The Quarrymen
In the mid-1950s, a musical revival known as skiffle swept through the United Kingdom. This genre had originated in the United States decades earlier and gained popularity among American teenagers during the 1920s, '30s, and '40s. British teenagers embraced the craze because it required no great musical skills or expensive instruments to perform. Lonnie Donegan became the most successful British proponent of the genre in the 1950s. The Quarrymen's initial repertoire included several songs that Donegan had recorded. John Lennon decided to try making music himself after hearing these records. He and fellow Quarry Bank school friend Eric Griffiths took guitar lessons in Hunt's Cross, Liverpool. Lennon gave up the lessons soon after because they were based on theory rather than actual playing. Griffiths already knew how to play the banjo. Lennon's mother taught them how to tune the top four strings of their guitars to the same notes as a banjo. She also taught them the chords of D, C, and D7, along with the Fats Domino song "Ain't That a Shame". They practiced at Lennon's aunt's house called Mendips at 251 Menlove Avenue where Lennon lived. They learned how to play Lonnie Donegan's "Rock Island Line", "Jump Down Turn Around (Pick a Bale of Cotton)", "Alabamy Bound" and "Cumberland Gap". Later they learned two of Elvis Presley's first hits, "That's All Right" and "Mean Woman Blues". Lennon and Griffiths decided to form a skiffle group in November 1956. This initial line-up consisted of Lennon and Griffiths on guitars, Pete Shotton on washboard, and school friend Bill Smith on tea-chest bass. Both Lennon and Shotton have been credited with coining the name Quarrymen after a line in their school's song: 'Quarrymen, old before our birth. Straining each muscle and sinew.' The choice of name was tongue-in-cheek as Lennon regarded the reference in the school song to "straining each muscle and sinew" as risible. Smith's tenure in the band was extremely short, and he was replaced in quick succession by Nigel Walley, Ivan Vaughan, and Len Garry throughout late 1956 and early 1957. Also during this period, drummer Colin Hanton and banjo player Rod Davis joined the group. This group of Lennon, Griffiths, Shotton, Garry, Hanton, and Davis formed the first stable line-up of the group.
On the 6th of July 1957, The Quarrymen played at the St. Peter's Church Rose Queen garden fête in Woolton. They first played on the back of a moving flatbed lorry, in a procession of floats that carried the Rose Queen and retiring Rose Queen, Morris dancers, Boy Scouts, Brownies, Girl Guides and Cubs. At 4:15, they played on a permanent stage in the field behind the church. They were playing "Come Go with Me" when Paul McCartney arrived. In the Scout hut after the set, Ivan Vaughan introduced McCartney to Lennon. McCartney demonstrated how he tuned his guitar and then sang Eddie Cochran's "Twenty Flight Rock", Gene Vincent's "Be-Bop-a-Lula", and a medley of Little Richard songs. Two weeks later, Shotton encountered McCartney cycling through Woolton. He conveyed Lennon's casual invitation for him to join the Quarrymen. McCartney said he would join after Scout camp in Hathersage, Derbyshire, and a holiday with his family at the Butlin's holiday camp in Filey, North Yorkshire. Shotton and Davis both left the Quarrymen in August, feeling that the group was moving away from skiffle and towards rock. When McCartney returned from holiday, he began rehearsing with the Quarrymen. He played songs such as "Bye Bye Love" (The Everly Brothers) and "All Shook Up". McCartney made his debut with the band on the 18th of October 1957 at a Conservative Club social held at the New Clubmoor Hall in the Norris Green section of Liverpool. Lennon and McCartney wore cream-coloured sports jackets which were paid for by the whole group. Walley collected half a crown per week from each member until they were paid for. To the irritation of the other group members, McCartney endlessly practised the lead guitar intro to "Raunchy". The group continued to play sparse gigs throughout the autumn of 1957, mostly for local promoter Charlie McBain. During this period, the group almost entirely excised skiffle from their repertoire. They focused on covers of songs by rock and roll singers such as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Little Richard, and Larry Williams. An extremely important influence for them at the time was Buddy Holly and his group the Crickets. Around this time, Lennon and McCartney both started writing songs influenced by Holly , Lennon's "Hello Little Girl" and McCartney's "I Lost My Little Girl". After McCartney's poor performance on lead guitar at the Conservative Club, the group needed another guitarist. McCartney recommended his school friend George Harrison. Harrison first saw the group perform on the 6th of February 1958 at Wilson Hall where McCartney introduced him to Lennon. Harrison subsequently auditioned for The Quarrymen in March at Rory Storm's Morgue Skiffle Club playing "Guitar Boogie Shuffle". Lennon thought Harrison (having just turned 15) was too young to join the band. McCartney engineered another meeting on the upper deck of a Liverpool bus where Harrison played "Raunchy" for Lennon. After McCartney's constant advocacy, Lennon allowed Harrison to join the Quarrymen as lead guitarist.
