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ROBERT SANDALL uncovers the man ultimately responsible for the
Beatles reunion: Neil Aspinall, the shadowy figure who was working in
the background even before Ringo joined the band.
[...] Aspinall's job description changed dramatically after the death of Epstein in 1967. The Beatles were no longer spending any time in vans, having given up live performances the previous year. Meanwhile Apple, the group's self-sacrificial gesture to hippie correctness, set up "to encourage unknown literary, graphic and performing artists," was merrily leading them to the brink of chaos and bankruptcy in the days before Aspinall assumed sole control. In the vacuum left by Epstein, the group claimed to be managing themselves; in fact, day-to-day arrangements of their affairs fell to Aspinall. Lennon once offered him the job of manager, but amid the general confusion he turned it down. "Neil was stuck in the office all through the White Album and Let It Be, and he hated it," says Derek Taylor, Apple's press officer, then and now. "Unlike all the other work he'd done, it was never finished." The first phase of the Apple imbroglio took 10 years to clear up. Allan Klein, the sharp-talking American lawyer brought in by Lennon (much to McCartney's annoyance) to get rid of "the hustlers and spongers" who were buying houses and charging them to Apple's account, left his own troublesome legacy of financial mis-management. Klein was eventually condemned, in the High Court action McCartney instituted in 1971, for "lamentable" book-keeping. Lawsuits between Klein and Apple kept Aspinall busy through until 1977, by which time the individual Beatles were only speaking to each other occasionally, and not always in a friendly spirit. [...]
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