Get Back – Chris O'Dell

Tim is joined by former Apple insider and author Chris O’Dell to explore Get Back. They examine her extraordinary first-hand experiences with The Beatles, from typing the song’s lyrics (while slightly high), to witnessing its creation, and even appearing on the famous rooftop performance. Along the way, Chris shares remarkable stories about life at Apple, her friendships with the band, and the serendipitous moments that placed her at the heart of Beatles history.

Guest links

• Chris O’Dell’s website: https://www.missodell.com
• Miss O’Dell (book): https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Miss-ODell/Chris-ODell/9781416590941
• Miss O’Dell movie (UK): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Miss-ODell-Simon-Weitzman/dp/B0DY213354
• Miss O’Dell movie (US): https://www.amazon.com/Miss-ODell-Simon-Weitzman/dp/B0DY1Y27XY
• Miss O’Dell podcast: https://www.missodell.com/podcast/

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Original music by Joe Kane

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Welcome to my favorite Beatles song, the podcast where we celebrate the music of the Beatles with a distinguished guest. I'm Tim Tucker, and with me today is Chris Odell. Amazing. Hi, Chris.

SPEAKER_00 0:44

Hi, Tim. Thank you so much. I feel like I'm in England again. I'm happy.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Because of course you worked with the Beatles at Apple Studios, Apple Core, and have many stories to tell, but it might be worth starting with just a bit of intro on how you got involved with the Beatles in the first place.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Well, uh yeah, it was a mi it was a miracle, basically. Um I was living in Tucson, Arizona, where I spent half of my childhood. And um you there's nothing in Tucson to stay for. That was the way I felt at 19 anyway. So I moved to LA and there just by accident I got involved with um in the music, but not very much. I love music. My dad was a huge music fan. Um so it was, you know, it was pretty amazing to get a job. But it was at a record company that like had really not that many great people, Lawrence Welk, um, Liberachi, people like that, my grandmother's kind of music. And I met because of the job I had, I met Derek Taylor, who at that time had been in the States for a while and was going back to London to be press agent, the press agent for Apple. So we became really good friends, and he said, Well, why don't you come over? Um, honestly, the idea back in 1968 was people just didn't jump on planes and go across the Atlantic and and move like that. So the fact I what really got me there is that I was living with a girl named Terry Garr, who was an actress. Um, she later did uh what was it Frank son of Frank or Frankenstein son of anyway? She said to me she'd been to England and she said, You have to go. You just have to go. So I did. And then I sat around for about a month waiting for a job.

SPEAKER_01 2:53

Well, it's an incredible story because you you go um right when they're the Beatles are setting up Apple, and of course, very soon start meeting them, don't you? And you just detail this beautifully in your book about um, you know, getting to know the Beatles and your reactions to that. You do mention four kind of Beatles, magic Beatles moments in your book, and it might be worth just hearing about those if you wouldn't mind.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Well, I was sitting in Derek's office the first day that I went there. I got there on a Saturday in London. I was in Apple on Monday, and um we were sitting there and suddenly he went, Oh, Paul's here. I'm gonna go, and he got up and went into the next door office, and then he came back and I th and I heard someone coming in and I I don't know if I identified Liverpool accents at that point, but someone came in and I thought, oh my gosh, it's Paul. Well, it wasn't, it was John. So I guess in a way, John's the first beetle I've met now that I think about it. And then Paul came in right after that, and um it was pretty overwhelming to say the least.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

And this is when he'd um just getting together with Yoko, so she was around a lot as well with him.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

She was right there next to him. Yeah. They were sitting, they spent a lot of time sitting in the reception area, which was huge in the building, and um, they would just do their kind of talking, laughing, hugging there.

