Fact #190198

A year ago there was a young man who owned a Liverpool record shop, and he was trying to please one customer.

The shopkeeper was Brian Epstein, 29, and the customer, a teenage lad, wanted to buy a record made in Germany by a group called The Beatles.

That was a year ago. Today’s success story is of The Beatles - and Mr. Brian Epstein.

“At school - Wrekin, you know,” he said, “I was interested almost solely in symphonic music and the arts. I didn’t like jazz.”

As I sat listening to this elegant and cultivated young man in his hotel suite overlooking London’s Park-lane, I couldn’t help thinking that this must be the most extraordinary link-up in the history of show business.

“I definitely think The Beatles are an art form,” he went on.

“I wouldn’t say that all pop is art. But I would say that I am involved with the 10 per cent that has artistic merit.”

I don’t know why he picked the figure of 10 per cent. Maybe because he is their agent.

“I still live in Liverpool with my parents,” Brian went on.
“As far as I can trace, Sir Jacob Epstein, the famous sculptor, was no relation of mine.

“We have a small chain of furniture and radio-TV shops there. I went into the business when I left school, and I opened up one business that was going to be an artistic interior decorating place. But it turned into a good upper-middle-class furniture store. Very successful.

“But I was 21, and beginning to feel like a tired businessman. I thought of acting. So I suddenly took an audition for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. And I passed it - just like that.

“That was quite good. They brought me in right away. I was there about eighteen months. But although I needed some creative outlet, I realised that this wasn’t it. I was already too much of a businessman to be acting like a student in a duffle-coat.

“And I kept having the feeling that it was rather foolish to throw away the good business career that was obviously on a plate for me, for something so much more insecure.

DECISION
“So I thrust myself back into my father’s business wholeheartedly.

“My brother and I had always been rather ambitious about expanding into retail radio and television. So I decided to concentrate on records.

“For five years I worked very hard on the record store. Starting with two assistants, we built up to a staff of over thirty on records alone.

“My principle was, if customers want it - I can get it. That was how I first heard of The Beatles.”

Brian smiled, thoughtfully. “During August, 1961, there was a boy who used to come into the shop every Saturday and ask for a record by The Beatles.

“I didn’t realise they were a Liverpool bunch of boys, so I started writing around to find out about them, and found out they had made a record in Germany. I got 200 copies for the shop.

“Then suddenly I heard that they were actually playing in a small club called the Cavern, near my shop.

“I think I had been there, years before, when I was a teenager - it was one of those places that attracted teenagers. So I went down there one day.

“Quite frankly,” he said, flicking a speck of dust from his silk socks, “I thought The Beatles looked a mess.”

“Their hair was untidy - terribly long. They wore jeans and leather jackets. But, nevertheless, very attractive indeed. I enjoyed hearing them.

“Anyway, I saw them in the interval, asked them about the record. I loved their sense of humour. I thought they were very charming.

“There is a lot of talk about the New Sound now, but, to be quite frank with you, it never struck me as being a new sound. I liked it. They didn’t use echo - that was the different thing about them. And their presence… it was indefinably exciting.

“I decided to call them for a formal meeting at my store."

CLEAN
“I was working on Christmas orders that Sunday afternoon. Three of the boys arrived slightly late, without Paul McCartney. He still was not there half an hour later.

“So I told George Harrison to telephone him. George came back and said: ‘He’s only just got up - he’s in the bath.’ I said I thought it was disgraceful and that he would be very late indeed. ‘Yes,’ said George, thoughtfully. ‘Very late - but very clean.’”

Brian Epstein smiled affectionately at the memory. “Such an enchanting sense of humour.

“At any rate, we began to work out a master-plan. Then, later, we worked out a contract. It all took a great deal of time. There was no question of their coming in and my saying ‘Sign here, lad.’

“I talked to them about every aspect of how we should set it up, about finance, about how it should run in its initial stages. I didn’t bother them with details of how I would pay them when they were earning £200 a week.

“I worked it out with the co-operation of their parents, who were absolutely marvellous. I mean they said to me ‘What these boys need is a manager, then they could go a long way.’ So true.

“I remember saying: ‘This could be the biggest thing since Presley.’

