If it was possible for Brian to exert himself even more, now that “Love Me Do” was scheduled, he did. His focus was Friday, October 5, and through the second half of September he built a runway so it could take off.
The emphasis was on publicity—by way of photographs, press materials and promotions. Brian himself (anonymously) wrote the Beatles’ first biography, two pages run off on a duplicator and mailed out by the score. He didn’t know the history terribly well and relied on them to tell him the background facts—and since they were never good at remembering their own details, some of it went down wrong (e.g., they met in 1956), was used by journalists, and would stay wrong for at least the next twenty years. As only two types of band—instrumental groups and vocal groups—were familiar in the music business or understood by the media, Brian had to fashion a sentence to describe what the Beatles did: “They form essentially a vocal group but at the same time they comprise musicians of the first order.”
He also got Beryl Adams to type two further pages headed WRITINGS OF JOHN LENNON, three pieces that showed off the Beatles as not just a beat group but an offbeat beat group. Brian put on top the one that explained the origin of a name everyone still thought very strange and off-putting, a name that, not many weeks earlier, London people were telling him should be ditched or they’d never be successful (“Many people ask what are Beatles? Why Beatles? Ugh, Beatles, how did the name arrive? So we will tell you. It came in a vision—a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them ‘From this day on you are Beatles with an A.’ Thank you, Mister Man, they said, thanking him”).
The press materials were rounded out with four questionnaires, similar to a weekly NME feature called Life-lines, where the Beatles showed themselves individually, each detailing his personal information, likes, dislikes, hobbies and interests.
All this was good as far as it went, but Brian sensed he needed more. EMI, Decca, Pye, Philips and the lesser companies were issuing vatfuls of vinyl every week, very few of which became hits. Between January and the start of September 1962, the magazine of Brian’s business, Record Retailer, listed 4,500 new singles, an average of 128 a week (the LP figure was almost 80 a week and rising fast), so “Love Me Do” would drown unless it was noticed. Once again, Brian approached the convivial Tony Barrow, who combined freelance journalism with a full-time job at Decca, writing LP and EP sleeve notes.
Brian was meticulous and comprehensive in the way he launched the Beatles. He said to me, “I’ve done this and I’ve done that … is there anything else you can think of, as a record reviewer yourself, that I could be doing?” I said that apart from the bumf I got from record companies, I also received material from one or two independent PRs, the doyen being Les Perrin. I suggested he might hire an independent PR to put out some press information. He then said, “Could you do that for me?” I said yes, I could.64
Barrow was 26, newly married, prolific and hungry—and, vitally, though he lived and worked in London, he remained closely allied to his hometown as “Disker” in the Liverpool Echo, the column he’d written every Saturday since he was 17. He couldn’t openly work for Brian, plugging an EMI record from a Decca desk, but he’d do it anonymously: he agreed to write the Beatles a first-class independent press package and reckoned he could get hold of a mailing list detailing every record reviewer in the country. His provider was Tony Calder, who’d just left Decca’s press office to set himself up as an independent publicist and promoter, based in Soho. Barrow guessed right: Calder had taken for himself a copy of Decca’s master mailing list. “I cut a deal with him that we put his address on the press release—Tony Calder Enterprises, 15 Poland Street, London W1—and then I wrote it, designed it and got it printed and he sent it out to everyone. Brian paid me £20, I gave some to Tony, and he passed any resulting inquiries on to me.”
This affiliation with Calder would be fortuitous because the young man was also a DJ, spinning records at some of London’s busiest ballrooms; if he liked “Love Me Do,” he’d play it, effecting the Beatles’ first thrust into the capital. For now, he just mailed out Tony Barrow’s press pack, an impressive five-page document called “Introducing THE BEATLES,” with a photographic cover printed on pink card so it stood out from the pile—a trick he’d got from the doyen Perrin.