SPEAKER_01 4:32

That's great. Yeah, and uh, you know, like I said, so many stories you have from working at Apple there and uh getting involved in sessions and things like that. But the four magic moments you mentioned, number one was of course singing on the Hey Jude.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Yes, I can't I was in the studio at Trident when they were recording that. They had the orchestra, they're putting on the orchestra. And Paul asked Paul came up to the control room where I often was because that was my life, was that, and uh and I booked all the sessions at Trident uh at from Apple. So he just said, come on down, come down to the studio. And so I went down, and there was there were people from the orchestra. It's really hard to remember who was there, but you know, I'm not a singer, and so it was a little unnerving to be singing on a Beatle record, but it was the um it was the chorus of Hey Jude. So fortunately, my voice blended, I can hear me now, but that's ridiculous, isn't it? So we did it numerous times to overdub it, and um yeah, actually as a non-singer, singing on Hey Jude was a big deal. Looks good on the resume, huh?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Yeah, that's a fantastic claim to fame. I think you're on more than one Beatles recording, actually, as we'll discuss later. But uh yeah, you're another thing that you remember very fondly in your book is um being at the the session where Joe Cocker recorded, she came in through the bathroom window, and Paul McCartney was with Glenn Johns and came in to hear it. Uh, you were there.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

Yes, I went down, I knew he was in a studio down the down the way. So I w I was there to see Joe and his producer Danny Cordell. And um, so I went and got Paul and said, Do you want to come hear this? And he did. And it was pretty wonderful, actually.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

It's a great version, isn't it? Yeah, that must have been magic being there when that happened.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

That was pretty cool. Anything around Joe was magic.

SPEAKER_04 6:56

Get us through the bathroom.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Having George sing to you in his Malibu Beach property a song called Miss Odell was pretty special.

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Um, unbelievable. You know, I I it Leon Russell had written two songs for me already. So when Pisces Apple Lady, when I heard that in the studio when he was recording it, it was like I couldn't believe it. I'd never had that experience in my life. Someone singing a song that they wrote for me. And then he did Hummingbird, which were beautiful, but a Beatle writing a song was something totally different. I'm sorry, Leon, totally different. Um I it it was so overwhelming. I I didn't even know what to say.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

Yeah, it was really amazing, and of course, that ended up on the B side of his single um Give Me Love, Give Me Peace on Earth. But yeah, as he said to you when he sang it, um, I'm gonna make you famous. And yes, he did.

SPEAKER_00 8:18

I don't know if I'm famous, but I have a song.

SPEAKER_05 8:22

That person should be ringing on my bell.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

You got to know George very well because you know, after you spent some time with Leon, you came back to UK and worked with him at Fryar Park.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yes, he asked me to come live there, which I pff I mean, there you go, another magic moment. I mean, it's like and they had just moved into Friar Park, so it was not furnished. It was a I slept on a sleeping bed in a sleeping bag at the beginning, um, until Patty found cots in the garden, garden shed. And um, it was just George, Patty, me, Terry, Doran, who worked for George, and I didn't know Patty that well. I'd met her a couple times, but not well enough that I could be brought home by her husband. And I don't even know that she knew I was coming. So but it was the beginning of a very, very long friendship and a dear friendship, and we still are.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Well, you have in common that you've both had songs written to you by uh a Beatle and other musicians, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Oh yeah, well that's true, although hers were pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

Yeah, that's nice to have that in common, and um yeah, of course, that was a lovely time. I I'm gathering from the your stories in the book of spending time with with George there in a magical time and meeting people like Eric Clapton and various others. And it's funny because um you you seem to have a real affinity for England um reading your book, and I I was amused by the story when you went on tour with the Stones as well. That I think I can't remember who asked you, but somebody said to you, You're really a Beatles girl, aren't you?

SPEAKER_00 10:26

That was Ronnie Wood that actually said it. I don't remember how uh I may have miss said it as Mick, but no, it was Ronnie Wood. He said, You're really a Beatles person.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

How did he how did he figure that out? It's just the the kind of uh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Well, I knew him really well by that time, and he had come to Fryar Park a lot, and I was with at his house with George and Patty a lot, so he knew me during the Beatle phase, and then I went to work for the Stones, and um well he wasn't work, he wasn't playing with them then, but he he was around, let's put it that way, and um yeah, I guess he just well, I was that's just the truth. I was a Beatle person.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

We get a lot of Beatle people on this podcast, as you can imagine.