“I smartened them up - haircuts and things. I made a rule that they would never appear for less than £15 - a lot, at the time. And I got a major record company to send an expert to Liverpool.”

TESTED
Then followed the months during which Brian’s determination was tested, hard. The record company turned The Beatles down. Brian brought them to London himself and hawked their tapes round the companies. No interest.

“The Beatles were terribly upset. I was feeling frightfully low. I planned to go back to Liverpool because I felt I had been neglecting my record store.

“But the night when I was due to go home I walked into a London shop to get some tapes of the Beatles made into discs.

“The fellow who was doing it said: ‘Look, we’ve got a publishing company upstairs - do you mind if I ask the boss down to listen to these?’"

TALK
“He came down, listened, and rang George Martin of EMI right away. Martin said he could see me the next morning, so I decided to stay one more night.

“Next morning, Martin said: ‘Talk terms of recording contracts to me.’ I think I would have accepted without royalties at that time. I walked out of there feeling ten feet tall, and sent a cable to Germany, where the boys were playing, to say we had got an EMI recording contract.
“From which I got back a flurry of little postcards saying: ‘Gee, O Lord, how marvellous!’

“That was it. in October last year - just about a year ago this week - they released ‘Love Me Do.’ The start.

“As a businessman, I set about promoting them rather as I would have done a product, but I was learning.

“To give myself more power… perhaps that is the wrong way to put it… to make me as their manager more important, I decided to sign some more acts.

“So I took on Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Fourmost, and Billy J. Kramer, for whom I found the Dakotas in Manchester, as backing. I also signed another act, which I got into the top thirty, but which I have since ceased to manage.

FINDER
“In actual fact, analysing myself, I think the thing that I am best at is finding talent. Discovering people is a weakness with me. I think I could probably find a new top artist every day if only there was somebody who could do all the things that I do for my artists.

“I mean, take Cilla Black. She was just a friend of The Beatles, a semi-pro singer. Her name was Priscilla Maria Veronica White. I changed that the first day we met. Now I am sure that she will unquestionably be the principal female artist in this country."

WORK
“Then was Tommy Quigley. I changed his name to Quickly on the spot.

“But I’ve had to restrain myself about creating new discoveries. When one’s artists are up there, you must work to keep them up there. I work all the hours God sends, and travel as much as my acts - no time for anything else.”
I asked him how many records his acts had sold in the year since the business began. He made a quick calculation on a piece of paper.

“Add them up,” he said. “It must be more than two million.”
I added them up.

It was considerably more than four million.

“Of course,” he added, “The Beatles make more money from their personal appearances than they do from records. Two of the boys write the songs, too. They are not musicians, and none of them can write or read music, but they have published - through our company - about twenty-five songs this year. My other artists sing them, too. I am a director of every aspect of my artists’ activities.”

Mr Epstein’s normal contract as agent is twenty-five per cent. “It has been suggested,” he said, “that they bring in £15,000 a week, but that is an exaggeration - at the moment."

OFFERS
“Of course, I am bogged down with acts asking me to manage them. Because now I am in a very happy position. Any producer will take any act that I offer. There have been a number of take-over offers for my business. I have been offered extremely substantial capital gains to sell out.

“I have listened to them. I always listen to everything. I have also probed them. But although there is no legal reason why I should not sell the company to which my artists are contracted, I feel it would be a wrong thing to do. It would be slave-trading. I am handling human beings, not pieces of wood.

“Now I propose to promote The Beatles in America. In November I am going to the States with Billy J. - I’m madly enthusiastic about him, he is a very good-looking boy, and I think he will be the principal male soloist in this country - and I’ll start spreading the gospel of The Beatles in the USA.

“People have called me the New Svengali of the Pops, but this is nonsense. Between me and my artists there is respect on either side.

“It is probably something to do with myself and my own choice of people. We have gentlemen around us.

“Every aspect of their lives is carefully planned. Planning and timing are desperately important."

“By the way,” he added, thoughtfully, “do you know when the new Prime Minister is making his maiden speech to the country on television? I just wondered, because it is supposed to tie up with something one of my boys is doing - a programme to follow it, you know - timing is so important…”