The Beatles released their
first single Love Me Do 50 years ago this week. Use the tabs above to
read the stories of four people who played a part in the group's early
days.
The Beatles started as The Quarrymen, a skiffle group
formed by John Lennon and his friends at Quarry Bank school in
Liverpool. They included Rod Davis, who played the banjo before being
replaced by a certain Paul McCartney.
"We were all inspired by Lonnie Donegan's recording of Rock
Island Line, which came out at the end of '55," Davis says. "I was
inspired, as were tens of thousands of other kids in the UK, to pick up
an instrument and try to thrash out a couple of chords.
"I've been a teacher in my career and John was what you would
call a disruptive pupil. Pete [Shotton, washboard] and Eric [Griffiths,
guitar] both said John ruined their education with his fooling around.
His one saving grace was that most of the things he got up to were
actually very funny.
"He was a very good singer. But nobody in those days was a
particularly good guitar player. He was very good at the front of a
group. There was inevitably only one microphone and sometimes not even
that, and John being the best singer, he got the microphone so the rest
of us just joined in the chorus.
"Our first gigs were at St Peter's Youth Club - it was just
an opportunity to be up on stage trying to impress the young ladies. And
then we graduated to doing interval slots at school dances.
"We got the occasional party and then on one occasion we got
to play at Lee Park Golf Club and in the audience was Alan Sytner, who
owned the Cavern. As a result of that, we got into the Cavern. They had
skiffle sessions.
"The others were all more into rock 'n' roll than skiffle, so
when rock 'n' roll came along, we started playing a lot more rock 'n'
roll numbers. But the Cavern was a jazz cellar. Skiffle was OK but rock
'n' roll was definitely not OK.
It wasn't a big deal as far as I was concerned - they weren't going anywhere anyway and I didn't like rock 'n' roll”
"If you played the wrong number
in front of the wrong audience, they were liable to take exception, so
you would get a note coming down saying 'Cut out the bloody rock'.
"I do remember on one occasion arguing with John about
playing rock 'n' roll. I just thought it was causing us trouble. I
personally didn't like rock 'n' roll at the time, which is one reason
why I drifted out of the Quarrymen.
"At the end of the fifth year they all left school - I stayed
on to the sixth form to try to get into university. So the group left
me. I was still at school, they left, I was working hard for my A-levels
and so I just drifted out.
"The group continued and met Paul McCartney, who knew an
awful lot of song words, which were difficult things to get hold of, and
could also play the guitar using proper guitar chords. He was a big
asset to the group - a much bigger asset than I would have been and so
they became more and more rock 'n' roll orientated, and that's how it
happened.
"It wasn't a big deal as far as I was concerned - they
weren't going anywhere anyway and I didn't like rock 'n' roll. You can't
be a banjo player in a rock 'n' roll group. I was much more into blues
and American country material and I've been playing that ever since.
"When I graduated at the end of '63, I went abroad and
started working in Germany teaching English. My pupils had never heard
of The Beatles so I got snippets from my mum and dad. I found a letter
the other day saying 'You'll be pleased to hear your old mates are doing
quite well'.
"I was out there when the Beatles really went big and there
were no reverberations in southern Germany at all. So when I got back
and found that they were seriously big time, I was absolutely delighted.
"I think Len [Garry, tea-chest bass] was the one who would
have liked to have been a Beatle. He caught tubercular meningitis some
time in 1958 and he was hospitalised for six months, and after that the
last place they would let him go were smoky dives like The Cavern.
"He has said he felt really envious knowing they were out
there enjoying themselves, playing music and impressing young ladies and
he was working as an architect's apprentice in Liverpool. He was gutted
but I wasn't too bothered at all."
The Quarrymen reformed in 1997 and will play The Castle pub on Finchley Road in London on 12 October.
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