Bowie, Brian Epstein, and the Velvet Underground Myth

This is a slight detour from the continuing Velvet Underground Popularity Myth series: The Bowie, Brian Epstein and the Velvet Underground Myth.

I was curious, as I often am and I think today’s curiosity dive needs its own separate investigation rather than being part of the ongoing main series.

This interlude involves two interconnecting stories - two huge artists and their respective managers. One story is the near-legendary tale that David Bowie, long before anyone else, received an acetate of the Velvet Underground album from his manager, Ken Pitt. The other is a less well-known story but has all the hallmarks of a good press hook - two seemingly incongruent events that somehow are both true: the manager of the most popular band ever, Brian Epstein of The Beatles, wanted to manage the most ‘unpopular’ band ever, The Velvet Underground.

I wanted to know how much truth these stories had. Originally, this investigative interlude was purely into Brian Epstein’s proposed VU management myth, but as one of the key questions that arose from this relates to the Bowie/Pitt acetate, I thought I’d look into both stories together.

I’d read an early ’80s Sterling Morrison interview with Mary Harron in which Morrison made reference to Brian Epstein being a huge fan of the Velvet Underground, having shown a desire to manage them, and also wanting to take them on a European tour. Obviously, as Brian Epstein died in the summer of 1967, this - if true - would have had to have been early in the Velvet Underground’s career. As unlikely as this seems, could it be true?

How would Brian have heard of the Velvet Underground?

Well, I think from my Substack series on the wider popularity of the Velvet Underground (see links below), it can be fairly well weighted that by the end of 1966 the Velvet Underground had been written about extensively in the US press and, to a lesser degree, the UK (importantly though, this small amount of UK press was in three widely read national papers). It should also not be underplayed that in this period Andy Warhol was almost certainly one of the highest-profile artists in the world, to the extent that nearly every Velvet Underground press article was framed around him. Andy Warhol was big news everywhere, especially in relation to US ‘high society event gossip columns’, where much of the US press covered him. It’s certainly likely that Epstein would have been at least aware of the band due to these- though more likely the wider aspects of The Exploding Plastic Inevitable, which the band was part of.

But… could Brian have actually listened to the Velvet Underground at this time?

It’s conceivable that he could have heard the band at any point in 1966, and there is strong evidence that British Beatles associates had already done so. Donovan was likely filmed for a Warhol Screen Test in February 1966. This is evidenced by his (ST78), although undated, immediately preceding the Duchamp Screen Tests (ST79–81) which do have a date of February 1966.

We also have a photo of Donovan at the Factory, pictured with the Velvet Underground entourage, which - from the Screen Test date evidence - almost certainly suggests this was for Warhol’s Up-Tight. So, we have evidence of a UK pop star pictured with the Velvet Underground in very early 1966. From this we can, with a high degree of certainty, suggest that Donovan also heard the band in this period and was likely able to relate this to others back in Britain. Could he have mentioned this to the Beatles?

A few months later, Donovan contributed lyrics to Yellow Submarine in May/June 1966, so he certainly would not have been shy about telling The Beatles about hearing the band. While this can’t be evidenced, there is surely enough weight to state that by May 1966 (at the latest) The Beatles were also aware of The Velvet Underground (and that The Velvet Underground were aware of Donovan), and if this conversation took place (and why wouldn’t it) almost certainly had their ‘sound’ described to them.

Of course, Donovan is not the only UK pop star to have had early involvement with The Velvet Underground. Nico had released a single on Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate record label in August 1965.

The New York Public Library’s “Andy Warhol Era” page for Lou Reed’s papers states that Nico was introduced to Warhol by Brian Jones:

“At age 16 she was discovered by German fashion photographer Herbert Tobias, who gave her the name ‘Nico’. She navigated a number of fashion and acting roles, splitting her time between New York and Paris until 1965, when she was introduced to Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones. This led to her releasing her first single, I’m Not Sayin’ / The Last Mile, accompanied on guitar and produced by Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame. Brian Jones would also introduce her to Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey, with whom she started collaborating. By January 1966 she had become a Warhol Superstar.”

We also have a picture of Brian Jones at the opening of Paraphernalia in March 1966, and we know that the January 1966 Wichita Beacon ‘Psychiatrists Ball’ event report lists Nico as being a member of the band by then. I think it is therefore safe to suggest that Brian Jones, by March 1966, had also seen the Velvet Underground perform too.

Brian Jones also sang backing vocals on Yellow Submarine along with Donovan. Yellow Submarine is perhaps becoming the fulcrum for the US avant-garde meeting The Beatles.

