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Jawbone Press - John Blaney

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197 pages

English

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Beatles For Sale details the ups and downs of The Beatles from their inception, as they promoted, advertised, and sold records, played concerts, produced tacky merchandise, made films, and set up publishing and record companies. It shows that The Beatles did not cope with their ever-growing business ventures because Lennon, McCartney, Epstein, Aspinall and co. had a clear vision of what they should be doing. On the contrary, their business acumen amounted to little more than making things up as they went along.

Beatles For Sale offers the facts and figures behind this story, and explains how it helped shape the music business as we know it. It is a story of naivety and greed, inexperience and luck, gullibility and ingenuity. It is the story of every aspect of how The Beatles made money—and how virtually every successful group since then has followed in their footsteps.

Sujets

Musique

Culture musicale

Histoire de la musique

Business Aspects

Music

Informations

Publié par	Jawbone Press
Date de parution	01 avril 2008
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781906002978
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

Beatles For Sale
How Everything They Touched Turned To Gold
John Blaney
A Genuine Jawbone Book
First edition 2008
Published in the UK and the USA by
Jawbone Press
2a Union Court,
20-22 Union Road,
London SW4 6JP,
England
www.jawbonepress.com
ISBN: 978-1-906002-97-8
Editor: Thomas Jerome Seabrook
Volume copyright © 2008 Outline Press Ltd. Text copyright © 2008 John Blaney. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review. For more information you must contact the publisher.
The pictures used in this book came from the following sources, and we are grateful for their help. Jacket: John Launois/Eyevine. Arnheim: John Lennon/Keystone/Getty Images. Parnes: Evening Standard/Getty Images. Epstein: Terrence Spencer/Time Life/Getty Images. Backstage: Rex Features. Boomerangs: Keystone/Getty Images. James: David Magnus/Rex Features. US fans: Keystone/Getty Images. Pavilion: Harry Myers/Rex Features. Aspinall: Pace/Getty Images. Train: Fiona Adams/Redferns. MBEs: Cumming Archive/Redferns. Reaction: Keystone/Getty Images. Studio: David Magnus/Rex Features. Apples: Stroud/Express/Getty Images. Klein: Frederick R. Bunt/Evening Standard/Getty Images. Klein and Aspinall: Tom Hanley/Redferns. Boutique: Wesley/Keystone/Getty Images. Policemen: Bob Aylott/Keystone/Getty Images. Rooftop: Express/Getty Images.
Throughout this book we have mentioned a number of registered trademark names. Rather than put a trademark or registered symbol next to every occurrence of a trademarked name, we state here that we are using the names only in an editorial fashion and that we do not intend to infringe any trademarks.

Contents
A Note About Currency
Introduction
Chapter 1: Money, That’s What I Want
Early gigs, trips to Hamburg and management contracts
Chapter 2: Mean To Me
Record deals and battles with EMI
Chapter 3: Only A Northern Song
Publishing, royalties, and the value of a song
Chapter 4: I Read The News Today
Meeting the press
Chapter 5: I Wanna Be Your Fan
The strange tale of The Beatles Fan Club
Photo Section
Chapter 6: Songs, Pictures And Stories Of The Fabulous Beatles
The birth of an image
Chapter 7: You Never Give Me Your Money
T-shirts, wigs, toys, and more
Chapter 8: Act Naturally
The Beatles at the movies
Chapter 9: Come And Get It
Expanding business and declining interest
Chapter 10: Apple Bonkers
Waging a war against Apple Computer Inc
Endnotes
Timeline
Acknowledgements
About The Author

A Note About Currency
Much of this book concerns The Beatles’ dealings with record labels and other areas of the music industry. As such, there are a lot of figures involved. As a rough guide, in 1962 £100 was worth around $280, which equates to a buying power today of around £1,480 or $1,860. By 1970, the value of £100 had fallen to $240, which works out to around £1,070 or $1,245 at today's prices.
Before February 1971, British currency was expressed in pounds, shillings, and pence. One pound (written as £1) consisted of 20 shillings (20s), and one shilling consisted of 12 pence (12d). An amount was usually written down with slashes between the £/s/d, for example £3/2s/6d.

