Beatles' Let It Be (33 1/3) Read Online Free Page B

February 1965. Paul was still living in the house he purchased in March of 1965, on Cavendish Avenue in St. John’s Wood, which was just a brisk five-minute walk from Abbey Road Studios.
    During the previous October and November, Paul, together with Linda Eastman and her daughter Heather, had spent considerable time in Scotland. In 1966, Paul had purchased High Park Farm, an old rundown farmhouse in Campbeltown, and nearly 200 acres of land, just across the channel from Ireland, at the southernmost point of the eastern coast of Scotland. In 1971, he added 400 acres to his land. The rural retreat was perched high atop a mountain, near a small loch, with the only landmark a nearby mound of stones, probably erected as a memorial centuries ago. The house overlooked Machrihanish Bay, which was located several miles to the west. Some fourteen miles to the south were the rocky cliffs of the Mull of Kintyre, which Paul would immortalize years later in one of the biggest number one songs in British music history. The small, three-room house was in dire need of repair; it was furnished with an electric stove and makeshift furniture, cobbled together by Paul from an old mattress and empty potato boxes. As the harsh winds of winter first began to blow in, the house finally became a home.
    Ringo, his wife Maureen, and their children were living at Brookfields, a sixteenth century mansion in Elstead, Surrey that Ringo had bought from Peter Sellers. Later in the year he would sell it to Stephen Stills and he and his family would return to London and move into Roundhill, in Highgate.
    John had sold Kenwood, on St. George’s Hill Estate, a 27-room mock-Tudor home in Weybridge, Surrey. Since the fall of 1968, he and Yoko Ono had been living in a flat owned by Ringo at Montague Square in London.They lived there until they moved into Tittenhurst, Sunnydale, a sprawling 72-acre estate in Berkshire, after their marriage later in 1969.
    Musically, the Beatle going through the biggest change was George Harrison. He would come to the “Get Back” project with more songs of high quality than ever before. He had been strongly influenced by the time he had spent with Bob Dylan and the Band near Woodstock the previous fall. Like his close friend Eric Clapton, George had been deeply moved by the music of the Band. The group’s simple, timeless, and rustic sound was a far cry from the sometimes self-indulgent, technological perfectionism that had engulfed British rock. The Band’s sound had been the primary reason Eric Clapton had broken up Cream. Clapton had tired of the interminable jams, deafening volume, clashing egos, and precarious super-group status that had burdened Cream. Hearing many of the songs from albums released by Dylan and/or the Band in late 1968 gave Harrison the idea that a simpler, more personal and more acoustic-based sound would provide him the opportunity to express himself in a more natural and unfettered way. George’s need to move in new directions and to have more of his songs be part of the mix, as well as his ambivalence about being filmed and doing a live concert, would exert just as much influenceoverthe “Get Back” filming and sessions as Paul’s repeated attempts to take charge of the project.
    John Lennon was going through the biggest change on a personal level. The previous October, he and Yoko had been busted for cannabis resin; in November, Cynthia Lennon was granted a
decree nin,
which would ultimately lead to a divorce from John, due to John’s admitted affair with Yoko. Only two weeks after, Yoko had a miscarriage. That same month, just days after the release of
The White Album,
John and Yoko released their first album together,
Two Virgins.
The recording was infamous not so much for the experimental music it contained, but for the full-frontal nude photograph of John and Yoko that was shot for the album jacket. In the end, the photo was covered except for their faces. EMI, so disturbed by the photo and