But had the Beatles or Epstein physically heard the band for themselves in this period?

The Beatles’ - and, to an extent, Epstein’s - daily movements are well documented. It’s almost certainly unlikely, due to their early 1966 commitments, that they physically witnessed the band in person.

We know that the earliest released record by The Velvet Underground was the All Tomorrow’s Parties 7” in September 1966. There is a distinct possibility that this was made available to the band via Jones or Donovan. We also know that Epstein was tentatively looking to expand his management duties and had solid US business connections centred on Nat Weiss, so could they have heard a demo or acetate before this? And if so, how would they have obtained it?

Danny Fields has been quoted as having given Brian Epstein a copy of the first album, although there are few confirmed sources, and these accounts often flit between ‘an early release’ and an ‘acetate’.

We know that there was an acetate made available between April and July 1966: the 25th of April Scepter Sessions. This was produced by Norman Dolph for the purposes of shopping the band to labels, namely Elektra and Columbia, and would eventually make its way to Tom Wilson at Verve. Danny Fields has long been cited as a huge advocate of The Velvet Underground, so could he have had access to this and given it to Epstein in mid-1966? Well, there’s a hugely significant connection between Fields and The Beatles during this period, and certainly a very strong opportunity - if Fields had this acetate - for him to have given it to Epstein then.

Danny Fields was an editor of the magazine Datebook in 1965 and had steered it towards reporting on the then counter-culture in 1966. Famously, it was Datebook that, on 29 July 1966, republished John Lennon’s ‘Bigger Than Jesus’ interview, directly leading to the huge backlash against The Beatles during their autumn 1966 tour of the US.

Epstein and the Beatles immediately entered the world of Danny Fields from this point, and there’s a distinct possibility that they would have met when the Beatles played in NYC on 23 August. Epstein had visited Motown on 13 August, so was still avidly involving himself in other musical activities outside of the Beatles (and crisis management). This proposed NYC meeting would have been a perfect opportunity for Danny Fields to offer Epstein an acetate of The Velvet Underground recordings - the band that the Beatles Yellow Submarine collaborators had likely been talking about.

However, despite this seeming a highly likely opportunity for Epstein to obtain an early VU acetate, and despite connecting three independent events, there is little evidence to suggest that Danny Fields was part of Warhol/The Velvets’ inner circle at this point. The first established connection between them, beyond inference, is an October 1966 article in the Sydney Morning Herald (reporting on a September high-society event). It’s highly likely that Lillian Roxon, a writer for Dateline, was involved with Warhol and the Velvets at this time, but I can’t find firm evidence to adequately establish a strong connection. Fields has long been a huge advocate of the band and that entire scene, but there is little hard evidence to connect him closely enough to Warhol and the band to have been given access to the Scepter acetate at this time.

The Beatles’ and Epstein’s links to obtaining any early Scepter acetate in mid-1966 therefore appear to vanish, which is surprising, as after they stopped touring they would certainly have had far more free time. The most surprising aspect of this lack of contact with the band at this point is Paul McCartney, who took this opportunity to establish himself in London’s underground music and arts scene. Of course, there is no evidence to suggest that Donovan or Brian Jones explicitly told anyone related to the Beatles about their experiences in New York, but there is, on balance, certainly enough evidence to suggest that they too were aware.

Danny Fields’ biography of Linda McCartney, ironically, does offer the best vector for Fields giving Brian Epstein a copy of The Velvet Underground and Nico, though it comes far later. In March 1967, just as the album was released and when Danny Fields was firmly entrenched (and now documented) in the Warhol/Velvets scene:

“Epstein, among the most impressive gentlemen I’ve ever known, knew me because of his friendship with a hunky young hustler named Richard Luger, who was ‘staying’ at my loft with his girlfriend, Patti D’Arbanville, now a successful actress. Richard was a very hot boy and Brian had something of a crush on him - this was in March 1967. Several times, at about three or four in the morning, a limousine would pull up outside my shabby building on West 20th Street and it would be Brian, looking for Richard. A few times, when Richard wasn’t there, Brian would ask if he might come up and ‘chat’ for a while, which we did, far into the night… or until it became clear that Richard wasn’t going to be back.

Acting the proper John, Brian took Richard to Acapulco for a week, to stay at a villa he’d rented. When he came to my apartment to pick Richard up and take him to the airport, he told me he’d forgotten to bring any records with him; was there something he could borrow, maybe just one, and then he’d get some more in Mexico? I gave him The Velvet Underground and Nico, the ‘banana’ album, which had just been released, and said, ‘This is the greatest music you will ever hear.’ (I was a Velvet groupie, truth be known, and have never revised that opinion to this day.) A few days after they returned, I ran into Brian at Max’s Kansas City and he said, ‘Goddamn you,’ with a most inscrutable smile.

