25. The Man Who Passed on the 1960s’ Greatest Band
Epstein and his group left Decca’s studios dejected that their New Year had begun with rejection. Not so Dick Rowe, who figured that 1962 had started auspiciously for him and his label. That same day, he had listened to another band that came in for an audition, liked what he heard, and signed up Brian Poole and the Tremeloes to a deal with Decca Records. As Rowe recalled later, he had told his A&R subordinate Mike Smith to decide between Epstein’s group and Brian Poole and the Tremeloes: “He said, ‘They’re both good, but one’s a local group, the other comes from Liverpool.’ We decided it was better to take the local group. We could work with them more easily and stay closer in touch as they came from Dagenham.”
So they went with the Tremeloes. All in all, that was not a bad business decision in itself, as the band had some success in the United Kingdom. In 1963, they entered the UK charts with a cover of the Isley Brothers’ Twist and Shout, and followed it up with a UK chart-topping cover of the Contours’ Do You Love Me. A year later, they did a cover of Roy Orbison’s Candy Man that pleased the Brits, and a cover of the Crickets’ Someone, Someone, which made it to number 2 on the UK charts. Rowe’s bad decision was his rejection of and failure to sign the other band that had auditioned the same day as the Tremeloes: The Silver Beatles, who soon shortened their name to The Beatles.
