Is it just me, or are there a lot of books about Beatle managers around at the moment?

There are not one but three new books (out now or soon to be released) looking into what it is like to work at building the Beatle business.

The first is a new release by Philip Norman called Mr. Moonlight – Brian Epstein and the Making of The Beatles. As it’s title suggests, this is a new examination of the life of Beatle manager Brian Epstein.

Philip Norman is a British writer, novelist, journalist and playwright, probably best known for his first book, Shout!: The Beatles in Their Generation (also published as Shout!: The True Story of the Beatles). First published in 1981 it has sold over a million copies and has often been re-issued and updated. No doubt you’ve seen or heard of this one. His other works have been on the Rolling Stones, Buddy Holly, and Elton John, and he’s penned individual biographies of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison.

Now Norman turns his attention to Brian Epstein.

From the press blurb: Brian Epstein didn’t just manage the Beatles – he transformed them into the most famous band the world has ever known. A young record-shop owner from Liverpool, he took four relatively unknown musicians and set out to make them ‘bigger than Elvis’, changing pop music, celebrity, and British culture forever. Only a few years older than John, Paul, George and Ringo, he called them ‘the Boys’, guiding, protecting and relentlessly believing in them as no one else did. Without Brian Epstein, there would have been no Beatles as we know them. Drawing on a remarkable cache of exclusive interviews with those closest to him, Philip Norman delivers the most intimate and revealing portrait yet of this complex, conflicted and ultimately tragic figure. Mr Moonlight reveals the depths of Brian’s many trials and tribulations – how he almost lost the Beatles to organised crime; the antisemitism and homophobia he endured even at the height of his success; his intense and fraught relationship with John Lennon; and the haunting circumstances of his lonely death during the so-called Summer of Love.

Mr Moonlight looks worthwhile and it’ll be interesting to see if after all this time if any truly new material and insights emerge.

The second new book is also about Brian Epstein, but it comes from a very different perspective indeed.

1967 – The World of Brian Epstein and The Beatles: The Address Book That Defined an Era is by Gary Kemp and Simon Halfon. It isn’t published until October in the UK (and not until January 2027 in the US), but it looks to be a fascinating insight into the life of Brian Epstein through an unlikely primary source: his 1967 personal address book. Kemp, one of the UK’s most successful songwriters and guitarists – and founding member of the iconic 80s band Spandau Ballet, secured the address book five years ago at a Sotheby’s auction.

“When I first saw Brian Epstein’s black Twinlock binder, I was struck by how small and unassuming it was – just 160 by 100 millimetres, the kind of thing you could slip into a coat pocket. But inside, it held a universe. The book felt alive, buzzing, ready and waiting to be explored. So I dug deeper.”

Simon Halfon is one of the UK’s leading graphic designers, so the book should be visually interesting as well.

This book looks very cool and different. It explores Epstein and the Beatles’ world using 404 contacts in that unique personal address book from that pivotal year. Through detective work and biographical research the authors illustrate and unpack some of the extraordinary characters who appear, each one telling a different part of Brian’s story. A really interesting and unusual approach! Genuinely looking forward to this one.

The third book also promises a unique insight into managing a Beatle, away from the bright lights and public face. What’s it really like?

Richard Ogden was Paul McCartney’s manager from 1987 to 1993. In his self-published memoir, Bigger Than The Beatles – Sixty Years in Showbusiness he looks back on those years working in the pop music industry with more than 200 artists – from some never-heard-of’s, to a handful of the all-time biggest names. Ogden’s book includes chapters on Shirley Bassey, Black Oak Arkansas, Black Sabbath, Ted Nugent, The Motors, Michael Jackson, Aerosmith, Mariah Carey, Ricky Martin, and Van Morrison amongst many others. But none are bigger or enormously famous than Paul McCartney, to whom he devotes three chapters.

It was during Ogden’s time with McCartney that he embarked on one of his biggest world tours. It saw him set a Guinness Book of Records first as he performed in front of 184,000 people at the Maracana Stadium in Rio De Janeiro. The Brazil gig was particularly special for Ogden as it was when Sir Paul said the words that inspired the title of this new memoir: “It’s what Paul McCartney shouted at me when he came off stage in Rio in April 1990″.

Speaking to The Liverpool Echo though Ogden said it wasn’t success and fun all the time. “It wasn’t all roses and champagne, I can assure you. We fell out. After three years, we fell out. I don’t know why. It’s a mystery to me. I pursue that in the book, trying to understand why it happened. We parted on very bad terms. It was a great shame because I did great work with him. Why it ended the way it did, you’d have to ask him. I’ve never been really sure.”

“You could say that he just didn’t renew my contact. But we had a bit of a to-do. At one point this was the title of my book, but I changed it. I said to him, ‘All you want around you is yes men.’ But he said, ‘I tell you what I don’t want. A no man like you.’ My book for a while was called No Yes Man.”

Ogden doesn’t pull any punches when it comes to describing what it was really like working for Paul McCartney: “Dealing with him had become even more difficult than it was when I first started. And his dissatisfaction with me was affecting Linda who, as everybody who worked at MPL [McCartney Productions Ltd] knew, tended to ‘get it in the neck’ first when the boss was unhappy… it wasn’t unusual for my ‘McCartney hotline’ phone to ring first thing and for a tearful Linda to warn me that all was not well with His Nibs.”

Bigger Than The Beatles is available through BookVAULT Publishing, or in the US through Amazon.