The Strange Story Of Denis Couldry and the £600 Apple Underpants

 

by Stuart Penney

Did I ever tell you about the time I owned a pair of underpants which came directly from the Beatles’ Apple Boutique in Baker Street?  No, wait, come back!  It’s quite an interesting tale. 

It all started with Denis Couldry, a talented singer / songwriter from Leeds (via Manchester).  I first met Denis in early 1968 at a Sheffield party.  He was playing guitar and singing Beatles songs.  A tall, gangly bloke, he didn’t look much like pop star material, but he had the voice of an angel.  Really, this guy could sing anything.  Guitars were passed around, and we even played a few songs together.  I was impressed at his vocal power and his ability to weave complex harmonies into the familiar tunes.

Denis told me he had recently signed a deal with the Beatles’ Apple company and was about to move to London.  I was a little dubious at first (The Beatles? Yeah, right!), but he was so good and so convincing, I assumed it had to be true.  We bonded over a love of all things Fab Four related and as we parted ways the next morning, he gave me a contact number, saying, “You must come and visit when you're in London.” 

It turned out that Denis Couldry wasn’t new to the recording game and already had a couple of major label 45s to his name.  In late 1967 he’d released the single “Meditations” / “Cheadle Heath Delusions” (Decca F12694) with the band Felius Andromeda.  The A-side was a slice of doomy organ-led psych (apparently recorded in a North London church) with no discernible input from Couldry.  Side B, however, was all Denis: three minutes of pure pop with a proto-ELO style heavy string arrangement.  We sometimes played this song together at his London flat and he would invariably pause and laugh out loud when we reached the less-than-elegant rhyme:

“I see tramps with umbrellas, see young girls with old fellas.”

This was followed in February 1968 by “James In The Basement” / “I Am Nearly There” (Decca F12734).  The B-side was credited to Denis Couldry and the Next Collection, a Streatham group consisting of Ken Elliott (keyboards), Kieran O'Connor (drums), Arthur Kitchener (bass) and Bob Gibbons (guitar).  It seems this collaboration with the Next Collection was just a one-off.

Months later I learned from a mutual friend that, yes, it really was true.  Denis and his brother Bob had indeed been signed to the Beatles' Apple Publishing company.  Bob wrote most of the lyrics, while Denis handled the music.  Operating independently from the record label itself, the publishing arm of Apple was set up to find original songs and songwriters.  Also active at this time, although with varying degrees of success (ie very little), were Apple Electronics, Apple Films and Apple Retail, the last of which resulted in the famous, yet ill-fated boutique.

Apple Publishing was run by Terry Doran, a Liverpool chum of Brian Epstein and the “man from the motor trade” mentioned in “She’s Leaving Home.”  Denis was directly answerable to him.  A few years earlier Doran and Epstein had formed the imaginatively named company Brydor Cars which sold luxury vehicles from premises in Hounslow out near Heathrow Airport (it was called London Airport until 1966).  It was Brydor who supplied the high-end customised Mini Coopers owned by all four Beatles, along with Paul’s Aston Martin DB6 and other exotica driven by the band.  I guess "Brydor" would be considered a trendy portmanteau name today.  Back then it was simply another naff moniker and par for the course.

Brydor car tax disc holder circa mid 60s

Denis received a £25 weekly retainer from Apple (equivalent to around £370 today, depending on which inflation guide you use) and was installed in a basic but decent enough ground floor flat in a mansion block just a stone’s throw from Baker Street.  This is where I stayed with him during the summer of 1968.  It was a few months before the Beatles moved into their famous Savile Row townhouse and Apple was at that time operating jointly from offices at 95 Wigmore Street and above the Apple Boutique on the corner of Paddington Street and Baker Street. 

Record Mirror June 1968

Denis’s only record released under the Apple deal appeared in May 1968.  Credited to Denis Couldry & Smile, “Penny For The Wind” / “Tea And Toast, Mr. Watson?” (Decca F12786) was probably the high point of his brief career.  The single was produced by Lionel Morton, who came to fame in the early / mid 60s as the frontman of “Juliet” hitmakers the Four Pennies.

Record Mirror June 1968

Both songs were infuriatingly catchy pop psych gems in the early Bee Gees style (before they went disco, obviously).  As for Smile, they were trio of session players comprising esteemed guitarist Chris Spedding, bassist Mark Griffiths and Roger Swallow on percussion.  Spedding contributed some especially fiery lead guitar work on the B-side. Griffiths and Swallow went on to play with Matthews Southern Comfort among others.

