‘ONE day they will be greater than Presley.’ Shadows of boredom flickered over the bland faces of the Decca executives. Hadn’t every manager with something to sell offered them ‘Britain’s answer to Presley’, or ‘Decca’s reply to Columbia’s Cliff Richard’.
I have long since forgiven all the record companies their disbelief of my wilder claims. What I cannot understand or forget is their indifference to the sound of the Beatles on tape.
Mr. Rowe and Mr. Stevens pursued their point. ‘The boys won’t go, Mr. Epstein. We know these things. You have a good record business in Liverpool. Stick to that.’
I was deeply disappointed but I was determined they wouldn’t know and as they piled pessimism on pessimism, I fought through the gloom to keep a calm front and I spoke quietly and at length about these Beatles who were the rage of Liverpool, who had ousted the Shadows as group heroes, four lads who played in a warehouse cellar by the Mersey.
The men of Decca took me to a luncheon in another room in the company headquarters. Whether it was the well-being of a good meal or my ceaseless talk of the Beatles’ potential I don’t know, but by the coffee stage there was a tiny crack in their determination not to record the boys.
I had paused in a long and probably overstated piece of sales-talk and the two men stared at each other. Dick Rowe drummed his fingers on the table and nodded knowingly. He turned to me and said: ‘I have an idea that something might be done. You know who might help you? Tony Meehan.’
Meehan, one of the original ‘Shadows’, later to form a successful—though brief—partnership with Jet Harris, was then an A and R man with Decca and it was explained that I would be given the benefit of his experience and the use of a studio on payment of something approaching £100.
This annoyed me because I couldn’t see why I should have to pay £100 to make one recording of a group who were going to conquer the entire record world. But it was stupid (I argued to myself in a frantic inward tussle between enthusiasm and anxiety about money) to turn down the first real concession I had won from Decca.
So, the following day I arrived at the Decca studios to meet Meehan. Dick Rowe was with him in the control room listening to a recording session and he nodded to me. After thirty minutes he introduced me to Meehan and said: ‘Tony, take Mr. Epstein out and explain the position.’
We left the room and went into another where there were two chairs facing each other. The A and R man who, two years later I was to book as a drummer on one of my Prince of Wales bills, looked me straight between the eyes without enthusiasm and said: ‘Mr. Epstein, Mr. Rowe and I are very busy men. We know roughly what you require so will you fix a date for tapes to be made of these Beatles, phone my secretary and make sure that when you want the session, I am available.’
For the third time in three months I walked out of Decca with only the slightest whisper of hope. I was very upset and, I believed, almost at the end of my extended tether.
The date was arranged, but later abandoned because I felt that no useful purpose was served. I realized that there was nothing doing with Decca.
I hailed a taxi to Euston station on the start of a glum cold journey to Lime Street Station where I telephoned Paul McCartney to ask the Beatles to meet me ‘for a little talk’.
They arrived in the city centre and I took them to Joe’s Cafe in Duke Street—a warm and friendly haunt of night-workers, drivers, young Beatles and anyone else with not a lot of money—anyone, in fact, who wants a cup of tea and a plate of chicken and chips and somewhere to go until 4 a.m.
We had a lot of tea and we smoked a little and I said this and that about the future and asked them about the beat scene in Liverpool. Then George, blowing a cloud of smoke in the air as if he couldn’t care less about anything, suddenly turned to me and said: ‘What about Decca, Brian?’
‘I’m afraid it’s no use,’ I said. ‘I’ve had a flat “No”.’
None of the Beatles spoke. So I went on: ‘And Pye have turned us down,’ for I had also taken our beloved tapes to this other major company only to be rejected by their executives.
John picked up a tea-spoon, flicked it high into the air and said: ‘Right. Try Embassy.’
Embassy—the Woolworth’s label where you can get low priced copies of the pops on the counter next to the cold-cream and curling-pins and the ice-cream. This was not the grand break through we had planned and dreamed about.
