The history of the Beatles includes a large and diverse array of principal and secondary characters radiating out from the essential four. While there are quite a number without whom the story could not have happened, only two others could legitimately be referred to as “The Fifth Beatle”.
Sir George Martin is the name still (and with reason) lauded as a man who can lay claim to the title; there is a man who not only predates Martin in the story but is the person most responsible for delivering the greatest band of all time to George Martin and then on to the world.
A man who, even though Paul McCartney has publicly acknowledged him “The Fifth Beatle” as recently as 1997, has been all but forgotten by the public at large.
A man who, from the moment he descended into the cramped, dank and noisy club known as the Cavern, was thunderstruck, despite his genteel, professional and cultured demeanor. Realizing that he was witnessing something never seen before, he immediately felt that he must be the evangelist to deliver these scruffy, leather-clad lads to the world.
Without Brian Epstein, the Beatles never become a professional band.
Without Brian Epstein, the Beatles never get a recording contract.
Without Brian Epstein, the Beatles are a distant memory of youth among a cadre of octogenarians in Liverpool and Hamburg – and all of us live in a very different world.
The story of Brian Epstein is one of a brilliant, talented and multifaceted man. Though an artful and astute businessman, within his world and his time it is also fair to consider Epstein’s character as quite nearly saintly.
Larry Parnes was an impresario in the UK in the same era; he was notorious for plucking young men out of obscurity and controlling not only every aspect of their careers but their finances as well. Having them sign power of attorney over to him, he allowed them a small stipend as he lived lavishly. In America, the story of Colonel Tom Parker’s complete control of Elvis Presley’s career and majority of fortune is the very definition of a cautionary story. These are examples of the type of “managers” rife in the entertainment business of the time.
Brian Epstein? The contract he had instructed his lawyers to draw up for management of the Beatles was utterly remarkable: it was for a period of five years, with either side able to withdraw after official notice. Brian Epstein was to earn commission only after the Beatles were earning more money per week than they were currently making (while he was personally bankrolling their improved stage image and his efforts to get them a recording contract).
When the Beatles saw that Epstein’s contract called for him to earn 20% of PLUS earnings as the Beatles became richer, young Paul McCartney puckishly looked at him and said “15%” – at which point Epstein immediately crossed out the original amount and complied.
Simply unheard-of. The average businessman would have either upbraided the cheeky teen or simply walked away (the contract was amended – quite reasonably – in later years). But like so many people who had witnessed the band before him and like the world he introduced them to, Brian Epstein was utterly won over by the charisma and stage presence of these Scouse youths. As Bob Wooler, another key figure of the early years, noted of Epstein’s visit to the Cavern Club: “He came, he saw, he was conquered.”
As the manager of his family’s business NEMS, possessor of the most successful record department north of London and therefore known by name in every recording company in the UK, Epstein was convinced that the Beatles’ talent and his connections would fulfill the ultimate fantasy. He believed – BELIEVED – that he could help make the fantasy real.
They were “the boys”, lads from the working class. He was older, polished, professional, affluent and cultured. But most importantly to the band, he was a fellow Liverpudlian and as devoted to their success as they were. At the most primal, tribal level, they could accept him as one of their own.
In the population of entertainment managers, the devotional treatment bestowed upon the Beatles put Brian Epstein in a subset of one. He was not above them; he became one with them.
The Fifth Beatle.
And his efforts fulfilled their dreams.
The tragedy is that Epstein’s dream was to manage the greatest live act in the world. The studio was not his place and was curtly rebuffed by John Lennon when he attempted to insert himself into it. He and George Martin had a very close and friendly relationship, but they “managed” two very different aspects of the Beatles’ career. Outside the studio, Brian continued to be “the Fifth Beatle”. Inside the studio, that title belonged to George Martin.
After conquering the world stage and suffering the myriad travails of that life for two years, Brian Epstein faced a changed reality. He was still very much their business manager; they simply didn’t, as studio musicians, need him “with the group” as they did before.
They were still his world; the world changed.
For years before meeting the Beatles, Epstein was known for being a fairly prodigious drinker and user of pills to help wake up or sleep as needed. He had periods of attending rehab. This is not to discount his reputation as an excellent, respected businessman, administrator and manager. But the touring Beatles had given him a purpose and a focus that allowed him to build the most successful talent agency in the UK.
He had made himself the greatest impresario in the world. With the Beatles as a studio band, he had become essentially frozen out of the world he had created.
No one is to know exactly what happened the weekend ending Sunday, August 27, 1967, but the medical conclusion was that a man who drank too much forgot how many pills he had taken. Brian Epstein, the man who brought the Beatles to the world, was dead.
John Lennon recounted that when he heard the news, he knew the Beatles were over. It took some time, but the loss of Brian Epstein eventually proved too much to surmount. They needed him as much as he needed them.
The Fifth Beatle of the studio is remembered and lauded, and rightly so. He was even knighted by the Queen for his role in this extraordinary story.
The man who delivered the Beatles to the world had been relegated to a footnote in the tale he is most responsible for.
This is starting to change.
Fifty-five years after his death, August 27, 2022, the city of Liverpool unveiled a statue of Brian near the former site of his family's NEMS record shop in Whitechapel. Quite fitting for the man whose efforts affixed Liverpool on the world’s map.
Later this year a film of his life, “Midas Man”, is due to be released.
One hopes that the spotlight he directed so brilliantly on his charges finally shines gratefully on his memory.
Thank you, Brian Epstein.