Brian Epstein is the man who discovered the Beatles, and guided them to mega-stardom, making them the most successful musical artists of all time. Without Brian, the Beatles as we came to know them, simply wouldn't have existed.
But, regrettably, the man who did so much for the Beatles - and who died tragically in 1967 - has become a comparatively forgotten man since his death.
Almost a Nowhere Man.
The good news is that there is now a long-overdue revival of interest in this great man and his achievements. The movement began with the reissue in the USA in 1998 of Brian Epstein's autobiography - A Cellarful Of Noise.
The book contains a new introduction by Sir George Martin - and an extensive companion narrative by leading Beatles historian and authority Martin Lewis - who is the driving force behind the campaign to restore Epstein's reputation.
In his 45-page narrative, Martin Lewis offers an illuminating perspective on how Epstein's death contributed to the Beatles' break-up, and he sheds light on why Epstein then became practically a "nowhere man" in Beatles history despite his significant role in their success. Lewis also explains the role of Cellarful's co-author Derek Taylor, who subsequently became Epstein's assistant and the Beatles' publicist.
Lewis, who worked for Taylor in the early 1970's, and remained friends with him until Taylor's untimely death in September, 1997, includes a separate tribute to this legendary Beatles figure in the book.
A Cellarful Of Noise is an inside account of the Beatles' fast-paced ascendancy, as seen through the eyes of Brian Epstein, the man who was steering their course. As Paul McCartney recently acknowledged.
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"If anyone was the fifth Beatle, it was Brian.
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: "Bob Dylan's American Journey, 1956-1966 - Tribute to a Troubador
Maybe we'll get to know Bob Dylan after all.
For decades, the musician actively shrouded himself from inquiring minds by rarely speaking in public, blatantly misinforming and often turning surly to anyone who dared to ask about him or his artistry.
Yet last month, Dylan released the first in a series of autobiographical volumes dubbed 'Chronicles,' narratives he has penned about significant periods in his life and career. More installments are expected.
In conjunction with "Chronicles," Seattle's Experience Music Project on Saturday will open the first major museum exhibit dedicated to the songwriter's formative years really the first significant Dylan exhibit of any kind.
The 3,000-square-foot display, dubbed "Bob Dylan's American Journey, 1956-1966," also will become the largest special exhibition to be presented so far at the Seattle facility.
"Bob Dylan gave pop music a conscience, by stressing the importance of lyrics and the meaning behind those lyrics," said Robert Santelli, director of programs for EMP. "He also broke down barriers between music forms.
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If you ask 10 rock historians to put together the 10 most important turning points in rock history, at least nine of those lists would have Dylan playing electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965."
Dylan already had become a folk icon by that time, taking over the spokesman role in the genre from his idol, the then-hospitalized Woody Guthrie.
When Dylan came on stage with his electric guitar sacrilege for the folkies he was booed off after just a few songs.
While many of his fans felt he had sold out, Dylan instead was demonstrating the different direction his artistic agenda was taking, forging a new rock counterculture.
Santelli, who previously worked for the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame, said, "The impact that Dylan had on American music and beyond is profound. .
.. When he went on stage with an electric guitar, in front of the folk purists, he showed that you could cross barriers.
He said that the song was the most important thing, not if it was a folk song or a rock song."
Santelli added that afterward "blues began to influence rock and vice versa. Country comes together with rock.
All of a sudden, there are many, many hybrid music forms that emerge, allowing a free flow of ideas. Basically, (Dylan) said to follow your own muse. And if you want to borrow this idea and incorporate it into yours, you could do that.
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Dylan authorized the Experience Music Project show but did not participate in any direct way, Santelli said, giving the museum full authority to tell the story as it sees it.
Included in the mix are several sheets of original song lyrics, including those for seminal hits such as "Blowin' in the Wind," "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Like a Rolling Stone," with hand-written notations and alterations.
There also are excerpts from 14 hours of Dylan interviews that were done over the past decade but never broadcast.
"At any time during this formative period, if you wonder what Dylan really felt about something, we probably have it (on tape)," Santelli said.
Some venues have done exhibits about Dylan with photos.
Some have used concert posters or included Dylan in a collection of other influential musicians, paired with the likes of Elvis and The Beatles. But no one has put together anything on Dylan of this magnitude before, said curator Jasen Emmons.
