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The Quarrymen
 The skiffle group originally formed by John Lennon in March 1957 when he was a pupil at Quarry Bank School.
For one week only they were dubbed ‘The Blackjacks’, then John decided to name them after the school - probably inspired by a line in the school song which read: ‘Quarrymen - old before our birth’.
Having recently talked his Aunt Mimi into buying him a £15 guitar at Frank Hessy’s, John, who was keen to lead a group, immediately enlisted his closest friend Pete Shotton as washboard player. After one week as ‘The Quarrymen’ a third member was recruited, another boy from their class.
Bill Smith was asked to play tea-chest bass. Smith remained with ‘The Quarrymen’ for only a matter of weeks, and for the next year the tea-chest bass was shared between Ivan Vaughan, Nigel Whalley and Len Garry. Other members included Rod Davis on banjo and Colin Hanton on drums.
Initial gigs included private parties and local skiffle contests. On June 9th 1957 the band entered a qualifying audition for ‘The Carroll Levis TV Star Search Show’ at The Empire Theatre, but they failed the audition.
The band’s repertoire comprised popular skiffle hits of the time: ‘Rock Island Line’, ‘Freight Train’, ‘Railroad Bill’, ‘Lost John’, ‘Cumberland Gap’, ‘Midnight Special’, ‘No Other Baby’ and ‘Worried Man Blues’. They also performed the Liverpool sea shanty ‘Maggie May’.
The group’s next major engagement was at an outdoor party in Rosebery Street on June 22nd of the same year. One of the main organizers of the event was Mrs. Marjorie Roberts whose son Charles was a friend of Colin Hanton.
The occasion was the 550th anniversary of the granting of Liverpool’s charter by King John, and the date was marked throughout Liverpool.
‘The Quarrymen’ performed on the flatbed of a stationary coal lorry belonging to the resident at No. 76, who also provided the group with a microphone. During a day-long party ‘The Quarrymen’ performed twice.
Charles Roberts - who also took the famous photograph of the group performing in the street - related how two black boys from neighbouring Hatherley Street began to heckle the band and threatened to beat up John. John jumped off the back of the truck and fled to No. 84 - the Roberts’ house - followed by the rest of the group! Mrs. Roberts provided them with refreshments, and a policeman was called to escort the boys to the bus stop where they caught a bus home to Woolton!
Their next gig, on Saturday July 6th, was at the garden fete of St. Peter’s Church in Woolton. This was historically one of the most important events because it was here that John met Paul.
‘The Quarrymen’ that day featured John, Griffiths, Hanton, Davis, Shotton and Garry; and Geoff Rhind, a school friend with a Box Brownie, took a photograph of them for posterity.
Ivan Vaughan wasn’t playing tea-chest bass that day and had invited along a friend from The Liverpool Institute, Paul McCartney, who had cycled to the event.
After ‘The Quarrymen’ had performed they took their gear over to the church hall where they were performing that same evening. Ivan took the fifteen-year-old Paul across to meet them.
The young lad made an impression because he showed them how to tune a guitar - which none of them could do - and Paul particularly impressed John with his knowledge of the lyrics of ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ songs. He even wrote out the words of ‘Twenty Flight Rock’ and ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ for John. Paul also borrowed a guitar and began to play some Little Richard numbers including ‘Long Tall Sally’ and ‘Tutti Frutti’.
When Paul had left John considered asking him to join ‘The Quarrymen’, and the message was relayed to Paul by Pete Shotton two weeks later.
In the meantime the group made their Cavern Club debut on a special ‘skiffle night’ on August 7th, on a bill with Ron McKay, ‘The Dark Town Skiffle Group’, ‘The Deltones’ and ‘The Demon Five’. It was during this gig that John sang two Presley numbers causing The Cavern owner Alan Sytner to send him a curt note: ‘Cut out the bloody rock!’
Paul had been away at a summer camp with his brother Michael and on his return to Liverpool made his debut with the group at The New Clubmoor Hall, Back Broadway, on Friday October 18th.
Local promoter Charlie McBain had booked ‘The Quarrymen’ and they wore matching outfits with long-sleeved cowboy shirts, black string ties and black trousers. John and Paul wore white sports-coats.
The line-up that night comprised Hanton on drums, Garry on tea-chest bass, Griffiths on guitar and John and Paul. On this occasion Paul played lead guitar for the first and only time - and it was a disaster!
Paul played the old Arthur Smith hit ‘Guitar Boogie’ but ruined the guitar solo because he was playing his guitar upside-down and backwards, since he still didn’t know how to re-string a guitar for a left-handed person!
After the show, aware that his debut as lead guitarist hadn’t gone down too well, Paul tried to impress John by playing him an original number he’d written called ‘I’ve Lost My Little Girl’.
John responded by trying out a few tunes he had written, and the Lennon and McCartney songwriting team was born.
