Post by Imgonnaopenmymind on Oct 21, 2003 2:07:13 GMT
The Beatles are often considered the most influential pop music band of all time, and there no surprise that they should become the target of a long-standing urban legend, that one of their members, Paul McCartney, was killed and replaced by a double.
The arguments against this Urban Legend start with the obvious - keeping such a switch out of the public eye requires the efforts of hundreds (if not thousands) of people, from family members, girlfriends, agents, to the tape op/tea boys at Abbey Road, to photographers, publicists, etc. Even if a few people could be convinced or bought to keep the secret, the idea of those hundreds of people all keeping quiet about such a major event for over thirty five years is beyond belief. For just one example, Paul McCartney and Jane Asher were dating since 1964 (http://www.seedship.com/hayley/gallery/imgnews1/01j00b1h.html). The new fake Paul was supposedly put in place in 1966. In December 1967, Paul and Jane Asher were engaged (http://webhome.idirect.com/~faab/AbbeyRoad/paul4.htm), but broke up a year later in December 1968 when Paul left her for Linda Eastman. What motive could Jane Asher have to NOT expose the fake Paul, if indeed he was fake? If you believe the Urban Legend, she had played along, dating and even becoming engaged to the fake Paul, but after a couple of years she is humiliated by this "fraud" dumping her. It would have been easy for her to reveal the "truth" to the press, which would have loved to hear about it.
This same kind of thing can be said for many other people. Both George Martin (the Beatles' producer) and Geoff Emerick (the Beatles' engineer) have reputations of being upright and honest to a fault. I can't believe for a second they would have gone along with something that defrauded the whole world.
A second strong argument against the veracity of this Urban Legend is that some of the original perpetrators have admitted making it up (http://www.recmusicbeatles.com/public/files/faqs/pid.html).
A third argument is very circumstantial, but important nonetheless. How could the supposed conspirators hoping to replace Paul find someone who 1. looks similar enough to the real thing, 2. sounds similar enough to the real thing and 3. is as talented as the real thing? Don't forget, post 1966 Paul McCartney went on to do some of his best work.
But none of these three arguments so far really answers the photographic and audio "proofs" found at uberkinder.5u.com/paul/, written by Andrew Spooner Jr. They show moving gifs of Paul McCartney from before 1966 morphing into Paul McCartney after 1966, and the match does not seem to be a good one. They also play audio clips from Paul before and after 1966 and attempt to point out significant differences.
The audio clips are easier for me to dismiss, so I will start with those. According to Mr. Spooner, the false Paul is not as good a singer, going off-pitch at times. Mr. Spooner claims the false Paul has a higher voice, and implies that he is faking his British accent.
As a recording engineer myself, I can attest that a versatile singer can radically alter his vocal timbre he wishes, or with training, or just because of smoking or drinking. Also, microphone choice and technique and even the recording medium can make radical differences in vocal timbre. For example, Elvis' voice when singing Jailhouse Rock and his voice when singing Love Me Tender differ widely, but no one puts that down to anything but a versatile voice.
Listening to the "before" and "after" clips given by Mr. Spooner, and to my own Beatles CDs from before and after 1966 it is my opinion that the same person voiced Paul McCartney's vocals at all points in his career. Timbre differences are trivial and easily explained by any number of things.
As for fake Paul's claimed pitch problems, I've never heard any Paul McCartney Beatles vocal that went off-pitch from any era. George Martin would never allow that on any album with his name listed as producer. Comparing Paul's vocals on Beatles albums with his live vocals in recent years is not a good test since there are different producers and very different circumstances. I challenge anyone to find Paul's voice going off-pitch in anything produced by George Martin, whether it is before or after 1966.
As an American, I can't really speak with any authority to the British accent of the post 1966 Paul McCartney, but it convinces me.
As for the pictures given, it is certainly interesting how Paul seemed to change his look around 1966. The Spooner text claims the fake Paul is taller, has a longer face, and shows evidence of plastic surgery including a scar on his upper lip, chin, and by his left eye. I was under the impression that plastic surgery was supposed to avoid leaving scars, and there are reports that Paul McCartney had an accident on a moped on December 26, 1965 which chipped a tooth and gave him at least his lip scar if not the others (http://www.recmusicbeatles.com/public/files/faqs/pid.html). And the height difference seems convincing in the pictures shown (Paul was the same height as John in pre-1966 photos on the Spooner site, but taller in post-1966 photos). However, it is easy to find pictures of Paul and John which show them to be the same height after 1966. For example, the very famous cover picture of Abbey Road (http://www.artlebedev.ru/studio/posters/beatles/beatles-1600x1200.jpg) with the band walking on the zebra crossing shows Paul and John to be the same height and Ringo obviously shorter, George slightly shorter. I suspect that the height "difference" will only look that way in some pictures because of camera angle, differing shoes or platforms on which they are standing, etc.
But Paul's face? It does seem to get much longer after 1966. Why is that? I'm not sure, I find it the most convincing aspect of Mr. Spooner's argument.