Embassy. John had broken the spell and the gloom vanished and we all talked at once about ‘these rotten companies’, and ‘that lousy A and R man’, and I decided with totally unjustifiable confidence that after a few days catching up on business affairs back in the Liverpool store, I would return to London with our tapes. Once again something in the Beatles was giving me strength and buoyancy.
On the local scene they were progressing well. The Beatles were booked on both sides of the Mersey, earning, when they played, £15 a night. I had finally secured their signatures on a contract on January 24th, 1962, but, curiously, I had not, as I say, signed it myself. It provided them with safeguards against unemployment, protected them and me against any breach of faith and made the terms of my percentages quite clear.
Why had I not signed it? I believe it was because even though I knew I would keep the contract in every clause, I had not 100 per cent faith in myself to help the Beatles adequately. In other words, I wanted to free the Beatles of their obligations if I felt they would be better off.
I feel the same about them even now. I would not hold the Beatles or any artiste to contractual formalities if I learned that they didn’t want to stay. There is no room in our relationships for contract-slavery.
In 1962, however, neither the Beatles or I thought very much about our own contract. We were after the signature of a major recording executive on a stiff sheet of parchment. For the 1950’s had made it clear that no artiste could succeed without records—and good records. The way to stardom lay in the charts.
During the lag between Decca’s first session and the final refusal, we had played our first engagement as contracted artistes and manager at the Thistle Cafe, a genteel little spot on the sea-front at West Kirby, an exclusive dormitory town on the estuary of the River Dee 10 miles from Liverpool. Their success there as at the Cavern was an early sign that there was more than one-audience appeal in this group.
Our fee in West Kirby, by the way, was £18 out of which I took 36/- which just about covered petrol, oil, and wear and tear on tyres.
After the night in Joe’s, I tackled a substantial backlog of work in Whitechapel, and told my father I wanted to take my tapes to London for an all-out, all-or-failure attack on the remaining record outlets. He agreed, provided it was only for a day or two and I made, this time, for the H.M.V. record-centre in Oxford Street, London.
There I met Kenneth Boast, an exceedingly pleasant and interested executive with the H.M.V. Retail Store within the mighty E.M.I. company. Rather pompously, I told him I had tapes which were going to become very significant in British pop music, and he, being a nice chap, listened patiently to me, and to the tapes.
A technician making a record of my tapes—because I realized a record was handier to carry about and more convenient for people who might want to listen to Beatle music with a view to buying it—said to me: ‘I don’t think these are at all bad.’ He told Boast who had a word with Syd Coleman a music publisher who had an office upstairs. Coleman became quite excited and said ‘I like these. I would be quite willing to publish them.’
So ignorant was I at that time that I thought this meant an immediate £50 on a publishing advance, because I really had no idea what publishing meant. Coleman also said he would speak to a friend of his at Parlophone a man named George Martin. Said Coleman, ‘I would like George to hear these. I think he might be very interested indeed.’
The acetones were made and Syd Coleman made his call. George Martin, an A & R man with Parlophone—a less fashionable label in those days—was away but Coleman arranged for me to meet George’s delightful and gracious secretary and assistant, Judy Lockhart-Smith. She arranged for me to come to E.M.I. the following day.
I was becoming very unpopular at home, for my father, quite rightly, wanted to know whether I was employed by four leather-jacketed teenagers or by him. And if by him, when was I going to do some work?
Every day I spent in London increased his irritation. But I was adamant because I was determined not to give up the hunt for a record contract until I had been refused by every label in England. Even by Embassy.
So I allowed myself a final 24 hours to exhaust the remaining disc companies and I booked into the Green Park Hotel and tried, in vain, to sleep. I was worried about everything—the future of the Beatles who had shown such faith in my ability to make them stars, my own future with Nems—and the limits of my parents’ patience.
In the morning I took a cab to the E.M.I. offices in Manchester Square—part of a handsome building—to meet the man who would, within less than two years produce 16 Number One discs by my artistes.
