Tune In

by Mark Lewisohn

  The tape throws great light on the Nerk Twins’ chemistry. While Paul is singing “A Taste of Honey,” John suddenly shouts “SHUT UP TALKING!” to someone in the audience, interrupting Paul much more than the chatterbox. Paul knows this, and is pitched into laughter. When he sings “Till There Was You,” John—just a beat behind—speaks most of the lines in a persistent piss-taking echo: “No, I never heard them at all” (“No, he never heard them”). Paul chuckles and plows on; he can’t stop it, and he’s not even necessarily cross about it—he knows it’ll happen because this is John, and John is his fairground hero. It’s part of the double-act: the audience try to watch the singer but can’t tear their eyes off his mate, who’s probably also pulling crips. John couldn’t do this to anyone else without risking a thump, Paul wouldn’t accept it from anyone else; Paul gets to sing his song, John gets to undermine him. It’s just one facet of the complex sibling relationship they’ve always had, one among so many reasons they’re special together.

  Back in England, minds were focused on pushing Beatles records abroad. Their first radio play on the American continent was on the Toronto AM station CFRB on either December 8 or 15, in a weekly show titled Calling All Britons. The presenter, Ray Sonin, was a confident cockney émigré who’d edited Melody Maker and then New Musical Express for eighteen years (1939–57) and whose radio show was the week’s essential listen for expats. Whether or not this show stirred the interest, Capitol Records of Canada soon decided to release “Love Me Do” as a local-press 45: it would be available seven weeks into the new year.4

  Capitol of Canada operated independently of Capitol Records, its US parent—and, of course, that company was still shrugging off all the records EMI sent over from England in the hope of American release. This now included the Beatles again. George Martin’s ambition that “Please Please Me” would be pushed in America just as soon as possible, maybe even simultaneous with the British release, suffered its predictable stumble when Capitol exercised the standard “first turn-down option.”

  Just as Decca had rejected the Beatles while announcing a campaign for new British talent, so Capitol turned them down while boasting of a strong new interest in foreign records. CAPITOL GEARS FOR ALL-OUT GLOBAL DRIVE. WIDENS BASE OF INT’L OPERATION FOR IN-OUT flow headlined Billboard on December 22, atop talk of “a new business philosophy that the international market is a two-way street.” This was all hooey to Dave Dexter. He’d released Mrs. Mills and Andy Stewart records and America just didn’t want ’em.

  The trigger for Capitol’s “new direction” claim is obvious: it was the shock US success of non-American—and in particular English—product in 1962. The year’s best seller was “Stranger on the Shore” by Acker Bilk, and the Christmas and New Year number 1 was the Tornados’ “Telstar,” recorded above a shop in north London, now big in North Dakota. Cash Box ran two consecutive editorials stressing to its US business readership the importance of the “global market,” many paragraphs summarized in one simple prediction: “We can expect American firms to keep a constant vigil on successful records abroad.”5 The Capitol men made their press announcement, then didn’t twitch a muscle … and when they did take British product, like George Martin’s Beyond the Fringe album, they reneged on promotion promises. George raged about this to EMI Records managing director L. G. Wood in a December 31, 1962, memorandum that concluded “This is a serious indictment of Capitol’s ability to promote albums of British artists. I would not wish to recommend Capitol Records to any impresario who was thinking of launching a future British show in the States.”

  The Beatles weren’t a show, least not in the Broadway sense, but neither was George’s anger one-dimensional: he would no longer recommend Capitol to anyone at all, and that included Brian Epstein.

  So it fell again to Transglobal Music, EMI’s discreet Manhattan operation, to place the Beatles on an American label, and to make it happen now. Roland Rennie’s first point of contact was usually company president Joe Zerga, but much of the real work was done by the well-respected record business lawyer Paul Marshall, who was never a Transglobal employee but ran his own law firm from the adjacent office at 56 West 45th Street; he was retained by Transglobal (on twice Zerga’s salary) to advise and be involved in all aspects of the business. Marshall had the contacts, then he made the contracts, and now he set to label-shopping the Beatles.