‘Why?’ I asked.
‘That f**king album you gave me - I couldn’t get any other records at all down there, so it’s the only one we had, and it was on the turntable twenty-four hours a day the whole time we were there. It’s made a hole in my brain.’

I told him I was glad he’d been exposed to some decent music at last (what a wag I was!), and he responded by saying, ‘Mmm… yes,’ and asked whether I’d like a ride up to Ondine’s in his car.

Bingo! Lou Reed, chief songwriter of the Velvet Underground himself, was in Max’s at the time, so I ran over and told him to drop everything, for I was going to introduce him to Brian Epstein, who was ‘crazy’ about the VU’s debut album and maybe could be their manager. Lou was reluctant; I was insistent. The three of us got into the back of Brian’s limo — Brian on the left, me in the middle, Lou on the right. Brian and Lou were looking out of the left and right windows, respectively, and sullenly, while I gushed: ‘Brian’s been listening to your record, Lou! He adores it!’”

Which brings us neatly (ish) to the Mary Harron interview with Sterling Morrison from NME on 25 April 1981. I purposely did not quote this earlier, as the required background information was needed to give it some weight:

“We had a lot of dealings with Brian Epstein. He loved the first album, and it was his favourite record for a long time. We had a lot of talks with him, riding in his car around Manhattan. First he wanted to sign us and have us be his only American group.”

“So then the second round of talks was about Three Prong Music, our publishing company. He wanted it to merge with Nemperor, The Beatles’ publishing company. We fretted and fretted over this and decided that if Epstein thought the stuff was so great, maybe we should hang on to it. We couldn’t see any advantage to being part of Nemperor - who was ever going to record our stuff? So that was the end of that. But then the third offer Epstein made was to put together a big European tour. And we said that was fine. And then, on the eve of the final signing, Epstein died.”

It should be stated that this interview took place around fifteen years after the events described, and Morrison misremembers certain details, such as the full album being available in April 1966 rather than this being the Scepter acetate. However, it appears that we have at least four independent sources broadly agreeing on this event.

Up-Tight by Gerard Malanga broadly covers this period, and Victor Bockris’ Lou Reed biography, Transformer, states that Brian Epstein became interested in the Velvet Underground after hearing their first album and discussed managing them and taking them to England, but that the plans ended with Epstein’s death.

I think we can broadly suggest, based on the available evidence and Danny Fields’ claim in the Linda McCartney biography that he gave Epstein the album after its US release, that Epstein had the album and enjoyed it immensely enough to pursue opportunities with the band. I also think the evidence suggests that Epstein was not in possession of any early acetate.

But was anyone?

If the manager of the most famous group - who was actively working with his US lawyer to represent American talent, and who had UK connections (Donovan and Brian Jones) with direct links to the band - was not in possession of a pre-release acetate, never mind a pre-release copy, was anyone else in the UK?

The immediate answer is Ken Pitt, but before we discuss him, was there anyone else?

An obvious choice would be Andrew Loog Oldham, who managed Nico and Brian Jones’ band, the Rolling Stones. Oldham was heavily involved in management and publishing, and regularly received acetates of songs his artists might potentially cover. I directly asked him if he had received a copy of the acetate before release, and he offered an emphatic “no”.

Who else was there? The Yardbirds.

Jimmy Page offered a 2020 social media post on his association with Nico:

“Nico released I’m Not Sayin’ (the Gordon Lightfoot song, produced by Andrew Oldham), and the B-side was titled The Last Mile, which was produced and written by me. I rehearsed with Nico in her mews flat during her stay in London. This was before Nico went to New York and became part of the magical Velvet Underground.”

The Yardbirds, with Page, later covered I’m Waiting for My Man in 1968. But they had also played with the Velvet Underground in Detroit in 1966 - well, ‘played’, but on different dates. The Yardbirds played on the 18th and the Velvet Underground on the 20th.

Here’s another social media post from Page, posted on 18 November 2025:

“On this day in 1966, I played the Michigan State Fair with The Yardbirds. The Yardbirds played the Michigan State Fair in Detroit, MI, where Dick Clark made an appearance to check in with his Caravan of Stars! This gave me an opportunity to meet Andy Warhol again, who had come to the fair to present the Velvet Underground.”

