Miscellaneous questions about the Beatles | Page 35 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

I would consider Billy less than an equal member during his months with them in 1969, but far more than a session musician.

You end up in a similar situation when considered the roles of the various Plastic Ono Band and Wings members over the years.

I suppose a session musician is generally someone brought in to fulfil a specific brief that no member of the band is able to, their only creative input being how they performed the part/script offered them.

I would probably consider Billy as a companion musician for a while, someone brought in without a script to follow and with an open invitation to contribute creatively to how the songs took shape as they worked on them.

His creative contributions to much of Let It Be  and Abbey Road  raised their own efforts.

There is a story that Kate Robbins – British comedienne, actress, singer, and Paul’s cousin (it was the Robbins’ family pub on the Isle of Wight where the Nurk Twins would perform) – tells of the family’s reaction when stories of Paul’s drug use started making the headlines around 1967.

A family deputation was sent down from Liverpool to London to find out what was going on with him, Auntie Gin being the most well-known of the family members involved. They spent a couple of days with Paul.

Getting back to Liverpool, they were quizzed by other family members about what was going on with Paul, whether he’d got weird, and what was all this talk of drugs…

The story is that Auntie Gin pulled out a big joint, sparked it up, took a long drag, and then started handing it around, telling everybody drugs were nothing to be really worried about… and that Paul was still Paul…

How true the story is, who knows…

There’s also the bit that I’ve Just Seen A Face , a disguised drug song, is said to have been known as Auntie Gin’s Theme for a bit while it was being written, @Ahhh Girl…