Also, even if relations between the Beatles were good, I have a hard time seeing John, George, and Ringo being OK with being managed by Paul's in-laws. No matter how well-intentioned Paul and said in-laws were. I think everyone would have been better able to communicate about it, but I don't think they would have accepted it.
Probably not, you're right. I'm trying to think of precedent and parallels, because they did employ a lot of their friends from Liverpool, of course, and nobody had objected to, say, Paul giving Peter Asher a key job at Apple (that survived the Paul/Jane breakup) - but none of them were ever in a position of power over the band, which automatically comes with the management gig. Then again, pre-Brian, management was handled by a wild variety of people, with Alan Williams being the only semi professional to do it, and none of these was treated as an authority. And of course post Brian's death, "we'll manage ourselves" had resulted in de facto Paul being manager (initializing projects except for India, which was George's idea, pushing for recordings etc.) and the rest of them going along with it, not always peacefully, but going along with it. Especially since they had no counter suggestions/ideas for the band's future of their own. (Again, always minus Maharishi & India as the George-initialized Beatles project.) So I could see Paul in 1969, after a year of "well, okay then", believing that while they wouldn't be thrilled to hear his idea for their fixer/new management would be his new in-laws, John, George and Ringo would go along with this as well.
BTW, not unrelated but another aspect: he must have been aware what this meant re: his relationship with Linda, too, which amounted to a massive commitment on an unprecedented (in terms of his relationships with women) scale. Because once he'd made her father and brother his managers, a divorce, while not impossible, would have been hard and awkward to accomplish, and would likely have resulted in him being taken to the cleaners, as the expression goes. This from a man whose previous track record with women was anything but confidence inspiring, and whose few romantic long term relationships (Jane Asher, Maggie McGivern) had run parallel with each other, something Linda had made clear she wouldn't go for. So I wonder whether that insisting on the Eastmans wasn't Paul's version of John's "it's just you now" gesture to Yoko, a kind of "this is real, I am willing to put all on the idea that we're going to make it as man and wife" demonstration.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: Management Issues II
Date: 2016-12-10 09:44 am (UTC)Probably not, you're right. I'm trying to think of precedent and parallels, because they did employ a lot of their friends from Liverpool, of course, and nobody had objected to, say, Paul giving Peter Asher a key job at Apple (that survived the Paul/Jane breakup) - but none of them were ever in a position of power over the band, which automatically comes with the management gig. Then again, pre-Brian, management was handled by a wild variety of people, with Alan Williams being the only semi professional to do it, and none of these was treated as an authority. And of course post Brian's death, "we'll manage ourselves" had resulted in de facto Paul being manager (initializing projects except for India, which was George's idea, pushing for recordings etc.) and the rest of them going along with it, not always peacefully, but going along with it. Especially since they had no counter suggestions/ideas for the band's future of their own. (Again, always minus Maharishi & India as the George-initialized Beatles project.) So I could see Paul in 1969, after a year of "well, okay then", believing that while they wouldn't be thrilled to hear his idea for their fixer/new management would be his new in-laws, John, George and Ringo would go along with this as well.
BTW, not unrelated but another aspect: he must have been aware what this meant re: his relationship with Linda, too, which amounted to a massive commitment on an unprecedented (in terms of his relationships with women) scale. Because once he'd made her father and brother his managers, a divorce, while not impossible, would have been hard and awkward to accomplish, and would likely have resulted in him being taken to the cleaners, as the expression goes. This from a man whose previous track record with women was anything but confidence inspiring, and whose few romantic long term relationships (Jane Asher, Maggie McGivern) had run parallel with each other, something Linda had made clear she wouldn't go for. So I wonder whether that insisting on the Eastmans wasn't Paul's version of John's "it's just you now" gesture to Yoko, a kind of "this is real, I am willing to put all on the idea that we're going to make it as man and wife" demonstration.