  They were available on standard US terms:

  • No advance was payable.

  • The royalty to Transglobal would be 10 percent of the retail price on records sold.

  • There was no stipulation about the number of records to be pressed.

  • Options were available on the artist’s future product.

  The entire fourteen-clause contract took up one side of legal paper. It was a case of Sign here and take the Beatles for free.

  First chance went to Liberty Records. The Hollywood indie was the third most successful US singles label in 1962, two places better than Capitol, and its management already had close ties with EMI via an exclusive contract to release the Liberty imprint in Britain. The label’s big star, Bobby Vee, toured England with the Crickets in November, heard “Love Me Do,” liked it, and mentioned it when he got home. The result was a telegram from A&R chief Snuff Garrett to EMI asking for a copy of “Love Me Do” to be mailed for consideration of licensing. Rennie felt he couldn’t refuse, but in a letter to Zerga (who sent Garrett the record) he made it clear EMI no longer wanted to push “Love Me Do” in America, preferring to make “Please Please Me” the focus. By December 27, Liberty was also reviewing an advance copy of “Please Please Me,” and considering a January 11 rush-release with “Love Me Do” as the B-side … but then word came back that they weren’t interested.6 The decision was taken by Snuff Garrett, who explains, “Liberty was a hot label, and getting hotter. We were doing so well we wondered how we’d done it. I liked the Beatles’ sound but you can only handle so many records at a time and we had our hands full. It was just ‘another decision,’ the kind I had to take about artists every day, and I said no.”7

  Laurie Records also turned down the Beatles. This was a small New York independent, the twenty-ninth-best singles label in the States in 1962.‡ Like Liberty, it had a good connection with EMI, which had a contract to release Laurie product in Britain on the Stateside label. But its most successful artist, Dion, had just moved to Columbia Records and Laurie was in the doldrums at the time it was considering the Beatles; the office wasn’t given a record of “Love Me Do,” only “Please Please Me,” and it was declined. Surviving documentation is thin but certain: a letter (January 4, 1963) from Zerga to Rennie that states “and as you know, Laurie has also decided against taking this record.” The label had just signed a deal (with Pye) to release Petula Clark in the US; perhaps one English act was enough.8

  The next contenders to sign the Beatles for America would be approached simultaneously by Paul Marshall, two fine indie R&B labels, the great Atlantic Records of New York and Chicago’s Vee Jay. But these would be 1963 opportunities, contacted in the first days of the year; 1962 ended just how it started, with rejections. On January 1 the Beatles were failing their Commercial Test at Decca; 364 days later they’d been turned down by Capitol, Liberty and Laurie. But where Decca had rejected them on the basis of a mediocre session by a lineup that didn’t gel in the studio, the US companies—two Los Angeles, one New York—were spurning an options-loaded free signing of the Beatles for “Please Please Me,” a new sound on a great record predicted with confidence to be number 1 in Britain. “We can expect American firms to keep a constant vigil on successful records abroad,” Cash Box had suggested, along with a reflection on 1962 that concluded, “It was the first year since rock and roll music came on the scene that everyone agreed rock and roll can last.”9 Some things, transparently, didn’t add up.

  Invited in 1966 to look back at this period, Brian Epstein reflected, “The good thing about my management of the Beatles was my attention to them
. This was the new thing as a manager that I did. I dedicated myself to doing just that—being their manager.”10

  Brian had invested extraordinary energy in the Beatles these twelve months, fast-tracking their rise from rough local heroes to the brink of (and it really did seem due) national stardom. They’d matched his commitment and gone along with his plans all the way, their talents blending tremendously well. To coincide with the second Mersey Beat poll win, Brian put together a full-page ad titled 1962—the Beatles Year of Achievement; never one to miss a beat, he also had it printed as giveaway publicity posters on eye-catching colored paper (the Beatles signed them). Here are four of Astrid’s arty new photos together with a long itemized list of Beatles accomplishments since the turn of the year: the EMI contract, the chart position, the ten TV and radio broadcasts, the poll successes, the trips to Hamburg, the big-name stars they’d appeared with, and some of the towns and cities they’d played. Underneath this was an impressive contact list, five people working to make them a success.§ But this wasn’t only a list of Beatles achievements, it was an audit of Brian’s first year in management, a statement of account that was nothing short of sensational—because 1962 was a year in which the Beatles had been managed quite brilliantly by Brian Epstein.

