It was May 1962 when the breakthrough came, just six months after Brian and I had walked into The Cavern and seen this explosion of raw talent. The Beatles were in Hamburg and Brian was making another visit to London. I sensed that he was getting near the end of the road. He was always very down when he had had to disappoint the boys with the news from London yet again. We would sit in his office late into the night sometimes and tears would come into his eyes as he would go through yet another unproductive encounter.
‘The main qualification to run a record company seems to be cotton wool in your ears,’ said Brian. He named one particular record company minor executive and said he was ‘a complete bastard. He actually suggested that if I put my money where my mouth is then a deal might be possible. I said I had already spent hundreds of pounds trying to get the Beatles a record deal. He just smiled and said what he really meant was that I should put my money where his bank account was. I couldn’t believe it. I never thought I was a particularly honest or upright man, but to hear this slithery, time-serving creep actually ask for a bribe made my flesh crawl. If I was the violent type, I think I might even have struck him.’
By the time the vital contact was made, Brian was pretty desperate. He knew that he was running out of time with the Beatles. He never lost faith in them but he knew that if he didn’t break them on to the national scene then someone would come along who would do just that.
On 8 May, he made what he told me was possibly his last London sales trip. ‘I don’t think I can keep doing this for ever, Alistair,’ he told me with a faltering voice the night before he went. ‘I think some of the record companies laugh at me and I’m afraid the boys are beginning to see the joke. I feel like the only man in the regiment who is in step! Could it be that I’m the one who is out of line here?’
He was so desperate by then that he was talking to anyone in London with the remotest connection to getting a record deal. He went to visit Robert Boast, who was general manager of the Oxford Street HMV shop. He’d met Robert Boast on a sales training course in Germany organised by Deutsche Grammophon a year earlier. He knew Boast couldn’t hand out recording contracts but he was there to ask if there was anyone at EMI he could put him in touch with. Brian asked Boast to transfer his well-used tape on to an acetate record which they could do in the shop. Boast said frankly that the Beatles were not to his taste but, not knowing of Brian’s endless round of rejections, he suggested someone at EMI who should listen to it.
Boast’s recording engineer, Jim Foy, enjoyed the music and telephoned Sid Coleman, who ran EMI’s publishing arm from his office up on the fourth floor.
When Brian duly played the tapes in his office, Coleman was instantly impressed. ‘Have you taken these to anyone?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ Brian said with feeling. ‘Everybody! But I’m still trying.’
‘Have you taken them to George Martin?’
‘Who’s George Martin?’ asked Brian, who was beginning to feel as if he was trapped in a revolving door. But George Martin turned out to be the fourth EMI house producer who had been on holiday when the other three all turned down the Beatles. The helpful Sid Coleman rang George Martin and a meeting was fixed up with Brian for the following day.
Brian realised that he was reaching the end of the road with record companies. There are only so many doors even the most enthusiastic salesman is prepared to have slammed in his face. He rang me to explain what had happened, that he would be staying down another night, and I detected a weariness in his voice. He was fed up with failure and tired of rejection. Brian was very down and I tried to say that this George Martin might be just the man they needed. I think, in a way, he was in two minds about staying down in London. Doubt had set in and he was beginning to wonder if he really was such an infallible judge of public pop taste as he’d come to believe.
‘Maybe we should just sell records, Alistair?’ he said, weighing up the options open to him. ‘We don’t seem to be very successful at making them.’
It had to be worth one more try and that was what I told Brian with as much positive energy in my voice as I could muster.
Brian spent that night before he met George Martin with his aunt and uncle in Hampstead. There he appeared downhearted and close to accepting defeat in his long battle to become a showbusiness impresario. He admitted to his kindhearted Uncle Berrel that he was becoming despondent after all the rejections. His conviction that the Beatles were a wonderful act remained, but he was wondering whether he was really the man to manage them. He was getting nowhere fast and was considering giving up even before his meeting with George Martin. ‘What shall I do?’ he asked Uncle Berrel. ‘I’ve got one more appointment but I don’t know what to do. Shall I give it all up and go home?’