The Velvet Underground were there for the ‘Mod Wedding’ (to be covered in The Velvet Underground Myth Part 9), a bizarre wedding with Warhol as best man, the band playing, and Nico involved. There is a fair amount of confusion over what the weekend was actually organised for, but for our purposes this auction house catalogue listing seems to best sum it up:

“The vendor, whilst working as the Public Relations Director of the Motown Record Corporation, was approached about assisting with the Carnaby Street Fun Festival, to be held at the Michigan State Fairgrounds in November 1966.

The event was to be built around a live show to be emceed by Dick Clark of TV’s American Bandstand fame. However, according to the vendor, they had been unable to confirm any major act to headline the show. His idea was to host an extravagant, off-the-wall and somewhat controversial event, which he christened a ‘Mod Wedding’. His vision was to allow a lucky couple to get married, with the bride wearing a bespoke mod mini-dress. After initially being turned down by the first two couples they approached, they struck lucky with the third, as they had heard that Andy Warhol would be giving away the bride. But this was not to be, as the groom’s father - a member of the Lyndon B. Johnson presidential office - put a stop to it.

He had acquired Warhol’s services through Gerard Malanga, a member of the Factory, who was a big fan of Motown. By providing Malanga with some rare recordings, a fee of $1,500 was agreed for Warhol to appear at the event.

This only left a bride and groom to find, and with the assistance of the Detroit Free Press, an 18-year-old go-go dancer and her 25-year-old beau were selected.

The event took place on Sunday, 20 November. Warhol stood on stage painting paper dresses worn by women and signing Campbell’s Soup cans; Nico sang; Malanga danced using flashlights and a bullwhip; the Velvet Underground provided the music; and, in homage to the Motor City, an individual wielding a sledgehammer destroyed a car in the name of art - all in front of a crowd of almost 4,500 people. Warhol gave the couple a signed plastic Babe Ruth inflatable, which was paraded across the stage, and the Velvet Underground gifted the couple a wedding cake.

A wonderful archive of an important, albeit bizarre event - possibly one of the first ‘pop culture’ events involving Andy Warhol and his Factory associates.”

Despite both acts appearing on different days, there is clear evidence that the Yardbirds were present to witness the Velvets’ event. Despite many concert listings stating that the Yardbirds covered I’m Waiting for My Man on their date there, this is certainly incorrect.

However, there is no evidence to suggest that the Yardbirds, Jimmy Page, or their manager, Simon Napier-Bell (and soon Peter Grant), received an acetate of The Velvet Underground and Nico album here, despite it likely being available by then.

Ken Pitt and Bowie

The most famous recipient of the ‘acetate’ is David Bowie, via his then manager, Ken Pitt. Is there evidence to back this repeated claim though?

And was there even an acetate available?

Discogs lists a TEST PRESSING, from the 10th of November. Test pressings and acetates are clearly two different things. We know that there was a late song addition to the album - Sunday Morning which is not included on this test pressing.

https://www.discogs.com/release/14789036-The-Velvet-Underground-Nico-The-Velvet-Underground-Nico

A 2016 Pitchfor article on Bowie makes/repeats the claim of an acetate being given to Kenn Pitt - https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/994-invisible-hits-david-bowies-early-rarities/ :

“Bowie found a new songwriting idol in late 1966, when his then-manager handed him a pre-release acetate of The Velvet Underground & Nico (acquired directly from Andy Warhol himself). "Everything I both felt and didn’t know about rock music was opened to me," Bowie said of hearing the VU's epochal debut LP. In short order, he recorded what is likely the very first Velvet Underground cover: a still-unreleased, slightly tame demo of "I'm Waiting for the Man." He gets points for being (way) ahead of the curve, but Bowie's "Man" is a bit of a miss.”

But there is no evidence that this was an acetate, if anything it is logically the November 1966 TEST PRESSING.

I’d suggest that people are confusing the Scepter acetate with the November test pressing, purely based on the logic of this being available ‘late 1966’, whereas the April acetate had already done its work - provide the band with a record deal. There would be no reason for Ken Pitt to be given the April 1966 acetate by Warhol. Additionally, Mark Satlof - who certainly has the biggest collection of VU and Nico albums does not have one of the two confirmed copies of this acetate.

https://www.kpbs.org/news/2017/03/11/800-copies-meet-the-worlds-most-obsessive-fan-of-the-velvet-underground-and-nico

And in a 2023 LouderSound article:

https://www.loudersound.com/features/how-david-bowie-became-david-bowie

Despite a repeat of the acetate claim Ken Pitt is quoted here:

“The banana on the cover was still hanging in the ceiling while I was there. When I got home I gave David the record and another thing I’d picked up by a sleazy band called The Fugs; or rather he pinched them and played them to death. Later on he said that hearing those albums, and meeting Lindsay Kemp, the mime artist I introduced him to, were the most vital aspects in his career change.”

