxes -- prohibitive taxes -- on it."
The Beatles and their inner circle gathered for the weekend of July 15 to begin planning what to do with their wealth and their future, a rare undocumented moment in the band’s biography. The photograph shows a moment of tranquility, just before the storm clouds gathered. They would soon become aware of the many shortcomings of deals that had nonetheless made them rich. The band’s management agreement with Epstein was itself due to expire toward the end of the year. That increasingly weighed on him, though there was little reason to suspect they would drop him.
After its release on June 1, 1967, " 'Pepper’ had kind of exploded the world, and Brian was very conscious they had to have a plan for the future," recalled Brown, Epstein's assistant and friend, and later an executive of the Beatles’ company, Apple Corps. Ltd. "One of the problems was this enormous amount of money" in back royalties they were to get from EMI "and what should they do with it to avoid paying taxes -- prohibitive taxes -- on it."
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