#dick james

"Paul and Dick James discuss the coming European release of Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, with George's While My Guitar Gently Weeps on the back."

FRIDAY 22 FEBRUARY In the morning, Paul drove John to Epstein’s flat at 36 Falkner Street in Liverpool, where they signed a contract for the creation of the publishing company Northern Songs. The terms of the contract saw them share 49 per cent with Epstein, while music publisher Dick James and his accountant Charles Silver took the remaining 51 per cent. The contract ran until 10 February 1973. ‘Brian was at the house with a lawyer-type guy,’ recalled Paul, ‘but nobody said to us, “This is your lawyer and he’s representing your interests in this thing” We just showed up, got out the car, went into this dark little house, and we just signed this thing, not really knowing what it was all about, that we were signing rights away for our songs… John and I didn’t know you could own songs. We thought they just existed in the air’ THURSDAY 14 MARCH That day, Northern Songs Limited was incorporated by the Performing Rights Society and registered its first five songs ‘Misery’ ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ ‘There’s A Place’ ‘Hold Me Tight’ and ‘Do You Want To Know A Secret’ In its first six months, the company made £17,000. FRIDAY 17 MAY* John and Paul had a working lunch at accountancy firm Bryce, Hanmer and Isherwood. Paul arrived late, only to discover that in his absence it had been decided to change the songwriting credit from McCartney/Lennon to Lennon/McCartney. Harry Pinsker was assigned the role of their accountant and when he first met them in his office, he thought they were ‘four scruffy boys. Jaep Music Limited, a music publishing company comprising the rest of the NEMS roster, with Brian Epstein and Dick James as its directors, was incorporated.

WEDNESDAY 14 AUGUST John and Paul signed an agreement ‘to assign to Northern Songs the full copyright in all their compositions published during a three-year period commencing February 28th, 1963.’ Fifty-six copyrights were published during that time; John and Paul received 40 per cent each and Brian Epstein the remainder.

TUESDAY 12 NOVEMBER Now they face the rumours: “Are the Beatles cracking up?’’ (Spinner from the Evening News)

SUNDAY 29 DECEMBER The group had the day off, with no Christmas performances. Lionel Crane wrote an in-depth piece titled ‘The Mad Mad World Of Beat’ in the Sunday Mirror. One of his interviewees was Dick James, who described himself as ‘one of the luckiest guys in the business’. He described how what he thought was a piece of bad luck turned out to be the opposite. ‘I had a song which I liked but all the top artists turned it down. I took it to George Martin who handles all the recording stars for EMI. He told me he was bringing down a Liverpool group called the Beatles, and was going to experiment with them in the studio. He got them to record it twice, but it was no good. Brian Epstein came to see me. He played a record the boys had done called ‘Please Please Me’. It knocked me out. I heard some of their other songs, and I thought they were great. Right off, he and I agreed to form a separate company to publish all the Beatles’ songs’.

(The Beatles 1963: A Year in the Life by Dafydd Rees, 2023)

*There was a meeting with me, John and Brian, in Hilly House, above a carpet shop in Albemarle Street. We went in and they said, “We’re going to call it Lennon-McCartney.” I said, “Well, OK, fair enough, but it would be good to have it occasionally McCartney-Lennon, wouldn’t it, just for fairness for me?”

And they said, swear to God, hand on heart, but there was nobody else in the room and they’re both dead, so there’s no way of me proving this, except I believe it, I was there, and nobody else who talks about it was there, and they said, “We can change it as we go along. And we can change it any time we want out of fairness.”

The Beatles with George Martin, circa February 25, 1964, recording: 'Can’t Buy Me Love', 'You Can’t Do That', 'And I Love Her', 'I Should Have Known Better' / Location: EMI Studios, Abbey Road - Studio Two

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