Mike Berry had also been instrumental in signing The Iveys to Apple. The quartet had been spotted by Berry while they were playing London’s Flamingo Club in November ’67, while Berry was still working for Sparta. Berry wanted to sign The Iveys to Sparta, but Iveys manager Bill Collins declined the offer. When Berry joined Apple in January ’68, he was still quite keen to sign The Iveys to a publishing deal. As luck would have it, Beatles roadie Mal Evans was making his own push to get The Iveys signed to Apple Records label in the early months of ’68. With both Berry and Evans championing the group at Apple, an agreement was reached in May ’68 that would put The Iveys under contract to both Apple Records and Publishing.


Within two short years, Pete Ham and Tom Evans of The Iveys would become Apple Publishing’s most valuable asset. ‘Without You’, a song created by combining two unreleased Iveys songs from ’69 (the verses written by Ham, the chorus by Evans) became a major international hit when covered by Harry Nilsson in ’71. Since then, the song has become a pop standard and has been covered by countless artists, including Mariah Carey, who topped the global charts with her version in ’94. After The Iveys changed their name to Badfinger in late ’69, they scored several substantial hits of their own written by Pete Ham, including ‘Day After Day’ and the early power pop classics ‘No Matter What’ and ‘Baby Blue’.


Most of the writers signed during the early days of Apple had been scouted in clubs or had approached Apple in person, but Apple did find several promising songwriters via demo tapes mailed to the Apple office. John Hewlett, who would come to Apple after serving as the bassist in John’s Children remembers that Apple received bags of tapes each week. “McCartney would actually come into the office, and sit on the floor, and listen to songs with me. Listen to these people singing in the bath in Wales who sent a tape in, and we would laugh about it. But he’d also listen to the stuff that was half way any good.”


“The office was inundated with tapes from everywhere,” agrees Roger Swallow, who was the drummer for Denis Couldry’s band, Smile. “Lionel Morton – who was in charge of the demo studio on the top floor – was among the screeners. I spent countless hours up there with him going through tapes – horrendous! Apple paid us a little I think, at least for wading through the tapes, and making some demos of the better songs.”


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Denis Couldry was a veteran of the London pop scene when he was signed to Apple, having spent time in a short-lived group with former Pretty Thing Viv Prince called Last Supper and as a member of Felius Andromeda, for whom he composed the wonderful ‘Cheadle Heath Delusions’. “We spent a lot of time with the guys from Grapefruit and also James Taylor,” recalls Swallow. “Denis was enamoured with James Taylor, and copied his addiction, so the band fell apart rather quickly. My most touching memory of Denis was playing a pre-release acetate of ‘Hey Jude’ that we got from Apple, and he was so moved he was crying.”


Felius Andromeda bassist Alan Morgan also ended up penning songs for Apple. Myself and a guy called Steve Webber were signed to Apple after I left Felius Andromea in ’68,” explains Morgan. “We used to go into the office at Baker Street and have to go through the Apple shop which was quite chaotic. I remember that the painting (a huge psychedelic mural briefly covered the entire


trousers and fur coat. It was quite amazing how people looked at him in this East End pub. People couldn’t make out what was going on!”


In the space of less than a year, Terry Doran had built up an impressive roster of songwriters for Apple. But despite the outlay on Focal Point, Grapefruit and Gallagher & Lyle, Apple had been rewarded with only one minor hit, Grapefruit’s ‘Dear Delilah’. Focal Point’s ‘Sycamore Sid’ would in later years be recognised as a classic of the psychedelic era, but in ’68 it was simply a failed Decca single. Apple likewise found it harder than anticipated to secure cover versions of Gallagher & Lyle songs.


Grapefruit with George Alexander (second right) –one of Apple’s earliest signings whose songs were covered by several artists.


building in early ’68 before the local council forced Apple to paint the building plain white). The outside of the building used to cause a lot of traffic crashes because it was such an incredible sight. And you have to remember that The Beatles were still so big. You would walk in the door and walk past Paul McCartney and John Lennon, which was quite weird really. What we used to do was write a song, go over to Apple, and ask if they wanted us to do it. They would say yes so we would put down the song on the Revox they had upstairs. Then we’d sign a contract, get the advance and go off and spend it. I remember Terry Doran coming down to this studio where Felius Andromeda used to record in London and liking all this stuff that we played him. He had this big Rover 3 litre car, which was painted up all psychedelically like John Lennon’s Rolls. I remember going into the East End of London with him – which was a rough part of London at the time – and he looked like one of the bloody people from ‘Yellow Submarine’ with his flared


In mid-68, Apple president Ron Kass decided to reorganise Apple’s publishing business and brought in fellow American Mike O’Connor to learn the publishing business, with the intention of ultimately having O’Connor replace Doran. “When I joined Apple I had to go through all the writers that had been signed to Apple Publishing and see what we could do with them,” recalls O’Connor. “One problem I found was that Terry Doran had signed a publishing deal with Terry Melcher that did not make any sense at all. It gave Terry Melcher the rights to the Apple Publishing catalogue (which at the time included George Harrison’s songs) in America in exchange for the rights to Terry Melcher’s publishing catalogue in England. It made no sense, so Ron Kass, myself and George Harrison spoke to Terry Melcher and basically agreed to tear the deal up (for


Harrison’s songs at least. Paul Tennant of Focal Point was shocked to learn in 2005 that – unbeknownst to him – Melcher’s Egg Publishing still controlled the American copyrights to his Apple songs).


“Terry Doran was a really good guy, but he was not a businessman when it came to publishing. As far as his musical ears where concerned, he had some acts that he was involved with which were pretty good, but he didn’t have a business background. He knew he was only temporarily heading up Apple Publishing.” Doran would in fact leave Apple in November ’68, to continue managing Grapefruit after they – who would remain signed to Apple Publishing as writers – ceased to be funded by Apple.


During the initial phase of Apple’s venture into publishing, Grapefruit’s George Alexander was the only Apple songwriter to have his songs covered by other artists. The Ways And Means were the first to cut an


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