The Beatles Story (Part 1 by Tony Barrow - 1981)

 

The Beatles Story - Part 1

By Tony Barrow

Liverpool Echo

October 28, 1981

     Brian Epstein's first words to me when we met 20 years ago in my office at Decca Records were, "I've got a group which will be as big as Elvis Presley." He had just become the personal manager of the Beatles. He called on me not in my role as Decca's writer of LP sleeve notes, but because I was also a freelance pop record columnist for the Liverpool Echo. 

    He introduced my ears to the early sounds of the Beatles by playing me a privately made demonstration acetate. He told me that this disc had come from the soundtrack of a documentary film intended for television, made on location in Liverpool's soon-to-be legendary Cavern Club. The recording captured much of the earthy excitement of that sweaty cellar, dominated by the constant screaming of shrill-voiced Scouse schoolgirls. On this disc were to be heard the first audio hints of Beatlemania. If only I had known how to recognize it.

     As a display of the Beatles' ability, it was a disappointment, and I said so to Brian. Evidently, the TV people agreed because the piece was not shown. "I can hear the reaction of the Cavern kids, Brian," I told him. "But I can't get any proper idea of what your group is like. There's no indication of what they can do musically. I wouldn't recommend using this to sell them to a record company producer. I think it's more of a liability than an asset."

     I was not responsible for obtaining a Decca audition for the Beatles. My job was to write on the backs of album covers, not to seek or sign fresh talent. The audition happened because Brian was a powerful Liverpool record retailer, under the name NEMS, derived from North End Music Stores; he managed one of his family's city center shops situated close to the Cavern.

     The Beatles put the blame on Brian Epstein when the group's Decca audition turned out disastrously.  The try-out session took place at Decca's London Studios on New Year's Day in 1962; the Beatles were furious when it failed to result in any offer of a recording contract. This led to a major row between the group and Eppy within the first weeks of their new management deal. I found out about the bust-up by accident when I collected background information from the four boys for the Beatles' first press manual.

     Epstein told me, "Make sure you give equal space to each biography, then talk separately with John about the group's history." Incidentally, I questioned John about the audition.  His answer was emphatic. "That was Eppy's fault. He wouldn't let us do the stuff we wanted. We could have done our best stage numbers, the real ravers. We could have done more of our own material, but Eppy let us use only three, and they weren't our best. He had Paul doing songs like  'September in the Rain' and George doing 'Sheik of Araby.' It was all wrong for an audition. We knew it, and that's why we cocked up most of the tracks."

     John himself had been featured on 'Memphis,' which he thought was all right. I discovered that Paul was happy about the way he had tackled 'The Love of the Loved." Needless to say, none of this went into the first press manual.

     But the following autumn, on October 5, 1962, the Beatles made their belated disc debut via EMI's Parlophone label. The song was "Love Me Do." Brian Epstein stayed in touch. He knew the selling side of the record business, but he was keen to meet my contacts in the more creative territories of pop music. He wanted to know the radio people, the recording managers, and the trade paper journalists.

     Although I am a Liverpudlian, I left Merseyside before the Beatles attracted local attention. From a distance, I would have said that another powerful Merseybeat outfit, the Big Three, was at least as popular with Cavern customers.

    I did not meet John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr until Brian took me to the recording session, which produced the Beatles' first chart-topping single, "Please Please Me." By then, Brian's prediction for the Beatles' future had changed to, "I've got a group which will be bigger than Elvis Presley." He decided to hire his own full-time PR consultant to handle his artists' publicity within the new management company he formed called NEMS Enterprises.

    " Are you offering any percentage of the Beatles?" I asked. I hadn't thought of it. If I did, it would be a very small one. Even a tiny piece of the Beatles would have made me a millionaire several times over during the next five years. But we did not return to the subject. 