Denis would often regale us with tales of his encounters with assorted Beatles and other famous faces at the Apple offices and of course I hung on his every word.  I even visited the Apple Boutique myself a couple of times toward the end but could never afford to buy anything.  The fancy brocade jackets were eye-wateringly expensive, and even the humblest flowery shirt or paisley silk scarf was out of reach for mere mortals like me on minimum wage (or no wage at all some of the time, now I think about it).  The smell of incense hung heavy in the air and the staff appeared aloof and impossibly cool.  Hardly surprising since one of them was, as I later discovered, Jenny Boyd, sister of Pattie and the eponymous “Jennifer Juniper” of the Donovan hit.  The single was still in the charts at the time, as I recall.

Thanks to complaints from the stuffy neighbours, the local council had required Apple to remove the beautiful mural by the art collective The Fool and the outside of the building was now painted white.  The boutique closed its doors forever on July 31, 1968, and by sheer coincidence I was staying at Denis’s flat at the time.  On the day before closure and the big giveaway, he arrived back with an armful of goodies he’d snaffled before the general public were allowed in to strip the place bare.

I didn’t want to push my luck by asking for any of the colourful shirts, scarves and kaftans Denis had scored, but then without warning he threw a cellophane packet in my direction, quipping "These look like your size." It contained a pair of Apple briefs resplendent with a giant Granny Smith on the front.  I also came away with a handful of Apple branded book matches and a few other bits and pieces including some Apple stationary. 

I don’t mind admitting I was a little disappointed at the time with such a meagre haul.  But beggars can’t be choosers, after all.  I kept the Apple underpants for a few years without wearing them, until eventually they disappeared in a house move.  In retrospect I should have taken better care of them.  Just a few weeks ago (March 2024) an identical pair sold on eBay for £570.  Such is the appeal of anything connected with the Beatles today. 

I lost touch with Denis during 1969 and I believe “Penny For The Wind” / “Tea And Toast, Mr. Watson?” was his final record.  But that wasn’t the end of his Beatles connection.  In July 1969 Apple ran a series of full-page music press ads to promote the Plastic Ono Band single “Give Peace A Chance” / “Remember Love” (Apple 13).  Headed “YOU ARE THE PLASTIC ONO BAND” the ads showed the POB Perspex sound and light installation (as seen on the “Give Peace A Chance” single sleeve) superimposed on an actual page (#1631) from the London telephone directory, seemingly with real names but with addresses and phone numbers edited to protect the innocent.

And there, nestling among the “Jones, S” names who do we see but “Couldry Denis, 92 Elm Walk SE1” together with the telephone number “HOP 153.”  The address was fictitious of course.  There’s an Elm Walk in Hampstead NW3 and another in Wimbledon SW20, but nothing in SE1 which is over Bermondsey / Elephant and Castle / London Bridge way.  The phone number was clearly fake too.  But isn’t it lovely to imagine that John & Yoko (assuming they were responsible) remembered Denis fondly enough to stick his name in their “Give Peace A Chance” ad?

The "phone book" advert also contained several other bizarre and sometimes obscure fake entries, including all four Beatles and Yoko, plus American psychedelic poster artist Stanley Mouse, Golda Meir, then Prime Minister of Israel(!) and Richard DiLello, erstwhile Apple gofer and writer of the book The Longest Cocktail Party.

I never met Denis’s brother Bob, but in 2016 this brief, heartbreaking comment appeared below a YouTube clip for the Felius Andromeda song “Cheadle Heath Delusions.”  

“The guy singing is my brother Denis Couldry.  We had a contract with Apple (the Beatles company) in the late 60's, me songwriting and Denis singing.  Denis was electroshocked in 1972, never really recovered and died in Victoria Psychiatric Ward, Blackpool 1995.  I wrote the lyrics for most of Denis's songs, but he wrote the lyrics to this song, I only contributed the title, a tribute(?!) to our childhood in Cheadle Heath.  All you guys still living thereabouts, Om mani padme hum.”

The last phrase is a Buddist Sanskrit mantra which roughly translates as "Praise to the jewel in the lotus."

August 1968 soon after closure

The three singles Denis made sold very few copies at the time, but they have been rediscovered by subsequent generations and originals now sell for huge money online.  Most tracks have since become available on various pop psych compilations, however. Alternatively, you can check them out in this SPOTIFY LINK 

“I Am Nearly There” can be found on several CD compilations including The Freakbeat Scene (Decca 844 879-2).

Both “Penny For The Wind” and “Tea And Toast, Mr. Watson?” can be found on the 2008 compilation CD Treacle Toffee World (RPM RETRO 843) alongside other Apple Publishing artists Grapefruit, Gallagher & Lyle and the Iveys (later Badfinger).

“Meditations” / “Cheadle Heath Delusions” and “James In The Basement” / “I Am Nearly There” are on the 2017 double CD Spaced Out: The Story Of Mushroom Records (Grapefruit CRSEG036D).

Record Mirror November 1967

Record Mirror February 1968

Record Mirror June 1968