When They Were Boys (61 page)

While, as you will soon learn, Taylor seemed to channel the life of a Beatle—cool, very funny, Beatle-like, and at the same time, protective—Barrow was demure and avuncular, a model of the press officer, dressed for the world of finance but hip enough to deal with the vagaries of rock 'n' roll. Both shared an amazing talent—grace under fire—in one case, literally.

When our chartered aircraft, stricken by a small engine fire, made a cautionary landing at Portland, Oregon, in the summer of 1965, the well-traveled Mr. Barrow walked up and down the aisles making sure everyone's seat belt was fastened, way before he fastened his own. The landing was soft, but with all the pressure of the moment, Barrow held his own while
remaining calm, proper, and dressed to the hilt. If war broke out, you knew that you would want Tony Barrow in the foxhole with you, no doubt about it. While he may not have had Taylor's dramatic and sometimes overextended flair, Barrow, on the beat, on tour, or simply one-on-one, was an image-maker supreme. His eyes would wander during the press conferences, looking at the reporters, sizing them up, knowing by body language and facial expressions what was coming next.

His road to joining the boys' inner circle began with presenting local pop groups in his hometown of Crosby, in north Merseyside. His hosting duties led to a weekly column, at the age of seventeen, on pop and entertainment for the
Liverpool Echo
newspaper.

Barrow had a unique job when he arrived at Decca Records' London offices, writing liner notes on the back of albums. He managed to continue his
Echo
column at the same time.

Brian Epstein noticed. In late 1962, Barrow survived a real conflict of interest: signing on with Epstein as a freelancer to promote the Beatles' first single in Britain, “Love Me Do.” The song was released on the Parlophone label of EMI, and Barrow put together press materials while he was working at Decca, a major competitor to Parlophone. After joining Epstein and company in May 1963, Barrow became a progressive innovator—creating a disc that would be sent to every member of the fast-growing international Beatles Fan Club at Christmastime. The unique holiday greeting was so successful that it was then produced annually, an innovative electronic well-wishing that was created decades before the age of iTunes and social media networks.

But his most startling contribution was his talent as a promoter through words and creative advertising. Although like Derek Taylor he would clash at times with Epstein, the intuitive manager was amazed at Barrow's cunning and capacity to think differently.

“I shall always appreciate the role that the press officers played for us,” Epstein graciously said to me in 1966. “Tony is one of the best in the business. Derek was so formidable.”

“I guess you like writers?” I asked.

“Not all, but I hired away two of the best, and you see what they did.”

For all of Epstein's early naïveté about contracts and such, he was unbelievable in understanding the power of words, and the imagery that was created in people's minds. He was adamant about banning film crews from many of the early concerts, and that was probably a bad move, considering the power of film. But he viewed the written word, in the early days, as more important than film. Then Tony Barrow arrived.

In the final six months of 1963, Barrow pulled off one of the greatest public relations and marketing campaigns in history. At selected engagements, at small and cozy movie theaters, Barrow cleared the way for film crews to shoot small portions of the performances. Most of the 1963 concerts were bigger than the previous year's performances, but still intimate enough to allow a roving camera crew. In a masterpiece of planning, Barrow picked locations where he knew the crowds would be mostly girls who were sure to rise into a wild, screaming frenzy.

What Barrow did was exceptional marketing. The film cameramen would get just enough of each concert so they could show that fraction of a song on the evening news, but Barrow made sure that they got all the film they wanted of the screaming audiences. The result was an image of mass hysteria, even though the theaters were small and compact. This technique is mentioned at several junctures of this story, because it was so important every time it was employed. It also set a standard that is practiced today in the highly proprietary world of popular music. At mega-concerts far and wide, TV cameramen are allowed to take only a portion of video of one song at a concert, just enough to get it on the evening news, but not enough to make it commercially saleable, or material for exploitation. Epstein and company were so wary that one time Epstein followed a radio colleague of mine up a giant tower in the Rocky Mountains to make sure he wasn't secretly making an audiotape of a concert.

