Hunter Davies? Mike Smith? Dick Rowe? Brian Epstein? Apocryphal?
Dear Quote Investigator: In the early days of the Beatles a record executive evaluated the band to decide whether to offer them a contract. He supposedly said:
We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out.
I have heard some other simpler versions of the statement:
Guitar groups are on the way out.
Guitar bands are on their way out.
The decision not to sign the Beatles was the biggest blunder in music history. Decca Records is usually named as the foolish company. Is there any truth to this anecdote?
Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence known to QI appeared in the 1964 book “A Cellarful of Noise” by Brian Epstein who was the manager of the Beatles from 1962 until his death in 1967. Epstein was attempting to obtain a recording contract for the Beatles when he convinced A & R (Artists and Repertoire) executive Mike Smith of Decca Records to view the Beatles at The Cavern Club venue.
Smith was impressed and agreed to provide an audition for the group on New Year’s Day in 1962. The Beatles taped several numbers for the executives to review. Epstein attended a luncheon appointment with Decca executives Beecher Stevens and Dick Rowe to hear the verdict. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:[ref] 1964, A Cellarful of Noise by Brian Epstein, Chapter 5: No!, Quote Page 46, Doubleday & Company, Garden City, New York. (Verified with scans) [/ref]
We had coffee, and Mr. Rowe, a short plump man, said to me: “Not to mince words, Mr. Epstein, we don’t like your boys’ sound. Groups of four guitarists are on the way out.”
I said, masking the cold disappointment which had spread over me: “You must be out of your mind. These boys are going to explode. I am completely confident that one day they will be bigger than Elvis Presley.”
The next earliest evidence located by QI was printed in “The Beatles: The Authorized Biography” by Hunter Davies in 1968. The book described the same tale of Epstein attempting to use his contacts in the music industry to obtain a recording contract for the Beatles. He succeeded in obtaining an audition for the group with Decca:[ref] 1968, The Beatles: The Authorized Biography by Hunter Davies, Quote Page 131, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York. (Verified on paper)[/ref]
The weeks passed and nothing happened. They continued playing their local dates on Merseyside, but all the time expecting Decca to whisk them to the big time. Then in March, after a lot of pestering, Brian heard from Dick Rowe, Mike Smith’s boss at Decca, that they had decided not to record the Beatles. “He told me they didn’t like the sound. Groups of guitars were on the way out. I told him I was completely confident that these boys were going to be bigger than Elvis Presley.”
Thus, Beatles manager Brian Epstein provided the primary evidence for the quotation spoken by executive Dick Rowe when Decca rejected the Beatles. Later Beatles biographer Hunter Davies concurred.
Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.
In September 1968 LIFE magazine published an article by Hunter Davies based on the material in his Beatles book. The name of the Decca executive who communicated the bad news was not given in this version, but the words matched:[ref] 1968 September 13, LIFE, Volume 65, Number 11, The Beatles by Hunter Davies, (Part one of the “authentic unexpurgated biography”), Start Page 86, Quote Page 106, Published by Time Inc., New York. (Google Books full view)[/ref]
Then in March, after a lot of pestering, Epstein heard from Decca. They had decided not to record the Beatles; they didn’t like the sound, and groups of guitars were on the way out.
Decca was only one of several companies that foolishly decided not to align themselves with the future supergroup as noted in the LIFE article:
Meanwhile Epstein had begun a long and dispiriting trail around the other record companies; they all turned him down. Brian was often near to tears.
In 1979 Stephen Pile published “The Book of Heroic Failures” which presented a collection of unwise actions and opinions. Decca’s ill-fated decision appeared in the form of a direct quotation:[ref] 1981 Reprint (1979 First Publication), The Book of Heroic Failures: the Official Handbook of the Not Terribly Good Club Of Great Britain by Stephen Pile, Quote Page 215, Futura Publications, London. (Verified with scans)[/ref]
‘We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out.’ – Decca Recording Company when turning down the Beatles in 1962. (The group was also turned down by Pye, Columbia, and HMV).
The U.S. edition of the book above was called “The (Incomplete) Book of Failures”, and a writer in the Seattle Times newspaper of Washington discussed it in 1980. An instance of the quotation was reprinted from the book:[ref] 1980 March 9, Seattle Daily Times, Section: The Seattle Times Magazine, ‘Incompetence is what we’re good at’ by John Hinterberger, Start Page 4, Quote Page 5, Column 1, Seattle, Washington. (GenealogyBank)[/ref]
“We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out,” a recording executive at Decca told the Beatles in 1962.
In 1998 “The Experts Speak” compendium by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky included the modified quote, and in a footnote the book by Pile was acknowledged:[ref] 1998, The Experts Speak (Expanded and Updated Edition) by Christopher Cerf and Victor S Navasky, Quote Page 201 and 379, Villard Books, New York. (Verified on paper)[/ref]
“We don’t like their sound. Groups of guitars are on the way out.”
—Decca Recording Company executive, turning down the Beatles, 1962
In 2012 “The Independent” newspaper of London published an article on this topic. The reporter presented a version of the rejection quotation, but also stated that Dick Rowe denied making the remark:[ref] Website: The Independent, Article title: The man who rejected the Beatles, Article author: Brian Viner, Date on website: 12 February 2012, Website description: U.K. Newspaper. (Accessed independent.co.uk on January 8, 2022) link [/ref]
They were certainly quoted by Epstein, in his 1964 autobiography A Cellarful of Noise. But Rowe went to his grave in 1986 denying it.
In conclusion, there is substantive evidence in the books “A Cellarful of Noise” and “The Beatles: The Authorized Biography” that Decca executive Dick Rowe delivered disheartening news to the Beatles in 1962. This was a monumental mistake for Decca. There is some uncertainty about the exact wording of the rejection because it was based on the memory of Brian Epstein of an event that occurred a couple years earlier.
(Thanks to correspondent Ronald Mc Gregor who reminded QI that Brian Epstein died in 1967. Also, thanks to the discussants in the AskHistorians subreddit who pointed to a “A Cellarful of Noise”.)
Update History: On January 3, 2017 the 1981 citation was added. On January 8, 2022 the 1964 and 2012 citations were added to the article. The introduction and conclusion were rewritten.