THE FIFTH BEATLE
BRIAN EPSTEIN
These boys are going to explode. I am completely confident that one day they will be bigger than Elvis Presley.
– Brian Epstein
The Epsteins arrived in Liverpool in 1896, having escaped the Russian pogroms, and by the time Brian Samuel Epstein was born there, on 19 September 1934, they’d built up a successful furniture retail business.
Despite his family’s wealth and support, Brian had a troubled childhood, bouncing from boarding school to boarding school across the country. Obsessed with the theatre, he paid scant attention to his lessons and dreamt only of performance, of becoming an actor or a costume designer. He was expelled from one school for drawing pictures of showgirls. He had trouble fitting in, and was constantly restless, aware of subtle and not so subtle anti-Semitism and unable to deal with his burgeoning homosexuality.
He was desperate to find a community in which he could be himself. He certainly did not want to join the family business, but with his options running out, he started working for one of his dad’s furniture stores and discovered that he was a natural salesman. He had a good rapport with customers and prided himself on fair deals for both the customer and the business.
He was then called up for National Service and stationed in London where he was delighted to indulge in his love of culture. His troubles followed him, though, and he was given an honourable discharge on medical grounds.
Back in Liverpool, he moved from selling furniture to selling music. He was given his own store to run, where he sold instruments, sheet music, record players and records. He was hugely successful and built excellent relationships with key record companies down in London. Still, he couldn’t settle, and surprised his parents by auditioning and getting accepted into RADA. He moved back to London, but once again, his time there was an unhappy one.
He enjoyed the classes, but his fellow students’ narcissism left him feeling frustrated and isolated. His compulsion to put himself in dangerous sexual situations – in a time when homosexuality was illegal – resulted in him being arrested, charged and found guilty of importuning by the military police. He avoided a custodial sentence by agreeing to psychiatry sessions, during which he confessed his homosexuality.
Brian Epstein looks out at the sell-out crowd at the Beatles gig in Shea Stadium. Alamy
Back he came to Liverpool, and this time he was determined to make his mark. The family gave him a three-storey city-centre store (the North End Road Music Store, or NEMS) to manage, and he vowed to make it the best record shop in the north of England. Using his connections, he persuaded entertainer Anthony Newley to open it and successfully negotiated a generous discount from EMI. In the first month, his turnover exceeded the annual turnover of his previous shop. He started a record review column in the new Mersey Beat magazine, edited by Bill Harry, a friend of John. Epstein had found his feet at last.
On 28 October 1961, Raymond Jones, a regular at Beatles gigs at the Cavern, went into the NEMS store to ask for ‘My Bonnie’, the single The Beatles had cut with Tony Sheridan in Hamburg. It wasn’t in stock, but Epstein investigated ordering the import. He had a policy of ordering three copies of everything: one for the customer and two for the shelves. Over the next few days, there were more requests for the same record.
On 9 November, Epstein visited the Cavern to see The Beatles. Afterwards, he told his assistant Alistair Taylor that he wanted to manage them, though he went to more shows to make sure. He was particularly taken with their personality on stage; they were natural, fun and, most important, authentic.
He got to work right away, getting in touch with EMI’s marketing manager Ron White, who promised he would get his four leading A&R men – of which one was future producer George Martin – to listen to an audition tape. He also contacted Sidney Beecher-Stevens, Decca’s sales manager, who put in motion the label’s standard audition agreement. In less than a month, Mike Smith, an A&R assistant, was dispatched from London to the Cavern where it was agreed that The Beatles would come down to the Decca studios for an official audition.