Soon after the recording session, Hanton had a fight with the rest of the group and quit. Lowe too lost contact with the group after leaving Liverpool Institute. This left the Quarrymen as just a trio of guitarists: Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison. Lennon's mother was killed in a road accident on the 15th of July 1958, dealing him a devastating emotional blow. The group remained mostly inactive throughout the summer as Lennon took up a job in a restaurant at the Liverpool Airport. McCartney and Harrison went on holiday hitchhiking in Wales playing with a local skiffle group called The Vikings. When asked why they had neither a drummer or a bass player, they would respond "The rhythm's in the guitars." In the fall of 1958, the group had another chance to audition for Carroll Levis nearly a year and a half after the Quarrymen's first Star Search. For the audition, the group changed their name to Johnny and the Moondogs. Lennon was without a guitar his having broken recently. Johnny and the Moondogs passed the first heat of the competition in Liverpool and were invited to appear in the finals in Manchester. The group performed Buddy Holly's "Think It Over" to positive reception but were unable to stay until the end of the competition to receive the results. As they were leaving, Lennon saw a cutaway electric guitar by the stage door and picked it up walking off with it. Following their Star Search audition, Johnny and the Moondogs changed their name to Japage 3 (pronounced "Jaypage") combining letters from each of the member's names: John, Paul, and George. Lennon had a friend from art school named Derek Hodkin who owned a tape recorder. Lennon convinced him to record the group along with McCartney's brother Mike on drums. The group then asked Hodkin to act as their manager and he agreed. Despite Hodkin's management, bookings for the group dried up. Harrison began a stint as rhythm guitarist in the Les Stewart Quartet who had a weekly club engagement. By May, Japage 3 was defunct although the three continued to see each other socially. In the summer of 1959, Mona Best decided to open a club in her cellar and offered the Les Stewart Quartet a residency if they would help convert the cellar. Harrison and fellow Quartet guitarist Ken Brown missed a show causing Les Stewart to fire the two and drop the residency. This caused distress to Best but Harrison offered a solution. He recruited Lennon and McCartney to play and they returned to calling themselves the Quarrymen. After helping Best finish converting the cellar, the new four guitarist line-up of the Quarrymen opened the Casbah Coffee Club on the 29th of August 1959. The opening night performance was attended by about 300 local teenagers but as the cellar had no air conditioning people were dancing and the temperature rose until it became hard to breathe. The group continued their Casbah residency for the next 4 months into the new year 1960 occasionally securing other gigs. In January, Brown grew ill and was unable to play the show. Best however insisted that the Quarrymen still pay Brown but Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison refused. The incident resulted in the loss of their residency at the Casbah and Brown's departure from the group. Shortly after, however, Lennon convinced fellow art school student Stuart Sutcliffe to purchase a bass guitar and join the group. The group had no bookings but began rehearsing vigorously to allow the musical novice Sutcliffe practice on his new instrument. By March 1960, Lennon and Sutcliffe came up with a new name: The Beatles.
Percy Phillips operated a studio called Phillips' Sound Recording Services at 38 Kensington, Liverpool between the kitchen and a front room that served as an electrical goods shop. Actors from the Liverpool Playhouse often stayed in the room above the studio and were asked by Phillips to record monologues and poems. Phillips had just turned 60 years old when Harrison heard about the studio from guitarist Johnny Byrne of the Raving Texans who had recorded a version of "Butterfly" there on the 22nd of June 1957. The Quarrymen booked a recording session on the 12th of July 1958. They recorded straight to disc as tape would have been an extra expense. The sound was recorded live by a single microphone in the centre of the room. Lennon suggested that Hanton put a scarf over the snare drum to lower the volume. They first recorded "In Spite of All the Danger" a McCartney original credited as McCartney/Harrison followed by Buddy Holly's "That'll Be the Day". Both feature Lennon on lead vocals. When the recording was finished, Phillips handed the group a fragile 78rpm record which was passed around the band for one week each or lent out to friends. It was later lost until Lowe rediscovered it in 1981 and sold it to McCartney for an undisclosed amount. The recordings would later be issued on the Beatles' album Anthology 1. In early 1960, the Quarrymen returned to Phillips' Sound Recording Services to record Lennon's new original song "One After 909", although this recording does not survive. Around the same time, the three made a rehearsal tape at McCartney's home. Harrison was absent as he had an apprenticeship and the tape features several jams and original songs including the McCartney instrumental "Cayenne". With few gigs during this period the group often wrote letters to secure bookings several of which survive.
