Drippy Beatley beat era question.

[beccabear67]

So I'm reading the fun Cyril Jordan thing in the new Ugly Things and he recounts meeting up with some of The Fourmost in The Grapes pub in Liverpool. They tell him Brian Epstein wanted to manage them before he wanted to manage The Beatles. Which would be before late 1961, when I think they were still known as The Fourjays. Is there any truth to that? Not that for a moment do I think The Fourmost would've ever become anything close to as huge as the Beatles, but it is a new quirk (to me) to the often recounted road to success story for the fab four.

 

[depravedskippy66]

Not entirely out of the realm of possibility as, prior to becoming Toppermost of the Poppermost, there were several bands above The Beatles in Liverpool's pecking order.

Per Bill Harry's Ultimate Beatles Encyclopedia The Fourmost did not sign with Epstein until June 30, 1963, by which time Beatlemania was in its beginning stages. If it is indeed true that Epstein did want to sign them before he got The Beatles, that would have to be considered as a not so swift career move.

 

[M.T. Wallet]

It doesn't prove a thing but I have read several times that meeting the Fab Four did NOT make Epstein want to become a manager ; he was already fed up with selling rds and wanted to move on to something else.

 

[beccabear67]

Yeah, I've always read the story of Epstein suddenly deciding to go into managing upon first exposure to Beatles in the (drippy) Cavern. It's interesting that the reality was a bit less dramatic and more thought out.

By the way, I have some little magazines from 1963 titled Teen Beat. I wonder if that's the first use of that (at least in bold letters), but it's meant to alert teens that this mag is for them rather than describing the beat group members' age. Later on there was a U.S. 16/Tiger Beat/Spec/Flip type of thing titled Teen Beat as well, all lame heart-throb hollywood marketing stuff however from what I can tell.