How did The Beatles first meet Brian Epstein?
It was going to take more than good songs to make The Beatles one of the biggest bands in the world. Although John Lennon and Paul McCartney could make the tunes that lit a fire in everyone who saw them, their relentless touring schedule and their need to entertain the audience at all costs is what moulded them into the band that took over the world the minute they hit The Ed Sullivan Show. There was a small army behind them, though, and Brian Epstein may as well have been the head general when working on their image.
Outside of being a brilliant businessman, Epstein was responsible for turning them into a household name. Despite listening to classical and jazz through most of his life, Epstein was destined to take over his family business of working in music shops selling records when he first heard of the band through the single ‘My Bonnie’.
While the Tony Sheridan version of the tune hardly had The Beatles on it and certainly didn’t have the same amount of charm as the Fab Four, it was enough to get Epstein intrigued when he first saw the band perform at the Cavern Club in 1961. The lads were still decked out in their leather jackets picked up from Hamburg, but listening to them playing off each other, Epstein knew that he had found the kind of band that could even surpass the likes of Elvis Presley.
When talking about his first meeting with them after the gig, Epstein remembered being wowed by the band’s charisma even when off the stage, saying, “I was immediately struck by their music, their beat, and their sense of humour on stage. And even afterwards, when I met them I was struck again by their personal charm. And it was there that really it all started.” The band were still in charge of the music, but Epstein was about to take them to heights they could have never imagined.
How did Brian Epstein change The Beatles?
Although no one dared tell someone like John Lennon what to do, cleaning the band up for the big leagues was half the reason they became superstars. Although they were still considered to be punks looking to play rock and roll, Epstein got them to be a bit more professional, which created their signature moves, whether that was their matching suits onstage or their habit of bowing together at the end of every performance.
But if there is any one thing that Epstein should be enshrined in musical Valhalla for, it’s introducing the group to George Martin. He might have felt like he hit rock bottom ending up on a comedy label like Parlophone Records, but once Martin connected with the group, they had the kind of symbiotic relationship in the studio that churned out one hit after another, whether that was the pop sounds of ‘From Me To You’ or the experimentation of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’.
And let’s not forget about damage control, either. By the time the band were getting up to nefarious activities or ended up in hot water when John Lennon claimed they were bigger than Jesus, Epstein was the one working his way through the PR storm, constructing Lennon’s apology and getting them back in the good graces of the public by the time Sgt Peppers started.
Although The Beatles’ story tends to revolve around four distinct people, Epstein is one of the reasons why they were able to get off the ground in the first place. And while they managed to continue on for years after Epstein’s tragic passing in 1967, one has to wonder whether they could have stayed together had their old manager been there to oversee Apple and not pit them against each other like Allen Klein did.
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