Читать книгу With the Beatles - Alistair Taylor - Страница 11

We organised a meeting in Whitechapel on a Sunday morning. We used the very long, narrow office which actually seemed more like a corridor than a room. Brian did not like to use his big office upstairs, next to the other family offices, for meeting the Beatles. Instead, he preferred the smaller office which was really an old stock room behind the shop. It was fitted with shelves which always seemed to be overflowing with record catalogues and stationery and office supplies. On the walls was a selection of Brian’s favourite bullfighting posters.

Pete Best, John Lennon and George Harrison arrived and Brian was sitting up at the top end of the room with me next to him. They all sat in a line on one side.

Paul was late. We waited for about ten minutes as Brian grew very impatient and he sent George off to phone and find out where Paul had got to. George returned and said, ‘He’ll be here in a few minutes, Mr Epstein.’

Brian’s eyebrows raised.

‘Sorry, Mr Epstein,’ added George helpfully. ‘He’s just been having a bath.’

Brian was clearly irritated by this and snorted, ‘This is disgraceful. He is going to be very late.’

‘Late,’ said George with that guileless expression of his, ‘… but very clean.’

Brian didn’t really get the joke. This was too important to him for jokes. He insisted that he didn’t want to discuss anything to do with management unless all four of them were there.

Paul eventually arrived. The four of them were very nervous and quiet and they waited patiently for Brian to speak. He paused for a moment and I saw a couple of beads of sweat appear on his normally cool brow. I realised Brian was just as nervous as they were. This was very important to him. Slowly, he spoke. He had prepared quite a long speech which he occasionally consulted.

He believed in them and he wanted to manage them. He thought they had the ability to go right to the very top if they were prepared to put themselves in his hands. But he had never managed a group before and he knew he had a great deal to learn. He believed they had to make a great number of changes in their appearance and in their behaviour on stage if they were to realise their potential. But if they put themselves in his hands, then he believed there was no limit to what they could achieve.

They looked totally mesmerised by the experience. There was no clowning and no disrespect. I think they knew this was a very important decision they were making. They had already had their disappointments and they knew how many younger groups were coming up all the time. They had confidence in their ability certainly, but they knew that lots of people never got to fulfil their potential.

They had listened to a lot of bullshitters even then. But Brian was old enough and rich enough to be taken seriously. And he was young enough and cool enough to relate to them. John told me later that they trusted Brian from that first proper meeting.

Certainly, when Brian finished his speech and then asked them if they wanted to put their future in his hands, there was a pause. The four of them looked as if they had been brought into the headmaster’s study having been caught shop-lifting. They exchanged glances and then John said emphatically, ‘Yes.’ He breathed out with a sort of sigh of relief, ‘We would like you to manage us, Mr Epstein.’

And then the others started chiming in, ‘Yes, please manage us, Mr Epstein,’ ‘Yes, manage us, please.’

There were several more meetings in quick succession over that hectic period. Brian also went in search of anyone who might give him advice about the task he was taking on. He learned that while no one questioned the Beatles’ ability to entertain, they did not exactly have a reputation for reliability.

Another Beatles myth is that the first contract was signed at the Beatles’ unofficial headquarters, the Casbah Club, run by Pete Best’s mum. Again, that is untrue. Brian first produced a contract in the Whitechapel office and the four Beatles quickly signed. And I signed it as well, as a witness at Brian’s request.

Then there was a strange sort of pause. I said, ‘Are you going to sign, Brian?’

‘Oh, witness mine as well, Alistair,’ he replied. ‘I’ll do it later.’

But he never did. He gave the explanation later that he had not signed that original contract because he didn’t want the Beatles to feel tied to him in any way. If they ever wanted to sack him, they could do so easily, without any legal difficulties. On the other hand, he said that his word was his bond and that he did not need to sign a piece of paper to prove it. This way, they could have all the benefits of being professionally managed without any of the legal obligations. I’m still not quite sure I understand his reasoning even after all these years, but I guess he more than proved his commitment to the boys. But the only five signatures on the original contract between Brian Epstein and the Beatles were those of JW Lennon, James Paul McCartney, George Harrison, RP Best and Alistair Taylor. Very strange.

There was great uproar in the office. Everyone was hugging each other and being very tactile for those days. There was lots of cheering and back-slapping. And when it all died down a bit, there was a voice from the back of the line, right at the end of the narrow little office, from the guy at the end of the row who said, ‘Well, I think we’re going to make it as a group. I certainly hope we make it as a group, but I’ll tell you what – if we don’t, I’m gonna be a star.’ That was from Mr McCartney.

That first contract was effective from 1 February 1962 for a five-year period, but the Beatles and Brian were each able to give the other three months’ notice if things went wrong. Brian was on 10 per cent of the Beatles’ income up to £1,500 a year each. Once their individual earnings went over £1,500, Brian’s percentage increased to 15 per cent. I don’t think there has ever been anyone in the history of pop music who’s had a fairer contract than the Beatles. Brian’s percentage went up to 25 per cent in later contracts.

But even then they were so unbelievably lucky that Brian found them when he did. Brian set up a totally new form of management. In those days, if you were a young group then your manager or agent just said, ‘Right, you’re playing at Swindon tonight, Edinburgh tomorrow …’ and so on. If the members of the group had no money for petrol or hotel rooms, then that was tough and very much their problem. ‘Just be there’ was the instruction.

Brian set up a system which every bill they incurred came back to the office and we paid it. They always had money in their pockets, and a wage to live on. This was always deducted. We controlled all the money and managed it for them.

Brian also had a vision of how the Beatles were going to take over the world. From day one, he knew what he wanted to achieve and it was so much that at first he dared not even tell them.

