Epstein.

[Greg]

If he had lived?

I'm only going to comment right now what I think the 80's would have been like; they would hate him.

They would be furious.

[mervap]

As so often happens, death freezes a person as they were at the time...there's no clear and accurate way to extrapolate the path forward. Epstein died still young and still manager of the world's most popular band. His time as manager, however, looks like it would have been short....I don't think he would have been able to prevent the breakup of the band and it would have DEVASTATED him.

 I daresay there was no other manager in rock-n-roll who was more dedicated to his band, at least early on. His role was crucial as the Refined Man who took these Lads and made them a trifle more palatable and introduced them, with some luck, to the world at large.

[Rory Storm]

Hey Merv,I just want to take the time to express my appreciation of the two frame Blue Oyster Cult sketch shot from the 2000 SNL episode with Christopher Walken.Yes,more than nerdy enough to know that.I really dig it, though.This bit was a riot.The Epstein thing is controversial.Maybe they would have lsted into the seventies,maybe not.eatles biographer Nicholas Schaffner once said that even if Brian had lived,they might not have listned to him anyway.The answer remains eternally in some parallel dimension of events I guess.That last piece was mine,not Schaffner's.

[mervap]

Schaffner was an excellent writer and I believe him to be the best of the "outsider" authors who've written about the Beatles..."The Beatles Forever" was the first big book about the Lads I ever bought with my own cash. I thinks, as you (and Schaffner) say, they may not have listened to him....the cracks were there already.

Thanks for the Walken props...might have been the funniest thing ever on that show!

[Rory Storm]

You know who had his sights set on talking the helm at NEMS?Robert Stigwood,who at the time was helping the Bee Gees get started and who would later manage Eric CLaptin and reap untold millions from the producitons of "Saturday Night Fever" and "Grease".Stigwood started out under Epstein's employ.