Brian And His Boys
I just read an article:
The three ways stated in the article are;
1. He believed in them when few others did. The article goes on to say Epstein heard them perform at the Cavern Club where they wore jeans, black leather jackets and acted like "Teddy Boys" on stage and thought they were great when the other people of his age and class thought they were just, well, Teddy Boys.
Brian Epstein was gay and into "rough trade". He was sexually attracted to young men in black leather who acted tough and rude and often had bruises to show for it. Naturally he would be attracted to the Beatles at that point. Music had little or nothing to do with it. Even their famous Beatles "charm" wasn't the appeal for Brian Epstein, it was their sexuality. I wonder how many gay bars were in the Reeperbahn?
2. He cleaned up their image. The first thing Epstein
did was make the Beatles look not so gay, as in SMBD gay. Brian knew
better than anyone the subtext of the Beatles look and how that could
backlash big time in homophobic Great Brittan of the early 1960s. The
long hair Beatles hair cut, formerly known as the Prince Valiant cut,
was going to look gay enough to some people but at least it had a
certain feminine quality about it and not hard core leather bar gayness.
The matching suits were just what all the bands wore in England so they
would instantly be recognized as a band even when not with their
instruments.
If you look at the early Beatles you'll see the collarless suit jackets, neckties and the English school boy "pudding bowl" hair. The stood in a line on stage when they performed, with Ringo sitting in back, and sang in harmony. The subconscious effect was of seeing English choir boys. To some that seemed the epitome of innocence and of course to some, a real gay fantasy.
3. He never messed with the music. He tried once but Lennon quickly put him in his place. Perhaps because of Epstein's sexuality which was known to the Beatles, his power over them was never complete. They always held an ace in that they knew his secret and they probably knew how to use their own sexuality to sway his opinion. He also wasn't interested in their music in that Rock & Roll wasn't his thing at all, he liked them for other reasons (see above) so he really didn't have much of an opinion over how they should write or record their songs.
It is of no doubt that Brian Epstein was extremely important in bringing the Beatles to the world and that without him we'd probably be writing about The Dave Clark Five but history is constantly rewriting itself and although the "what" of something may stay the same if enough time passes and we look hard enough we find the "why" is not what we grew up believing.
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