The Quarrymen

The Quarrymen (sometimes written as The Quarry Men) (circa late 1956 - Oct 1959) are an English skiffle group formed in Liverpool in the latter part of 1956 by John Lennon with several school friends. It was the band that eventually evolved into The Beatles. The group's name was inspired by the name of the Quarry Bank grammar school, which Lennon and most of his band-mates attended.

Preamble

John Lennon had become enthused with rock 'n' roll music firstly through Bill Haley & His Comets Rock Around The Clock in January 1955 and then Elvis Presley's hit Heartbreak Hotel in April 1956. British teenagers in the mid-1950s who wished to try creating such music but who had no experience or training became attracted to a musical form peculiar to Britain known as skiffle music. It was a hybrid of American folk, blues and hillbilly with strains of primitive rock 'n' roll. Its primary attraction was that it did not require great musical skills or expensive instruments. It was home-made music that could be created by enthusiastic amateurs with very limited skills. The most successful proponent of skiffle in 1955-1957 was a Scottish-born musician called Lonnie Donegan. John Lennon became enamoured of Donegan's music.

History

When Lennon decided that he wanted to try making music himself, he decided to start a skiffle group. This was in late 1956 - exact date unknown. He started by recruiting his best friend, Pete Shotton. Lennon was to be the singer and guitarist. Shotton elected to play washboard, a common skiffle instrument used to provide a rhythmic sound. After just one week as "The Black Jacks", they renamed themselves "The Quarrymen," after a line in their school song at Quarry Bank Grammar School and a week later they recruited another friend from their school, Bill Smith, to play tea chest bass, despite Shotton's protestations as he had recently been involved in a fight with Smith.

Smith's musical ability was as limited as Shotton's, and he soon began to be sidelined when two other school friends Rod Davis (banjo) and Eric Griffiths (guitar) joined the band, as these two could play their instruments comparatively well. Smith was eventually replaced by Len Garry. After recruiting Colin Hanton to play drums, the Quarrymen performed at parties and skiffle contests in the Liverpool area. It was unusual for skiffle groups to have a drummer. Hanton had purchased his drum set with his earnings as an apprentice upholsterer. He had his name and the band's name put on the skin of the bass drum in letters cut out from black paper.

On 22 June 1957 the Quarrymen played twice at an outdoor party in Rosebery Street to celebrate the 750th anniversary of the granting of Liverpool’s charter by King John.

On Saturday 6 July 1957 the band played at St. Peter's Church garden fête.^[1] In the afternoon they played on a stage in a field behind the church. After the set, Ivan Vaughan, a pal of Lennon who was attending the event with another of his friends Paul McCartney introduced his two friends to each other. Lennon and McCartney chatted for a few minutes while the band was setting up in the church hall for the second set.^[1] McCartney demonstrated how he tuned his guitar and sang Eddie Cochran's "Twenty Flight Rock" and Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-A-Lula", and a medley of Little Richard hits to his own guitar accompaniment.^[2] The evening show started at 8 p.m. and admission cost two shillings. A young audience member, Bob Molyneux, recorded part of the evening performance on his Grundig portable reel-to-reel tape recorder. After the show, Lennon and Shotton discussed the afternoon encounter they had had with Ivan Vaughan's young friend and Lennon indicated that he thought they should invite McCartney to join their fledgling group. Two weeks later, Pete Shotton encountered McCartney, who was cycling through Woolton. Shotton conveyed Lennon's casual invitation to McCartney to join the group.^[3]

Nigel Whalley, a friend who had briefly played tea-chest bass in the group, was acting informally as a manager for the group. He secured the Quarrymen a booking at Lee Park Golf Club in Liverpool. Alan Sytner, owner of the Cavern club, was a member of the golf club. The band subsequently appeared several times in what were billed as “Skiffle Sessions”, and in August 1957, their name was first mentioned in the Cavern's advertisement in the Liverpool Echo.

McCartney made his debut with the band for a Conservative Club social, at The New Clubmoor Hall on Back Broadway in Norris Green, Liverpool, on Friday, 18 October 1957, a while after returning from his summer holidays.^[4][5] The band had been booked by local promoter Charlie McBain and they wore matching outfits with long-sleeved, white cowboy shirts, black string ties and black trousers. Lennon and McCartney stood front and center onstage and wore white sports jackets. McCartney played lead guitar. During the show he botched a solo, embarrassing himself and the group. To save face with Lennon, during a break McCartney played him "I've Lost My Little Girl"—his recently completed first song. (Hearing this song reportedly inspired Lennon to also start writing.) The other members of the band that night were Hanton on drums, Garry on tea-chest bass and Griffiths on guitar.