SPEAKER_04 11:12

Um thought it was a loaner, but it knew it could less. George Olived is home into South Arizona, awesome California press. Get back, get back, get back to where it was belong.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

The song you've chosen to discuss today is Get Back. It was recorded in January 1969 during the Let It Be sessions and released as a single on the 11th of April 1969 in the UK and the 5th of May 1969 in the US, where it reached number one in both territories. It was also on the album Let It Be, um which was released in May 1970. Um, and again that reached number one too. So those are the facts. But yeah, tell us a bit about your memory of this song because it involves quite some extraordinary elements of your involvement with the Beatles.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

It does, and you know it's funny when when we were emailing and and I knew Get Back, for some reason I envisioned the the roof because I was on the roof. So I thought, oh, I'm gonna talk about the roof again. And then my boyfriend said, Well, no, you were there. And I went, Oh right, I forgot that part of it. Anyway, the Beatles were recording at Apple, and there were um you know, on the weekends nobody really was there and except for them. So a few of us would go in anyway just to be helpful. You know, we'd make sandwiches for them if they were hungry or whatever. And this one particular Saturday, I was working for Peter Asher during those years, by the way. And um he was out of town and I was staying at his place, and I thought, well, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna go, I'll go to Apple. I'll just hang out at Apple. And a friend of mine, Frankie Hart, who later was with Bob Weir of The Grateful Dead for quite a long time, she had arrived with the Hells Angels in London, and she hung out at Apple, and so she and I met up and we dropped a little acid. And I didn't really do much, I didn't like that. I didn't like psychedelics too much, but it was smooth, it was easy, and we thought, why not? We'll just hang out at Apple and get high. And Mal came up a little bit later and said, Chris, would you type these lyrics up? Well, he didn't know I was on acid, and I didn't tell him. And I thought, Am I gonna be able to do this? I don't even know if my fingers will actually work on the on the keyboard because back then we had typewriters. So I sat down and I started, I looked, took the sheet of lyrics that Mallet had handwritten and I started typing them out. Well, it didn't take long before I got but to uh Jojo. Well, JoJo left his home in Tucson, Arizona for some California grass. Get back, get back to where you once belong. And I thought, oh my god, they're firing me. They're telling me I should go home. I would I was so convinced that this was their way of letting me know that I what I shouldn't be there.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

It was a secret Beatles message to you, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Yeah, it was a very secret Beatles message in the in a song. So anyway, I typed it up. I got I went to Frankie and said, Oh my gosh, I don't think they but why would they not want me there? I'm here on Saturday. Anyway, I took the lyrics down to Mal. He said thank you, and that was the end of that. And of course, that's not what they were doing. They weren't writing a lyric just for Chris to send her home. And Tucson, which I saw in the get back movie that Paul kind of he he, you know, that was filmed, that he kind of um changed the name of where it was, get back to, and landed on Tucson.

SPEAKER_04 15:37

Joe left his home in Tucson, Arizona. Tucson in Arizona, yeah, Tucson.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Which I thought was kind of interesting because he was with Linda by that time. Linda had gone to school at the University of Arizona in Tucson. She loved Tucson, and when she first got to London, Paul brought her to Trident, and we immediately connected because of the connection with Tucson. Uh, that's where she started her photography. So it was a it in fact they ended up buying a ranch there and would spend quite a lot of time there. Um, so I you know, it was I thought, God, how come it took him so long to get there? You know, that was such an obvious one because we were talking about it all the time. So uh the year a year, c year or two went by and Paul never said that it was well, I mean, I would have assumed it was because of Linda. However, I did leave Tucson for Los Angeles for some and it turned out that was where I got high for the first time. So I thought, oh boy, it's very fitting. Anyway, about a year, couple years later, I was in LA and and George was there, and we went to the studio for some session, and um on the way back, I I dro I was driving and he asked me to stop at a grocery store so we could get something. So we I stopped the car and for some reason he said, Well, Paul wrote get back about you. You're Jojo. And I went, No, I'm not. I mean, I don't think so. But then I thought, well, if George thinks that that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

That's great, yeah. Well, he would have so he would have known you you spent time in Tucson, wouldn't he? Um, Paul.