George Martin was very helpful and discussed the difficulties of the record business, and the problems I would meet if I was going to be persistent, and said ‘I like your discs and I would like to see your artistes.’ Wonderful news and we fixed a provisional date there and then. Martin I liked immensely. He is a painstaking man with a magnificent ear for music and a great sense of style. I do not think he could produce a bad disc.
Also at the offices I established an instant friendship with Judy Lockhart-Smith and there was an atmosphere about the place which gave me tremendous hope. George, a tall, thin elegant man with the air of a stern but fair-minded housemaster had up to that time been doing good work with Peter Sellers on the famous and extremely successful L.P.s, but not very much with the new hard-driving beat music which was to sweep the world. He had a fine reputation, however, as a dedicated arranger, composer and oboist.
I liked the way he listened to the discs, his long legs crossed, leaning on his elbow, he rocked gently to and fro and nodded and smiled encouragingly. Judy also smiled her delicious smile and I sat with a face like stone as if my very life was at stake. In a way it was.
George had commented ‘I know very little about groups, Brian, but I believe you have something very good here’ and this to me had been the highest praise.
George also took the trouble to discuss the quality in this voice and that. He liked very much ‘Hello Little Girl’ recorded many months later and many hits later by the Fourmost—one of my Liverpool groups—but at that time it was merely one of many Beatle samples.
George also liked George Harrison on guitar and was excited about Paul’s voice. ‘He has the most commercial voice of the lot,’ he commented and this is probably still true, though each Beatle has an equal amount to contribute to the total disc content.
We shook hands on the coming session and though there was still no contract, I left E.M.I. as the happiest Liverpudlian in London and I hurtled North with the wonderful news. I had ‘phoned the Beatles to say I was arriving with news and when my train arrived at Lime Street the four of them were waiting on the platform—an unusual event for they are not sentimental people given to waving people off or to welcoming them back.
‘Well,’ said George. And eight eyes looked at me with scarcely-suppressed excitement.
‘You have a recording session at E.M.I. as soon as you like,’ I said and to celebrate we sped to the National Milk Bar in Liverpool where we got intoxicated with power and Coca-Cola and four packets of biscuits.
The Beatles were beside themselves with delight and relief. We planned a wild future of hit records and world tours and ticker-tape welcomes in every foreign capital. Kings, we dreamed, would want to meet us and Dukes would seek autographs. Impossible fantasies were weaved until the milk-bar closed. ‘The evening’s not going to stop now,’ said John so we adjourned to a club and got pretty drunk and I lost a girl friend called Rita Harris who worked for me and who said: ‘I’m not going to compete with four kids who think they’re entering the big time.’
Two years later the Beatles were the greatest entertainers in the world; they had met the Queen Mother and the Duke of Edinburgh and their pictures were on the walls of all the noble bedrooms of the young aristocracy. Prince Charles had all their records and San Francisco had the ticker-tape ready. They played the Hollywood Bowl, had the freedom of Liverpool. Ringo Starr was asked to be President of London University and John Lennon was the world’s best selling writer.
Back to June 1962—the month of their first meeting with George Martin, and their introduction to Parlophone whose profits they were to ‘up’ by some millions before they were through.
George liked them immensely and thought they were very polite and amusing. John Lennon was keen on George as a man to work with because he worshipped the Goons, and in particular, Sellers. George himself was anxious to make complete contact with these off-beat provincial lads and sought to establish it by asking: ‘Let me know if there is anything you don’t like.’
‘Well, for a start,’ said George Harrison, deadpan from under his fringe: ‘I don’t like your tie,’ which Martin thought was as good a basis for friendship as anything. From that moment on they have been a dream of a team.
At the first E.M.I. session the Beatles taped ‘Love Me Do’, a haunting piece by Paul and John which employed a harmonica, then a very original novelty which, like many Beatle innovations, has been overworked and debased since.