Since the break-up of the Beatles in 1970 and the murder of John Lennon in 1980, members of the Quarrymen have reunited several times. From 1994 to 1995, Rod Davis and John Lowe recorded an album with studio musicians. This album, Open for Engagements, was released in 1995 under the Quarrymen name. The surviving members of the 1957 line-up of the Quarrymen reunited in 1997 for the 40th anniversary of their performance at the 1957 Woolton village fete which was the location of the first meeting of Lennon and McCartney. All five surviving members from that day, Pete Shotton, Rod Davis, Len Garry, Eric Griffiths and Colin Hanton, performed. Following this, the group continued to perform undertaking tours of the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, Japan, Russia, Cuba and other countries. The group's repertoire focuses on the skiffle and early rock and roll they played in their original incarnation with the added roots rock historical perspective of illustrating how American roots music inspired the nascent Beatles. In 2000, producer and the Beatles' historian Martin Lewis produced the group performing the Del-Vikings song "Come Go with Me" for use on the soundtrack of the Michael Lindsay-Hogg film Two of Us a film about the last day that Lennon and McCartney saw each other in April 1976. Eric Griffiths died in 2005 and Pete Shotton retired owing to ill health. Shotton died in 2017. As of 2016, Davis, Garry, and Hanton continued to perform around the world. Lowe occasionally performed with them. In September and October 2010, the band undertook a US tour celebrating the 70th birthday of their founder Lennon. They appeared in a charity concert for Amnesty International honouring Lennon in New York City on Lennon's birthday Saturday the 9th of October 2010. From 2016 former Beatles bassist Chas Newby performed with the band. He died in May 2023. John Lowe would also die in February 2024. Since their 1994 reformation, the Quarrymen have recorded four studio albums consisting mostly of covers of 1950s rock and skiffle. Their first album Open for Engagements was released the same year they reformed in 1994. Their second Get Back , Together was released the same year as they reformed again in 1997 specifically in September. Their third Songs We Remember was released on the 29th of August 2004 and their fourth studio album Grey Album was released in 2012. These albums contain songs that the band performed when their original incarnation was together and also contain covers of Beatles songs.
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Common questions
When did The Quarrymen form and who were the original members?
The Quarrymen formed in November 1956 with John Lennon, Eric Griffiths on guitars, Pete Shotton on washboard, and Bill Smith on tea-chest bass. This initial lineup was established after Lennon decided to make music following his exposure to Lonnie Donegan records.
Who joined The Quarrymen in July 1957 and when did he debut?
Paul McCartney joined The Quarrymen after Ivan Vaughan introduced him to John Lennon at a church fête on the 6th of July 1957. McCartney made his official debut with the band on the 18th of October 1957 at a Conservative Club social held at the New Clubmoor Hall in Norris Green.
What name change occurred before The Beatles were officially created in March 1960?
The group changed their name from Johnny and the Moondogs to Japage 3 after failing to win a Star Search competition in early 1960. They eventually adopted the name The Beatles by March 1960 after Stuart Sutcliffe joined as a bass player.
Where did The Quarrymen record their first session and what songs were captured?
The Quarrymen recorded their first session at Phillips Sound Recording Services located at 38 Kensington in Liverpool on the 12th of July 1958. They recorded In Spite of All the Danger followed by Buddy Holly That Be the Day using a single microphone.
When was the Casbah Coffee Club opened and how long did it operate?
The Quarrymen opened the Casbah Coffee Club on the 29th of August 1959 following renovations to Mona Best's cellar. The residency lasted for four months into the new year 1960 until they lost the venue due to a dispute over payments.