Epstein, always looking ahead, feared that too much film could compromise the business later on. But Barrow and his work buddy Derek Taylor understood the technique of showing the film that counted the most, the wrenching and sometimes hysterical screaming, the girls flailing their arms, looking passionate and a bit delirious. It was this kind of footage that first appeared on the
CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite
.

This strategy helped the Beatles' explosion in forthcoming locations—Sweden and Paris—and of course, sparked the interest and anticipation in the biggest prize, America. It was controlled marketing at its best. Today our business would call it “staging.” But whatever they called it in 1963, it worked.

As summer moved into autumn in 1963, Tony Barrow and Derek Taylor guaranteed that the words and images reflected an avalanche that was out of control. Taylor was still writing, and Barrow was already on the job for Eppy.

It was around that time that Barrow also coined the term “Fab Four.”

He recalls, “Yes, it's true. I did use the term ‘Fab Four' in an early press release, but I never knew what I was unleashing at the time, did I?”

For a while, Barrow was a not-so-quiet moonlighter. He was writing for the
Liverpool Echo
happily promoting the Beatles while his bosses at Decca Records were rejecting them. He also wrote columns
after
joining Epstein's NEMS organization.

To describe Tony Barrow is to envision an English gentleman with the poise and class of royalty. Always dressed well, most of the time wearing a jacket and tie, Barrow was “in command” at all the press conferences on the international tours, especially in America in 1965, when the Beatles conquered Shea Stadium. In Hollywood, he delicately arranged the Beatles' historic meeting with Elvis Presley. A few nights before that, when the engine dimmed on our turboprop as we headed into Portland, Barrow was the calm force surrounding a minor panic from John and George as we approached an emergency landing. Barrow came down the aisle and calmly assured everyone that “everything is on schedule . . . all just routine, you know.”

In many respects, from the beginning of his official tenure as an employee of Epstein and the band's, Tony Barrow was a powerful presence in the Beatles camp during their most critical months. With the media, he was a cheerful offset to the intense and security-conscious Neil Aspinall, whose job was to keep away the unruly and the unfriendly. As with Derek Taylor, there was always a smile, a drink, a joke to clear the tension of traveling and crowds.

Great adventures are produced by exceptional people with unlimited energy, but for many of those who worked in the background to ensure the Beatles' success, there was a price to be paid.

One of the untold stories of the Beatles' early life was the price an individual endured amid the concern and chaos of the crowds, the would-be hangers-on, the lack of sleep, and this new, brave, unchartered world of an always-hungry public, if not berserk fandom. All of a sudden, the normalcy of the human spirit was shattered by the fear of the unknown, the fright of watching near-violent crowds around you, and the changes it brought about in your own behavior.

Today Tony Barrow savors the memories, but also knows very well that for all the joy, there was a good dose of suffering, especially in 1963.

M
Y LIFE WAS TURNED UPSIDE DOWN BY THE COMPLETE CHANGE OF DAILY WORKING SCHEDULE
. A
S A WRITER AT
D
ECCA
I
HAD WORKED FROM TEN UNTIL SIX
, M
ONDAY TO
F
RIDAY, PERIOD
. O
NCE THE
B
EATLES BECAME INTERNATIONALLY POPULAR, AS SOON AS THE PHONE STOPPED RINGING IN THE OFFICE
I'
D START GETTING CALLS ON MY HOME LINE FROM JOURNALISTS AND OTHER MEDIA PEOPLE ALL ROUND THE WORLD
. I
WAS NEVER OFF DUTY
, 24/7. A
S
I
TRAVELED MORE AND MORE
, I
SAW LESS AND LESS OF MY WIFE AND OUR FAMILIES
. O
N REFLECTION THIS BECAME PARTICULARLY UNFORTUNATE AFTER THE FIRST OF OUR TWO SONS WAS BORN IN
1967. I
CHERISH ALMOST ALL THE EXPERIENCES
I
HAD WITH THE
B
EATLES, THE LOWS AS WELL AS THE HIGHS, BUT I FEEL SAD NOW THAT
I M
ISSED OUT OF WATCHING MY BOYS GROW THROUGH THEIR EARLY CHILDHOODS SIMPLY BECAUSE MY JOB DEMANDED SUCH NONSTOP ATTENTION
.