They also taped ‘P.S. I Love You’ and George Martin and his technicians liked them both. But there was still no contract and the Beatles and I left E.M.I. full of hope but without money or security. They flew again to Hamburg for a further stint behind the vulgar neon of the Reeperbahn and I returned to Liverpool and the record store to wait for further news.
It came in July. I signed a recording contract with Parlophone Records. The Beatles were on the way and the £ sign which Parlophone use as a trade mark was to become a symbol of unbelievable wealth.
I sent cables to all the boys in Germany. ‘E.M.I. contract signed, sealed. Tremendous importance to all of us. Wonderful.’ They sent back postcards. From Paul: ‘Please wire £10,000 advance royalties.’ From John: ‘When are we going to be millionaires.’ ‘Please order four new guitars,’—from George.
They came back from Germany to a wild welcome in Liverpool and on September 11th, 1962, the Beatles made their first British disc … ‘Love Me Do’ on the A-side, ‘P.S. I Love You’ on the B-side. It was released on October 4th and it came into the record charts forty-eight hours later at number 49. Finally it reached Number 17 and the Beatles from Liverpool were in Britain’s Top Twenty.
Their home city was thrilled beyond description. I had told everyone I knew that it was a magnificent disc, asked Merseybeat — the local music paper — to plug it and the kids of Liverpool bought it in thousands.
But there was a rumour—which lingered until it became acceptable currency—that I had bought the disc in bulk to get it into the charts. Possible though this would have been—had I the money, which I hadn’t—I did no such thing, nor ever have. The Beatles, then as now, progressed and succeeded on natural impetus, without benefit of stunt or back-door tricks and I would like to make this quite clear.
‘Love Me Do’ was enough to convince all of us concerned with the Beatles—and by now I was no longer alone, since we had George Martin and a very nice and well-respected music publisher called Dick James on our side—that another disc must follow very quickly. Mitch Murray sent us a tune titled ‘How Do You Do It?’ which the Beatles attempted and didn’t like. (It eventually went to a lad named Gerry Marsden … but that is another story.) Paul and John submitted one of their own, appealingly called ‘Please, Please Me,’ and it was made on November 26th, 1962, and so pleased everyone that by early Spring in 1963 it was clear leader of every disc chart in the country.
Inch by inch, the Beatles were creeping into the newspapers. Prophets, one knows, have a thin time in their own locality and though Tony Barrow—now one of my press officers, then a record reviewer—had been kind to ‘Love Me Do’, I had difficulty in ‘selling’ the importance of the Beatles to News Editors and general-news columnists. I arranged a meeting with a writer on the Liverpool Echo, the namesake of Beatle George Harrison—though much older—and he met them for a drink in a Liverpool city-centre pub called The Dive.
But I don’t think he liked them very much. He thought they lacked conventional manners and also they didn’t buy drinks and they didn’t make George Harrison’s column ‘Over the Mersey Wall’ until he had a day off and another man, Bill Rogers, took it over. George Harrison was to become a friend and loyal supporter of the Beatles and a constant companion on our foreign trips.
Merseybeat, under the energetic editorship of Bill Harry, a self-taught expert on the Beat-Scene, was pushing the Beatles very hard and I was grateful for this because I still had to make them a respected proposition for bookings in Northern halls. On one occasion I recall being paid in coins—£15 in sixpences and florins and even half-pennies and I kicked up an awful fuss, not because £15 isn’t £15 in any currency, but because I thought it was disrespectful to the Beatles. I felt that if one was to be a manager then one should fight for absolute courtesy towards one’s artistes.
I didn’t get the £15 in notes, by the way, but I had made my point and I and the Beatles felt better for it.
We entered 1963 full of confidence, our earnings up from that nightly £15 to £50; with new suits and one new Beatle. For Peter Best, drummer Beatle, had been replaced to his disappointment and to the dismay of many savage fans, by a little bearded chap from the Dingle. … His name was Richard Starkey but he called himself Ringo Starr.