Tribute to Neil Aspinall: The Beatles Guardian

Angel
This is in tribute to Neil Aspinall who died on Mar. 24, 2008. No
one was more trusted by The Beatles than Neil Aspinall. He was
the manager of their Apple Records for 30 years after Brian
Epstein and Allan Klein. He had started out in Liverpool at their
very beginnings, driving them around in his van to their early
shows and was their road manager. He had been in the same
class as Paul McCartney and knew George Harrison at Liverpool
Institute and met John Lennon attending his first term at the
Liverpool College of Art next door.
He became very good friends with Pete Best, original Beatles
drummer and stayed at his house, where the Beatles first played

Petes mothers club, The Casbah, before The Cavern. And when
The Beatles replaced Best with Ringo, Pete advised him to
continue working with The Beatles, despite their close friendship.
Aspinall travelled with them to America and when George became
sick, he stood in for him at rehearsals for the Ed Sullivan Show.
He would also accompany them to promote the founding of their
Apple Corp. in 1968. It was his idea to have a Sgt. Pepper as the
narrator of their land-breaking album. He also participated in the
recording of For The Benefit of Mr. Kite, Within You, Without
You, on Magical Mystery Tour and Yellow Submarine.

Neil Aspinalls Van in which

he drove early Beatles (including above, Pete Best) to their shows,
outside The Cavern.
But his main role besides being their personal assistant along with
Mal Evans, was their confidant and protector. When Klein tried to
clean house to save money at Apple and even let go of Aspinall,
all the Beatles came to his rescue. After Klein and The Beatles
parted ways, Aspinall, who was trained as an accountant, was
asked by them to take over the running of Apple. Even during
this period when The Beatles had split up and were suing each
other, he was always able to maintain an impartiality with each of
them, which couldnt have been easy at times. He would be

instrumental in fighting for several lawsuits for them against

Apple Computers and their EMI Record Company.
It was Neil Aspinalls idea for the later very successful Beatles
Anthologies in the early 90s. He had started working on
compiling their official history as early as 1970 under the original
title, The Long and Winding Road.
Although he had many lucrative offers to reveal inside secrets
about The Beatles, he never did, maintaining their loyalty and
trust until his death of lung cancer in 2008 (like George Harrison,
whom he had first met sharing smokes behind a schoolyard shed).
A couple things which some people may not know: While Neil
Aspinall was staying at Pete Bests place, the 19 year-old had a
relationship with Petes mother, who ran The Casbah. The result
was the birth of Roag Best, Petes half-brother . Pete and
his brother, Roag, were musical guests at 1 st. first Ottawa Beatles
Convention which I organized in 1995. It was there where I
learned of this, for a long time, little-known connection between
the two and this was during the release of the 1 st Beatles
Anthology. By the next year, when Pete came back to play during
my second Convention week, Pete had become a millionaire
overnight (30 years having been dismissed by The Beatles, with
no explanation), because he was on several songs on the
Anthology. Ive always wondered if Neil Aspinall hadnt had
something to do with Pete finally getting his due, since it had
been his idea, as I said, for The Anthologies. It wouldnt surprise
me a bit, as Aspinall seemed to always strive for fairness for
everyone.

Pete Best Band (Including

Neil Aspinalls son and Petes half-brother, Roag, left); musical
guests at the 1st Ottawa Beatles Convention.
Another interesting story is that my friend, Yury Pelyushonok,
actually got to know Neil Aspinall a bit. Neil had taken a liking to
my Russ. Cdn. friend, Yury Pelyushonok and Yurys book, Strings
for A Beatle Bass, about how The Beatles helped bring down
communism and Yury had been to see Aspinall in London at Apple
headquarters a few times. This is an excerpt from my previous
blog about how that originally came about: Yury was going to
London, in April, 2000, and I suggested he leave a copy of his
book with the Beatles manager, Neil Aspinall (the BBC lady
had given me his contact at the Connecticut convention in94,
because I had alerted her about a dealer that was trying to sell a
rare BBC film, which she got back). Yury did leave a book there
and upon returning, he called me one morning and said hed had
a dream, that Neil Aspinall had called me. Id always wanted to
meet Aspinall because he had been there since the beginning and
was their closest confidant. And the very next day Yury calls me
back and says, Guess who just called? I said Who? He says,
Paul McCartneys personal assistant, Geoff Baker!
The Beatles record company, Apple, would also later call
back for more copies for George and Ringo. Yury went back

to the Beatles headquarters a couple more times to discuss the

possibility they would publish his book. Neil Aspinall told him in
advance that Paul McCartney was to play in Red Square in
May, 2003; it was to be a world event. Yury had taken a lot of
flak for suggesting that the Beatles could have helped bring down
Communism. But Yury was interviewed in N.Y. on ABC- TV
BEATLES REVOLUTION in 2000 with several celebrities who
agreed, including Czech director Milos Forman and Keith
Richards (What brought it down, in the end, was blues
jeans and Rock N Roll). And there was soon to be growing
evidence that what Yury had first said, was indeed true.

Yury Pelyushonoks book above,

about how Beatles helped bring down communism.
Yurys book and experiences were to partly inspire BBC film
director, Leslie Woodheads film, HOW THE BEATLES ROCKED THE
KREMLIN. Finally in 2009, the film was completed and shown on
PBS in the States and CBC in Canada, in conjunction with the
anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 89. The film and idea
got write-ups in the L.A. Times, Toronto Globe and Mail, etc. Yury
was interviewed again by the Ottawa Citizen. And the film has

since been repeated several times on both PBS and the CBC. In
2013, Mr. Woodhead released a book of the same title, chronicling
the making of his film, including a whole chapter on Yury and the
visit to Ottawa in 2007 (including about the day we shot the video
and both Tony Copple of The Ottawa Beatles Site and I, are
described in it) to film an interview with Yury and the video
shooting of his song, Yeah Yeah Virus. It is used as a theme
throughout the film. Yury had also told me about a call he
received from Aspinall around the time of the premiere of The
Beatles Love show and by Cirque du Soleil in 2006. Aspinall put
on the phone briefly an oriental woman (Yoko?), as Aspinall was
still working on helping Yury get his book known up until close to
his death. As I said, he seemed to have taken a liking to my
friend, Yury, and that was the kind of gentleman, Aspinall was.

It was my friend, Yury, above with Neil Aspinall at The Beatles

Apple Corp. London, which first described him as The Beatles
earthly Guardian Angel.
Below video of those special few, including Neil Aspinall, who
helped The Beatles:
https://youtu.be/pBh47-WOk3Q

https://youtu.be/y3tFmZ6dkKQ