WI Paul Is Dead for real?

(Yes, this is inspired by @Asharella's TL; this goes a different route, though)

PoD: 1966

Paul McCartney dies in a car crash in 1966, and there are no efforts made to cover it up or bring in a look-alike.

Effects, anyone?
 
The Beatles are sequestered halfway through their careers. No Hey Jude or many of the late Beatles songs. They will be a different group, especially if they add a replacement member. As for the value of their song package, it's different. So Michael Jackson buys something else. Maybe the Buddy Holly song package originally purchased by Paul McCartney.
 
My first reaction was to think that they'd break up.. but George or Ringo don't have enough songs yet for a careers (well, maybe Ringo if he wants to do a covers album), and John is in the middle of a songwriting slump.

I think they stay together at least for one more album in 1967, then *maybe* break up in 1968 once the songwriting output ramps up again. The 1967 album may not be as big a production as OTLs Sgt Pepper is (I think Paul & George Martin steered the direction towards Beach Boys-inspired stuff), maybe more a 'garage-psychedelia', building on tracks like Rain & She Said She Said. One of John's favourite albums in the summer of 1967 was 'Safe as Milk' - the debut album by Captain Beefheart.. I can see a John-led Beatles album in 1967 being more like that.

To lay-down the basic tracks, I imagine they'd grab someone in to play bass (Klaus Voorman? John Paul Jones?), just as a 'hired hand'.. then do all the overdubs (if needed) themselves.
 
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