Berrel was baffled by his smart young nephew’s indecision, but wisely counselled, ‘Oh, just keep that last appointment.’
When Brian arrived at EMI’s Abbey Road studios, his mood had lifted and he spoke eloquently and passionately about the four young men called the Beatles and their amazing talents as writers and performers. George Martin was a tall, well-spoken man who was every bit as smart and sophisticated as Brian. Martin was hardly typical of the racy pop record scene. His success had come largely in comedy records at EMI as the recording manager of the zany Goon Show stars Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan and of top ballad singer Matt Monro. The two men quickly established a mutual respect and George Martin decided to take a chance on the very rare material. ‘OK,’ said Martin. ‘Bring them down to London and I’ll give them a test.’
At least that was Brian’s story. But it is not quite the whole story. What was not known at the time was that Brian Epstein blackmailed EMI into taking the Beatles. George Martin finished up with the Beatles because Brian Epstein threatened to stop dealing with EMI. Brian was so close to the end of his tether that he put as much commercial pressure as he could muster on EMI to make them give the Beatles a chance. Put plain and simply, that is blackmail. Brian threatened to withdraw his business from EMI if they didn’t give the Beatles a recording contract. It was as simple as that. He went to every record company but, in the end, to George Martin on Parlophone which was not a major pop label. It turned out to be a heaven-sent partnership between George Martin and the Beatles.
But George Martin was a classical musician who, although realising the group’s talent, most certainly was not dying to record with four scruffs from Liverpool. Pressure from high up in EMI probably also helped to make sure they did not lose Mr Epstein’s business. Brian and I had already talked about how NEMS would ditch EMI’s HMV, Parlophone and Columbia labels. There was not much on the HMV label that worried us and we could get Parlophone and Columbia when needed. As it turned out, it was a stroke of genius putting George Martin with the Beatles but it was caused by Brian saying, ‘Give me a contract.’
But the deal, when it came, was lousy. They paid a penny a record for the greatest group the world has ever seen. Brian re-negotiated it later. But we all just wanted that crucial first recording contract. That was what mattered. Not the royalties. Not the percentage. Just please, please give us a contract.
Brian hurried away from the Abbey Road studios and sent two telegrams. One went to the Beatles in Hamburg and said, ‘Congratulations, boys. EMI request recording session. Please rehearse new material.’ The second went to Mersey Beat newspaper in Liverpool: ‘Have secured contract for Beatles to record for EMI on Parlophone label. First recording date set for 6 June.’ The news quickly went round Liverpool. The Beatles were on their way.
It wasn’t really a recording contract, it was an audition. But the Beatles soon realised that. They played ‘Love Me Do’, ‘PS I Love You’, ‘Ask Me Why’, ‘Besame Mucho’, and the old Fats Waller song ‘Your Feet’s Too Big’. George Martin liked what he heard and was just as impressed by the humour and personality of the boys. Afterwards, they adjourned to the Alpino restaurant in Marylebone High Street. ‘OK, I like you. We’ll make some records.’
/> But even then it wasn’t easy. George Martin is a nice fella but I saw Brian reduced to tears of anger and frustration afterwards when promised telephone calls confirming they really were on the next step of the ladder did not come through. Brian was just about the coolest customer I’ve ever known, but some nights he used to be in the shop late at night waiting and waiting and waiting for that vital phone call and he would end up thumping the desk in despair.
‘He’s promised to ring,’ he would say. ‘Why doesn’t he ring? What has gone wrong now?’
It meant so much to Brian to get this group launched. It wasn’t the money he was going to have. It wasn’t the fame he wanted to enjoy. He just knew they had that special ingredient that deserved to make them into superstars before the word had even been invented. He used to get very, very emotional. Tears would run down his face and he’d say, ‘Why will they not ring me?’ Of course, the Beatles never, ever saw Brian Epstein like that.
