Since their first single release, the Beatles have
gone down in history as the greatest band of all time, icons of 1960’s pop
culture, and spokesmen for their generation.
And their music is equally lauded as being on par with classical
composers such as Beethoven and Schubert…
But what about Brian Epstein?
Epstein was from a wealthy Jewish family who owned a
couple of furniture shops in Liverpool. In
the 1950’s his father expanded their empire to encompass music as well, and
began selling musical instruments and records.
The stores were known throughout Liverpool as “NEMS” (North End Music
Stores) and Epstein, having never been able to settle down in a career of his
own, grudgingly accepted his father’s offer of managing one of the stores.
It was while managing this store that Epstein’s talents
kicked in. He revamped the whole image
of the store and tapped into an increasing demand for a new genre of music that
was coming out of the United States of America and going by the codename: “Rock
and Roll.”
In around 1960, NEMS started selling a local music
paper called “Mersey Beat,” written by Bill Harry. The paper contained articles
and details on all the music groups in Liverpool. Epstein, unable to see potential in the
Liverpool music scene, only bought a handful of copies, which sold out almost
as soon as he put them on the counter. Epstein
ordered more and more copies and the same thing kept happening until he decided
to actually read the paper, which featured a very popular local group called
the Beatles.
Epstein peppered Bill Harry with questions about them
until Harry told him to go and see them for himself at a cellar club on Mathew
Street in Liverpool, called the Cavern. Epstein
had visited the club before when it was a local jazz hang-out. When he and his assistant, Alistair Taylor, visited
the club at lunchtime on November 9, 1961, they were totally unprepared for
what they were about to witness.
“The Beatles were then just four lads on that rather
dimly lit stage” Epstein would recount in an interview in 1964.
Not only did Epstein remove the leather suits from the
Beatles, but he removed the Beatles from that dimly lit stage in the Cavern
club. From there he secured them an
audition with Decca Records, something no one before him had been able to do
for the boys. Though the Decca audition
was a failure, Epstein refused to give up and got the Beatles an audition with
George Martin, who signed them to Parlophone, a subsidiary of EMI Records.
Epstein pressed on, booking tour after tour for the
boys, securing merchandising deals, and reserving their spots on all the hit
television shows. By 1964, Beatlemania
was in full swing, the Beatles having conquered the world in less than three
years of working with Epstein.
By 1966, unfortunately, Beatlemania had taken its toll
and the Beatles decided to stop touring forever. Epstein, fearing for his job, was in a panic
and in 1967, when Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely
Hearts Club Band was released, pleaded with them to do another tour. The band refused outright and later that year
went to Bangor, Wales in search of meditation and tranquility. While the Beatles were away, Epstein was
found dead in his flat in London; an apparent accidental overdose of pills.
The Beatles ceased to function as a band a mere year
and a half after Brian Epstein’s death.
One has to wonder, had Epstein not died, would they have continued on
into the 1970s and perhaps, beyond? What
would he have thought of his own legacy as the man who gave the Beatles to the
world?
