Number 27 - Patti and Eric's Party

Beatles Involved:

Paul, George, Ringo

Listenability:

No recording is known to exist.

In May 1979 Paul, George and Ringo all attended a party to celebrate Eric Clapton and Patti Boyd's wedding, which had taken place back in March. Different accounts of Patti's state that Paul, George and Ringo got up on stage all at the same time at and played a number of songs, including Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This was part of a broader jam session that included other musicians. While the three former Beatles did attend the party, it is not 100 % certain that the three former Beatles all played together at once on stage. None of them have said they did and there are no photos of the three of them on stage. This is an important reunion however, as the three of them did at least hang out together for a photo and it is possible that the three of them did jam together.

What they said about it:

Ringo: Later that month I was at Eric and Pattie Clapton’s wedding. That was a really good day except that Ronnie Lane was there and he had just found out that he had multiple sclerosis. I said, ‘Hey Ronnie. How are you doing?’ He said, ‘I’m melting.’

Zak and Jim Capaldi were playing drums because Eric had a band set up on stage. I have fond memories of that day. (Taken from Postcards From The Boys p.85)

Paul: We were having a booze-up and a laugh and suddenly we were playing together again. It felt pretty good to me...It'll be great to do one like that again, with just the four of us, once Sean [Lennon] is 5 and John starts playing again.
(Taken from The Daily Gazette, January 28, 1994 - A newspaper from Schenectady, New York. Original quote is from 1979 or 1980, although the original source is not stated. 'You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup' p.262 attributes a nearly identical, but shorter version of this quote to Ringo. The language used and the openness about the topic however sounds far more like that of McCartney. McCartney did a lot of interviews during this period.)

Patti Boyd: In May, when Eric was home briefly between tours, Roger organised the most extravagant wedding party for us at Hurtwood Edge. Three hundred people came – Eric’s family, my family, the Ripleyites, the local farmers and tradespeople, and lots of great musicians, who jammed together. We had Jeff Beck, Ronnie Wood, Bill Wyman, Donovan, Robert Plant, Robert Palmer and Jack Bruce. George, Paul and Ringo came – for some reason John wasn’t invited, but he said he would have come if he’d been asked, which was sad because if he had, it would have been the first and last time the Beatles played together since the break-up – the next year he was dead.

Lonnie Donegan turned up, uninvited, and said, ‘Where are they all?’

I took him up to the smallest room in the house where they were smoking joints and said, as I opened the door, ‘Guess who’s here?’

They all jumped up and tried to hide the evidence, then George said, ‘I remember when I was a little boy and I knocked on the door of your house and asked for your autograph,’ and Donegan said, ‘That’s why I’m here. I want it back!’ 

(Taken from Patti Boyd's autobiograph. Woderful Tonight p.211 to 212)

Eric Clapton: One of the first things that Pattie did when she got back to England was set about organizing a party for all our English friends to celebrate our wedding. It was set for Saturday, 19 May, when there was a break in my tour schedule, and was to take place in the garden at Hurtwood, where a huge marquee had been erected.

The first person I remember arriving was Lonnie Donegan,…There was a stage in the marquee, the idea being that the band would consist of anyone who felt like getting up and playing. A succession of great musicians joined in the jam session that took place later in the evening, including Georgie [Fame] and Lonnie [Donegan], Jeff Beck, Bill Wyman, Mick Jagger, Jack Bruce and Denny Laine. I remember Denny’s wife, Jo Jo, getting up to sing and then we couldn’t get her off, so whoever was at the mixing board had to keep switching off whichever mike she was using, and she would just move to another one. George, Paul and Ringo also played, only missing John, who later phoned me to say that would have been there too if he had known about it. How that came about I’ll never know, suffice to say I had little to do with the invitations.

(Taken from: Eric Clapton, The Autobiography p.199 -201)

Denny Laine: It's lucky nobody made a tape. The music was terrible, absolute rubbish.
(Taken from: You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup p.261)

The coloured photo of Paul, Lonnie Donegan, George and Ringo to have surfaced.

Paul, George and Ringo with skiffle musican Lonnie Donegan
(The original of this photo is double exposed with a photo of a baby.)

Paul, George, Ringo and Lonnie Donegan

Paul, Ringo and others.