The mercurial Allan Williams, the Beatles first manager, passed away in 2016 at the age of 86. I met Allan back in the mid-70s at a Joe Pope Beatles convention held at the old Bradford Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts! One thing you learn about Allan very quickly is that he certainly was not a teetotaler. He knew how to bend the elbow to consume beverages with alcohol in them. He had a very feisty and humorous personality always trying to stretch the bounds as to what he could get away with!

What stories he could tell, though one was always perplexed as to how much he was saying was pure exaggeration or hyperbole in the describing of events in the Beatles early years. Say what you want about Allan and the speculation that he could never have taken them as far as the knowledgeable gentleman, Brian Epstein, but one thing Allan can be credited with was the decision to take the Beatles to Hamburg, Germany!

There the Beatles played 7-8 hour sessions in front of the German crowds and their musicianship improved significantly as a result. They also began to have more of a fashion sense meeting people like Astrid Kirchherr, Klaus Voormann, and Jurgen Vollmer! This set the stage for the more polished refinements that Brian Epstein would implement when he became their manager once they returned to Liverpool. Allan had many fascinating stories to tell, like the recording of “Summertime” that a few members of the Beatles recorded with Lu Walters in Hamburg.

Speculation is that only 8 copies of the very early recording were made and that Allan had one of them. Well, Allan supposedly lost his copy of the record by leaving it in a taxi. Only Allan could have done such a thing. Even Mark Lewisohn has failed to track down a surviving copy in his exhaustive research. The story about the King Size Taylor tape of the Beatles made in Hamburg was fascinating as Allan tried to sell the tape to the Beatles to release the performances. George Harrison met with Allan and turned him down but he did give Allan a handful of rubies as a gift according to Allan’s first book! It was difficult reading Allan’s book knowing that both he and Pete Best would not reach the pinnacles of fame of the band they had managed or been a part of and that they would become footnotes in the Beatles story and history!

As it turns out, Pete Best, according to some reports has done OK financially with the release of the Anthology records that he played on and he has finally earned some overdue compensation for having been sacked by the band. History will also judge Allan in a much more favorable light when it sinks into the public at large how important the Beatles going to Hamburg was in helping find the final ingredients in the recipe for worldwide fame. Allan will not be forgotten. He has three books written about him and his Beatles exploits in the early years of the band! I spoke to Allan for about three hours back in the 70’s and those three hours were unforgettable, memorable, and very funny!!! Reading his books, you will see what I mean.

What a lively character he was!

Here are a few samples of some of the existing print material concerning Allan Williams:

The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away

By Allan Williams and William Marshall Published by Macmillan, 1975

Allan Williams and William Marshall

Elm Tree Books-1975  (I personally prefer this cover to the above release)

The Beatles 1st Manager Allan Williams is the Fool on the Hill: How the Beat Went on After His Big “Beatles” Blunder Hardcover – 21 Aug. 2003 Published by Guy Woodland

The Fool On the Hill written by Lew Baxter

The proof copy of the book signed by the author Lew Baxter and the subject of the book, Allan Williams! I bought this item on an eBay auction.

Both the author, Lew Baxter and the subject of the book, affixed their signatures to the proof copy!

A proposed screenplay by Colin MacFarlane which I purchased on Amazon. Would have loved to see this as a movie though they would certainly have trouble keeping it as an R-rating….LOL!!!

Liverfool, Allan Williams, French language book/ Graphic novel about Allan

by Damien Vanders (Drawings), Gihef (Contributor)

PAQUET-Publisher 2012

‘De Echte Beatles Story’ Dutch Paperback Book

‘De Echte Beatles Story’ (The Real Beatles Story) Dutch paperback book by Allan Williams, published by Centripress BV Bussum.

This 136 page book has Allan Williams, the Beatles first manager, offer an insight into the early years of the band. Please note that the book is in the Dutch language.

One of the paperback editions of Allan’s first book: published by Ballantine in 1977:

THINGS ARE NOT ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM

What better way to end this story than by portraying the photograph by Barry Chang that was so prophetic in predicting the Beatles eventual fate once they were to arrive in Germany….

Though taken in the Netherlands at a war memorial they certainly could not have seen how the words, written on an inanimate object, could foretell what might happen to some of the people in this photo. One would be asked to leave the group and be replaced by a member of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, one would die from a hemorrhage of the brain after leaving the group for his ambition to be an artist and finding love with Astrid.

The manager would be replaced by a businessman, Brian Epstein who took the Beatles to the top of the mountain, yet he was to die from a drug overdose at the young age of 32. One of the members of the group not in the photograph was to be murdered in 1980. Another member of the group was to be attacked and almost killed at his home at Henley. He survived that attack, yet was to die soon thereafter from cancer as a result of a lifelong smoking habit. FAME is clearly not always as rosy a picture that is often framed or portrayed by the media! It seems to be a fairly accurate bit of philosophizing that claims that whatever is achieved or attained in one’s life, there is a trade-off, and something must be given up to attain that very high level of acclaim or stature!!!

The Beatles manager Allan Williams with his wife Beryl, Allan’s business partner and Calypso singer Lord Woodbine, Stuart Sutcliffe who was to leave the Beatles in Germany and find love with Astrid and his true ambition with art yet meeting tragedy and an early death, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best at the Arnhem War Memorial in the Netherlands | August 1960 © Barry Chang. Few photos can say SO MUCH by saying so little…

What do you make to the Allan Williams story? Was he REALLY a Fool who gave The Beatles away, or the man The Beatles gave away?

Let me know in the comments below.

Buzz