SPEAKER_00 17:32

So he you know Oh, yeah, of course. He knew that was Michael Town.

SPEAKER_01 17:36

Yeah, yeah. And of course, George did it later, um, a version with Doris Troy, didn't he? Um, he did a uh demo of that. So there's that's available as a bootleg of himself.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Oh, I never heard that.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yeah, yeah. Were you around much when they were recording the the or doing the get back project um at the Apple studio? Yes, yes. So, and of course, the you know that was all coming together. There's a beautiful moment on the film where you see the song just sort of emerge from Paul as he's strumming his bass, which is an incredible. I don't think there's been any anything like that caught on camera before of any artist sort of creating a song on the spot, which is beautiful.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

That was really wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Did you watch the Get Back film?

SPEAKER_00 19:17

I did watch it, and and as you well know, it was the footage from uh what were they called Let Let It Be. So I originally saw Let It Be, um which was a lot shorter, I might add. But um but when Get Back came out, yes, I did. I watched it. It was really fun. Actually, it was fun and it was like watching a home movie. Because it was so much that was done at Saville Row. And um yeah, it was it was it was pretty amazing to watch it.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

It brought a lot of memories back.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

Totally, and then I was in a couple scenes at least, but I didn't get credit for it. I don't know why. They said, Oh, there you weren't on long enough, but whatever. Um, there was a one moment of Linda and Heather and I on the floor in the studio, and then it there was a short one where I handed Mal the lyrics to get back, I assume. And then, of course, I was on the roof, so I appeared in in numerous shots of that.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

We need to talk about that because that to me is the most extraordinary thing. So there are only four people um in the sort of audience on the roof, aren't there? There's Yoko Ono, who we all know, more Maureen Starkey, Ringo's wife, Ken Mansfield, who was the US manager of uh Apple Records, and you.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

That was it. Incredible people started crawling out windows. We were the audience of four.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

And you were right by the band there, weren't you? I mean, you were you were sat right by the band as they played, the Beatles.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Uh we were the there's a ch there was a chimney and right next to it was I remember it as a bench. And I was the first one out there because I was uh sort of helping Tony Richmond, the cameraman, but not really, because we were told we couldn't, no employees were allowed up there, not because they didn't want us there, but because the roof wasn't stable enough. And Tony Richmond, I think his name was Richmond, I've forgotten it now. Anyway, he he came by my um my office on his way up and said, Are you coming up? And I said, No, no, no, only essential people. And he went, You're essential, I need an assistant. Well, I did nothing. I just went up there and worried that they were gonna kick me off the whole time because I wasn't supposed to be there. But you know what? It was it was an amazing, it was amazing that I did get to go up there, and I just wanted to watch some film. And I wanted to see what the people on the street were doing. The idea that the Beatles were playing in West, you know, West London, and people were just walking around looking for this music. It was a first. So it was yeah, it was a pretty amazing experience.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

And I again another recording you're on, I guess, because uh at the end you can hear uh of the live performance of Get Back. You can hear Paul say, Thanks, Mo. Presume to Maureen Starkey, and uh and then your claps and cheers, and that one of those is you, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Yeah, one of those was me.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

People were telling you nobody goes into the Beatles studio, and yet you bought you talked your way in, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Well, ignorance is bliss. Yeah. I I mean you could say that. I I had no idea you could. I asked Paul, can I come? It seemed it made sense. I was now at Apple. They he knew me, he said hello to me all the time. I thought, what was the difference? I just didn't understand the rules. And I just assumed it wasn't it was okay. And and and in then the secretaries there said, oh no, no, no, no, we aren't even allowed to go to parties that they go to. That that was Brian's Epstein's rule. And um, but I didn't know the rule at that time, so I went. And because of John's friend Pete Shotten, um, I he took me into the studio. So I was actually, this was, you know, I hadn't been there very long, maybe a week or two.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

And they were recording the white album, correct?