That nonstop attention could wander into the middle of the night, which leads to the question: Would the Beatles have made it if a real scandal erupted? The answer is no, especially in the early days.

And on that subject, my mind wanders back to Las Vegas in 1964, when John was asleep in his hotel room, with two very young sisters on the bed watching black-and-white TV. It was about 4 a.m. Team Beatles—including Brian Epstein, Derek Taylor, and Neil Aspinall—rushed to my room and pleaded for help. Nothing happened in John's room. I checked that out thoroughly. John was his usual self. The girls, about eleven or twelve years old, had broken through security. John invited them in and that was that. He loved talking to the kids, and yet there was an air of impropriety. But since
I was a so-called reputable member of the media, Taylor urged me to go down to the lobby and convince their mother, who had been gambling all night, that it was all innocent, since it was. The mother was skeptical but may have later reached a court settlement with Epstein. For that moment in time, there was no scandal, and the Beatles marched on.

In those days, an alleged scandal would have destroyed the boys, especially in the puritanical 1960s of America.

What would have happened in this unfortunate and erroneous close call if the minds had not moved quickly, if headlines had overwhelmed the group, if a phony report of “trouble” backfired?

It is in those moments, when the forces of human nature can overwhelm the big picture, that you have to vividly appreciate the Beatles' handlers, led by Brian Epstein.

Over the years, I have argued and laughed with dozens of press secretaries to mayors, governors, and even presidents. In truth, I have never met anyone quite as classy, direct, and protective of his clients than Tony Barrow. He set a standard that few have gotten even close to.

When it came to expertise with press and messaging, the boys were so fortunate to have not one, but two masters of the art, both as different as night and day. The second man was more suave and Beatle-like than Barrow. He had a different style, but they both shared one common gift: total loyalty. Together, their impact on the Beatles' success was impressive.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

PEN PAL #2—DEREK TAYLOR

“I tell you, Larry, that this is the greatest band ever. In the past, now and forever, as Brian says, people will still be listening to them in the next century.”

—Derek Taylor, speaking to me on the Beatles' chartered American Flyers airplane, August 1964

“I've always had a connection with Derek. In a way, Larry, he was encouraging to me. . . . I think he understands where I came from . . . if you know what I mean. He is really a friend.”

—George Harrison, to me during the 1965 tour of America, where Taylor was replaced by his colleague, Tony Barrow

H
E LIVED A LIFE OF EXCITEMENT AND DRAMA
, but it was what Derek Taylor did in the early 1960s that made his mark—proof of how what some key members of the press witnessed and wrote created the imagery that allowed the Beatles to prosper at such an accelerated pace. The fact that two journalistic giants later traded in their typewriters for flak jackets to protect and serve the Beatles became even more meaningful. Tony Barrow was first to join Epstein's team, followed by Derek Taylor. The latter was press officer in America in 1964, while Barrow covered the home front and the rest of the world. In a strange turnabout, Barrow covered the 1965 tour and Taylor moved to America and became an independent press agent.

In 1966, in a lounge at the Deauville Hotel in Miami, Derek Taylor and I reunited over a few drinks, and lots of talk. Taylor was probably the smoothest and most
entertaining
reporter, news professional, and communications executive I had ever met. While Tony Barrow fought for and protected the Beatles forcefully and without fingerprints, Derek Taylor was effusive and blunt. Sometimes, to some of the Beatles, he was a little too blunt. But while he could be a bit on the wild side, he was fantastically entertaining—though “entertaining” is a pure understatement. While Tony
Barrow was intense and absolutely serious back at the home office in London, or on the 1965 and 1966 tours, Taylor was a show within the show. And the show continued on that spring evening in '66.