Post by * See UserName In Post * on Jan 29, 2008 18:24:20 GMT -5
Posted by
vivektiwary
(7/12/06 10:01 am)
I've spoken with Bill Harry of Mersey Beat on a couple of occasions regarding our film, and I can say for certain that he's not one to "thinly veil" anything! Bill is very eloquent and articulate, and painfully honest with his passions-- he speaks his mind succinctly. So I wasn't totally surprised when he sent me the below email and asked me to post it here, in response to our thread "Per Wikipedia ~ "A Thinly-Veiled Dislike" of Brian". I hope it sparks more discussion on these issues! Thanks Bill!
- Vivek J. Tiwary, screenwriter/producer
FROM BILL HARRY:
Regarding ‘A Thinly Veiled Dislike of Brian’ in which the writer commented, “Bill Harry (then editor of Mersey Beat) has claimed that he personally introduced Epstein to John Lennon.’ This is untrue, I have never said this. Please present any evidence of this unfounded accusation.
As to the rest of the piece:
These accusations that I don’t even seem to know facts in my own life that I have experienced seem to be based in the Wikepedia piece by some un-named writer (yes, it seems you can say anything if you remain anonymous) talking of ‘unverifiable facts’.
But they are verifiable.
Paul McCartney has verified my story in his autobiography. Pete Best has verified the fact that Brian knew all about the Beatles well before the alleged Raymond Jones visit – they used to drop into Nems after their Cavern lunchtime sessions from March 1961 to listen to the records in the record booths and Brian asked his female staff members who they were. Brian had posters of the Beatles appearance at the Tower Ballroom, with the notice ‘tickets available at Nems’, verifiable by Sam Leach and the images of the posters themselves.
So the story of Brian not knowing who the Beatles were until Raymond Jones appeared has been disputed by myself, Virginia, Paul McCartney, Pete Best, Sam Leach. PEOPLE WHO WERE ACTUALLY THERE, not unknown writers decades later who merely speculate without any proof.
At least Brian did admit that it was me who he phoned to smooth his way into the Cavern.
I was a champion for Brian Epstein, but also reported the truth. Brian had many sides to him. His friend Yankiel Feather has revealed parts of Brian’s dark side. He kept sacking close friends and staff when he went into petulant moods – Derek Taylor, Wendy Hanson, Brian Somerville and even Brian’s really close friend Geoffrey Ellis have all revealed this in their writings. Actually, for Geoffrey Ellis to criticise Brian so harshly in his book could almost cause cries of ‘et tu Brute’, but he was only trying to portray the truth. In fact, Somerville was also to say about Brian: “He wasn’t honest. He didn’t have integrity. I couldn’t trust his word.” I wish these anonymous people would really check their facts. Even Brian’s ever faithful Alistair Taylor confessed how Brian sacked him a number of times and caused him many problems.
Every single thing I have ever written about Brian is verifiable. I was the first person ever to document the Mersey scene on a fortnightly, then a weekly basis, keeping diaries (unfortunately lost in an office move), but reporting and remembering events in detail. Bob Wooler called me ‘the Boswell of Beat’ because of it, so to accuse me of making things up when most of my evidence actually exists in black and white in the copies of Mersey Beat causes me understandable frustration – particularly from ‘anonymous’ writers who weren’t even around at the time.
FACT: I was the first person from the local scene to meet and discuss the scene with Brian when I asked him to stock Mersey Beat 45 years ago in July 1961. FACT: Brian ordered an unprecedented number of copies (144) of the second issue with the ‘My Bonnie’ Story plastered over the entire cover and the very first picture of the Beatles by Astrid Kirchnerr prominent on the cover. FACT: Brian Epstein became my reviewer with Issue No. 3. FACT: Nems adverts appeared on the same page of the Bob Wooler feature on the Beatles which ended with the words “Such are the fantastic Beatles I didn’t think anything like them will happen again.” FACT: Brian used to invite me into his office to discuss the contents of the paper when I dropped the issues in – he wanted my opinion on his record reviews and I told him to write more about the pop and rock artists than middle of the road. FACT: Brian took me, Virginia and Bob Wooler to dinner at the Royal Restaurant, Hanover Street on his birthday – Max Wall was the artist performing. FACT: Brian took me to lunch on two occasions at the Basnett Bar to discuss the local scene, he was excited by it.
FACT: Brian wanted me to launch a national music paper for him, so I merged Mersey Beat into a publication I called Music Echo for him. FACT: I didn’t like the things Brian was doing to Music Echo (engaging London PRs and DJs to contribute what I considered pap to the publication), so I resigned. I didn’t think Brian had taken my resignation seriously. His brother Clive phoned me two days later to say that Brian wanted me to go and work for him in London, but I’d already taken up another offer. FACT: Brian used to visit us in the Mersey Beat office, bringing presents such as a box of chocolate liquors for Virginia after his trip to Amsterdam. FACT: We used to chat, have a drink and associate with Brian all over Liverpool from the Cavern to the Majestic Ballroom, from the Roscoe Arms to the Grapes.
