In 1960, the Liverpool entrepreneur Allan Williams arranged for a fledgling group, the Beatles, to undertake a residency at a club in the red light district of Hamburg. It transformed the way they played and set them on a course that was to change popular music. Williams, who has died aged 86, later fell out with the band, leaving the field clear for the record store manager Brian Epstein to become their manager.
Williams warned Epstein to have nothing to do with them. He became known as “the man who gave the Beatles away”, and he would recount his experiences in pubs, clubs and Beatle conventions and, indeed, to anyone who would listen. He was a superb raconteur, who undoubtedly embellished his tales, but never out of self-interest – it was simply to make his remarkable tales even more entertaining.
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