The Hapless People Who Let Go of the Beatles — Allan Williams

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• a die-hard Beatles fanWada Shinji
  From Osaka Prefecture. I’ve been a Beatles fan for decades. I’ve tried many hobbies, but this is the only one that has stayed with me. As a storyteller of the Beatles, I want to pass on their greatness to future generations. A blog that explains the Beatles in a way anyone can understand.

I let go of the Beatles!

They weren’t members of the Beatles, but they’re unfortunate people who missed a golden opportunity to achieve great success by becoming the band’s partners.

Many of you might think, 'I can’t believe there was such a person.'

Speaking of the Beatles, they are superstars whose name is known by everyone from children to the elderly all over the world, even more than half a century after their debut.

There's no way you'd throw away the chance to become their partner yourself, right?

However, only a very small number of people recognized their talent during their early days.

Of course, the local youths of Liverpool were their ardent fans.

However, they were just fans and not music professionals.

Moreover, speaking of Liverpool, it is a provincial city located far from London.

No matter how well they sold there, it was, in the end, nothing more than just another local band.

There were many professionals who passed by without noticing their talent.

In this article, I’ll introduce one of them.

the first generation manager

The Beatles who were aiming to go pro

Brian Epstein is well known as the manager of the Beatles.

However, he was actually the second manager; the original manager was a man named Allan Williams.

John Lennon, together with Paul McCartney and George Harrison, formed the Beatles.

They started as an amateur band, but unsatisfied with that, they yearned to become professional musicians.

I needed a manager.

They were still developing as professional musicians and had to practice every day; they needed opportunities to showcase the results on stage and, above all, the compensation to make a living.

However, while they were blessed with musical talent, they lacked management skills.

Because they wanted to focus on music, they absolutely needed someone to handle their management and secure paying gigs so they could become professionals.

Meanwhile, Allan Williams, the owner of a club called the Jacaranda, was looking for a rock band to perform at his club.

He himself was not satisfied with merely being the owner of a club and had already begun managing other bands.

In mid-May 1960, Williams recognized the Beatles’ talent and agreed to become their manager.

He promptly found the Beatles a job, and they began their path as professionals.

At that time, the Beatles lacked a drummer—an essential member for any rock band—so they added Pete Best, the son of Mona Best, owner of the Casbah Coffee Club they frequented, as their drummer.

With Stuart Sutcliffe joining as the bassist, the Beatles finally took shape as a rock band.

A tour to Hamburg

My First Time in Hamburg

In August 1960, an offer arrived to Alan Williams asking him to recommend a band to perform at a club in Hamburg, West Germany, run by his acquaintance Bruno Koschmider.

The Beatles jumped at the offer.

It was far more than £100 a week (actually £2.50 a day) and much higher than what we were making in Liverpool, and above all, someone had shown up who valued our professional abilities.

We loaded the equipment into the van driven by Williams and headed to Hamburg by ferry.

The Beatles, who rapidly honed their skills in Hamburg

The Beatles managed to get work in Hamburg, but the working conditions were harsh.

The first place they performed was a nightclub called the Indra Club.

From August 17, 1960, for 48 days, they performed every day from morning until night.

We weren’t even provided with decent accommodations, and I had to live and sleep in a room near the toilets at the back of a movie theater, tormented by the stench and the cold.

Even so, they persevered with a hungry drive to become top-tier musicians.

While they were performing, the club manager, feeling it wasn’t enough, kept shouting toward the stage, “Mach Schau!” (German for “put on more of a show”), urging them on enthusiastically.

He was a hardcore soldier who had been fighting in wars with a gun on his shoulder until just over a decade ago, so it must have been scary (lol).

I played nonstop at full blast.

After all, most of the customers are hot-tempered sailors to begin with, and on top of that they’re hard drinkers, so there’s no way they’d listen even if we played quietly.

So the Beatles cranked up the volume and raised their voices.

If Liverpool were at home, Hamburg were completely away.

To delight the guests, they not only performed music but also put on various acts to make them laugh.

While being pushed around like that, they instinctively learned what would please the audience on stage and rapidly sharpened their skills.

That is symbolized by John's following words.

It wasn’t Liverpool that raised us. It was Hamburg.

This is their performance from the Hamburg period.

Let go of the Beatles for 9 pounds!

We argued over the fee.

In this way, Williams continued as the Beatles’ manager, but he ended up getting into a dispute with them over the payment of his commission.

They refused to pay, saying Williams's fees were too high.

Having fallen into a strained relationship with the Beatles, Williams ended up handing over his managerial position to Brian Epstein.

Only nine pounds—would that be about 50,000 yen in today's money?

Brian, who succeeded him, firmly believed that the Beatles would absolutely succeed and devoted himself to promoting them so they would become a major presence.

He not only tenaciously negotiated with numerous record companies, but also deployed every imaginable tactic to promote the Beatles.

Thanks to that, the Beatles achieved a major breakthrough.

Williams ended up with the unenviable title of “the man who let the Beatles go for just £9” in exchange for letting them go.

We should review the evaluation.

In his memoir, he says, “I never could have predicted the Beatles would sell that much. Back then, there were about 300 similar bands in Liverpool. When I saw on TV that they were being awarded the MBE by Queen Elizabeth, I couldn’t help myself—I hurled a sofa cushion at the television.”

I used to view him critically as well, but my thinking has changed a bit recently.

Although they were professionals, the Beatles were still just finding their feet, and it was precisely Williams who put them in front of large audiences and helped them develop the ability to send crowds into a frenzy.

It wasn’t intentional, but he’s the one who took them to Hamburg and instilled in them professional technique and grit.

That said, it’s not like I took them there without any plan at all.

He had previously visited Hamburg and, having experienced its music scene, had calculated in his own way that the Beatles would definitely go over well there.

From the perspective of the person who helped the Beatles develop their true abilities before their major debut, I believe we should reassess our evaluation of him.