{"id":328601,"date":"2025-12-21T19:13:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T19:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/328601\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T19:13:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T19:13:15","slug":"i-learned-new-beatles-song-from-paul-mccartney-before-the-rest-of-the-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/328601\/","title":{"rendered":"I learned new Beatles song from Paul McCartney before the rest of the band"},"content":{"rendered":"

Neil Harrison – The Bootleg Beatles\u2019 original John Lennon – on meeting Paul, dealing with fatigue and keeping the show going\"BootlegBootleg Beatles founder member Neil Harrison<\/p>\n

Neil Harrison never left the Bootleg Beatles. For the last 14 years, since hanging up his round glasses and white suit, Neil – the band\u2019s original John Lennon<\/a> – has managed the group he formed with David Catlin-Birch and Andre Barreau in 1980 before the term \u201ctribute band\u201d was even coined.<\/p>\n

The ECHO spoke to Neil, who reflected on a long career in the music <\/a>industry, his own battles with finding space for creativity and the \u201creligious experience\u201d of meeting Paul McCartney<\/a> at Christmas <\/a>as a teenager – a moment Paul had forgotten when the pair met again at the Queen\u2019s Golden Jubilee in 2002.<\/p>\n

Neil told the ECHO: \u201cHe kind of nodded like, \u2018oh yeah\u2019. And Andre [Barreau, who played George Harrison from 1980 to 2017] was with me, and he said \u201cyou don\u2019t remember,\u201d and he said no. He was nodding, but he didn\u2019t really remember it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The meeting in 1968 had come about when Neil and his friends heard rumours that Paul had come home for Christmas. The Beatles star\u2019s Aston Martin had been spotted in the Wirral<\/a> village of Heswall<\/a>, where Paul\u2019s father moved to after leaving Forthlin Road<\/a>. The youngsters sniffed opportunity, so decided to knock on the Baskervyle Road home and sing some carols.<\/p>\n

Neil added: \u201c[Paul\u2019s] dad remarried. So she opened the door and gave us some money and then waved us off or something, and we went, ‘oh, b****r’. So we sang some Beatles song. Then the door opened again, and Macca came out with his guitar on, and it was quite cold. He was just wearing a t-shirt. And so he said, \u2018do you want to come in for a drink?\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all went in the hallway and he sat on the stairs and Linda <\/a>was above him, and he played songs from the White Album. And right at the end he said, \u2018try these chords\u2019. So he was showing me this chord he used for that particular song and then he starts singing it. It was this new number, I\u2019ve Got A Feeling, and he was getting me to sing it. And I thought, \u2018f***. I\u2019ve got to remember this.\u2019 So I was singing and singing and singing it all the way back to my house.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was only when Peter Jackson\u2019s Let It Be documentary series was released that Neil realised Paul had taught him the song before the rest of the Beatles had even heard it. The following year, he finally had the proof that this magical moment really did happen.<\/p>\n

Neil said: \u201cI told everybody, obviously, about meeting him at school. People asked \u2018did that really happen?\u2019…Then there were these pictures that came out. Linda had a retrospective just after the pandemic in the Walker Art Gallery<\/a>. Some mate of Andre\u2019s was there and took a picture of this photograph on the wall. It was a picture that Linda had taken of us standing outside.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a total vindication, you see. I was there. But my poor brother who was there was masked by Macca so you couldn\u2019t see him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leaving the Bootlegs<\/p>\n

Despite playing John in the Bootlegs\u2019 act, Neil says he always preferred Paul personally. Long-serving Paul impersonator Steve White retired from the Bootlegs earlier this year, with Miles Frizzell, 21, from Nashville, named as his successor.<\/p>\n

\"MilesMiles Frizzell of the Bootleg Beatles(Image: Bootleg Beatles)<\/p>\n

Neil spoke proudly of Frizzell. He said: \u201cHe\u2019s really experienced but he\u2019s got a really old head on young shoulders. He\u2019s precocious – in a good way – he\u2019s just so bloody talented. And he\u2019s quite humble, really. It\u2019s not like he knows it all, he wants to learn more.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the other thing is, he\u2019s a massive McCartney fan\u2026He\u2019s just manic about McCartney. Everything, not just Beatle McCartney, but Wings, you know. Later stuff. All of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neil paused when asked what it was like when his time came to step down from the band. He said: \u201cIt was difficult to watch somebody else doing it. I\u2019d done it for 30 years\u2026The guy that took over was much younger and, in fact, I thought he looked much more like Lennon than I did. So, you, know, that\u2019s quite hard to take. And he was great, and amazing. But [eventually] I realised I had to do it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was finding it really difficult to sing those parts. My voice was going quite a bit. Those songs are in keys that work for those voices, young voices, but 60, which is what I was? It\u2019s a struggle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, look what\u2019s happened to Macca now. I don\u2019t understand that with him. He\u2019s still composing songs in those keys and it\u2019s patently not done his voice any good. I find it a bit sad, really. But who am I to judge Macca? He\u2019s great and that\u2019s what he wants to do. And the funny thing is, the Stones get away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following his dreams<\/p>\n

