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And Finally
Former Beatles manager told Epstein “they will let you down”
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 25 October 2011
The Beatles’ original manager Allan Williams has told of his decision to sell his contract with the band to Brian Epstein for £9 in a new biography by Colin MacFarlane, entitled ‘Love Me Do’.
Williams arranged early gigs for the band, and was responsible for taking them to Hamburg, where they developed their sound into that which would make them famous. However, when Epstein first approached Williams about taking them off his hands, the Fab Four’s then manager told him: “Don’t touch them with a fucking bargepole, they will let you down”.
Nevertheless, Williams agreed to hand the band over to Epstein on the condition that the rival manager would give him the £9 commission from the Hamburg gigs that the band had failed to pay him.
Williams told Scottish newspaper The Sunday Mail: “I still lose sleep over it 50 years later. No one could have guessed The Beatles would become so famous. At that time, there were 300 groups in Liverpool who were as good or better than The Beatles. And I didn’t even get my £9!”
He added: “I remember watching them doing a performance before the Queen about a year later and throwing a cushion at the TV. But I no longer have regrets. I am glad to have been there in the 60s at the start of it all”.