Not that Brian was shy of being a hard task-master. He had a very clear idea of how he wanted the Beatles to look and behave and it was not at all like the way we had first watched them perform in The Cavern just a few weeks earlier. He pledged his determination to deliver them the recording contract which they all knew was vital to turning their regional success into national and international stardom.

And he didn’t pull any punches when he told the Beatles how things were going to be in the future. Like a teacher laying down the law to his most unruly pupils, Brian said they had to stop behaving like a bunch of amateurs and transform themselves into professional musicians and entertainers.

He said, ‘I want you all to make yourselves a lot smarter in appearance. On stage, there must be no drinking, no smoking, no chewing gum, and especially no swearing. The audience is not there to talk to you so don’t chat to the pretty girls while you’re on stage. Be punctual. If you’re scheduled to arrive at a certain time, make sure you arrive when you are meant to. Remember that you are professionals now, with a reputation to keep up.’

I would hand Brian’s directives to the boys and they were always neatly typed on top-quality paper with Brian’s initials printed elegantly on the top. John was particularly impressed. He said, ‘Brian put all our instructions down on paper and it made it all seem real. We were in a daydream ’til he came along.’

Brian was very businesslike. He knew the Beatles were in financial trouble even though they were then earning the princely sum of £3 15s each per Cavern session. This was higher than the normal rate because they were such a draw but it was an awful long way from the champagne lifestyle. Brian told them there and then that they would never play for less than £15 a night and he pledged to renegotiate their lunchtime Cavern rates. He kept that promise very quickly and they went up to £10. This was good money in 1961. Brian further impressed the shell-shocked foursome by quickly discovering the extents of their debts from a fellow shopkeeper and instantly wiped them out.

Brian found out from Bernard Michaelson, manager of Frank Hessy’s music shop across the road from NEMS, that the Beatles owed an alarming £200 on various hire-purchase agreements. He paid off the debt straight away with a personal cheque which bought John Lennon the ownership of his prized Hofner Club 40 guitar, George Harrison his Futurama guitar, and paid off the remains of Paul McCartney’s payments on amplifiers. It was a simple but stunningly convincing act that instantly established a bond between Brian and the Beatles.

Brian spelled out to the Beatles that they must look the part as well as act it, and took them over to Birkenhead to a tailor to be measured for their new suits. The mohair suits cost £40 each, which Brian paid, of course. I can well remember the wide-eyed acceptance that greeted that particular instruction. Subsequently, the Beatles have suggested that they did not totally go along with Brian on wearing suits. John sneered years later that he felt that he was selling out. My memories of the Beatles’ reaction is rather different. They were so fed up of failing to get noticed and failing to make it to the top that if Brian had said he wanted them to climb to the top of the Liver Building and jump down into a bucket of custard they would have said, ‘Where’s the bucket?’ It didn’t take them long to realise that Brian was right, and that he knew what he was doing.

Brian never tried to interfere with their music. It was all to do with their presentation, their behaviour and their image. Brian embarked on a total clean-up job on the four boys. Haircuts followed the suits and complete new wardrobes of shirts, ties, shoes, everything followed. Brian asked them face-to-face if they had any objections to his plans and there wasn’t even a murmur of dissent. Just as Brian believed in the Beatles, it was clear from the very start that the Beatles believed in Brian.

We took the famous ferry across the Mersey and Brian and I must have looked like a couple of plain-clothes policemen escorting four dangerous criminals. Brian and I got to know the four of them a little better. With the business of the contract out of the way, we were all on the same side now. John was clearly the strongest character among them, but the four of them seemed to communicate in a language almost of their own which was bound up with jokes, sarcasm and the blackest of humour. But, gradually, as the ferry made its way across, I even began to understand a little of what they were talking about.

I realised that just because they looked scruffy and aimless they were not to be dismissed easily. When we disembarked, we had a 15-minute walk to Brian’s tailor and the boys were all excited at the thought of getting their first made-to-measure suits. Brian went straight into a huddle with Beno Dorn, the little Jewish tailor who was clearly an old friend. The boys gazed open-mouthed at the up-market establishment. I think their experience of tailoring up until then was a quick glance in Burton’s window. Brian quickly had it all sorted out. The boys were to be kitted out in smart, dark-blue suits, a very different look from their usual black leather.

It was a great day out as the boys enjoyed being the centre of attention. The only downside to the day came when we got back to the shop and Brian discovered that none of the record companies he had contacted had called him back. Clearly, selling a new group to the record companies was going to be quite different from selling records to the public.

The following day it was haircuts and the beginning of the creation of the famous mop tops. Brian and I took the boys to Horne Brothers who then had a reputation as very classy hairdressers. Their long hair was trimmed and styled into a much more clean-cut image. They were becoming just the sort of boys every girl would soon be screaming her head off for. Much to their relief, the hair was still left reasonably long but the greasy untamed look was definitely a thing of the past. John grinned that his Aunt Mimi would think he had turned over a completely new leaf: ‘It seems almost a shame to give her too many false hopes.’

The haircuts were followed by a morning in Liverpool’s top men’s outfitters and they returned each proudly clutching parcels of new clothes. They were like kids at Christmas as they rushed to open their new presents. Each of them had bright new shirts and ties, which were certainly a novelty and took some getting used to. Everything was carefully selected with Brian’s eye for style and colour. I think he enjoyed the shopping trip more than any of us.

This was a special time to be around the Beatles. They were bright and funny and so full of life you wished you could bottle their energy. I’m not saying they knew they were going to make it, but there was a kind of inner confidence about them that you could never quite put your finger on. For them, something of the pressure of getting the success they all craved had slipped on to Brian’s shoulders so they seemed to relax under the new Epstein regime.