While no date is set the intriguing ‘hanging banana’ may offer some insight to a date.

The Baltimore Sun, from the 1st of December 1966 is the first reference to the album having a banana ‘theme’ I can find but no more information.

In 2017, Dangerous Minds ran an article by Howie Pyro of Danzig, claiming to have found the ‘original banana’ used on the sleeve.

https://dangerousminds.net/comments/after_50_years_the_ultimate_warhol_velvet_underground_mystery_is_finally_al/

Pyro claims it came from an ashtray he bought in a junk shop, and it certainly does appear to be the same one.

However, there is nothing to corroborate this, and it does not align with Ken Pitt’s recollection of the ‘banana on the ceiling’. The Pyro article does contain two photos of Warhol with a large peelable banana, as well as screenprints of the pink banana used under the peelable banana.

Reverse image searches reveal both Billy Name and Hervé Gloaguen as the photographers, but Getty does not provide a month, only “1966”.

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/herve-gloaguen-ne-en-1937-23-c-33e40e2896

However, on 5 October 1966, Warhol filmed Nico/Antoine, which featured both singers in front of a banana, so we can ascertain that the future album cover existed first as a Warhol print. This could very well be Ken Pitt’s ‘banana on the ceiling’, and the Warhol photographs likely date from around this period.

If this filming date is indeed true, then we have a little more evidence that Ken Pitt was at the Factory in late 1966, did see a banana, and possibly did obtain a test pressing, which certainly adds more weight to him obtaining a copy then rather than around the eventual release date.

Bowie’s cover of I’m Waiting for My Man ironically takes us closer to an official March 1967 release date, though.

We know that his then band, The Riot Squad, recorded the song in April 1967.

But a 2003 Vanity Fair article (referenced by Far Out in 2023) quoted Bowie:

“[The album was] brought back from New York by a former manager of mine, Ken Pitt,” Bowie recalled to Vanity Fair in 2003. “Pitt had done some kind of work as a PR man that had brought him into contact with the Factory. Warhol had given him this coverless test pressing (I still have it, no label, just a small sticker with Warhol’s name on it) and said, ‘You like weird stuff - see what you think of this.’ What I ‘thought of this’ was that here was the best band in the world.”

“In December of that year, my band Buzz broke up, but not without my demanding we play ‘I’m Waiting for the Man’ as one of the encore songs at our last gig,” he added. “Amusingly, not only was I to cover a Velvets song before anyone else in the world, I actually did it before the album came out. Now that’s the essence of Mod.”

I think this significantly adds weight to Bowie having a test pressing of the album in late 1966. Acy R. Lehman delays with the sleeve design, and Verve stipulations to add a radio-friendly song (Sunday Morning) aside, it does appear that Bowie was the first to cover a Velvets song, and that he was in possession of a test pressing before 1967.

So, what does this all tell us?

I think there’s enough evidence to suggest that Epstein only received the album in March 1967, after its release, and potentially never saw the band perform but that he was enamoured enough to pursue management negotiations with the band.

There’s little evidence to suggest the Beatles though had physically heard the Velvet Underground before March 1967, but they almost certainly knew of them.

We know that Brian Jones introduced Nico to Warhol and had almost certainly seen the band perform.

It tells us the Yardbirds, while almost certainly seeing the band in November 1966, did not have access to an acetate or test pressing, nor did they cover I’m Waiting for the Man on 18 November 1966. But that their 1968 cover can at least be partly inspired by their early encounter.

Importantly, we know that Ken Pitt’s recollections of the ‘banana on the ceiling’ at the Factory in late 1966 likely align with the Antonioni/Nico film of October 1966.

And that David Bowie almost certainly received the test pressing from Ken Pitt in late 1966 and performed a cover of a Velvets song in December 1966 (though recorded it after the album had been released).

As regards the banana ashtray, I can’t find anything to evidence this, but it would certainly seem unlikely for it to have been copied after Warhol’s design.

And that Donovan almost certainly saw the Velvet Underground and Nico in February 1966, a long time before anyone else.

And most importantly of all - it was a test-pressing, not an acetate!

Post Script:

The Bolton News from the 16th March 1967 appears to place Epstein in Mexico during March of that year which may add further weight to Field’s recollection in his Linda McCartney biography.