Former Tour Manager Writes of Life with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones

Oct. 9, 2009— -- Chris O'Dell spent years assisting and touring with legends of the music industry: the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Eric Clapton and Bob Dylan. The dream job, she said, came about totally by accident.

O'Dell, who had full access to the homes, recording studios and personal lives of some of the greatest names in rock 'n' roll history, is breaking her silence about the experiences in her new memoir, "Miss O'Dell: My Hard Days and Long Nights With the Beatles, the Stones, Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, and the Women They Loved."

O'Dell's lucky accident happened early in 1968. As she describes it in her book, she was at home one day, smoking a joint and watching television while waiting impatiently for a date who was two hours late.

Finally, he called, and invited her to meet Derek Taylor, who was the press agent for the Beatles.

O'Dell was ambivalent about the meeting but decided to go anyway.

"Oh, what the heck," she wrote in the book, describing her frame of mind. "Whatever happened, it would be better than sitting in my apartment all alone feeling sorry for myself."

She met Taylor, was bowled over and the rest is history. But that history has been carefully guarded, until now.

When O'Dell, 63, started working in the business, she ran errands or got lunch. Then, she was hired as a secretary and eventually became a personal assistant to Beatle George Harrison.

And then she became like family.

"It felt like you were in a place where everybody in the world wanted to be," she said in an interview with "Good Morning America."

"I was constantly aware that I was watching history in the making, and it was exciting."

Not only did O'Dell observe history, she helped make it, by singing in the chorus on the studio recording of the Beatles' hit "Hey Jude."

"Paul [McCartney] came up and said, 'Come on down. We're going to put some vocals on," the Tucson, Ariz., woman recalled. "At first, I just mouthed the words 'cause I thought, 'Oh, my God, I don't want to screw this up.' Then I realized, 'Wait a minute. There are a lot of voices here.' So then I got into it and it was fun."