Apple publishes an ad to find new talent

On this day, an advertisement titled “This man has talent…” was published by Apple Corps in the New Musical Express. It featured Apple’s General Manager, Alistair Taylor, dressed as a one-man band, alongside text inviting aspiring artists to submit their work to Apple.

The advertisement, crafted by Paul McCartney, resulted in a deluge of applicants. The mailroom, telephone switchboard, and conference rooms were overwhelmed at all hours by “artists” pleading for financial support from the Beatles. George Harrison would later lament that “We had every freak in the world coming in there“.

Paul said, ‘We’ve got to do an advert.’ So, he came up to the flat one day and said, ‘Right, we’ve got to think of an ad, mate.’ So, we sat around until two in the morning, sitting cross-legged on the floor of my flat. Lesley had gone to bed. She couldn’t stand it. Paul came up with this idea of a one-man-band, and it said, ‘If you are a musician, singer, send your tapes along to us at Apple, Baker Street. The man above now owns a Bentley. So, send us your tapes.’ I said, ‘That will work,’ and we decided that’s what we would do. He said, ‘I want a one-man-band, but it won’t be a normal one-man-band. It’s got to be someone very straight, in a suit, with a bowler hat, and I know who’s going to do it.’ And I said, ‘Oh, good. Who?’ He replied, ‘You!’ I was the straight man. When they were all going round in baubles and bangles and beads and flowers, I had to be the guy in the suit. I was always the businessman. Paul’s nickname for me was ‘The man with the shiny shoes’. So, I went out and bought a bowler hat and we went to this studio where we took this picture. It appeared only once in the New Musical Express and also all over London, overnight, everywhere you looked, on hoardings, wherever. There was this picture of me as this one-man-band. Hundreds of cassettes came in and they used to end up being piled up on my window ledge. Everyone thought they were going to be a star.

Alistair Taylor – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

Paul stopped by my flat in Montagu Place, which was an ‘Apple’ flat. He said, ‘I’ve got this great idea. We are going to put an ad in NME to get some tapes of music into Apple’. Finally we hit on this idea of a one man band. We wanted a straight guy in a bowler hat. Paul looked at me and said ‘Well, we’ve got a straight guy, do you have a bowler hat?’ It just so happened I did. We went down to Soho to hire a one man band and did the photo session. I was miming and it wasn’t working, so Paul said, ‘Sing a Beatles song’ So I tried that and he said ‘Forget that!’ – it was a disaster area. So in the end, that picture is of me singing ‘When Irish Eyes are Smiling’ – badly.

Alistair Taylor – From Alistair Taylor – The Beatles ‘Mr Fixit’ – Beatles in London, November 28, 2016

Coinciding with this poster campaign that blanketed London and the provinces were identical half-page ads placed in the English musical trade papers. Two weeks after the first poster hit the streets, over 400 tapes had accumulated in the small office at 94 Baker Street. All with notes saying, Listen to me first.

From “The Longest Cocktail Party: An Insider Account of The Beatles & the Wild Rise and Fall of Their Multi-Million Dollar Apple Empire” by Richard DiLello, 2014

Before we went to New York for the official launch, we’d put an ad in the paper, saying: ‘Send us your tapes and they will not be thrown straight into the wastepaper basket. We will answer.’ We got inundated with tapes and poetry and scripts. We were overwhelmed by it all, in actual fact.

Neil Aspinall – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

We never really got much from the sent-in tapes, but at least people knew we were interested. So we got, for instance, James Taylor, who was brought in by Peter Asher.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

This man has talent…

One day he sang his songs to a tape recorder (borrowed from the man next door). In his neatest handwriting he wrote an explanatory note (giving his name and address) and, remembering to enclose a picture of himself, sent the tape, letter and photograph to Apple Music, 94 Baker Street, London W1. If you were thinking of doing the same thing yourself – do it now!

This man now owns a Bentley!

From New Musical Express, April 20, 1968

Going further

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.