Fact #105720

Cliff Bennett : When we recorded One Way Love, I never thought it was a hit. We were in Studio 2 at Abbey Road, and we’d do six or eight tracks in a three hour session. That day, our manager Brian Epstein came in and he said, 'Clifford', which was what he always called me, "Clifford, what have you been up to today?' We played all the tracks for him and when he got to One Way Love, he went, 'That’s a hit.' I went, 'No!' but he said, 'Trust me, that’ll be a hit.' He just knew it was a great song and he was right. He definitely had an ear for a hit record. We were all shocked when he chose it, and he told us not to do any more work on any of the others, just focus on that one number.

We’d done that song because I used to listen to all the early Drifters stuff, because I loved Ben E. King and all the early Drifters songs, and they’d done a brilliant version of it, so we picked it up.

Then he took me to one side and said, "Now, you have to listen to what I’m going to say. Every single we put out from now, I want you put one of your own songs on the b-side." But I didn’t write songs, and I told him so. He said, "Yes, you do." So I had to go home and write some songs that we could use as b-sides. I ended up writing between thirty and forty songs. Brian explained that I’d get paid as much for a b-side as for an a-side but if I’d written it I’d also get writing royalties, so I’d earn more. He also insisted that a couple of my songs should go on any albums we did. Of course, he had the publishing, so he was earning from it too. He had a good business mind.

(Source : interview with Johnny Black, May 2016)