I always knew when he was really down because he’d say, ‘Alistair, can we have dinner?’ I’d ring Lesley and warn her that she wasn’t going to see me until late. We used to go out and he would pour his heart out. He wasn’t in love with John. That wasn’t it at all. The whole sexual side of Brian’s nature has been exaggerated and invented so comprehensively and so ludicrously. It wasn’t sexual. It was that he had found something special. And he had moulded it. He had put them into suits and he had taught them how to behave and to smile. And he knew they could be bigger than Elvis. It was his dream to make them take over the world. Sure, he loved John. But he also loved Paul and George. We knew what the future would be. We used to talk with the Beatles of world tours and ticker-tape welcomes and endless parties. Brian knew it would all come true. That’s why he became so furious when anyone got in the way.
Eventually, at the end of July, confirmation of George Martin’s plans for a recording session came through. Brian told John and Paul and they told George. But no one told Pete Best. The Beatles had decided their drummer was not up to scratch.
Brian said that George Martin had criticised Pete’s drumming and that the other three Beatles had come to feel his beat was not right for their music. He tried to persuade them to leave the group as it was, but they somehow thought Pete was too conventional to be a Beatle. He was friendly with John but not with Paul and George and the three of them made a joint approach to Brian so he was forced to act.
It had to be done quickly and decisively and I know Brian had a sleepless night before the confrontation. Brian hated giving bad news to anyone, but he had no choice. Having met up with Pete at the office on 16 August, he told him, ‘I’ve got some bad news for you. The boys want you out and Ringo in.’
Pete was dumbstruck, and to this day I think he is still pretty puzzled about how they could do that to someone who had been on the road with them for two years.
He tried to soften the blow by telling Pete that he would be the star of a new group he would be forming, but Pete knew as well as Brian that the Beatles were going to be something special. For the faithful Neil Aspinall, this was a very difficult time. He was a great friend of the Best family, but he did not let that stand in the way of sticking with the Beatles.
Brian always let this be seen as a musical decision taken by the Beatles themselves. And, in a way, it was, yet Brian and I had several times talked in our distinctly unmusical way about something being not quite right about Pete’s drumming. We tried to put our finger on Pete’s weaknesses but we failed to identify them.
Brian was not surprised when the boys came to him to do their dirty work. Deep down he agreed with the decision; indeed, he and I were both flattered to have come to the same conclusion as the Beatles. Brian certainly would not have sacked Pete otherwise, but he said to me that he knew the boys were absolutely right. And he was certain that Ringo was a definite improvement, not least because he was a great deal more malleable than Pete. Brian had crossed swords with Pete about not combing his hair like the other guys. But then Pete always was something of the odd man out. From the very first time we saw them, John, Paul and George had a jokey rapport both on stage and off that Pete clearly did not share. He was a terribly nice fella but he would be sulking when the other three were laughing. Technically, Pete was a better drummer than Ringo but he was not right for the Beatles.
Evidently, George Martin felt Pete’s drumming was not quite up to scratch and the other three felt that he did not quite fit in. To add insult to injury, Brian asked him to stay on until the end of the week, for two more nights, until Ringo arrived. Brian had already contacted Ringo, who was playing drums for Rory Storm and the Hurricanes on summer season at Butlin’s in Skegness. Brian, and then later John Lennon, rang the holiday camp and had a message broadcast over the public address system for Richard Starkey to come to the phone. Luckily for Brian, Ringo was already unsettled with the Hurricanes and agreed to the move for an initial salary of £25 per week. Ringo was delighted. He had already sat in with the Beatles at a couple of Cavern sessions when Pete Best had been ill. He gave a disgruntled Rory Storm just three days’ notice and on Saturday, 18 August 1962, he took his place behind the drum kit at the Hulme Hall in Port Sunlight near Birkenhead.
The fans were not happy. For a time, Beatles followers were in revolt all over Liverpool. Brian kept away from The Cavern where enthusiasts who preferred the original line-up chanted, ‘Pete for Ever, Ringo Never’, waved banners and caused some unpleasant scenes. Brian took to using the services of a burly bodyguard for a time and George Harrison, who didn’t, was given a black eye by one disenchanted fan.
