Merseybeat
 Let's
get one thing clear before we begin: The
Beatles did not create Merseybeat, it created them. And
although they are by far the most famous of the city's sons,
Liverpool would have become a focal point for the music industry
even if The Beatles had emigrated to
Australia in 1961.
By 1962, some 350 groups were shaking the streets of Liverpool
- but so far unknown beyond Merseyside.
Certainly there were beat groups elsewhere in England, but
nothing to compare with Liverpool. Even though Manchester is only
35 miles from Liverpool, Mancunian bands like The
Dakotas, Freddie & The
Dreamers and Herman's Hermits
noticed the difference when they played at Merseyside venues
The British Beat boom was a cleansing process, a wiping of the
slate, a cause of dramatic change on all levels of popular music.
It was not just the faces on the record covers that changed. The
music business itself was revolutionised by young, smart,
aggressive new leaders who were motivated by instinct and
enthusiasm. Small independent record labels sprang up and small
venues boomed - Merseybeat was born . . .
 Hundreds of local groups played at dozens of venues up and down
Merseyside. The famous Cavern
was a Trad jazz club until May 25, 1960, when its first beat
session featured Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, with Cass and the
Casanovas.
Its main rivals were The Jacaranda - which, like The
Cavern, was managed by Alan Williams, The
Beatles' first manager - where the walls were decorated with
murals by Stuart Sutcliffe (The Beatles'
first bass player); and The Iron Door - home of The
Searchers.
Outside the city centre there were ballrooms, church halls and
civic halls like Litherland Town Hall, Aintree Institute, Wilson
Hall in Garston, and The Jive Hive at Crosby. There was a
Merseybeat boat trip to the Isle of Man, with over a dozen groups
on board.
Special events were held at local venues like the New Brighton
Pier, where Rory Storm once climbed on top of the pavilion and
broke his leg falling through the glass roof. Liverpool could also
claim to have pioneered music festivals when on one occasion 14
hours of music from 25 groups was presented at Stanley Stadium -
tickets cost £1 . . .
Before The Beatles and Gerry
& The Pacemakers had their hits, no musicians on
Merseyside made much money. £5 a night was about average, and at
one period The Beatles got just five
shillings each for playing at The Jacaranda. Nearly every group
was semi-professional, and most obtained their equipment through
credit contracts guaranteed by their parents.
A lot of the groups grew out of street gangs in working-class
areas like the Dingle - kids who'd been enthralled by Rock
Around The Clock and wanted to do more than just dance or
slash seats to Rock & Roll music.
For the top Liverpool groups though, Hamburg in Germany soon
became the place to play and earn a little more money. The German
connection came about almost accidentally when a Hamburg club
owner came to Liverpool and poached a steel band who were booked
at The Jacaranda. In the negotiations which followed, Alan
Williams persuaded the Germans that what they needed was an
English beat group.
A summer season in Blackpool for Howie Casey and the Seniors
had just fallen through, so Williams shipped them off to the
Kaiser Keller club. They were a howling success, so soon
afterwards The Beatles also appeared in
Hamburg, at The Indra.
The Hamburg experience was the making of The
Beatles and nearly every Mersey group who played there. Having
to play long sets, in an environment where they knew only each
other, welded the groups into tight units. They also had to modify
their style to the raucous drinking and dancing clubs of the
Reeperbahn. The groups had to concentrate on loud, rocking
numbers, and the Germans also wanted groups who were visually
exciting.
On July 6 1961, the first issue of a new music newspaper was
published in Liverpool. The newspaper was called Mersey Beat
(edited by Bill Harry who had studied magazine design at the Art
College where both John Lennon and Stu
Sutcliffe had been) and contained an article by Lennon, entitled
"being a short diversion on the dubious origin of
Beatles".
His group, who were fast becoming Liverpool's favourite act,
began a residency at The
Cavern on August 2. In November of that year, after being
asked for a disc by The Beatles, record
shop owner Brian
Epstein went to The
Cavern to see the group and was so immediately impressed by
their potential that he wasted no time securing their signatures
on a management contract on December 13.
In May 1962, Liverpool's Mersey Beat newspaper carried a
front page story revealing "Impresario Brian Epstein has
secured a recording contract with the powerful EMI organisation
for The Beatles to record for the Parlophone label". Two
other Brian
Epstein managed groups, Gerry
& The Pacemakers and Billy J
Kramer & The Dakotas, were immediately successful.
Gerry & The Pacemakers'
first single, How Do You Do It?, became the first
Merseybeat Number 1. Ironically, the song (written by established
pop tunesmith Mitch Murray) had been rejected by The
Beatles before being passed on to Gerry Marsden and his group.
The Pacemakers scored their second consecutive Number 1 hit with I
Like It, and in October '63 they became the first act ever to
notch up three Number 1s with their first three releases with the
powerful ballad You'll Never Walk Alone from the musical Carousel.
By now, public and media interest in the new Mersey sound was
overwhelming, but national British newspapers still overlooked a
small news item in the Liverpool Echo on June 21, 1962. The
paper reported that, at a party in Liverpool to celebrate Beatle Paul
McCartney's birthday, his song writing partner John
Lennon punched DJ Bob Wooler in the face after Wooler loudly
proclaimed that Lennon and Brian Epstein were lovers.
As the decade unfolded, every London-based record company
talent scout swooped on Liverpool, fearful of losing out on
similar talent. They signed up anything that moved. Because nearly
all the records made by Liverpool groups after they had been
signed by major record companies, were hastily and unimaginatively
produced in the hope of leaping on The
Beatles band-wagon, it's very difficult to realise how
exciting Merseybeat was in its natural habitat.
The close-harmonies and distinctive jangling guitars of
long-established Liverpool quartet The
Searchers took a cover of the old Drifters'
hit Sweets For My Sweet to Number 1 on June 27, 1963, and
by August the first edition of a new magazine, Beatles Monthly,
went on sale.
In November 1963, The Beatles
performed at the Royal Variety Command Performance in front of the
Queen Mother, Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon. John Lennon
found it impossible not to make fun of the audience, and half-way
through their set he quipped "on the next number would those
in the cheap seats clap their hands? The rest of you, rattle your jewellery".
This vein of cheeky Scouse humour was a distinguishing
characteristic of the Mersey groups, and particularly of The
Beatles. By February 1964, The Fab Four were taking Merseybeat
to the United States when they flew into New York and seventy
three million American viewers watched them on the Ed
Sullivan Show.
Such was the devotion of local Liverpool fans to their 'own'
sound (and groups) that 100 youths barricaded themselves in The
Cavern as a protest against its closure in February 1966. A
5,000 signature petition was sent to Prime Minister Harold Wilson,
demanding that the club be reopened. The
Cavern was indeed reopened, in July - with PM Harold
Wilson in attendance!
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