Everything seems to home in on the opening of Brian’s book when he says he first heard of the Beatles when a boy came into his shop to ask for the record. Brian worked from his office upstairs. He had a staff who dealt with enquiries and sales on the floor below. When I first took Mersey Beat, he wasn’t on the shop floor; he had to come down from his office to see me.
Naturally, kids came in asking for ‘My Bonnie’ because it had been spread all over the pages of Mersey Beat and the fans would naturally ask for it, particularly since Nems was one of the biggest outlets for copies of Mersey Beat. I still have the copy of ‘My Bonnie’ which Paul McCartney brought over from Germany for me. He also gave a copy to Bob Wooler who began playing it at the Cavern. So there were far more people than Raymond Jones asking for the record. I have heard from Bob Barroch who claims he asked for it at Nems before Jones, for instance.
Why did the story have such prominence, is it because, as Philip Norman maintains in ‘Shout!’ that Brian didn’t like to apportion credit to anyone?
Brian didn’t write the book. He spent a weekend dictating it to Derek Taylor and Derek then wrote it. A weekend isn’t really enough time to use as a basis for an autobiography. A professional writer knows what captures the imagination and, arguably, it is more romantic to write that Brian discovered the Beatles when a boy came into his shop to ask for the record than to say he’d come across them through a newspaper he sold in his shop.
Incidentally, Derek attested to my integrity in his own book.
The fact that I’d been discussing the Beatles with Brian for months prior to the appearance of Raymond Jones didn’t interfere with Derek opening the book with a good hard-selling paragraph!
It’s true that I liked Clive Epstein more than Brian because Clive was a man of his word. You felt comfortable and relaxed in his company. He was a man to be trusted. His wife made Virginia’s wedding dress. Clive and I were teaming up to re-launch Mersey Beat prior to his early and tragic death. In fact, my relations with the Epstein family were very good so I don’t know why I have been cast as some sort of twister of the truth by this unknown person in Wikipedia.
Bill Harry
Mersey Beat - Merseyside's Own Entertainment Paper
The Beatles, The Liverpool Sound, The Swinging Sixties...
It's still happening, man: www.mersey-beat.com
vivektiwary
(7/12/06 10:01 am)
I've spoken with Bill Harry of Mersey Beat on a couple of occasions regarding our film, and I can say for certain that he's not one to "thinly veil" anything! Bill is very eloquent and articulate, and painfully honest with his passions-- he speaks his mind succinctly. So I wasn't totally surprised when he sent me the below email and asked me to post it here, in response to our thread "Per Wikipedia ~ "A Thinly-Veiled Dislike" of Brian". I hope it sparks more discussion on these issues! Thanks Bill!
- Vivek J. Tiwary, screenwriter/producer
FROM BILL HARRY:
Regarding ‘A Thinly Veiled Dislike of Brian’ in which the writer commented, “Bill Harry (then editor of Mersey Beat) has claimed that he personally introduced Epstein to John Lennon.’ This is untrue, I have never said this. Please present any evidence of this unfounded accusation.
As to the rest of the piece:
These accusations that I don’t even seem to know facts in my own life that I have experienced seem to be based in the Wikepedia piece by some un-named writer (yes, it seems you can say anything if you remain anonymous) talking of ‘unverifiable facts’.
But they are verifiable.
Paul McCartney has verified my story in his autobiography. Pete Best has verified the fact that Brian knew all about the Beatles well before the alleged Raymond Jones visit – they used to drop into Nems after their Cavern lunchtime sessions from March 1961 to listen to the records in the record booths and Brian asked his female staff members who they were. Brian had posters of the Beatles appearance at the Tower Ballroom, with the notice ‘tickets available at Nems’, verifiable by Sam Leach and the images of the posters themselves.
So the story of Brian not knowing who the Beatles were until Raymond Jones appeared has been disputed by myself, Virginia, Paul McCartney, Pete Best, Sam Leach. PEOPLE WHO WERE ACTUALLY THERE, not unknown writers decades later who merely speculate without any proof.
At least Brian did admit that it was me who he phoned to smooth his way into the Cavern.
