“His press releases were like royal statements”
How Beatles and Byrds publicist Derek Taylor wrote the book on pop PR
hen Roger McGuinn first met The Beatles, the introduction came via The Beatles’ former press officer, Derek Taylor – an avuncular former tabloid journalist who later worked for The Byrds and whose 1973 memoir, As Time Goes By, is being reissued by Faber. “I loved the guy,” says McGuinn from Florida. “he took us to meet The Beatles when we were playing Blaises. The first night, George and John showed up. John wanted to know all about sunglasses and I talked about Rickenbackers with George. We had this Phillips cassette recorder, which was a new device, and Derek recorded some of the concerts – we ended up using the screaming fans on ‘So You Want To Be A Rock’n’Roll Star’.”
Taylor’s memoir covers his career as a rock press officer, offering wise commentary on the ’60s music biz while revealing considerable affection for his charges such as The Byrds and The Beatles. Taylor, a journalist at the Express, started working for Brian epstein in 1964, accompanying The Beatles to the US. he then moved to California, using his Beatles kudos to land contracts with a variety of top American bands, including The Beach Boys and The Byrds. he was also instrumental in creating the Monterey Pop Festival. “he was witty and fun and brilliant at
Wcoming up with campaigns, like ‘Brian Wilson is a genius’,” says McGuinn. “With The Byrds, he equated us with The Beatles and put that in people’s heads.” While in the US, Taylor also wrote for music papers in the UK, giving a British audience an insight into the American scene.
he later returned to London to work for Apple, where one of his colleagues was Tony Bramwell, who compares Taylor’s sense of humour to Peter Cook’s. “he was the spokesperson of Apple and all the nutcases went to him to be dealt with,” says Bramwell. “he would play all these hippies and hells Angels his Al Bowlly records. he’d write very erudite press releases that were like royal statements. he was tripping often, smoking dope and drinking brandy, but he controlled the bedlam that was his office, with all these strange people coming in and out as well as The Byrds, the Beach Boys, Bobbie Gentry – when they were in London they’d all pop in to see him.”
Taylor based much of the memoir on notes he made in the late 1960s when he was immersed in Apple mayhem, and the chapters sometimes read like streams of consciousness. his take is often funny and sardonic. At one point, with Apple imploding and Allen Klein hovering, he recalls: “Last night a few friends came round and we Appled for hours, Appling being the inexhaustible pastime of putting our house to rights in theory without having the power to do it in practice.”
The memoir has been reissued with a new introduction by Jon Savage, who writes that Taylor, who died in 1997, “was the only Beatle insider who was able to clearly communicate a wider perspective on the events that they were living through”. “I’d never had a press agent before; Derek was 10 years older and a lot of fun to be with,” says McGuinn. “he was very frank about the music industry and he looked at the whole thing with a sense of humour.”
“He would play all these hippies and Hells Angels his Al Bowlly records” TONY BRAMWELL
As Time Goes By by Derek Taylor is published by Faber in April