  As he was doing everything for the first time, it would be absurd to imagine Brian made no mistakes, that he didn’t think, say and do naive things—but these were already rare and eclipsed by towering achievements. The Beatles really didn’t want to go back to Hamburg these last two times and they really gave him an earful for it, but they also knew where they stood at the end of 1962—especially compared to 1961, when they’d come so close to breaking up. Brian had been making all the right moves since the start, because this was, from every angle, the very best of associations. As he’d explain in summer 1967, “One of the most perfect relationships there has ever been, in my experience, is that which exists between the Beatles and myself. If I’d been domineering or dictatorial they would never have accepted me and it would all have gone wrong. You have to allow for freedom.”11

  Brian had the ideal marriage of enthusiasm, intelligence and instinctive entrepreneurial flair, swept high by trust, belief and love. He loved the Beatles as people and he loved them as artists: he loved their authenticity, originality, attitude, talent, truth, cynicism and fun, the A Grade alchemy that grabbed him—and many others—100 percent. He loved them for their uncompromisingly direct communication, for stimulating and challenging his thinking. He loved their sheer lust for life.

  He’d more than tripled the Beatles’ income during 1962, from about £80 a week between them to a consistent £250 after his 15 percent commission—an incredible sum for a Liverpool group. Brian had also consolidated a goodwill fund beyond monetary value and entirely at odds with their previous reputation, and took nothing for his efforts. “I made a net loss on the Beatles’ first year,” he conceded in October 1963. A few months later, he said the most he grossed from any one week in this period was £18.12 His Year of Achievement income was decimated by personal expenditure, but he always took the long view.

  Danger signals were visible too. “The Beatles were the love of Brian’s life,” says Freda Kelly, “and the business was his life, and he wasn’t one for handing over, for delegating.”13 Brian’s workload was becoming ridiculous. Though he had a PA, a secretary and other help, he took all the decisions, attended every meeting and dictated every letter, and he especially protected his position as sole interface with his artists. He was also gulping Prellies and Scotch and pursuing a compulsively reckless “rough trade” sex life. None of this interfered with his fever-pitch workload or blunted his commitment, but there was no certainty this would always be so.

  Brian’s past was littered with obsessions he’d picked up, then tossed away. This time too? There was no sign of it. That old perennially unfulfilled Brian wasn’t here. Giving “Sole Direction” to the Beatles and two other groups, running a thriving Nems Enterprises, promoting shows, and now, inevitably, beginning the process of measuring his entrepreneurial flair against London’s biggest operators—these challenges seemed to be the essence of his life. Brian Epstein was living like never before. They all were—John, Paul, George, Richy, Brian and the team Brian had built around them. Everything was new, exhilarating, possible.

  Another group flew into Hamburg from London on December 30. Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers were a band’s band: meaty, brassy, burly, rock rolled into R&B. Joe Meek produced their records and Parlophone released them, but they’d made three singles and not come within a sniff of the charts. Jealous of the Beatles for cracking the top twenty on their debut, they watched them in the Star-Club and failed to stay as coolly dispassionate as intended. Frank Allen, bass player and backing singer, instantly saw the difference between the two groups: “We may have been all around the same age but we were boys while the Beatles were men. They were well aware of what they had to do to make it and they exuded a natural power and charisma.” Cliff Bennett says, “I was really taken aback. They were doing a lot of rock ’n’ roll standards but they were doing them in three-part harmony, and they did all their own arrangements. It was fabulous. I sat there totally gobsmacked.”14