Every relevant media outlet received the first, second or even third press mailing announcing the Beatles’ arrival. The third was EMI’s, a densely typed three-page biography that drew largely on the other two but also added unique material, particularly some interesting quotes by Brian Epstein. Here occurs the first simplified re-dressing of how the Beatles had got their Parlophone contract: Brian explained he’d wanted some tapes transferred to disc at the HMV record shop and … “As soon as the people there heard the tapes they advised me to get in touch with George Martin.” As unaware as Brian probably was of the fullest facts, this was clearly an easier story.
As Brian had done before him, so again now EMI press officer Syd Gillingham pointed out what made the Beatles musically different from everyone else—he went for the underline key to explain that they were “singers and instrumentalists.” It was also of interest that two of them—just two, John and Paul—specified their ambitions: John’s was “money and everything,” Paul’s “money, etc.” Here was an honesty rarely, if ever, seen in a pop PR handout, where the common ambition was “to become an all-around entertainer.” Finally, Gillingham made much of another unusual aspect of the Beatles—that they were from the north. He mentioned Liverpool twelve times in three pages.
This concerted push to be different—we’re from Liverpool: yeah, Liverpool—was given great weight by publicity photos that set the Beatles hard on the dock road in bleak industrial surroundings, pictures that showed them as they were: four unaffected, bright working-class lads. This was a time when pretty much every pop publicity photo was formulaic and studio-bound—groomed star pretending to be on phone, groomed star checking tie in mirror, groomed star holding record or a disconnected microphone—but here, suddenly and by unmissable contrast, was a set of black-and-white images like stills from Coronation Street or a gritty new northern film.
Three locations were chosen by Les Chadwick of the Liverpool photography company Peter Kaye. The first was Sefton Street, by Brunswick Dock, at a bleak, still-unimproved Second World War bombsite called the Bally. Nature had kindly provided a burned-out car in the middle and the Beatles stood about it, with and without their instruments. It was a weird new experience—standing in the rain, having photos taken, holding poses—but they were definitely on home turf. As they worked, a bunch of scallies sagging off school (just like they’d done) threw stones at them from behind a wall. “We were all shouting at them to fuck off out of it,” Chadwick says.65
He’d chosen the location purely for its visual impact, but connections and history are everywhere in Liverpool. The Bally was next door to where Paul had a job the Christmas before last, second man on a parcel-delivering lorry for SPD Ltd. One building beyond that was the ship repair company J. W. Pickering & Sons Ltd., where Johnny Starkey had worked—Ringo’s beloved and bereaved grandad, who’d loaned his “bloody Noddler” the cash for his first real drum kit, and whose wedding ring in death became the lad’s third in life, prompting the stage name that earned him his living.
The next location was going to be the Pier Head, but Chadwick stopped just short, at the moored SS Salvor. It was a salvage boat of the kind sailed by John’s late grandad, George Stanley. Chadwick wanted photos with the Liver Building rising proud in the misty background, and went aboard to get the captain’s permission to take a few photos with them there four young fellers. On they all went, leaning over railings, balls frozen in the Mersey’s bitter wind, posing on deck while the Salvor’s muscly seamen—wisecracking wackers in oily overalls—stood behind them and queried their gender.
The last of the three stops was wasteland in front of a vast brick-stone warehouse up by Clarence Graving Dock. Photos for London, shot two
hundred miles north in narrow-fitting suits on a strip of cold rubble between Saltney Street and Dublin Street. It must have felt a long way from glamour.
The location’s significance was unknown to John. He had no idea of the history beneath his feet, that he was standing exactly where the Lennons had settled in Liverpool not much more than a hundred years earlier: great-grandad James Lennon from County Down, one among the multitude of disease-ridden Irish fleeing famine and death at home. The Lennons were here, in the shit-stinking cholera-infested court-housing of which only about now was Liverpool finally free.
