So um, what was it? What was what? What was it? What was it about them that made people feel good. What... it still applies. I think people are still glad... people of goodwill are glad when they hear that the ex-Beatles are quote getting back together a bit, are still friends, are not broke, are not ill and so on. What they were was... they seemed to people to be was healthy and wealthy and wise and happy and young and never short of an answer. Or if they didn't know the answer, they didn't mind saying, I don't know. And it's all right but you know, next. So it's just always this kind of group of people who could take care of business or take our minds off things, and these are not unhappy times in England. England was in good shape in '63, '64 so they were dead on time. Bang on time. And they were never allowed of course, this was part of the problem later to... they lasted on for us. This was the divergent that they had to always be up and about and on and happening and together and successful and this was a demands, which public place on them. But there again, they asked for it. They wanted to be successful. George will never say he never wanted to be famous and I accept that, but these are prices, which they didn't know. None of us knew about then, we were all bonkers really. Crazy. It may not answer the question.

We're going to move on to America in '64.

'64 yes.

What did conquering America mean to the Beatles?

Well, America was where everything that they... not everything, but where all the... where the music was from. Where those people were from. Where Johnny Ray was from or the movies were from. Elvis was from America and Chuck Berry and the whole caboodle. I mean, you could listen to whole caravans arrive of rock and rollers and R and B and Motown. It was... it was it and still is. I mean lets face it, America is still... it is now the only superpower and the idea that you could be number one in America and get a turnout like that at Kennedy Airport, I don't know that I understood it. I mean I am so much older now and so are they. I don't think I quite realized at the time just how unusual it was to penetrate the American consciousness so fast and so deeply because it's easy in America as you know to have regional success and perhaps because in certain stra... stratum of society, but to wipe them out just like that, inside a few days so that all those events to anyone who's wide awake, Washington calls it a snowstorm at the Sullivan Show and Kennedy Airport, funny answers, "Hard Days Night" and all that stuff, it's... it takes quite some doing and they went through it like a knife through butter, powering their way through it just on a... I suppose...

So how did they do it in America? The... the answer to, I mean there's all kinds of... it's a large subject, because it's a large success in a large country, complicated business. The time was right of course because of Kennedy's death and there was a huge vacuum like that and a country, I don't think either we saw how much the country must have been in mourning, yet it was …on November he died... Kennedy died and this is only January, February... February the ninth. Three months and it was also their power and it was also they were interesting looking, nice looking chaps and there was a very big record and I think a good publicity campaign, which I had nothing to do with because I wasn't with them and they were just again, just there at the right time. But it was sheer force of personality charm, the collective charm was and is something remarkable and in a sense also they were and are right for the American psyche whatever that is and without … the Americans have always been very good Beatlemaniacs if you like or Beatle fans and they're still well prized by those of us who are interested in the Beatles welfare. It's not just the dollar. It's the fact that an American... a good American Beatle fan is something to reckon with because they bought... they bought a kind of angle to Beatleness, whatever any of this means, I don't know what it means and how it will sound, but the American factor was crucial, otherwise they would remained uninteresting and they would have done well, but American input was very, very good.

What do you think that was?

Well it was the Americans have their, you know, again I'm talking to an American. The Americans have these aspects, this is... this innocence if you like. There's a kind of willingness to tell me about things, teach me some things about this. There's also that American worldliness and Americans are seen … and happen to bombarded with plenty, well many Americans have anyway. So it was an interesting combination of a willingness to... to take the Beatles on and to see what have you got to offer us and there was also good American know how, terrific American television show like the Sullivan Show. Amazing success story, how that man it's strange, no can put that little show together with puppets and comedians and Beatles and have everyone glued to the set on a Sunday night and get, you know, just 70 million people. There's an enormous power in that and they were not found wanting because they were absolutely fearless. They went on that show and knocked them dead with their songs and it could have been a very... could have been a flop. The thought never occurred to them, I don't think and the fact that it wasn't _ to me a remarkable achievement and they sustained it. They did two more Sullivans in that period and then they did the Washington concert on... on closed circuit television. By now, of course they were you know the Lords of the earth, but it's easy to fail. It's easy to bomb. I couldn't do it. I... I've been around on a stage when they, you know if they had to go on, they'd be something and I've had a Beatles audience and … there for some, you know quick fix because I had to keep the crowd quiet or something, but I was... I was aware you know this was the power was there and I would have not been able to go on there and just sort of take this crowd myself and start it off and warm it up. There was such a warm up audience that if an naughty dictator had had them behind him...

... and that I was... I was aware you know, this was the... the power was there and I would have not been able to go on there and just sort of take this crowd myself and start it off and warm it up. They were such a warm up audience that if a naughty dictator had had them behind him, he could have done terrible things. It's as well that they were politically in the mode of goodness themselves too. So… we were spared an evil genius.

In terms of their songs during this time period, '63, '64, in terms of their relatively simplistic love songs, you know " I Want to Hold Your Hand", "She Loves You" at the same time they communicated intelligence. How did that...

Well the reason they were able to convey intelligence through these apparently simply songs was that they were intelligent and that in these apparently simple songs, there were subtle constructions, which were... I mean they were not... they may have been instinctive, but they... they held together properly and the critics and the Times critic much joked about... they were able to read into the songs proper structures that he could recognize and write about. This is got through. I mean this is what happens with great actors and great performers and great musicians, ah people in this wonderful thing that members of the public have where they get into a collective they can... this thing comes across them. People... great actors who can act with their backs and do things and these... these are the … people. They are Marlon Brandos and the Cary Grants and the, I don't know, Jimmy Stewart or even if you like, Mickey Rooney. These are people who, what do they have a talus or something. Timothy Leary would … they are. But they're people who got it. It's what makes us wonderful as humans that we can spot this stuff without knowing what it is. We can just feel it and give and take it. The problem is that it's all too much in the end. It always go wrong because we... we take too much... it takes too much out of us.