On Thursday, 7 November, McBain booked The Quarrymen to appear at Wilson Hall, Garston. They also played Stanley Abattoir Social Club on 16 November, New Clubmoor Hall on 23 November and Wilson Hall on 7 December.

The Quarrymen played The New Clubmoor Hall on 10 January 1958 and at The Cavern on 24 January. With Lennon losing interest in skiffle and playing more rock ‘n’ roll, banjo-player Rod Davis left the band in February 1958. McCartney's school friend George Harrison first saw the group perform on 6 February playing at Wilson Hall for Charlie McBain and he joined the band two weeks later.

In March, Garry contracted meningitis (from which he later recovered) and was thus sidelined from the band. Griffiths was asked to take over playing tea-chest bass but he declined and left the band.

Shortly after this lineup change, John Charles Lowe, another schoolmate of Paul's, joined the band, playing piano with them through the summer of 1958 whenever a piano was available at the venue. On 23 March the band performed at the opening night of Alan Caldwell’s cellar club, The Morgue in Broadgreen.

In the summer of 1958 the band (consisting of Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, Hanton and Lowe) recorded two songs onto a 78-rpm acetate disc in Percy Philips' small demo studio in Kensington Road, Liverpool. The first recording was a cover of Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day". The second song was an original composition written by McCartney and Harrison, inspired by Elvis's song "Tryin' To Get To You," titled "In Spite of All the Danger". John Lennon sang lead vocal on the first song and harmonised with Paul on the second.

Lowe left the band in the autumn of 1958 and the band continued to play regularly, including at the wedding reception of Harrison's brother Harry in Speke, on 20 December. After just two more performances (on 1 January at a Speke Bus Depot social club party at Wilson Hall organised by Harrison’s father, and on 24 January at a party at Woolton Village Club), Colin Hanton quit the band after an argument with John and Paul on the bus ride home from the latter gig. He was not replaced, and the band slowly disintegrated.

Evolution from The Quarrymen to The Beatles

Main article: The Beatles

Lennon and McCartney continued to write songs together, and Harrison joined The Les Stewart Quartet with Les Stewart and guitarist Ken Brown. When Mona Best opened the Casbah coffee club on 29 August 1959, Ken Brown arranged for the quartet to be its resident band. When Brown missed rehearsals to help decorate The Casbah, Les Stewart refused to play with the band. Brown and Harrison recruited Lennon and McCartney on short notice to help them fill the residency, and the new band used the old name ‘The Quarrymen’. On 10 October there was an argument between the band and Mona Best over the band's fee for performing in The Casbah that night. Ken Brown had showed up at the gig, but was too ill to perform. Mrs. Best insisted Ken deserved to be paid for showing up, but the rest of the band insisted on being paid his share of the band's fee. In the end The Quarrymen walked out of The Casbah, ending their residency.

The band next appeared as Johnny and The Moondogs at The Carroll Levis Auditions at The Empire Theatre, in Liverpool. By May 1960, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison had been joined by Stuart Sutcliffe, and three months later they invited Mona Best's son, drummer Pete Best, to join the band and come away with them to West Germany. They tried several other names, including the Silver Beetles, before settling on The Beatles for their performances in Hamburg in August 1960. When the group returned to Liverpool, Sutcliffe left the group, choosing to remain in Hamburg. (He died shortly afterwards.) In August 1962, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison decided to dismiss Pete Best and replace him with Ringo Starr. The final lineup of the Beatles was now in place and remained intact until the group disbanded in 1970.

Reunion in 1990s

John Duff Lowe and Rod Davis reformed as a band for a short time in the 1990s and an album, entitled Open For Engagements, was self-released in 1994. (The album title was a reference to the tag-line on the business cards the band had used to advertise itself during its short existence in the late 1950s.) In August 1993, during Liverpool's annual Beatle Week Festival, Lowe performed on the concert stage of the rebuilt Cavern Club in Mathew Street, Liverpool, with a new lineup of Quarrymen that included singer-guitarist Mike Wilsh, formerly of The Four Pennies. Len Garry, who had left the original Quarrymen in 1958, appeared with Lowe's new band as guest vocalist.

In August 1994, on the day of Liverpool's second annual Mathew Street Festival, Len made his first comeback appearance as a singer, guesting with American musician Scott Wheeler before a packed house at Labinskys in Temple Court, around the corner from Mathew Street.