Brian studied the contact sheets, said the photos were excellent and ran a chinagraph pencil around several, expecting Chadwick—who’d never done this kind of thing before—to make prints and throwaway cards by the hundred. He also had to make throwaways of the four individual Beatles, for which Paul and Ringo had done special sittings—a protracted business all its own.66
In the midst of all this activity, Brian stopped writing Mersey Beat’s record review column, and fell out decisively with Sam Leach in a manner symbolic of severing an umbilical cord. The pioneering Liverpool promoter maintained his reputation for paying the debts of his last show with the proceeds of his next, and Brian decided it had happened once too often. The Beatles did a £35 booking for Leach at the Rialto Ballroom in Toxteth on September 6, but when the night was over he could only find them £16; as Brian accounted to the Beatles in full every Friday, he was left personally out of pocket—for longer than was right. Leach had booked the Beatles again for New Brighton on the 14th, and beforehand, in the dressing-room, Brian demanded both that night’s £35 and his still-owed £19. When Leach said he couldn’t pay, Brian said they wouldn’t play. He hated letting down the public and would try to make it up to them, but the problem was not of his making. Leach looked appealingly to the Beatles to carry his defense, but they didn’t—at least, not enough to make the difference they could have made.
There was no one but Brian to shoulder the burdens. On September 25, the post delivered him a Letter before Action. It came from Fentons, an old established firm of Liverpool solicitors, and said that unless their client was paid an unspecified amount of compensation he would be suing Brian for “unwarranted and unjustifiable dismissal.” More than a month after being drummed out, Pete Best was making it a legal affair.67
Fentons claimed that the management contract of February 1, 1962, bound Mr. Epstein to their client Mr. Best, that he was legally liable to provide their client with paid engagements, that he was in breach of contract by dismissing their client, and that if he didn’t pay their client damages, he would take action.a Brian turned the letter over to David Harris and the lawyer hit a forehand back into Fentons’ court: “The position is that your client was not dismissed by the company, which has always held itself out to provide engagements for your client, and he was so informed. Indeed, Mr. Epstein was in the position of making necessary arrangements for him to be placed with another group …”
This first volley (which alluded to Brian’s attempt to put Pete in the Mersey Beats) would soon be followed by two other lines of attack. One (citing George Martin’s objections) was that Pete “had not proven himself to have the necessary talent to fulfill his obligations”; the other was that “With regard to the Beatles, there was no question of dismissal. Your client agreed to leave, and the group re-formed itself.”
Here then was the fallback position so carefully considered between June and August, when the issue of how to dismiss Pete had been assessed. The Beatles had split up and re-formed. It was a strange one, a moment that occurred only in the blink of a legal eye, but, this lawyer argued, it had happened: the Beatles had broken up, voiding the management contract, then added Ringo and instantly got back together again.
The timing of all this was odd, because it happened just after Pete joined another group, Lee Curtis and the All Stars, managed by Brian’s friend Joe Flannery. It was Colonel Joe who’d jumped the gun in June or July, dropping big hints to Pete about his imminent dismissal from the Beatles even though he’d learned the news in confidence. Once the deed had been done, he went back and offered Pete a job.
Pete made his All Stars debut at the Majestic Ballroom, Birkenhead, on September 10, and Mersey Beat was soon quoting him enthusing “I’ve never enjoyed playing so much,” a statement as unbelievable as the one saying he’d left the Beatles amicably. The truth was, it would never be a position that brought him much pleasure. Lee Curtis loved the limelight—he was the singer, the hunk out front, advertised by his brother Joe as “Merseyside’s biggest heartthrob!”—and he didn’t appreciate seeing his name trumped by a drummer, as in Joe’s newest ads:
WE’VE GOT THE BEST!