Trevor
The arguments against this Urban Legend start with the obvious - keeping such a switch out of the public eye requires the efforts of hundreds (if not thousands) of people, from family members, girlfriends, agents, to the tape op/tea boys at Abbey Road, to photographers, publicists, etc. Even if a few people could be convinced or bought to keep the secret, the idea of those hundreds of people all keeping quiet about such a major event for over thirty five years is beyond belief. For just one example, Paul McCartney and Jane Asher were dating since 1964 (http://www.seedship.com/hayley/gallery/imgnews1/01j00b1h.html). The new fake Paul was supposedly put in place in 1966. In December 1967, Paul and Jane Asher were engaged (http://webhome.idirect.com/~faab/AbbeyRoad/paul4.htm), but broke up a year later in December 1968 when Paul left her for Linda Eastman. What motive could Jane Asher have to NOT expose the fake Paul, if indeed he was fake? If you believe the Urban Legend, she had played along, dating and even becoming engaged to the fake Paul, but after a couple of years she is humiliated by this "fraud" dumping her. It would have been easy for her to reveal the "truth" to the press, which would have loved to hear about it.
This same kind of thing can be said for many other people. Both George Martin (the Beatles' producer) and Geoff Emerick (the Beatles' engineer) have reputations of being upright and honest to a fault. I can't believe for a second they would have gone along with something that defrauded the whole world.
A second strong argument against the veracity of this Urban Legend is that some of the original perpetrators have admitted making it up (http://www.recmusicbeatles.com/public/files/faqs/pid.html).
A third argument is very circumstantial, but important nonetheless. How could the supposed conspirators hoping to replace Paul find someone who 1. looks similar enough to the real thing, 2. sounds similar enough to the real thing and 3. is as talented as the real thing? Don't forget, post 1966 Paul McCartney went on to do some of his best work.
But none of these three arguments so far really answers the photographic and audio "proofs" found at uberkinder.5u.com/paul/, written by Andrew Spooner Jr. They show moving gifs of Paul McCartney from before 1966 morphing into Paul McCartney after 1966, and the match does not seem to be a good one. They also play audio clips from Paul before and after 1966 and attempt to point out significant differences.
The audio clips are easier for me to dismiss, so I will start with those. According to Mr. Spooner, the false Paul is not as good a singer, going off-pitch at times. Mr. Spooner claims the false Paul has a higher voice, and implies that he is faking his British accent.
As a recording engineer myself, I can attest that a versatile singer can radically alter his vocal timbre he wishes, or with training, or just because of smoking or drinking. Also, microphone choice and technique and even the recording medium can make radical differences in vocal timbre. For example, Elvis' voice when singing Jailhouse Rock and his voice when singing Love Me Tender differ widely, but no one puts that down to anything but a versatile voice.
Listening to the "before" and "after" clips given by Mr. Spooner, and to my own Beatles CDs from before and after 1966 it is my opinion that the same person voiced Paul McCartney's vocals at all points in his career. Timbre differences are trivial and easily explained by any number of things.
As for fake Paul's claimed pitch problems, I've never heard any Paul McCartney Beatles vocal that went off-pitch from any era. George Martin would never allow that on any album with his name listed as producer. Comparing Paul's vocals on Beatles albums with his live vocals in recent years is not a good test since there are different producers and very different circumstances. I challenge anyone to find Paul's voice going off-pitch in anything produced by George Martin, whether it is before or after 1966.
As an American, I can't really speak with any authority to the British accent of the post 1966 Paul McCartney, but it convinces me.
As for the pictures given, it is certainly interesting how Paul seemed to change his look around 1966. The Spooner text claims the fake Paul is taller, has a longer face, and shows evidence of plastic surgery including a scar on his upper lip, chin, and by his left eye. I was under the impression that plastic surgery was supposed to avoid leaving scars, and there are reports that Paul McCartney had an accident on a moped on December 26, 1965 which chipped a tooth and gave him at least his lip scar if not the others (http://www.recmusicbeatles.com/public/files/faqs/pid.html). And the height difference seems convincing in the pictures shown (Paul was the same height as John in pre-1966 photos on the Spooner site, but taller in post-1966 photos). However, it is easy to find pictures of Paul and John which show them to be the same height after 1966. For example, the very famous cover picture of Abbey Road (http://www.artlebedev.ru/studio/posters/beatles/beatles-1600x1200.jpg) with the band walking on the zebra crossing shows Paul and John to be the same height and Ringo obviously shorter, George slightly shorter. I suspect that the height "difference" will only look that way in some pictures because of camera angle, differing shoes or platforms on which they are standing, etc.
But Paul's face? It does seem to get much longer after 1966. Why is that? I'm not sure, I find it the most convincing aspect of Mr. Spooner's argument.
Trevor
I appreciate onlookers post is all and do not know who they are in the world. By the way sun king and i know guy is just a term thrown out there but I am a female ;D I appreciate all you do sun king. I truly do
