NEW MEMORABILIA AT THE BEATLES STORY

Dave Jones, director of Cavern City Tours, with the newly installed Cavern Club memorabilia at the Beatles Story

A contract for Motown star Stevie Wonder to play at the Cavern Club has been loaned to the Beatles Story in the Albert Dock.

The artifact, which is dated January 7, 1966, when Stevie was aged just 16 and known as ‘Little Stevie Wonder’, is one of a number of items loaned to the tourist attraction by Cavern City Tours .

Many of the items were originally on sale at the Mathew Street and include a Cavern Club pendant and leather chain, a PVC membership holder, an autograph book and a Cavern Club T-shirt.

Another rare artifact that Cavern City Tours has loaned is one of the Beatles Yellow Submarine 33c stamps - believed to be the first American stamp produced in honour of a rock group. The stamp was launched to celebrate the re-release of film Yellow Submarine at International Beatles week in Liverpool in 1999.

Dave Jones, company director of Cavern City Tours, has also loaned some NEMS (North End Music Stores) items from his own private collection. These include a typed letter to Bob Wooler on NEMS letterhead signed by Brian Epstein dated August 1963, an original 78 vinyl record sleeve with NEMS Walton Road printed on the sleeve and a red and white plastic record sleeve for albums with the addresses of the NEMS Whitechapel and Great Charlotte Street stores printed on it.

The Beatles Story’s Martin King said: “The loan by Cavern City Tours and by Dave Jones is greatly appreciated by everyone here at the Beatles Story and I am sure the same can be said for the visitors to the exhibition.

“The Cavern memorabilia and NEMS items will be of great interest to all Beatles fans, both young and old, and the stamp is a rare piece we have not seen before so will I’m sure be a popular piece for our visitors.”

Mr Jones added: “The Cavern Club collection of artifacts includes a considerable number of items dating from 1957 to the present day.

“As part of The Cavern Club’s close working relationship with our colleagues at the Beatles Story we have loaned the exhibition a number of items from the ‘Cavern Collection’ for display in the exhibition’s recreation of the Cavern Club.”