Alexander composition, turning in a Hollies- inspired version of ‘Breaking Up A Dream’. And how ex-John Children’s vocalist Andy Ellison’s infectious rendition of Alexander’s ‘Fool From Upper Eden’ failed to become a hit remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of ’68.


“The Apple Publishing office never seemed too busy to me,” remembers Wayne Bardell, who as a “plugger,” worked to secure cover versions of Apple copyrights. “With Apple, you were looking at a company that was very new and people probably knew that there wasn’t an established catalogue of songs that were available to cover. For example, I don’t think that people were looking for James Taylor songs to cover before Apple put the James Taylor album out, although in some cases that would help people.”


Ironically, Apple Publishing was actually quite successful in securing cover versions of Taylor’s material, placing songs with The Everly Brothers, Marmalade, Simon Dupree & The Big Sound and The Factotums, only to find that Taylor had neglected to inform them that he was in fact still under a long term contract to Columbia’s April-Blackwood Publishing. When Columbia brought this minor detail to Apple’s attention, Apple would have to reassign the publishing copyrights originally assigned to Apple to Blackwood Music and missed out on the publishing on one of the most successful singer-songwriters of the ’70s.


In general, Apple Publishing’s biggest success came via securing the UK publishing to many of the top American groups of the day. “One of our writers was Dr John and I got a big cover of Dr. John’s ‘Walk On Gilded Splinters’ by Marsha Hunt,” remembers Mike O’Connor. “I also signed UK publishing deals for a number of San Francisco bands, including The Steve Miller Band, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and


never bothered to register Focal Point’s ‘Sycamore Syd’ with MCPS/PRS (the UK organisation that collects publishing royalties from the sale and public performance of records!)


Mike O’Connor worked hard to make the publishing division a more efficient business, but Apple Publishing’s brief flicker of promise came to a sudden end in the summer of ’69, several months after American business manager Allen Klein assumed management of The Beatles and Apple. Reasoning that if the “songs were any good, they’ll sell themselves,” Klein dismissed almost all of the publishing department, replacing them with a single employee, music publishing veteran Bernard Brown. From this time on, no further songwriters would be signed to Apple Publishing, outside of new artists who were being signed to the Apple records label.


Quicksilver Messenger Service.” Although the deals were only four-year deals (after which time the UK publishing rights would revert back to the groups), they were highly lucrative for Apple as they paid little or no advances for the right to publish these groups in the UK.


Apple – and its subsidiary Python Music – also acted as an administrator for other publishers, filing the paperwork and handling the back office duties for Dukeslodge Enterprises (who managed Family) and Indian Brandy (who published Blonde On Blonde and other acts). But how efficient Apple was in this capacity remains open to debate. Paul Tennant of Focal Point was amazed to discover in 2005 that Apple had


Sweet Apple tracks


Fire: Father’s Name Is Dad Driven by one of the coolest guitar riffs of ’68, this concise blast of mod-psych perfection earned the fab four some more dosh when the Pet Shop Boys sampled the track for a 2005 single.


Sands: Listen To The Sky Tucked away on the flip of their sole ’67 single, this comes across as a pop-sike toe tapper until things become unhinged with air raid sirens, machine guns and a fuzzed-out interpretation of Holzt’s ‘Mars…’


Misunderstood: Children Of The Sun When Wayne Bardell got Tony Hill of High Tide a deal with Apple in ’69, the half-dozen killers he wrote for The Misunderstood came with him as part of the deal.


Turquoise: Woodstock Not really psychedelic, but a glorious, stomping late ’60s pop jewel that evokes the sound and style of Turquoise’s neighbours and mentors, The Kinks.


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Second Hand: Fairytale Packed with melody, mellotron and whimsy, this sublime pop-sike confection was light years away from their magnificent but dark ’69 album Reality.


The Iveys: I’ve Been Waiting This psychedelic monster has sat largely unnoticed as the last song on The Iveys ’69 Apple LP Maybe Tomorrow. Its spooky atmosphere and wigged out guitar and vocals are unique in The Iveys’ output.


Denis Couldry: I Am Nearly There For this sinister oddity, Couldry was backed by a deliriously offbeat Second Hand, thus creating a crazed psych stunner unlike anything else he cut.


Focal Point: Sycamore Sid No, not that “Syd”, but John Mayall oddly enough. All too groovy pop-psych with fine guitar and organ that should have been the A-side of their sole Deram 45 in early ’68.


“Apple Publishing had a lot of potential that was cut short,” believes O’Connor. “Due to The Beatles popularity, there was such an opportunity to sign talent and sign talent for not a lot of money, because the policy at Apple was that we don’t pay any advances. Ron Kass put in the policy that Apple wouldn’t pay advances on anything, which cost us a few projects.”


Apple Publishing signed its last new writers (Lon and Derek Van Eaton) in ’71 and ceased to be actively managed in ’75.


But as is often the case with music publishing, the less you do, the more money you make. Since the last Apple Publishing employee, Bernard Brown, left the employment of The Beatles in May ’75, Apple’s publishing royalties for ‘Without You’ and several other songs written by Pete Ham have ensured a steady income stream for Apple that has far exceeded £1,000,000. As Morris Levy once noted, those nickels and pennies do add up to a tidy sum over time.


Ten pop-psych stunners from the Apple Publishing catalogue


Andy Ellison: Fool From Upper Eden For his solo debut after leaving John’s Children, Ellison cut this bouncy, ultra-catchy song penned by Grapefruit’s George Alexander which inexplicably failed to make the charts.


Grapefruit: Lullaby The LP version of this track is an over-orchestrated mess but a recently excavated alternate recording trades the strings and flutes for some lacerating guitar and led some –including Yoko Ono – to believe that this was a long lost psychedelic-era Lennon outtake!


All of these tracks are included on the three CD collections of psych-orientated Apple Publishing recordings – 94 Baker Street, An Apple A Day and Treacle Toffee World (see review this issue) – available on RPM Records and unconditionally recommended to all Shindig! readers.


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