The Fifth Man: Brian Epstein and the Beatles
In a ceremony last year at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, the Beatles’ original manager, Brian Epstein, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The honor was well deserved. Epstein’s early oversight of what many consider to be the most popular musical act of the 20th century led some to call him the fifth Beatle. Some of the strategies he used to propel the Beatles to prominence (while also probably costing them a fortune in lost potential revenue) would be ill suited to today’s world of digital streaming, music piracy and YouTube, which makes Epstein a case study in how much music management has changed since the early 1960s.
Epstein was born in Liverpool in 1934 to Harry and Queenie Epstein, who were of Eastern European Jewish origin; they owned a group of stores that sold furniture, appliances and records. Brian Epstein was worldly, elegant and eager to escape the bonds of the family business. Having dropped out of London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and living again in Liverpool, he decided one day to see John Lennon, Paul McCartney,George Harrison and their then drummer, Pete Best, performing in the dank Cavern Club. It was November 1961.
Impressed by “their music, their beat and their sense of humor onstage,” Epstein soon decided that the Beatles would be “the biggest in the world.” He later said, “My own sense of inferiority and frustration evaporated with the Beatles because I knew I could help them.”
By: Michael Beschloss
Source: The New York Times