I was a champion for Brian Epstein, but also reported the truth. Brian had many sides to him. His friend Yankiel Feather has revealed parts of Brian’s dark side. He kept sacking close friends and staff when he went into petulant moods – Derek Taylor, Wendy Hanson, Brian Somerville and even Brian’s really close friend Geoffrey Ellis have all revealed this in their writings. Actually, for Geoffrey Ellis to criticise Brian so harshly in his book could almost cause cries of ‘et tu Brute’, but he was only trying to portray the truth. In fact, Somerville was also to say about Brian: “He wasn’t honest. He didn’t have integrity. I couldn’t trust his word.” I wish these anonymous people would really check their facts. Even Brian’s ever faithful Alistair Taylor confessed how Brian sacked him a number of times and caused him many problems.
Every single thing I have ever written about Brian is verifiable. I was the first person ever to document the Mersey scene on a fortnightly, then a weekly basis, keeping diaries (unfortunately lost in an office move), but reporting and remembering events in detail. Bob Wooler called me ‘the Boswell of Beat’ because of it, so to accuse me of making things up when most of my evidence actually exists in black and white in the copies of Mersey Beat causes me understandable frustration – particularly from ‘anonymous’ writers who weren’t even around at the time.
FACT: I was the first person from the local scene to meet and discuss the scene with Brian when I asked him to stock Mersey Beat 45 years ago in July 1961. FACT: Brian ordered an unprecedented number of copies (144) of the second issue with the ‘My Bonnie’ Story plastered over the entire cover and the very first picture of the Beatles by Astrid Kirchnerr prominent on the cover. FACT: Brian Epstein became my reviewer with Issue No. 3. FACT: Nems adverts appeared on the same page of the Bob Wooler feature on the Beatles which ended with the words “Such are the fantastic Beatles I didn’t think anything like them will happen again.” FACT: Brian used to invite me into his office to discuss the contents of the paper when I dropped the issues in – he wanted my opinion on his record reviews and I told him to write more about the pop and rock artists than middle of the road. FACT: Brian took me, Virginia and Bob Wooler to dinner at the Royal Restaurant, Hanover Street on his birthday – Max Wall was the artist performing. FACT: Brian took me to lunch on two occasions at the Basnett Bar to discuss the local scene, he was excited by it.
FACT: Brian wanted me to launch a national music paper for him, so I merged Mersey Beat into a publication I called Music Echo for him. FACT: I didn’t like the things Brian was doing to Music Echo (engaging London PRs and DJs to contribute what I considered pap to the publication), so I resigned. I didn’t think Brian had taken my resignation seriously. His brother Clive phoned me two days later to say that Brian wanted me to go and work for him in London, but I’d already taken up another offer. FACT: Brian used to visit us in the Mersey Beat office, bringing presents such as a box of chocolate liquors for Virginia after his trip to Amsterdam. FACT: We used to chat, have a drink and associate with Brian all over Liverpool from the Cavern to the Majestic Ballroom, from the Roscoe Arms to the Grapes.
Everything seems to home in on the opening of Brian’s book when he says he first heard of the Beatles when a boy came into his shop to ask for the record. Brian worked from his office upstairs. He had a staff who dealt with enquiries and sales on the floor below. When I first took Mersey Beat, he wasn’t on the shop floor; he had to come down from his office to see me.
Naturally, kids came in asking for ‘My Bonnie’ because it had been spread all over the pages of Mersey Beat and the fans would naturally ask for it, particularly since Nems was one of the biggest outlets for copies of Mersey Beat. I still have the copy of ‘My Bonnie’ which Paul McCartney brought over from Germany for me. He also gave a copy to Bob Wooler who began playing it at the Cavern. So there were far more people than Raymond Jones asking for the record. I have heard from Bob Barroch who claims he asked for it at Nems before Jones, for instance.
Why did the story have such prominence, is it because, as Philip Norman maintains in ‘Shout!’ that Brian didn’t like to apportion credit to anyone?
Brian didn’t write the book. He spent a weekend dictating it to Derek Taylor and Derek then wrote it. A weekend isn’t really enough time to use as a basis for an autobiography. A professional writer knows what captures the imagination and, arguably, it is more romantic to write that Brian discovered the Beatles when a boy came into his shop to ask for the record than to say he’d come across them through a newspaper he sold in his shop.
Incidentally, Derek attested to my integrity in his own book.
The fact that I’d been discussing the Beatles with Brian for months prior to the appearance of Raymond Jones didn’t interfere with Derek opening the book with a good hard-selling paragraph!
It’s true that I liked Clive Epstein more than Brian because Clive was a man of his word. You felt comfortable and relaxed in his company. He was a man to be trusted. His wife made Virginia’s wedding dress. Clive and I were teaming up to re-launch Mersey Beat prior to his early and tragic death. In fact, my relations with the Epstein family were very good so I don’t know why I have been cast as some sort of twister of the truth by this unknown person in Wikipedia.
Bill Harry
Mersey Beat - Merseyside's Own Entertainment Paper
The Beatles, The Liverpool Sound, The Swinging Sixties...
It's still happening, man: www.mersey-beat.com