That same year Bob Molyneux, then a retired policeman, rediscovered the tape reel containing the amateur recordings he had made of the Quarrymen's performance at the evening concert in July 1957. Only two of the songs from the performance had survived. (The other songs on the original tape had been over-taped at some point after the concert.) The two songs that survived were of the Quarrymen performing Lonnie Donegan's "Puttin' On The Style" and Elvis Presley's "Baby, Let's Play House". Though the quality of the original recording is very poor, Lennon's voice is clearly identifiable. Molyneux put his tape up for auction at Sotheby's. The auction was held on 15 September 1994 . The tape sold to EMI Records for £78,500, making it the most expensive recording ever sold at auction. The tape has not been released commercially and it remains in the EMI archives.

During 1995 and 1996 Len Garry continued to appear as guest vocalist with The Scott Wheeler Band during the band's twice-yearly tours of Merseyside, specialising in singing his beloved Elvis tunes.

In January 1997 the Cavern Mecca invited all the bands who had played at the Cavern in the 1950s to the unveiling of the “Cavern Wall of Fame” in Mathew Street to celebrate the club's 40th anniversary. All five of the surviving original Quarrymen and Duff Lowe attended, and that evening they gave an impromptu performance onstage at the Cavern.

That evening they were asked to help salute the upcoming 40th anniversary of the now legendary Lennon-McCartney meeting at Woolton fête.

40th anniversary of the first meeting of Lennon & McCartney

The 40th anniversary event was initiated and primarily organized by Jean Catharell, the head of Liverpool Beatlescene fan club. She determined that the cultural significance of the historic meeting should be marked by a series of events around the 40th anniversary. She helped organize a faithful re-creation of the original garden fete and evening concert - both headlined by the Quarrymen. The events were held to raise funds for the St. Peter's Church Hall Restoration Fund.

In 1957 - the original garden fête and evening concert had taken place on 6 July - a Saturday. For the 40th anniversary celebrations it was decided to hold events over the weekend closest to the original date - the weekend of Saturday 5th July and Sunday 6th July. The Saturday garden fête and evening concert were re-created on the Saturday (5 July 1997). A church service and plaque unveiling taking place on Sunday (6 July).

All five of the surviving Quarrymen reunited for the occasion and undertook rehearsals in Liverpool in early June. The re-creation of the events from 1957 included a midday procession through the village with the band playing on the back of a flatbed lorry (driven by the driver who had performed this task in 1957). A faithful re-creation of the afternoon concert in the garden featured The Quarrymen perfoming many of the same songs they had performed in 1957. At the re-creation of the evening concert in the Church Hall the band's set included "Puttin' On The Style" which Bob Molyneux had recorded 40 years earlier. They also played Twenty Flight Rock - the Eddie Cochran song that McCartney had performed to impress Lennon at their brief first encounter. The concert ended with a performance of John Lennon's Imagine sung by Pete Shotton - his closest pal in the band who had stayed friends with Lennon till the latter's death in 1980.

The anniversary was saluted with a series of personal messages and congratulatory messages from Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, US President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Her Majesty The Queen that had been solicited by event co-producer - Beatles scholar Martin Lewis.

Subsequent career

Following the success of this event, all five original surviving Quarrymen (Shotton, Griffiths, Davis, Garry and Hanton) recorded an album Get Back - Together, which was released in September 1997. It had an official launch at the Beatlefans Convention at the Playhouse, Derby on Sunday, 9 November 1997.

Between 1998 and 2003 - the five members of the Quarrymen toured together performing concerts at festivals and Beatles fan conventions. Their stage show included spoken-word recollections of their brief but eventful history. The band performed throughout Europe, USA, Canada, Japan and Cuba.

In Cuba they performed at a festival where they were seen by Hunter Davies the author who had written the only official biography of the Beatles (published in 1968). Davies was intrigued to see the performance and decided to write a book (The Quarrymen - Omnibus Press, 2001) detailing the history of the band that had been the start of the Beatles.

During those years Len Garry continued to guest with The Scott Wheeler Band on its Merseyside tours, and in 2002 and 2005 Duff Lowe sang and played portable keyboard at two of the band's Mathew Street Festival shows. Coverage of those events, including photos and additional historical information on the Quarrymen, was included in Scott's book Charlie Lennon: Uncle To A Beatle (Boulder, Colorado: Outskirts Press, 2005).

In 2003 the band recorded another album Songs We Remember - released initially in Japan (2003) - and subsequently in the UK (2005). The lineup was depleted in 2005 by the death of Eric Griffiths and the retirement of Pete Shotton from performing. The three active surviving members recruited John "Duff" Lowe (from the 1958 lineup) and the band continues to tour internationally as a four-piece group with occasional guest performers.

The Quarrymen Discography

• Open For Engagements 1995
• Get Back - Together 1997
• Songs We Remember 2004

Band line-ups from The Quarrymen to The Beatles