On Thursday November 7th the band was booked by McBain to appear at Wilson Hall, Garston. They had three other gigs that year - at Stanley Abattoir Social Club on November 16th, at New Clubmoor Hall on November 23rd and at Wilson Hall on December 7th.
It was obvious from the time of their Cavern debut that John was becoming increasingly interested in ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ and was moving away from skiffle music. This so displeased the group’s music purist Rod Davis that he left the band in February 1958.
Rock numbers the band selected in their early repertoire included ‘All Shook Up’, ‘Be-Bop-a-Lula’, ‘Blue Moon Of Kentucky’, ‘Bony Moronie’, ‘Lawdy Miss Clawdy’, ‘Mailman Blues’, ‘Mean Woman Blues’, ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, ‘Searchin’, ‘Short Fat Fanny’, ‘Sure To Fall (In Love With You)’, ‘That’s All Right Mama’ and ‘Twenty Flight Rock’.
In 1958 a new member, John Charles Lowe, nicknamed ‘Duff’ joined them occasionally on piano. John Charles was in the same form at Liverpool Institute as Paul, and Paul asked him over to his house in Allerton to meet John. Two weeks after this event George Harrison joined the group.
‘The Quarrymen’ appeared at The New Clubmoor Hall on January 10th and at The Cavern on January 24th 1959. George saw them for the first time when they appeared for Charlie McBain on February 6th at Wilson Hall. On March 23rd they appeared at the opening night of Alan Caldwell’s (later to become Rory Storm) cellar club, The Morgue in Broadgreen.
Amongst the bands other appearances that year was the wedding reception of George’s brother Harry in Speke, on December 20th.
During the first two years of the group’s existence their repertoire changed dramatically. Paul’s influence in the group brought in the Little Richard numbers ‘Long Tall Sally’ and ‘Lucille’, but one of their major influences was Buddy Holly, and they performed several of his hits including: ‘It’s So Easy’, ‘Maybe Baby’. ‘Peggy Sue’, ‘That’ll Be The Day’, ‘Think It Over’ and ‘Words Of Love’.
John and Paul also began to write songs, both individually and together, which were performed by the group. These included: ‘Hello Little Girl’, ‘I Lost My Little Girl’, ‘Just Fun’, ‘Keep Looking That Way’, ‘Like Dreamers Do’, ‘Love Of The Loved’, ‘The One After 909’, ‘That’s My Woman’, ‘Thinking of Linking’, ‘Too Bad About Sorrows’ and ‘Years Roll By’.
George Harrison sang: ‘Youngblood’, ‘Your True Love’ and ‘Three Cool Cats’. He also co-penned a number with Paul: ‘In Spite Of All The Danger’.
The group also performed some instrumentals including: ‘Guitar Boogie’, ‘Ramrod’, ‘Raunchy’; the McCartney compositions ‘Catswalk’ and ‘Hot As Sun’; John’s ‘Winston’s Walk’ and the Lennon and McCartney instrumental: ‘Looking Glass’.
During the summer of 1958 an historic record was made. ‘The Quarrymen’ decided to cut a demo disc using Percy Phillips’s studio at 58 Kensington. The five members at this time consisted of John, Paul, George, Hanton and Lowe who each contributed 3s. 6d. to the fee for cutting the record, which featured: ‘That’ll Be The Day’ on the A-side and the Harrison/McCartney ‘In Spite Of All The Danger’ on the flipside. Philips later wiped the original tape but Lowe, who left the group in 1958, retained a copy.
‘The Quarrymen’ played only two minor gigs at the beginning of 1959, at a Speke Bus Depot social club party organized by George’s father at Wilson Hall on January 1st, and at another party at Woolton Village Club on January 24th.
The group then drifted apart and it seemed as if the careers and the musical aspirations of ‘The Quarrymen’ were over. John and Paul continued to meet and write songs together and George joined an outfit called The Les Stewart Quartet.
The quartet was to become resident band at a new coffee club opening on August 29th. Launched by Mrs. Mona Best, the coffee club was called ‘The Casbah’ and a ‘live’ group was to be presented each Saturday evening.
Another member of the quartet, Ken Brown, arranged the residency but Les Stewart was annoyed because Brown missed rehearsals to help with the decorating of The Casbah, and he refused to play. Brown and George decided to go ahead with the residency and within a matter of hours George had recruited John and Paul, who decided to retain the name ‘The Quarrymen’. Were it not for this incident in August ‘The Quarrymen’ would probably have never played again, and we might never have heard of The Beatles!
The Casbah residency came to an end on Saturday October 10th, when there was a dispute with Ken Brown and the group walked out.
The band’s next appearance was at The Carroll Levis Auditions at The Empire Theatre, Liverpool, during which they used the name Johnny And The Moondogs. Several other name-changes were to occur before the group settled on The Beatles for their appearances in Hamburg in August 1960, when their line-up comprised: John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Pete Best and Stuart Sutcliffe.
Copyright: Bill Harry, from 'The Beatles Encyclopedia', published by Virgin Publications.
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