SPEAKER_00 24:02

They had just started the white album, and they were recording Revolution number one, I think, that night. And and Paul said, or not Paul, John came down with Yoko into the studio. We were down by the piano in the studio, and John came down and said, Hey, would you two come here? We need help. We need claps. We're gonna put clap hand claps on. So that was my first Beatle recording.

SPEAKER_04 24:29

But when the dog about destruction, don't you know that you can come?

unknown 24:41

All right.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

It's a blessed life, I gotta say. It's been a blessing. Not that there weren't hard times, but there definitely were times that yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Absolutely. And um, I mean, musically, uh, do you have much memory of the music at that time? I mean, being so close to them in the in the Apple uh Apple. I d I wondered if it became sort of second nature because you got to hear you got to hear songs before anyone else, didn't you? Like like these songs. And yeah, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

It was I mean, the Beatles were the Beatles, whether you knew them or not, the music was still the same. And I I mean, you know, w they recorded, they would record and you could hear it sometimes, and I go into the studio occasionally, but we always got an acetate back then or um a tape of what they'd recorded, and we often sit in Derek Taylor's office and listen. So we were hearing it much earlier before it came out.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Yeah, that must have been great as well. I thought another extraordinary story from your book that struck me was when you had to take the acetate across town and it turned out to be Frank Sinatra singing to Mooring.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

Yes, that was amazing. Well, I didn't have a job yet then. I just sat around and did odd jobs. So they let me stay. And then and Peter Brown, who was pretty much their um their personal assistant in a lot of ways, he did all their personal stuff. He's he just said, Would you take this tape and go to EMI, not to the studio, but to the factory where they pressed the records. Take it there. It was in Twickenham, I think, also. Um, and he said, Don't let it leave your site. If when they no matter what happens, you stay with this. And when they're pressing it, you stay with it. And I'm like, whoa, okay, I didn't know what it was. And when I got to the studio, they knew that they couldn't leave me outside because those directions were really clear. So I watched them press the rec the acetate, or actually, I think they made a record, an actual record out of it. And of course, out of the speakers is Frank Sinatra and myself and the all the techs who worked at EMI were all going, wow. And he sat sang, the lady is a champ instead of a tramp. So he had he had done the lyric changes, and it was Ringo's birthday present for Maureen.

SPEAKER_01 27:19

Beautiful. What a present.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

Yeah, no kidding. They did that, they love to outdo each other.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

There's no one like her, but no one at all, and as much as like she married Ringo, and she could have had why the lady is a champ.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

It's often been talked about as quite a tense time. Did you feel that while you were around them?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

I think by the time that I got to Apple, they had already, I mean, they'd lost Brian, which was a major, major deal. And they had to figure out how to be Brian, basically, and keep things going. And Paul pretty much took that position, which I think is a natural thing for him. That's who he is. And there was, yeah, I knew that they had had problems at Twigginham. I knew that John had had a problem and wanted to quit the band. I knew Ringo'd already quit the band. So I was aware that there was some of that going on. But I didn't really, it just seemed like, oh, that's what's happening. I didn't look at it like, oh my god, they're breaking up. And they didn't. So um, yeah, there was some tension, but from watching the the film, you could just see everything change when Billy got there. And that was the way Billy Preston was. He could change a room with his, he was just so joyful.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

Um, and of course, musically adds a lot to this song, doesn't he? I think the the sound of the keyboard and the piano on on this is just gorgeous. He was on the roof as well, of course.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

Yes, he was. How'd they get that organ up there?

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Can you tell us a bit about how your how it ended for you with the Beatles? Because you know, at some point you you your your story there came to a close. What what was that like for you?

