Allan Williams, the Beatles’ very first manager and booking agent during their formative years in Hamburg, died yesterday at the age of 86.
Williams was also the original owner of Liverpool’s legendary Jacaranda Club, which he opened in 1957. It was there that he first met art school students Paul McCartney, John Lennon and their then drummer Stuart Sutcliffe. The Jacaranda tweeted: “Today our founder and the man who discovered the Beatles passed away. Allan Williams, you will be missed.”
Williams worked with the band from 1960 to 1961, booking shows for the Liverpool Fab Four in the UK and Germany. He personally drove them to Hamburg in 1960.
He parted company with the band in 1961. The following year, the Beatles signed a five-year contract with Brian Epstein.
Williams later wrote a memoir called Allan Williams: The Man Who Gave The Beatles Away. In 2010, he gave an interview to the Liverpool Echo in which he stated: “I was just glad to have been there in the 60s, at the start of it all. I’ve always been very proud of The Beatles and proud and happy to have been just a small cog in the wheel of the most famous group in the world.”