There are about 175 artifacts in the exhibit.
These show that some of the famous songs originally were written on hotel stationery, for example, Emmons said, and with the extensive film footage, the audio tour of the exhibit features Dylan talking directly about what people are seeing.
"In this 10-year period, it's amazing the evolution he goes through," Emmons said. "It was an incredibly creative period.
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This era in Dylan's career also is going to be the focus of a documentary that Martin Scorsese is directing called "The Bob Dylan Anthology Project." That BBC-backed film, expected to be aired in 2005, will include the first full broadcast interview by Dylan in 20 years, covering the same basic territory as the EMP exhibit.
"There isn't any question that Dylan has influenced and inspired contemporary musicians," Santelli said.
"He remains a very relevant artist to his fans and music in general. He's still a viable part of contemporary music. I'd like nothing more than for young people to understand the reasons why.
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fans a nostalgic listen
In a victory for American nostalgia and a blurring of artistic vision, Capitol Records is reissuing on CD the Beatles albums itreleased during Beatlemania in the mid-'60s.
The first four - whose warmly remembered covers appear here - comprise "The Capitol Albums Volume 1," a box set being released Tuesday with more to follow.
For Beatles fans in the throes of Beatlemania in the mid-'60s there were two alternative realities: England, with albums and separate singles approved by the group, and the U.
S., with hodgepodge groups of songs, some thickened with compression and reverb, thrown into the market as various singles and together onto albums of whose names the group was barely aware.
It was considered normal then that music could be altered by record companies, against the artists' wishes, to cater to different markets in the world.
In 1964, record companies were most definitely in charge in the industry and basically did whatever they wanted to to sell records and make profits.
After signing the Beatles in mid-1962, EMI in England repeatedly tried to persuade its subsidiary, Capitol Records, to issue the Beatles' music in the United States. Nope, Capitol would say - that music didn't have the right sound for America and wouldn't sell.
So EMI would meekly back off and offer the rights to any tiny U.S. label that could be persuaded to issue an unwanted product.
'Americanizing' the sound
The small Tollie and Vee-Jay labels took stabs at marketing the group's first album and first two singles, and both failed miserably. In fact, those releases were such losers that even Vee-Jay passed on the group's third single, "She Loves You," and manager Brian Epstein had to go down another notch and talk the even smaller Swan Records into releasing it.
While the Beatles' music was eliciting yawns in the United States, the group had become a huge phenomenon in its native Britain, so big that Capitol finally was forced to issue their music.
But even then, despite the explosion of Beatlemania and huge worldwide sales, Capitol still didn't really like the Beatles' music and would add reverb, compression or fake stereo effects to some of the tracks sent over from England, in their view "Americanizing" the sound.
To maximize profits, Capitol would take the tracks from the Beatles' U.K.
albums and singles and spread them across a larger number of shorter albums. Not only did that mean more albums to sell, but also fewer song royalties to pay.
The result was 10 short U.
S. albums instead of seven U.K.
albums (plus several singles), which meant bigger profits for Capitol and creation of the nostalgia American fans have for those U.S.-only packages of songs that they heard over and over again with their "Americanized" sound and particular sequence.
Stereo debut
The nostalgia is understandable. That sound, and those album covers, saturated the youth of many people. But when the Beatles released their catalog on CD in 1987-'88, they understandably elected to release the British versions, with the sound they approved on the longer, better-value albums they were supposed to appear on, in the correct order of their release.
The U.S. titles were eventually deleted from the catalog.
But American fans still wanted on CD what they remembered as the Beatles' sound. Those who just had to have them were able to buy costly bootleg CD copies of the American albums from Japan.
Apparently, Capitol saw the market potential and released this box set, with the first four Capitol albums.
According to writings by Bruce Spizer, a consultant to Capitol on the project, the Beatles' company, Apple, approved the re-release because these alternative albums would only be available as part of box sets instead of as single albums, so there would be no confusion about them being the standard, officially approved versions.
Since the first four U.K.
CDs are in mono, the release of this box set results in 32 recordings making their stereo debut on CD, according to Spizer. That's good news.
This release will please many longtime American fans.
Let them have their nostalgia. But what is really needed is a re-mastering of the entire Beatles catalog to take advantage of the technical improvements made in CD sound since the group's albums were released as CDs in 1987-'88.
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