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Well, I I mean, I was at George and Patty's house during a lot of the turmoil at Apple. And and one of the things is that I mean, George kind of saved me. Neil Aspinall saved me first because they knew that uh that uh Alan Klein wasn't gonna let me be rehired. He was trying to get rid of people, not take them back. So Neil said, I'll I'll tell you work for me because he can't touch you there. And then George got me out of Apple completely during a lot of the firings, a lot of the changes going on. And after uh, I don't know, after I'd been at George's for a while, I really kind of missed being at Apple and being back in London. That was a big piece. It's very in it was very secluded Fire Park. Once you got there, you were in another world. And we didn't come into town that often. So I went back to Apple and it was already looking pretty pretty dead, to be honest. And then Derek left, which was you know, that that that was took all of the air out of the room because he was he was the lungs of that place in a way. He left, so I just sat around with Richard Delello and said, Richard, why are we here? Why are we even here? I but I had to wait for them to fire me because I wanted to get my money. When they fire you, they have to give you a check. And they didn't if I quit. So Richard and I both sat it out for quite a long time until finally, you know, the guy who worked for Klein called me up one evening and said, sorry, we have to let you go. And I went, Oh, I'm so surprised. And that was it. And from there, I just because I knew Eric by that time pretty well, I stumbled into the Derek and the Domino s scene. And then I started working for them. Then I went back to LA with Peter Ash, or he brought me back to LA to work with him and James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt. He had moved to LA by that time. So I went to work for Peter, and then the Stones job came up in LA, and then I did a year with them.

SPEAKER_01 32:05

Yeah, fantastic. I mean, I like I think you say in the book, uh, what do you do after the Beatles? Well, the Stones didn't go to the Stones.

SPEAKER_00 32:12

And what do you do after the Stones? Bob Dylan.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

The holy trinity of rock and roll.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Yeah, you were at the Isle of Wight for that concert as well, weren't you?

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Yes, Bob's return to music. In fact, I my friend Bill Oakes, who worked for Peter Brown and later was very influential in a lot of the Stigwood productions films and everything. He and I were going to go down there on a train, and we ended up uh Bob forgot his harmonicas. So we ended up going to buy some harmonicas, and and they said, George said, just put them in the helicopter. And then it was like, well, why don't we go in the helicopter? So we flew down in a helicopter with Bob's harmonicas and landed in the backyard of the ranch, the farm that he they had rented. Patty and George were staying there. Bob was still with Sarah back at that time, and then the band used the barn for rehearsals. So we sat around and listened to them, and then we all went to the concert.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Thank you very much. Great to be here. Sure it is.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

But are there any other songs of the Beatles that you would like to just mention as ones that you cherish and love?

SPEAKER_00 33:56

I love Across the Universe. Uh for some reason that was such a haunting song. And yeah, that was, you know, I when I got there, they had just left the Maharishi not that long before. So they weren't very happy with him at that moment. So I kind of grew up thinking the Maharishi was a bad guy, but he wasn't. He was just what he was what he was, you know. Um that was I mean, well, there are just so many songs. I loved hearing George when he would write a song because I was living there when they broke up at Fire Park when they broke up or slash when Paul did an interview saying that he was quitting or we wouldn't play with them anymore, which you know, I was there the morning that that that newspaper article came out.

SPEAKER_01 34:49

How was George that that day? Did he how did he appear when he read that?

SPEAKER_00 34:54

Well, I wasn't there when he read it. I was sleeping. When I came downstairs, Patty just went, Oh, something terrible's happened. And I said, Where's George? And she she said he's out in the garden, which is where he went whenever anything bothered him. Well, it's where he went all the time anyway. And the papers were spread across this long wooden table we had in the old kitchen and it was front page on everything. Paul's interview. Actually, he interviewed himself, I believe. And um and he and eventually George came in and you know, then John came over and the two of them went outside and walked in the garden for a long time. So I didn't hear those conversations, but you know, remembering back, I think it was just the shock that and the kind of hurt that Paul would go ahead and do it so publicly without consulting them, yeah, that it was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Sounds like a heavy mood that day from from what you're saying.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

It was a very heavy mood that day. But there they were people and they had problems, like everyone.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

Yeah. I just want to ask you a bit about what you're doing. So obviously, I'm gonna um put some links in the show notes of this podcast about the the film that you made with Simon Weitzman, who's also been on the show, Miss Odell, which here in the UK is through Amazon Prime. I think it's also in Tubi. Looks like you had fun there because you met up with some of your old friends like Patty and Peter Asher and people like that uh for the movie, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 36:34

Yeah, it was it was really fun doing it. Well, you know, the hard part, I flew to London in January. That's not the time you wish to be in London if you live in Arizona. Um, and it was just so interesting being back there and and going through all of that. And then I kept thinking, why are they doing a documentary about me? It was kind of like, well, this is weird, but we had fun. We had a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

Is that had you had it been quite a while since the previous time you've been in England?

