At some time or another, have you ever fantasized about being on a first name basis with a certain celebrity?  During your youth, did you ever dream about hanging out with your favorite movie, sports or music star? 

Admit it.  You would have loved to wow your friends and family with a celebrity knowing who you are and calling you by your first name or inviting you over to their place for dinner, wouldn’t you?

Well, if you are Ken Mansfield, you would have experienced just such a life many times over.  At one time, Mansfield was considered good friends with three of the four Beatles.  No, really, he was.  Not only that, he was head of the U.S. arm of their record label, Apple Records and was present during the much bootlegged video shoot of their last concert on the rooftop of Apple Records in London (viewable here on YouTube. Ken is the one in the white jacket).

As the old Ronco commercials of the seventies use to say, “But, wait!  There’s more!”

Mansfield was a high flying executive and producer for, among other companies, Capitol Records and on first name basis with many artists such as Waylon Jennings, Dolly Parton, Andy Williams, David Cassidy, Don Ho, among many, many more.

Kinda makes one want to put away those old fantasies for good, doesn’t it?

Ken Mansfield shares what amounts to 30 years of his life in three books.  They are (in order of publication), “The Beatles, The Bible and Bodega Bay”, “The White Book” and, the recently released, “Between Wyomings”.  All three tomes shed light on Mansfield’s illustrious career in the music industry.  

With sales of “Between Wyomings” already doing well, this promises to be a very successful conclusion to Mansfield’s trilogy of life in the very fast lane of the music business.  It was to discuss Ken’s new book that a recent phone conversation took place between the legendary producer and I.  We also managed to talk about the music industry today and how it compares to how it was in the 60’s and 70’s. 

I start off by asking Ken what the response has been like regarding his new book.

“It’s very, very strange.  Like in ‘The Beatles, The Bible and Bodega Bay’, it got three kinds of responses.  I’ve heard from people who loved the whole thing and the whole idea.  And then I have people that really like the show business-travelogue part and don’t really care that much about the spiritual chapters.  And others that just think the spiritual chapters are the whole thing and not that excited about the show business stuff.