YES—GREAT EX-BEATLE DRUMMER
This was both the first time anyone would be referred to in print as an “Ex-Beatle” and an annoyance to Pete. “I often spoke to Joe Flannery about it,” he’d say. “There was no way I wanted to be tagged an ex-Beatle.”68
He’d find the link inescapable. As well as the Majestic and the Cavern, the All Stars played the jive circuit the Beatles had left behind, places like Blair Hall, Holyoake Hall and Litherland Town Hall, which advertised his appearance as “Welcome Home Pete.”69 Like the Colonel, Pete hoped his Beatles fans would follow him across. Lee Curtis remembers him saying, “ ‘Curtis’—he often called me Curtis—‘let’s see who gets the most fans now then.’ I thought he meant between him and me, but later I analyzed it and thought maybe he meant between the Beatles and the All Stars.”70
It didn’t happen. Plenty had loved Pete in the Beatles and been upset when he went, but they didn’t follow him—they stayed with the Beatles and he became a drummer much like any other, in a group much like any other. Vivien Jones was one such fan, a girl who’d loved Pete but never saw him again: “I was upset when the Beatles got rid of Pete (the rumor I heard was that he was ‘too handsome’) but then I got over it. It wasn’t a big deal really: we still carried on seeing the Beatles and I didn’t follow Pete anymore, and nor did any of my friends.”71
A lesson was learned from Brian’s legal difficulty with Pete. The management contract as revised had a clause unconsidered way back in January—it allowed for one or two members of the Beatles to be kicked out at the desire of two or more other members of the Beatles, though only with Brian’s approval. It needed to be there, but no one had any plan to use it. Otherwise, the new contract was substantially the same as the original agreement of February 1, varied by Brian’s letter of instruction of August 18, the one he dictated immediately after Pete’s firing.
There were two parties—Nems Enterprises Ltd., called “the Manager,” and the four named Beatles, called “the Artists” (as Paul and George were under 21, their fathers were parties to the second part). The Artists appointed the Manager for five years from October 1, 1962, an appointment that could be ended by either party with three months’ written notice.
In return for continuing the job he’d started, the Manager would take 15 percent commission if the Artists collectively earned up to £400 a week, 20 percent between £400 and £800, and 25 percent above that. The unwritten subtext was that, as Brian would also be fulfilling the duties of an agent, no further commissions were due anyone else—these percentages would be the Beatles’ total outlay.
It was a clear and concise document, six pages followed by space for signatures. Everyone gathered in the Whitechapel office for the big moment, standing around Brian’s desk behind which he’d pinned a huge wall map of Great Britain as if planning a national campaign—which he was.
There are no photos of the signing. Copies of the bound contract began to circulate, receiving the signatures of Brian Epstein and C. J. Epstein as director and secretary of Nems Enterprises Limited, the second serving as witness to the first; and also of John W. Lennon, George Harrison, James Paul McCartney and Richard Starkey, and of Harold Hargreaves Harrison and J. McCartney, those six signatures all witnessed by Beryl Adams.
Either at this session or privately, the separate agreement between Nems Enterprises, John Lennon and Paul McCartney was also signed and witnessed, the one covering the songwriting “sideline.” All this—the record, the contracts, everything—was happening precisely a year after the Nerk Twins’ exclusive sojourn to Paris. It had been a fantastic twelve months, and the future seemed even brighter.
There was, however, one last thing nagging away at Brian. The Beatles’ launch was covered with no fewer than three press releases aimed at all branches of the record business and its consumers, but he’d no mainstream PR, nothing to get them into the daily papers. One night at the end of September, in the Blue Angel nightclub, he mentioned this to Allan Williams, and Williams said he might have the answer—he offered to introduce Brian to his friend William (Bill) Marshall, the Daily Mirror’s northern correspondent.
A boozer and hell-raiser of genuinely extreme proportions, Bill Marshall could usually be found in the Liverpool Press Club, the city’s best late-late boozing establishment, opposite Lime Street station. Membership of this male-only fug was theoretically limited to journalists—to the local scribes and provincial stringers for the nationals—but it also extended to those whose face fitted, including Allan Williams and the Chief Constable of Liverpool (which meant the place was never raided). Stepping into the Press Club was a big risk for Brian because policemen were here, as well as journalists from the court gallery when he was “Mr. X” … but he liked risks, ventured inside, and—in a stupefyingly drunken night with Marshall and a second man, Daily Mail photographer Len Ford—discussed the possibility of setting up a company Marshall wanted to call Publicity Ink. Brian recalled the moment a couple of years later in his autobiography, describing the “two Rabelaisians” who would pull “stunts, gimmicks, rows, scenes—anything to get the name of my artistes in the papers.”
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