Last night I found that I’d lost a friend, Tony Bramwell, of over 30 years. Tony used to drop in on us regularly at MOJO, helping with Beatles issues; he was a crucial help to my with my Brian Jones book and even, back in 2001, my book Denim.
Given the breadth of everything we talked about over the years, I like the fact that our last discussions were about an obscure but fascinating subject: John Lennon’s Wrangler denim jacket. The wonderful people at TCB were planning a repro of the jacket and asked if I might be able to help with any background. Well, since I knew Tony, it turned out I could. So below is the little feature I did for the launch of their jacket. Of course, we sent him a jacket for his help. Thank you for everything, Tony, I will miss calling you
Tony Bramwell grew up in Liverpool with Beatles George, Paul and John. He was always a key Beatles insider, working first for manager Brian Epstein at their management company NEMS and then for The Beatles at Apple where, amongst other projects, he organised the Magical Mystery tour. He is also, like so many of that generation, a key denim fan, who’d source American denim from wherever he could. He was the perfect person to speak about his friend John’s iconic Wrangler jacket.
You grew up in Liverpool, and were close to John, Paul and George. What was the first denim you can remember seeing?
Well, when we were kids in the 50s, there was a horrible jeans factory that made horrible jeans, nearby, called Lybro. Then also I had a friend the same age as me, Charlie McMillan, lived four doors away, and his dad was the commander of Burton Wood Air Base. And this General McMillan got some Levi’s for him from the PO Stores. Then later in Liverpool, the Army and Navy store sold Levi’s for 19 shillings and 19 pence, and jackets, probably trucker jackets, for 30 shillings. It was seeing James Dean, Rebel Without A Cause, that first got us interested.
There was another look we loved, Stagecoach, John Wayne, who plays Johnny Ringo in Stagecoach. He wore white braces. I remember looking for a pair. Obviously Ringo liked it cos he changed his name to Ringo Starr. That film’s where he picked his name up from. Not many people know that!
Were jeans becoming everyday wear as the Liverpool scene developed?
Lots of us were wearing them. But then at the Cavern Club and most of the venues you weren’t allowed in in jeans. Jeans were banned at Cavern Club so everyone started wearing corduroy trousers: C&A Modes. Plus those polo neck jumpers that we all wore and leather jackets they sold at C&A so that was the Liverpool thing. Then when Brian got involved… he started the suit thing. Everyone secretly wanted to wear suits anyway – it was great to have a decent suit made to measure for 12 quid.
But you would still keep an eye out for denim, right?
Then we moved to London. And next door to the NEMS office , near the Palladium, was a men’s outfitters that actually sold Levi’s . He had a sign outside with a bandy legged cowboy… and he was very reasonable and had a selection of Levi’s, not just the standard 501, although we didn’t really know about numbers then. So we used to buy stuff from him. But as Brian didn’t agree with jeans you’d never see pics of me or Neil Aspinall looking like roadies. Suits were the international passports to back stage, if you wore a well fitted mohair suit they’d let you in without question. But for weekends and times off I had a really good collection of Levi’s. In fact I got to know the director of Rebel Without A Cause, Nicholas Ray, we talked to him about jeans and he told us how James Dean had about a dozen jeans, a whole range of the same jeans.
So what happened next, in terms of denim becoming mainstream?
Then the Donovan and Dylan thing happened – people started wearing jeans, which we did. But John at the time never looked good in jeans ‘cos he was a bit fat. He had a suede jeans jacket. What happened was Dylan was in England and had a suede Levi’s jacket. And John loved it. It was a cool jacket. So I mentioned it to [Dylan’s manager] Albert Grossman. So Albert gave me that Levi’s suede trucker jacket, which I gave to John. But it didn’t fit him, it looked stupid on him. So I went to a shop called Guy on Old Compton street and got him the suede jacket he wore on the Rubber Soul sleeve. Twenty seven quid. And he gave me the Levi’s one so I wore that for a while.