Neil has always kept his love of the Beatles, but he doesn\u2019t hide his more jaded perspective. As a songwriter himself, who released his own album in 1974 and once wrote a Billboard top 20 hit for Scottish singer Lulu, he has had to find new ways to stay creative even after stepping down from the stage.<\/p>\n

Neil told the ECHO: \u201cI suffered a lot of fatigue. Because you\u2019re straitjacketed by those songs. There\u2019s a lot of songs to choose from, but they\u2019re still Beatles songs. And if you\u2019re a creative person, it\u2019s quite difficult to be able to create in that situation. You can\u2019t do it with the songs. You have to do it some other way with the production itself.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s where I think the creativity comes in, you know: the presentation of it. Otherwise, it would be so boring, and I\u2019ve heard stories about certain bands literally sticking to the same setlist every night. As a musician it\u2019s so boring and lazy. At least with us, we\u2019re challenging [the band] as musicians and challenging the audience as well:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Here\u2019s Savoy Truffle, here\u2019s how it would\u2019ve been played live with a brass section by the Beatles.\u2019 And some people will go, \u2018big deal, I don\u2019t like the song\u2019. A lot of people go, \u2018bloody hell! Actually, that\u2019s a great song when it\u2019s given the full might of a live gig.\u2019 I relish that, and if I couldn\u2019t do that, I wouldn\u2019t do it. I would end it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"GordonGordon Elsmore, Miles Frizzell, Stephen Hill and Paul Canning of the Bootleg Beatles(Image: Bootleg Beatles)<\/p>\n

Neil has struggled with finding time for his own creative practice for his whole career. His musical about tribute acts, Great Pretenders, has had runs in London and Edinburgh, but managing the Bootleg Beatles has proved a hard gig to give up.<\/p>\n

With a smile, Neil mused over the idea of quitting. He said: \u201cI keep thinking, I\u2019ll just do one more. Just one more. I think it\u2019s quite difficult to let go of it. I\u2019ve done it all my life so to go, \u2018 okay, some other person\u2019s gonna do this\u2019 – now I do think that\u2019d be quite difficult. But I think I have to do it, to give myself more time to do other stuff that I\u2019d like to do for myself rather than just my Bootleg Beatle legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neil\u2019s father was a writer who never followed through on his dream of giving up his day job in accounting to work on his own projects. Despite Neil\u2019s own frustration, he is determined not to follow the same path.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cIt drove him to drink, you know, in the end. Because he couldn\u2019t. He never had the time to be able to do the creative stuff that he really wanted to. And it happens, it\u2019s happening all the time. And I don\u2019t know what the answer to it is really. I feel like I\u2019m a bit like him.\u201d<\/p>\n

His ongoing fight for creative control made Neil sympathetic to co-founder and original Macca impersonator David Catlin-Birch\u2019s decision to quit the band back in 1987, and again in 2012 after rejoining in 2001. He hasn’t heard from Catlin-Birch since Andre Barreau’s funeral, two years ago.<\/p>\n

\"DavidDavid Catlin-Birch, Andre Barreau, Neil Harrison and Rick Rock of the Bootleg(Image: Bootleg Beatles)<\/p>\n

Neil said: \u201cDavid left the band to do his own music. He did a lot of session work and then he joined World Party, so he was playing original music for a while but then re-joined the Bootleg Beatles a bit later.”<\/p>\n

On the balance between creativity and needing to pay the bills, Neil said: \u201cI certainly have battled this for a long time. This need to be myself, to do my own stuff, against having to make a living. But there\u2019s a lot of people that depend on this, so I\u2019ve got to be in position to keep this going. There\u2019s a lot of pressure and it\u2019s been an internal battle, and it\u2019s not even really resolved even now.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would find it difficult to pass it on to somebody else. A bit like passing the baton on playing John Lennon. That wasn\u2019t easy, but I think this probably would be even more difficult, actually.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fans of the Bootlegs’ elaborate stage shows can rest assured that Neil will be firmly involved in the planning and execution of at least one more tour. He said: \u201cThere will be another one. This time next year. You\u2019ll hear about it soon enough because it has to be advertised in the Phil [Liverpool Philharmonic Hall], probably at the end of January or early February.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Neil Harrison – The Bootleg Beatles\u2019 original John Lennon – on meeting Paul, dealing with fatigue and keeping…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":328602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,25396,128,6470,8934,10447,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-328601","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-john-lennon","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-paul-mccartney","12":"tag-premium","13":"tag-the-beatles","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=328601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/328601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/328602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=328601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=328601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=328601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}