    In the spring of 1964, an American fan sent a letter to her favorite pop group in England. She addressed the envelope, "The Beatles, care of H.R.H. Prince Philip, Buckingham Palace, London." Eventually, it reached the Beatles' fan club headquarters in Coventry Garden, but not before someone had written boldly across the envelope "Not known at Buckingham Palace." The Beatles were amused when I showed them the envelope. After all, they had appeared in the 1963 Royal Variety Show the previous November, and they were about to clock up their fifth number one record hit with "Can't Buy Me Love," 

    Beatlemania had been claiming headline space on national newspapers' front pages for at least six months. A year and three chart-topping singles later, in June 1965, it was announced that John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr had been awarded MBE medals. "Philip can stop redirecting our mail now," chucked John. "We'll pick it up personally when his missus infest us."

     I would have liked to publish that quote at the time in the of the infrastructure, but even with the quartet's reputation for making roguish remarks, a Beatles was not supposed to crack royalty jokes in public.

     During the height of Beatlemania in the mid-'60s, in Britain alone, up to 80,000 people belonged to the Beatles fan club, but it did not make money. It did not act as a merchandising machine. Far from showing a profit, it required substantial subsidy and professional supervision from Brian Epstein's management firm, NEMS Enterprises. The whole thing was run as an information source rather than a mail order service. In this respect, the club was unusual because it did not exist to sell souvenirs; when the group's popularity was reaching its peak, no one fan club secretary could have coped with answering incoming mail and processing memberships. On the other hand, I thought it was good public relations to establish one name that all kids could identify with. Personal replies and mass-produced newsletters went out under the signature Anne Collingham. She did not exist and was a staff of full-time fan club clerks.

     Similarly, it would have been physically impossible for the Beatles to satisfy even a tiny portion of the autograph requests they received. Only on rare occasions were John, Paul, George, and Ringo seen to sign photographs or books personally. All the rest were forged with a greater or lesser degree of accuracy by aides who slaved away in dark corners of dressing rooms. The best-known and most widely circulated sets of signatures came from Neil Aspinall, a career-long associate of the group who started out in Liverpool as a roadie and finished up as a boss of the Beatles Apple Company in London.

     Aspinall's expert autographing was so prolific that it appeared on everything from products of souvenir brochures. I suspect he signed the handwritten greeting card which accompanied the Beatles' gift to me of a splendid table lighter, delivered straight on to my desk one Christmas by a livery-clad aspirry messenger.

     Occasionally, a fortunate civic dignitary or a politician's daughter would be able to corner a Beatles somewhere backstage and watch while an autograph was written out. Later on, these people were vulnerable to embarrassment if friends compared the real thing with an Aspinall. Naturally enough, they challenge the unfamiliar original as an apparent fake.'

     I do not condemn autograph forgery in a Beatlemania context. If we had distributed only the genuine article, the majority of those folks would have had nothing and would have felt let down. Replicas are a tactful solution. 

    All four Beatles derived genuine pleasure from talking to fans.  Ringo once put it to me like this: "a few minutes on the pavement with a little bunch of fans is worth more to us than half a dozen newspaper reviews." The newspaper columnist doesn't buy his records or his concert tickets. He may be jealous because his girl cuddles Paul's picture, but the fans will tell you truthfully what they think. You know where you stand. If you're going in the wrong direction, they'll tell you. If you take the trouble to listen. By standards set before and since, the Beatles fans were treated generously. 

    Club members received an exclusive chat record with the Beatles, made specially for the purpose each Christmas. When I introduced this idea, it was unique. At the group's request, I wrote scripts for the first ones, but they just kept these beside them in the studio, like Linus's blanket, for emergency use. Their own ad-libs, when pruned of indelicate expletives, were much more entertaining than anything they might have read out. The fan club Christmas records, flimsy seven-inchers, which look like the discs sent out these days by Reader's Digest to promote their record compilations, have been valuable collectors' items. A clean copy of the first year's record, sent out to Beatles people in December 1963, is worth about £40. A set of six from consecutive years can fetch well over £100. If, on the other hand, you are in the market for Beatles autographs, be advised to purchase cautiously unless you're really after an Aspinall original that is.