Brian Epstein’s first visit to the Cavern

[O]n Thursday, November 9, 1961, at the Cavern lunchtime session, the tracks that had been running in parallel for so long finally converged.

Brian Epstein’s “My Bonnie” inquiries had taken him so far but no further. He knew it was a foreign record, probably from Germany, and found it “very significant” that Nems had received three orders for it.23 He knew the Beatles were a Liverpool group and for the first time actively searched Mersey Beat for their name. The current issue (which, also for the first time, had a Nems front-page ad) included Wooler’s report of the Beatmakers’ spectacle, and the Beatles advertised for appearances at Litherland, New Brighton and the Cavern.

They were listed three times at the Cavern. Brian had been here when it was a jazz cellar run by its founder Alan Sytner—they’d grown up together, boys of the same age at the same synagogue.24 Now it was “a teenage venue,” the very thought of which intimidated him … though not enough to squash his interest. He phoned Bill Harry, who made inquiries and found out the Beatles were playing the Thursday lunchtime session; Harry informed Ray McFall that Brian Epstein of Nems would be coming down to speak to the Beatles; doorman Paddy Delaney was told to expect him—he was to be signed in without a membership card, special dispensation. Going to see live rock music wasn’t new to Brian—he’d been to Empire shows and, with his sharp eye for presentation, always found the staging dismal, noticing that few acts projected their personality across the footlights—but going to the Cavern was sure to be a different experience. Brian suggested his PA Alistair Taylor join him: they would go for lunch and drop into the Cavern on the way, to find out more about this “My Bonnie” record.

The club was just a two-hundred-step walk from Nems, but November 9 was one of those smoggy, cold early-winter days in Liverpool, so damp that smuts glued to skin, so dark that the sooty buildings lost detail and car headlights couldn’t put it back. Flights were canceled at the airport and foghorns groaned over the Mersey sound: the cawing seagulls and booming one o’clock cannon. The businessmen picked a path through narrow Mathew Street, between Fruit Exchange lorries and their debris, and at number 10 Paddy Delaney showed them along the dimly lit passage and down the greasy steps.

Bob Wooler was in the bandroom when Delaney ushered in their visitor. Wooler recognized him from Nems, though they’d never met. Brian waited for a pause in that cellarful of noise, then leaned across and asked, impeccably RADA, if that was the Beatles on stage, the group on the “My Bonnie” record. Wooler confirmed it was: “They are they, they’re the ones.”25 The visitor made his way to the back of the center tunnel and watched.

It was pretty much an eye-opener, to go down into this darkened, dank, smoky cellar, in the middle of the day, and to see crowds and crowds of kids watching these four young men on stage. They were rather scruffily dressed—in the nicest possible way, or I should say in the most attractive way: black leather jackets and jeans, long hair of course, and rather untidy stage presentation, not terribly aware and not caring very much what they looked like. I think they cared more, even then, what they sounded like.26

The Beatles had started the second of their two lunchtime spots. As Brian watched, Ray McFall made a point of introducing himself to the man whose elegance instantly impressed him, and Cavernites consuming cheese rolls and soup wondered about the natty feller. Margaret Douglas remembers he was “standing at the back, near the snack bar. He looked so out of place that people were saying ‘What’s ’e doin’ ’ere?’ Ray McFall and Bob Wooler always wore suits and ties but they were nothing like Brian Epstein—he always looked like his mum got him ready.”27

The Beatles were rocking, smoking, eating, joking, drinking, charming, cussing, laughing, taking requests and answering back; they spoke local, looked continental, and played black and white American music with English color; John and Paul vied and gibed for attention, George smiled quietly to the side and sang from time to time, Pete drummed and kept his head down. It was another lunchtime session—and not one of their best. They were jaded, losing interest. But Brian saw enough to see beyond:

Their presentation left a little to be desired as far as I was concerned, because I’d been interested in the theater and acting a long time—but, amongst all that, something tremendous came over, and I was immediately struck by their music, their beat, and their sense of humor on stage. They were very funny; their ad-libbing was excellent. I liked them enormously, I immediately liked the sound that I heard: I heard their sound before I met them. I think actually that that’s important, because it should always be remembered that people hear their sound and like their sound before they meet them. I thought their sound was something that an awful lot of people would like. They were fresh and they were honest and they had what I thought was a sort of presence, and—this is a terrible, vague term—“star quality.” Whatever that is, they had it—or I sensed that they had it.28

From Mark Lewisohn’s Tune In (Ch. 22)