How is the perception of Bob Dylan's work before they met him?

Before they... before they met Bob Dylan... well they knew about Bob Dylan because they knew about him. They knew what was going on, but they had got his "Freewheeling" album. John, I think, showed it... told George about it. This is who I understand and George felt that and Paul was always an arty kind of a bloke and he was interested in people like Dylan, not that there was any quite like Dylan. So they were very, if you like the word into, Bob Dylan and picked up that this was an extraordinary kindred spirit although in a different field really. So they were very impressed by the idea of Bob Dylan being on the air around the same time as they. Probably a similar age too.

Can you sort of tell the story of the meeting. Could you give us the... is it symbolic or something, coming together...

I believe yes. Well I think at some... sometimes people meet by accident. I think after people get to certain position in whatever it is, academia or whatever the arts, show business, they will arrange to meet each other. Someone will make sure that you know, you guys should meet and sometimes it works and it's always of interest and importance. Sometimes it doesn't work, but when they met Bob Dylan, were brought together by, I can't say who made the moves or whatever, I think Al Ronowitz certainly came to the hotel with him, or Victor, both still friends of ours. It was right and proper and fitting and I think it was probably a very good night. I was in the next suite alone... Delmonico holding back large numbers of not quite so famous, but extremely nice people who should be nameless but we couldn't get in. I mean sort of knew that it was a special meeting but couldn't say and so I had to … in this tell a string of old whory jokes or whatever. I had to have a secondary court and they were in there I think getting high in one way or another, but maybe this is illegal. These are still banned substances. What substances you asked. Nobody's mentioned substances. There were no substances. They met Bob Dylan and... and again it was about time and he'd again had, I read some marvelous quote of his that he was driving on the highway and he had some songs that were, man these guys, or these harmonies and those words and whatever and of course their friends to this day, George and Bob Dylan and Wilburys are well know now as two of a kind... two of a kind.

Did Dylan's work influence the Beatles at that point?

Well then or thereafter, yes. Yes. I remember saying to Neil Aspinall in the studio, why is John saying, I may lose... was it … was that the song he sang, I said well it's... it's to do with Bob Dylan. Oh. And of course they've … each other and didn't he go electric in London. Didn't he get booed for his … all that. These are interesting times, when he get booed for... see this is a good, bad thing to be booed perhaps, but that anyone should care that people were that interested in these developments when a man would stop being a folk singer and now he's not a folk singer. Not going to be in a box anymore and they weren't pop stars, they were some other kind of singers. All these things were... these were interesting stages and changes that people are going through then to produce the kind of amorphous and incredible freedom we've got today. Whatever that means. But there were times when people were very into detail and popular music previously just a kind of adjunct became quite central to millions of lives and again kept a lot of people off the streets. Always a good thing. Out of trouble anyway. Out of trouble.

Al Ronowitz called John Lennon, Dylan through the looking glass, in that he sees a real parallel between the two of them, can you mention that?

Yes, well Al's very good. Al's good with the phrase. If Al said he's Dylan through the looking glass that's the way he sees it. … man from the provinces weren't they who got involved with metropolitan life in a big way and I somehow have always seen George and Bob as if you like, a couple, but of course John and Bob and Paul and Bob, these are all, and Ringo was a Bob Dylan fan. Did I miss anybody out?

You know, that's it. Well I..._ always had an understanding of Beatleness, yes. And that was all... you see, I found this very encouraging because I... I sometimes thought I was going mad. Here I was a 32 and I've got some children and I want to get involved with the popular music world and it's rather late in the day for me, but then I was reassured by all these other people who were sort of a similar age who were also picking this thing up. So... you were never alone with the Beatles by that time. This is the thing. You weren't... Epstein had been when he was telling the world, these people are going to be bigger than Elvis. He was often pushing a closed door. By the time I got involved, all the doors were open and... and as a result, I've always been open every since. So and then I made a move which was to change everything no doubt.

We sort of see a crossing at this point between the Beatles career and Bob Dylan's career. Does that ring a bell in a way that the Beatles go from teen playing the songs into... in a few years, just a totally different... creating more popular music, popular electric music. Does that make sense?

… of this fertilizing or cross fertilization or whatever you want to call it of Bob Dylan, Beatles and that, is something that I'm not really... it's not fair to... it is too loud isn't it?

With regard to the question about Bob Dylan... Bob Dylan and the Beatles. Now Bob... I can't say what happened to Bob's music after he met them or may or may not have happened to his music as a result of his meeting although I would like to help with the question. I don't know because I'm not a student. I've got all those albums and I'm huge fan of his. He always to me had enormous mystery and power. When he came to L.A. that was an electrifying thing. The word was out Bob Dylan's here. It was like Christ is somewhere, probably in so and so motel, I don't know what effect he had on the Beatles. I can't say that either. But the music did certainly take off in all kinds of directions in '65. Just the following year and then the rest was history. I can only think the end result was very good, but they were very quick on inferences and after all the black music had been a power in the early years. So, I mean they were... somebody said when John died... somebody in the "Time" magazine, Jay, whoever that bloke is wrote, he said John was able to pick on people and people picked up on him and they were always fast to pick up on... pick up on a good suit, lets all go in and get one of those. Those are good boots. Oh, mustaches, yes, and all that stuff. They were very quick to pick up and make... whatever they took, they made it to the bit... different... that their own. So even though some people think those jackets without collars were silly, they were not that silly on them at that time. So I don't know...