SPEAKER_00 37:09

It really had. And of course, I hadn't seen Patty in all those years, too. So we kept in touch and we we phoned each other, but the you know, we actually got to spend time together. So that was really good.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

That's lovely, yeah. That's lovely your time together on screen, actually. You can see the affection you have for each other.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Love her.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

And um, and of course the book, which I'll also link to, but that's gives more detail on some of these extraordinary stories you've been telling us. Was that was that fun to write?

SPEAKER_00 37:41

You know, it was, and I I had to write it. It wasn't a choice. I knew that I had experienced things that so many people would have loved to have experienced. That was obvious for me. And so I felt it was important to have that. It's history in a way. Well, it will be.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

And you mentioned you're about to do a podcast. Is that going to be on a simil on similar topics and similar stories?

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Um, actually, I'm in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which isn't so weird because I actually grew up the first eight years of my life here in Oklahoma. So I came back only to do a podcast with the church studio, which was Leon Russell's. He found this old, beautiful old church, and he bought it and he turned it into a recording studio and shelter records back in 1972. And he eventually left here and went to Nashville, and it went in different people owned it, but nobody really did what he had done. And then a woman named Teresa Knox, who's a Tulson, she was a big fan of Leon's. Everybody in Tulsa is a big fan of Leon's. This is Leon Capital right here. And um so she bought it and she fixed it up and built a beautiful, high-quality studio and put in a museum, a lot of Leon there. There's a life-size statue of him outside the front door, and it's a it's um, it's got a bookstore, it's got a bar where people can come. She has music four days a week at noon, and people are recording all the time in the studio. And across the street, she has a podcast studio. So I'm doing the podcast called The Church Studio presents Miss Odell, Abbey Road to Tulsa Time. And I've already started interviewing people. It will be launched on May 19th. Don't know who's the first one yet because we're rec we're recording, but it will be on all of Spotify, Apple Music, all of the normal thing ones, and then YouTube will have actually video on most of them, not all of them. But what I'm finding is that some of the most interesting topics are people behind the scenes that were behind the scenes that nobody's heard. Leslie Cavendish, I don't know if you've had Leslie on, he wrote a book and he was there, he did cut their hair in the late 60s and the 70s, and they actually he had a store at the Apple Boutique on King on King's Road. So he's gonna, you know, he's great because he can talk about what it was what their hair was like and what he thinks it would have been like years today, actually. Um so some of those inside stories are are as interesting to people as you know the back stories are it, really. Because when you get a and and not that we're not having musicians and things on, I've already interviewed Tom Scott, who was on George's tour, Sax Player. And um, you know, I think those stories, there's a lot of interest. The musicians pretty much have the same story to tell because it's their story and they interview all the time. But we are we are approaching them, and I think we're gonna have a pretty interesting podcast.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

I can't wait to hear it. And um, do you know how I can find out like listeners can find out more about it? Is there a website or anything been set up?

SPEAKER_00 41:27

Well, I will be posting it on Facebook. I have a website, missodell.com. And um I think the church studio is another good place to look.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 41:41

Yeah, I'm excited. It's kind of like the last hurrah.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

I'm sure it's many more hurrah to come. But listen, it's been wonderful talking to you today about the Beatles and specifically get back. Thanks so much. It's been great.

SPEAKER_00 41:53

Thank you, Tim. I am so happy to meet you, and this has been a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_01 42:02

Thanks for listening to my favourite Beatles song. If you like the podcast, please consider giving it a rating or review on your favourite podcast platform. This helps me to reach new listeners. You can follow the podcast on x.com, Instagram, and Facebook. Look for the links in the show notes. Thanks to Joe Kane for the fantastic music and Mark Cunningham for the logo design. I'll see you next time.