Brian Epstein - Bill Grundy Radio Interview 1964

[yerblues1968]

WHEN EPSTEIN MET GRUNDY


Marc Riley’s Time Machine
Broadcast: Radio 2, 11.30pm, 14/07/2009


A 1964 interview between Beatles Svengali Brian Epstein and controversial presenter Bill Grundy kicked off a new series of Marc Riley’s Time Machine on Radio 2 on Tuesday evening. The interview, originating from a BBC Radio Merseyside documentary series Talking Frankly was a rare insight into how Epstein picked the Beatles from obscurity and molded them into the biggest pop group in the world.

Most things said in the context of the discussion have been well-documented elsewhere in books, magazines or interviews with the Beatles themselves since, but Epstein’s comments were still good to hear.

Of particular interest were Epstein’s views on how he felt the pop music scene was moving away from Beat groups and more towards softer styles popularised by groups such as The Searchers. With hindsight he was probably right, The Searchers style been not to dissimilar from the jangly folk rock guitar sound emerging from the American West Coast popularised by Dylan and The Byrds .

The other interesting pointer is Epstein’s interviewer Bill Grundy, “Yes, THAT Bill Grundy” Riley constantly reminds us,
the man whose TV career was smashed to pieces by an interview with an unknown group called The Sex Pistols on Thames TV’s regional news programme Today in December 1976. That interview is well documented and you can see his bemusement with the music scene is just as much evident in 1964 as it was when his Pistols interview occurred 12 years later, referring in this interview to the Beatles sound as “noise “.

Marc Riley’s Time Machine is a well-produced show, interspersing archive interview with relevant music clips. Riley’s loud presentation sometimes appeared intrusive to me (particularly his recap of the subject matter mid-programme – but that’s standard on all Radio documentaries these days).

On the whole though, the show was informative and a welcome peek into the BBC sound archive, of which I will look forward to future episodes.

Andy Howells


www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00lj0j4/Marc_Rileys_Time_Machine_Brian_Epstein/


Marc Riley dips into the BBC's archives and unearths seminal and tantalizing interviews.


Tue 14 Jul 2009


It's funny how things can look so different many years down the line; once the dust has settled, tempers have calmed and much water has gone under the bridge. Not seeking to open old wounds or anything, Marc Riley goes back in time to the turning points in the careers of some of the biggest artists in music to check out exactly what they DID say in the heat of the moment, and to put it into today's context....

Programme 1 - Brian Epstein

In our first episode we travel back to witness the year that Nelson Mandela was jailed for life, when the Sun newspaper was born and when the British and French Governments announced their commitment to build a tunnel under the English Channel.

This week Marc transports us back into a different era... the start of the pop revolution when Beatlemania was about to take over the world.

It's March 1964 and Bill Grundy interviews the '5th Beatle', manager Brian Epstein for his regional radio programme Frankly Speaking. We revisit the BBC's archives and hear Epstein speak candidly about how and when he discovered the Beatles and what it was like seeing them perform for the first time. He reveals his role in their image change, just exactly what it is a manager does and his theories on why they'd go on to be a success in America. Plus Brian tells us how he reacted when Paul turned up late for their first meeting.


Last broadcast on Tue, 14 Jul 2009, 23:30 on BBC Radio 2.


www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lj0j4

retrospace.co.uk/2009/07/16/when-epstein-met-grundy/

[yerblues1968]

Had I known that this radio interview between Brian Epstein and Bill Grundy would be broadcast for two days July 13/14 way ahead of time, I would have notified the people here on the forum. But unfortunately, I did not discover it until much afterward. I hope the BBC will re-broadcast this interview again--or if a copy of it is somewhere available on the Internet (doubt it)--as many people had missed it. This is an extremely rare interview; and, thankfully, it was recorded.

[Emily]

It is indeed available elsewhere on the internet (although not publicly). I've had a listen and found it interesting enough, though nothing particularly new when put alongside other interviews of the same era. The actual material isn't nearly half an hour long as it's padded out with Marc Riley's not terribly interesting commentary.

[yerblues1968]

Thank you Emily for responding and letting us know your views and that the interview is available somewhere on the internet. I am glad you were able to listen to the interview and tell us about it.