Liverpool • Thursday, November 9, 1961 • Lunchtime

About

From Beatles in London:

On November 9th 1961, Brian Epstein went to the Cavern Club to see the Beatles, initially to ask about where to obtain the record they had made in Hamburg with Tony Sheridan. Accompanying Brian was Alistair Taylor, his personal assistant. In this exclusive interview with the London Beatles Fanclub magazine, conducted in 1995, Alistair told me about that day:

“We had imported the record by Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers (really the Beatles) and it sold like crazy. One day Brian came in and said, “Do you remember that record we sold by the Beatles?” I said ‘Yes, of course’, and he said, ‘Well, they are playing at the Cavern, today, at lunchtime, let’s go to lunch and call in at the Cavern’.

So we went to the Cavern. Ghastly place. We went in suits, like I’m wearing today, and there were these four ghastly youths up on stage, wearing black leather jeans, black jackets, smoking and drinking, and so loud. Brian and I sat at the back, we only heard about four or five numbers and they were just so charismatic and so exciting. What really struck us was the final number, which Paul announced they had written. It was ‘Hello Little Girl’. It was a damned good number. We didn’t like pop music, we just sold records for a living. I was a jazz and classics fan.

We went to lunch, and Brian asked me what I thought of them, and I said, ‘They were bloody awful, but absolutely incredible!’ We talked a bit more, and Brian said ‘I’m thinking of managing them!’. I said, ‘My god, you’re kidding’ – I thought it was great. He said ‘If I do manage them, would you come with me. Who do you work for, me or NEMS?’ I said ‘I work for you’ So he said, ‘If you come with me, I’ll give you 2.5% of the Beatles earnings. I replied, ‘I couldn’t accept that Brian’ I had no money to put up and I knew it would be very expensive. I said all I wanted was a better salary, that’s all.”

So Alistair turned down the chance of getting a very nice share in the Beatles, but remained a big part of their entourage, at NEMS with Brian, and later as general manager of Apple, until he was fired by Allen Klein.

From Wikipedia:

The Cavern Club at 10 Mathew Street, in Liverpool was the venue where the Beatles’ UK popularity started. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best were first seen by Brian Epstein at the club. Epstein eventually became their manager, going on to secure them a record contract. Best was replaced by Ringo Starr on 16 August 1962, which upset many Beatles fans. After taunts of, “Pete forever, Ringo never!”, one agitated fan headbutted Harrison in the club.

The Cavern Club was the third club managed by Alan Sytner, which originally opened as a jazz-only club on 16 January 1957, being styled after the Paris venue, Le Caveau. The Quarrymen made their first appearance at the club on 7 August 1957, but by 9 February 1961, when the group first performed there under their new name of the Beatles, the club was under the ownership of Ray McFall. The Cavern Club gradually became synonymous with the emerging Merseybeat music genre, rapidly becoming the most famous club in Britain. According to the club’s resident DJ, Bob Wooler, the Beatles made 292 appearances at the club between 1961 and 1963, culminating in a final appearance at the venue on 3 August 1963—one month after the group recorded “She Loves You”, and six months before their first trip to the United States.

The club changed hands several more times before eventually being demolished to allow construction of an underground railway ventilation duct, before being used as a car park. A replica of the club was built on “75 per cent of the original site” in 1984, built with 15,000 bricks retrieved from the original club site. On 16 January 1997, a sculpture of Lennon was unveiled outside The New Cavern Club, and on 14 December 1999, McCartney performed there, playing his last concert of the 20th century and publicising his album, Run Devil Run. […]

According to DJ Wooler, over the course of a two-and-a-half-year period which began when they first played at the venue in February 1961, the Beatles made a total of 292 appearances at the club, although author Barry Miles, in his book The Beatles Diary Volume 1: The Beatles Years states that it was 275 times. Their final performance at the club was on 3 August 1963. During their time at the club, the Beatles also had residencies in Hamburg.

Last updated on August 10, 2022