But Ringo settled in well. It was John who explained to him that he would have to get rid of his trademark beard, though he could keep his ‘sidies’. It seems a traumatic event even now, but this was in a summer packed full of change.
In June, Brian had signed up possibly the second-best group in Liverpool as well as the best when he agreed to manage Gerry and the Pacemakers. Gerry was quickly followed by Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas and The Big Three. Brian and his brother Clive became directors of the new company, NEMS Enterprises Ltd, which was formed to incorporate all of his showbiz expansion.
The Beatles appeared on television for the first time when Granada TV cameras filmed them in action at The Cavern. John Lennon married his very charming and very pregnant girlfriend Cynthia Powell and Brian hosted a discreet ‘wedding lunch’ at Reece’s cafeteria. But neither Brian nor John wanted the marriage to get in the way of the business and John started his wedding night on stage with the Beatles at Chester’s Riverpark Ballroom.
Most significant of all, under the experienced care of George Martin, the Beatles recorded their historic first record, ‘Love Me Do’, in two sessions on 4 and 11 September. Ringo was upset that George Martin had installed experienced session drummer Andy White for the recording.
Martin still did not know quite what to make of the Beatles but he was anxious to put them at their ease. Before they started work, he asked, ‘Let me know if there is anything you don’t like.’ He wasn’t really expecting a reply, but George Harrison said, ‘Well, for a start, I don’t like your tie.’ This joke baffled more than amused Martin, who felt he was looking smart for work as usual. But everyone laughed and the session got under way.
It took more than 15 takes to record ‘Love Me Do’ to George Martin’s satisfaction. Then they started work on the flipside which was ‘PS I Love You’. Ringo was relegated to tambourine and maracas and was beginning to wonder if he was about to suffer the same fate as poor Pete Best. Afterwards, he was very down and told me, ‘What a fucking liberty. How can they say it’s by the Beatles if they get other musicians in. What a phoney business.’
Brian listened to the acetates the next day in George Martin’s office at EMI headquarters in Manchester Square. Brian was in seventh heaven. He felt it had gone absolutely brilliantly and raved about the harmonica work.
5
THE BIG BREAK
‘Love Me Do’ was released
on 4 October 1962 and the sales took off instantly – but only in Liverpool. Beatles fans deluged radio request programmes with demands to hear the song and the national reaction was rather slower. But a week after release, it stood at number 49 in the Record retailer chart. The boys were absolutely ecstatic. I think they were happier about that than I ever saw them.
John just stood and looked at the chart and looked at me and said, ‘They’re buying our record. Real people are buying our fucking record.’ For all the knockout live concerts they had given, they knew that those only led to another concert. They knew selling records was their passport to stardom. I remember John singing away to himself about being a ‘49er’. Sales improved slowly and erratically until the end of the year, when the Beatles’ first record peaked at number 17 on 27 December. It was a really encouraging start.
Brian was buoyed up by this relative success. But there was a strong suspicion in Liverpool and in the business that Brian had hyped the record into the charts. People said that he had bought piles of copies, some 10,000 the rumours said.
Brian denied it emphatically and he was telling the truth. Brian Epstein was the most honest man I ever knew but, perhaps because he was so successful, people who never knew him imagined him ducking and diving like some sort of seedy spiv. He wasn’t like that. There were requests for backhanders over the years certainly, but Brian simply refused or, better still, ignored them.
Years later, when he and the Beatles had more money than any of them would ever spend, I was managing, on his behalf, a fabulous folk group called The Silkie. We had a load of lucrative bookings in America but because they were not well known over there we could not get work permits for them. I was introduced to this mysterious lawyer. He looked like something out of a gangster film and he was a very powerful man. He told me that, for $1,000 in cash, he could get work permits with no questions asked. I thought this was the answer and asked Brian for the money.
With the Beatles Page 5