Then jeans faded out again until the hippie bit. There was a film called Baby The Rain Will Fall, with Steve McQueen as a country and western singer. He looked great just in Levi’s jeans and a Levi’s shirt. So I went out of my way in the states to get some Levi’s western shirts which were really cool with the pop stud buttons.
So when the hippie thing started again, John had thinned down… it was when we started Apple-ing he lost weight ‘cos of whatever he was doing. He got his Wrangler Jacket from The Westerner, a shop under the film editing rooms we used in Old Compton Street, a shop run by a company called John Michael. The Westerners had a massive range of Wranglers, Lee Riders, and Levi’s. Roger Daltrey got his white Lee Rider jacket from the Westerner too. Then there was another good jeans shop in London on the corner of Denmark St.
When did you first notice Wrangler as a brand?
They were in Liverpool as well, but their back pockets weren’t as good as Levi’s, Levi’s had that clever thing where the rivets on the back pockets were stitched over so you didn’t scratch furniture. Wrangler still had open rivets. Wrangler were a great colour but sometimes after a year the legs would twist… it would only be one leg.
Was George the first Beatle to wear jeans?
Actually, when they made Help they all wore Lee Riders. With white patches. Doused in the sea in the Bahamas. That was the first jeans they were seen in. They were good jeans, good fit and had a good pocket, and the jackets were good too.
John’s was a pleated jacket. The first time I saw one was one Elvis had, in a film called Loving You. Then I never saw one again until John got his, which would have been from The Westerner.
It was an iconic look, wasn’t it?
It did look good on him – it hung right, ‘cos he was the right shape. He didn’t have his fat Elvis look by then.
Interesting that John went for a pleated jacket, versus a slimline trucker jacket. It was a slightly more old-fashioned, boxier shape.
Yes. The slimline Wranger jacket I didn’t particularly like at all, the pockets didn’t seem to be right.
Do you remember noticing the jacket at the time?
It was when we were suddenly at Apple, he was suddenly wearing double denim as we called it, around the White Album time. Then of course he wore it [around the time of ] Instant Karma [in January/February 1970].
It seems to have been the one item of clothing John wore repeatedly, over several years.
Yeah, but he might have actually had quite a few of them. Because one, I know, had a badly ripped shoulder. I remember that.
Did you ever have chats about denim with John?
Occasionally you’d have conversations, ‘where did you get that from?’ – ‘the Army and Navy Store in Sheffield.’ There were only odd shops that sold them. You’d always be looking for shops that had odd denim items, Levi’s stuff you never heard of. I had a pair of military chinos that were Levi’s, they were kind of Wow.
Was it more exciting when denim was hard to find?
Oh yeah. I love it. We all loved finding one you had never seen before.
I love the details of this jacket, because an ex girlfriend had the Maverick version that was identical, from the feel of the fabric right down to the little elasticated straps. How are you finding the TCB?
I haven’t washed it enough times but it’s really, really comfy. I look forward to the summer, and wearing it with jeans and a T shirt.
Does it evoke the feel, of when you would find one on a shelf in 1969?
It does – but it doesn’t have the smell… that musty smell of old men’s outfitters!
John went on to wear that jacket until at least 1974 – he’s wearing it on the Rock and Roll sessions. Did you see him after the split, and after Apple fell apart?
After that I worked on the James Bond films, then later I became head of international at Polydor, and managed Phil Spector and Leonard Cohen. I was in LA with Phil in 1975 – but John had just left and went back to New York City. I arranged to see him; but when I got there the Japanese lady wouldn’t let me in to the Dakota. Then two months before he was killed, he phoned me up, the phone got cut off… and it was the last I heard from him until I got that dreadful phone call from a radio station.
Strange, isn’t it, that it’s 2022, and that look, from 1970 or so, remains iconic.
Yes. But I still feel good at my age, when I go out in a cleanly washed pair of denim jeans. I feel I’m ok, that I’m quite cool. Even Status Quo didn’t manage to make them uncool!
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