Introduction
Q: “How do you rate yourself musically?”
A: “Average. We’re kidding you, we’re kidding ourselves, we’re kidding everything. We don’t take anything seriously, except the money.”
Time magazine interview, 1964 1
In 1962 the British music industry was parochial and lacking in ambition. If something didn’t happen in London, it didn’t happen at all. London wasn’t yet the swinging capital it would soon become, but it had the venues, the record companies, the recording studios, and the radio and television stations that the rest of the country lacked.
London might have led the way in terms of other British cities but it lagged far behind America. Uncle Sam had drawn up the blueprint that Britain’s managers, publishers, agents, and record companies worked to. In 1955 EMI went so far as to buy Capitol Records on the basis that it would sell more records by American stars than by homegrown talent. There seemed little point in grooming British musicians for international stardom when the USA did it so much better – and little hope for provincial groups such as The Beatles. All Britain had to offer were inferior copies of the American progenitors. Those who didn’t fit the American model could forget about making it big in dear old Blighty.
Where America had a range of independent record labels – among them Sun, Chess, Specialty, and Ace – Britain was very different. Four major companies controlled the record market; a handful of publishers controlled what songs their acts could record; one radio station controlled what could be heard; and one musicians’ union controlled how many records it could play.
Getting a record made and played was almost impossible. There were only a handful of professional recording studios, and there was no way a singer or group could just walk in and cut a record like Elvis Presley once had. And even if a group did get a record deal, they were highly unlikely to be able to persuade their A&R manager to let them record one of their own songs.
The Beatles were big fish in a small pond. They had acquired a manager and built up a strong local following, but what they really needed was a recording contract. Brian Epstein used his influence to secure an audition for the group with Decca records. Everything hinged on them getting a record deal. John Lennon meant every word when he stepped up to the microphone in Decca’s London studio on a cold New Year’s Day 1962 and pleaded: “Your lovin’ gives me a thrill / But your lovin’ don’t pay my bills / Now give me money.”
Back then The Beatles were a struggling beat group earning £50 per night. A record contract would transform them from local heroes to stars, and so it did: within two years, even after rejection by Decca, The Beatles had become the biggest showbiz attraction the world had ever seen.
How did they do it? Talent had a role to play, but so did luck. The Beatles were the right group in the right place at the right time. They made the right connections with the right people and made all the right moves. When George Martin signed The Beatles to a minor subsidiary of EMI, Parlophone Records, he triggered a series of explosions that rocked the music industry. The recording contract led to a publishing deal, which in turn led to national television exposure, international tours, merchandising rights, worldwide record releases, and a contract with United Artists for three feature-length movies.
The Beatles were much more than just ‘Parlophone Recording Artists’. They became an industry. Their records, concerts, movies, merchandising, and songwriting made them rich beyond their wildest dreams. Everything about the group was new: the way they looked, the way they sounded, the way they acted. There had been no group like The Beatles before. They wrote their own songs, owned a share in their publishing company, played in giant football stadiums – earning hundreds of thousands of dollars for the privilege – and sold more merchandising than even Elvis Presley. The scale of their success was unprecedented.
When The Beatles entered EMI’s Abbey Road studios in 1962 they would have had no idea of just how much money they would go on to earn. That soon changed. Paul McCartney later admitted that a running joke within the group was: “OK! Today, let’s write a swimming pool.” 2
Just how much money The Beatles made is anybody’s guess. In 1963, the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper estimated that the group had earned $56 million; a year later, after they hit America, the gross income from Beatles-related products must at least have doubled that figure. 3
How much of that $100 million The Beatles actually saw is also hard to quantify. They might have been making a lot of money, but holding on to it was not easy.
Record companies made fortunes from Beatles records, but paid the group pennies – literally. Publishers siphoned off 50 per cent of their income from songwriting and 75 per cent for overseas rights. Their manager, Brian Epstein, took another 25 per cent off the top of what was left. Then there was the taxman. In Britain, the Inland Revenue could potentially take up to 98 per cent of a high earner’s income. It’s no wonder that George Harrison wrote a song bemoaning the situation. Add on touring expenses and accountants’ and lawyers’ fees and there appeared to be almost as much going out as there was coming in – and yet The Beatles still managed to become millionaires.
Like Midas, The Beatles soon discovered that the thing they had most desired had its disadvantages.
They tried religion, but that didn’t work. They tried being businessmen, but that didn’t work either. The Beatles were artists, not businessmen, and when they tried to take charge of their empire it crumbled.
Big business made The Beatles and then proceeded to destroy them. The group’s attempts to control their business affairs created a financial black-hole that sucked in cash at an alarming rate. Never mind the stories about how Yoko Ono broke up The Beatles. The real villains were the men in suits.
Once the squabbling started, big business took its chance, moved in, and took control of The Beatles’ songs – forever. The Beatles found it all too much and folded under pressure. The end had been a long time coming, and when it did come it was every bit as sad as the beginning had been triumphant.
And yet, four decades after their acrimoniou