Coleman listened to the tapes and asked
Brian if he had a recording contract for the group. Together with his
assistant Kim Bennett he believed that the group had something and
offered to publish two of the songs, 'Love Of The Loved' and 'Hello
Little Girl.'
Brian demurred, saying he'd prefer to
have a recording contract before agreeing to any publishing deal.
As Epstein had been turned down by all
of the EMI pop labels, Coleman contacted the Parlophone label office
(the label mainly recorded classical, comedy and middle-of-the-road
records) and asked Judy Lockhart-Smith, George Martin's secretary, if
a meeting could be arranged. Bennett is reported to have said that
Martin took some persuading, that he wasn't keen initially on meeting
Epstein.
Even then, the situation was not
straightforward. Epstein, continually frustrated by his failure to
obtain a recording contract for the group, began to apply what
pressure he could.
Alistair Taylor, Brian's assistant at
that time, confirms that Parlophone began to play around with Epstein
to the extent that he became frustrated and threatened to withdraw his
NEMS record store business if EMI didn't give the Beatles a recording
contract.
Taylor was to recall: "EMI took
them on sufferance because Brian was one of their top customers. I saw
Brian in tears, literally, because Martin promised to phone back, and
day after day went by and George Martin was never available, always
'in a meeting'. I saw Brian thumping the desk and in tears because
George Martin hadn't phoned back."
According to Taylor, when Epstein
finally got hold of Martin he told him that NEMS as a shop would
jettison EMI's HMV, Parlophone and Columbia labels.
Martin admitted that EMI had nothing to
lose financially by taking on an unknown group such as the Beatles. He
said: "To say I was taking a gamble would be stretching it,
because the deal I offered them was pretty awful."
EMI took them on sufferance
because
Brian was one of their top customers
He then arranged an audition for
Wednesday 6 June 1962. It was Ron Richards. Martin's assistant, who
actually took on the role of recording manager at the session.
He was the one who usually dealt with
the pop-style records and produced the discs for acts such a Paul
Raven (later to become Gary Glitter), Shane Fenton (later to become
Alvin Stardust), Jerry Lordan and Judd Proctor.
On the recording sheet for the Beatles
audition, Richards' name is down as 'artistes manager.'
The Beatles began performing four
numbers, 'Besame Mucho', 'Love Me Do', 'P.S. I Love You' and 'Ask Me
Why'.
The engineer at the session was Norman
Smith, assisted by second engineer Chris Neal.
When the Beatles began performing their
own material, Smith was impressed and told Neal to go to the canteen
to get George Martin to come to the studio and listen to the songs.
Martin listened and then took over the
session. The incident arguably lost Richards the opportunity of
remaining recording manager for the act that was to become the world's
leading group.
When the session had finished, Martin
gave them a lecture on the state of their equipment. He then said, 'Is
there anything you don't like?'
George Harrison looked at him and said,
"Yeah, I don't like your tie."
Everyone laughed at that and it's been
suggested that it was this sense of humour that endeared them to
Martin.
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