The Corps of Apple Records III Quiz

Answer: Hot Chocolate

Errol Brown and Tony Wilson signed to Apple both as recording artists and as songwriters, and they composed virtually all of their multitude of U.K. hits. The name "The Hot Chocolate Band" was made up for them by an Apple secretary, which they simplified to "Hot Chocolate" after being dropped from Apple. Ironically, other than "You Sexy Thing" and "Every 1's a Winner," their music may be best known in the U.S. in cover versions of their tunes by other artists such as Stories, who had a U.S. number one hit with "Brother Louie" (a Wilson/Brown composition), while their only U.K. number one was a cover of Russ Ballard's "So You Win Again."

Answer: Richard Brautigan

Brautigan was the author of the 1960s counterculture smash "Trout Fishing in America," and the album includes both real-life segments and readings from Brautigan's books and poems. In the liner notes for the re-release of "Listening to Richard Brautigan," Miles says that only two test acetates of Zapple 3 were produced, one for himself and one for Apple A&R head Peter Asher, before Klein killed the release. The album came out on Harvest in 1970 only because Brautigan was able to transfer his contract from Apple to Capitol in the U.S.

Miles had already recorded (but not finished) planned Zapple albums with several other counterculture authors, including Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Allen Ginsberg, Charles Olson and Charles Bukowski, most of which were ultimately released in some form on other labels, but only the Brautigan album was ever assigned a Zapple release number.

Answer: Ringo Starr

Ringo had actually begun "Sentimental Journey" in 1969, prior to the breakup of the Beatles. In February 1970, during those sessions, he recorded the original version of "It Don't Come Easy," but the single version was recorded in a later session with, among others, George Harrison on guitar and harmony vocals, Stephen Stills on piano, Klaus Voorman on bass, Peter Ham and Tom Evans from Badfinger on backing vocals, and Ringo on drums and lead vocals.

Answer: Yoko Ono

In total, counting Yoko Ono's appearance on the Plastic Ono Band's "Live Peace in Toronto 1969," she was a credited artist on nine Apple albums excluding Beatles albums, more than anyone else except her husband John Lennon, who did eleven. Her bizarre attempts at singing caused her solo Apple releases, plus most of her albums with Lennon, to be complete duds at the cash register, although Lennon kept trying to promote her. Zapple head Barry Miles (who released one of the Lennon/Ono bombs as Zapple 1) compared Lennon's efforts on Ono's behalf to the futile efforts of William Randolph Hearst and his fictional counterpart Charles Foster Kane for their wives.

Carly Simon married former Apple artist James Taylor but never recorded for Apple herself. Mary Hopkin married record producer and arranger Tony Visconti, who produced her Apple album "Earth Song, Ocean Song." Ronnie Spector, the wife of superproducer Phil Spector and former lead singer for the Ronettes, recorded a single for Apple that her husband co-produced.

Answer: All of them were

Apple released at least six movie soundtracks, although several of them came out in the U.S. only. "Let It Be" was the official soundtrack to the Beatles' movie on Apple, although it was "reproduced for disk by Phil Spector." Because it was a soundtrack, Allen Klein was able to have it distributed by United Artists Records as opposed to Capitol Records in the U.S., thus snagging a higher royalty rate. "El Topo" was a cult film directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky, which John Lennon convinced Allen Klein to acquire for Abkco Films; Jodorowsky also co-wrote the score, and Lennon had John Barham re-record the score for the record. "Cometogether" was another Abkco film, although with no redeeming features -- the New York Times called it "empty-headed" and "as wan as the efforts of a small child who makes rude noises to give himself importance."

Other Apple soundtracks included "Raga", a documentary about Ravi Shankar, "Concert for Bangladesh", George Harrison's 1971 benefit show, and the Apple/RCA (Rapple) album "Son of Dracula" with Harry Nilsson.

Answer: The Pope Smokes Dope

"The Pope Smokes Dope" was Peel's third major label release, as his first two albums, "Have a Marijuana" and "The American Revolution," had come out on Elektra Records (and were reissued in 2008 on Rhino). After the almost-worldwide refusal of EMI to distribute "The Pope Smokes Dope" (similar to the way EMI later dropped the Sex Pistols' "Anarchy in the U.K."), Peel decided to release all future albums independently on his own label, Orange Records.

Answer: Jackie Lomax

Apple recording engineer Geoff Emerick wrote that the Lomax sessions for "Sour Milk Sea," which occurred during the recording of the Beatles' "white album," had "an exceptionally good vibe that night -- possibly because John and Yoko weren't around" and that "it was a really good-sounding record for the time; the rhythm track was especially strong." Nevertheless, after the single failed and Allen Klein came in as head of Apple, Lomax was unceremoniously dumped.

Untertakers' sax player Brian Jones (not to be confused with the Rolling Stones' Brian Jones, who played sax on the Beatles' "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)") later appeared on several Paul McCartney and Wings projects, including the "McGear" album, on which Wings backed McCartney's brother Michael.

Answer: Ronnie Spector

Ronnie Barrett was the lead singer of the Ronettes, with whom superproducer Phil Spector recorded a number of classic records in the early 1960s. After Ronnie and Phil were married, Phil insisted that she retire from music, but his involvement in Apple led to this abortive comeback attempt (using her married name).

All of the other three singers named -- Barbara Alston, Darlene Love and LaLa Brooks -- served as the lead singers of Spector's other hit girl group, the Crystals. Love was actually the lead singer of the Blossoms in L.A., but Spector used the Blossoms to record some of the Crystals' biggest hits (since the Crystals were from New York City, and Spector didn't always want to wait for them to fly to the West Coast). Alston was the original lead singer of the Crystals but quit due to stage fright, being replaced by Brooks.

Answer: Klein's purchase price for the copyright, which was then awarded to Harrison

In a decision still taught in U.S. law school "civil procedure" classes, the court held that Klein could not use his insider knowledge of the lawsuit to change sides during it, and so Klein's purchase of Bright Tunes' worldwide copyright for "He's So Fine" should be held to have been performed in the capacity of Harrison's "agent", which was Klein's position at the start of the suit. Klein was deemed to hold the copyright in trust for Harrison. Thus, as soon as Harrison reimbursed Klein for the money he spent to acquire the worldwide copyright from Bright Tunes, its ownership was transferred to Harrison, ending the lawsuits worldwide. Although Klein spent over a dozen more years litigating this issue, his attempt at revenge ended up saving Harrison a lot of money ... and costing Klein a bundle, as he had to pay all his own legal fees.

The final ruling in the case was made in 1991, 20 years after the case was initiated. See ABKCO Music, Inc. v. Harrisongs Music, Ltd., 944 F.2d 971 (2d Cir. 1991).

Answer: 10cc

10cc desperately wanted to record for Apple, and "Waterfall" (written by Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart, who later wrote the group's US hits "I'm Not in Love" and "The Things We Do For Love") was their attempt to get signed. However, the song was rejected by Apple -- which was probably a break for the group, since they were signed almost immediately thereafter by Jonathan King and his UK Records and released two quirky British hit singles ("Donna" - number two; "Rubber Bullets" - number one) that probably would have failed on Apple. Later, "Waterfall" was included on both the U.S. and U.K. versions of "100cc", the group's first greatest hits album, and 10cc released a copy of the Apple rejection letter (signed by Apple press officer Derek Taylor).

The other artists listed -- Chris Hodge, Trash (also known as "White Trash") and Lon & Derek Van Eaton -- were all signed by Apple and had multiple releases, although none of them ever came remotely close to success.