  A night later it was New Year’s Eve (“Silvester” in Germany) and then it was all over—good-bye to Grosse Freiheit, forever. The Faschers would carry on, BETTINAAAHHHH would carry on, St. Pauli would carry on, with its drunks, drugs, guns and Beat-Gruppen, and the Star- and Top Ten clubs would have plenty of high old times as the Sixties marched on—but the Beatles wouldn’t be part of them. They drew the line on December 31, 1962, having played more than 1,100 hours here since the day Allan Williams heroically drove them across from Liverpool in his minibus.‖ In Hamburg, the Beatles took what they made. They honed their skills, earned their spurs and made true a hundred colorful metaphors, coming of age where wildness was allowed. John summarized it in ten words: “We went in young boys and came out old men.”15 It was the end of the Beatles as a club band, for now, and more or less the last time they played without everyone watching.

  It was auf Wiedersehen to Klaus and to Astrid, and to Stu’s ghost. In one of several long, chatty letters to Bobby Brown, Astrid said she didn’t expect to see the Beatles again. She drove them to the airport the next day, as did Icke Braun. In recent days, Britain had been hit with the same harsh winter weather as the rest of northern Europe: it was a white-out, and the plane was delayed several hours. The Beatles were heading for London, where Brian had booked them a night in the Royal Court. They’d be flying up to Scotland on January 2. The itinerary was typed, everything was in place.

  There are no photos from this last Hamburg–London flight, or any anecdotes to color the moment, but here are the four travelers—John Winston Lennon, 22; James Paul McCartney, 20; George Harrison, 19; Richard Starkey, 22; all of Liverpool, England—flying into a bright white tomorrow. Sometimes in life, things go right; only very rarely do they all go right, and so it was now—for them and for everyone and everything around them. The plates were aligned for a cultural earthquake that would start shaking the walls in 1963, one of the century’s most remarkable and thrilling years.

  That Year of Achievement poster assembled by Brian didn’t only look back on 1962, it anticipated Beatles headlines for the coming three months—“Please Please Me,” TV, radio, tours, foreign releases, these would be the biggest events in their lives to date … but still just a start; stepping-stones, not the destination. Daring to wonder what excitement lay beyond March 1963, Brian’s anticipation bubbled through his sign-off words—AND WHO KNOWS!

  They did. They always had. It was obvious, and felt among them. As leader Lennon would explain, “We were the best fucking group in the goddamn world … and believing that is what made us what we were. Whether you call it ‘the best rock ’n’ roll group’ or ‘the best pop group,’ whatever—as far as I was concerned, we were the best. We thought we were the best in Hamburg and Liverpool—it was just
a matter of time before everybody else caught on.”16

  END OF PART ONE

  INTERMISSION

  * * *

  * It does seem John twice went on the Star-Club stage in his undies and toilet seat. Several eyewitnesses persuasively place the incident here, at Christmas 1962, but John spoke of it happening when Gerry and the Pacemakers were in Hamburg, saying he went on like that and drummed with the Pacemakers while Gerry Marsden sang. As the moment was also witnessed by Bernie Boyle (who wasn’t here at Christmas, or in November) this must have been May. (See chapter 28.)

  † The tape’s many “legitimate” releases are of questionable legality, and in 1998 the Beatles finally asserted their moral/artistic rights; but the recordings have been everywhere for so long (since 1977) that their greatest worth now is not monetary but to history … and that value is enormous.

  ‡ EMI’s Economics and Statistics Department compiled a survey of US record labels and how they fared on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1962. RCA Victor was the runaway winner, followed by Columbia and Liberty. Capitol placed 5th, Vee Jay 10th, Atlantic joint 17th, Swan 20th, Tamla 22nd, Laurie 29th and Motown joint 34th. Tamla and Motown combined would have placed 11th.

  § Tony Calder still showed as “press representative,” masking the greater involvement of Decca employee Tony Barrow; addresses were given for Calder, Brian Epstein, George Martin and Bobby Brown, but not (for obvious reasons) Neil Aspinall. Among 1962’s specified feats, there was no place for the Beatles’ other first record: “My Bonnie” was distant and disowned.