Liverpool, The Cavern Club and the Beatles

Liverpool’s Cavern Club was said to be the cradle of British pop music. But the photos show how grim and cramped it really was. The Cavern Club opened in Jan 1957 in a warehouse cellar at 10 Mathew St Liverpool. The original owner, a very young Alan Sytner, named the club after a Paris jazz club and planned for it to become the top jazz venue outside London. He wanted to create Liverpool’s first venue dedicated to live popular music, so top of the bill on the opening night was a local Jazz Band and the Coney Island Skiffle Group. 600 eager jazz fans crammed inside and hundreds more queued in along the footpath in Mathew St, hoping to get into the club.

I didn’t remember the term Skiffle which was a music genre with jazz, blues, rock and folk elements. Originating in the USA back in the inter-war era, the skiffle craze started in the UK in 1956 when British skiffle star Lonnie Donegan released the single Rock Island Line. Skiffle’s appeal for teenage groups was that they could use cheap guitars and domestic utensils; almost anyone could be a musician. One example was a very young Richard Starkey/Ringo Starr who made his profess­ional debut at the Cavern Club, playing drums with his own Skiffle Group that same year (1957).

The Quarry Men Skiffle Group made their first advertised appearance at the Cavern Club in Aug 1957. Band members included John Lennon, Len Garry, Rod Davies, Colin Hanton, Pete Shotton & Eric Griffiths. In the performance Alan Sytner told John Lennon to concentrate on jazz & avoid playing rock music, which may have been poor judgement on Sytner’s behalf. However the instruction didn’t deter Paul McCartney who made his debut at the Cavern Club as a member of the Quarry Men Skiffle Group in Jan 1958.

The Cavern’s lunchtime sessions were first introduced in April 1957, to cope with demand from teenagers who worked in local offices and factories. Grabbing their sandwiches in brown paper bags, the fans had wonderful times listening to the Beatles and others who did lunchtime performances at the Cavern.

Mr Acker Bilk’s Paramount Jazz Band was a huge success when they performed at the Cavern Club in Feb 1958. They became the first British act to top the American charts in the 1960s and their 1962 hit single instrumental, Stranger On The Shore, remained in the UK charts for well over a year.

The Beatles at the Cavern Club Liverpool, 1962

Time Detective Gallery

Audience members sat very close to the musicians

After all that hard work and success, Alan Sytner moved to London to manage the Marquee Jazz Club and sold the lease for the Cavern Club to new owner Ray McFall in Oct 1959. His opening night featured two American Blues legends, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. But the times, they were a’changing. Under McFall’s new ownership, the jazz ident­ity of the Cavern cooled and the growing beat music identity heated up.

The new decade saw a changing mood in Britain. The post-war British was growing well, rationing had ended and Swinging London would soon describe a youth-oriented phenomenon that was newer and freer. But in all that excitement, we need to ask how important the Cavern Club in particular had been.

Liverpool’s first jazz festival was hosted by the Cavern Club and included many of the great names in British jazz. In early 1960 the Beat Music scene in Liverpool exploded and the Cavern Club became the most publicised pop music venue in the world. In any case, a new musical mood was already gathering force across Britain, especially in Liverpool. This new sound with imported US influences had a distinctive Liverpool style and was named Merseybeat. The sound was strong and the Cavern’s atmosphere was exciting.

Fans queued outside the Cavern Club, 1962

10 Mathew St Liverpool

The Beatles first performance at the Cavern Club in Feb 1961 featured John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Stuart Sutcliffe and drummer Pete Best. The Beatles may well have become a famous rock band wherever they had been, but it seems inevitable that being Liverpudlians and being the Cavern Club’s most famous act were the factors that truly forged their musical identity.

Liverpool businessman Brian Epstein, whose family owned a local record shop, visited the Cavern Club for a lunchtime session in Nov 1961 and saw his first performance by the Beatles. Epstein offered to become the band’s manager and by June 1962 had secured a recording contract for them. Soon after the contract was signed, Pete Best played his last performance with the Beatles and almost immediately Ringo Starr appeared at the Cavern Club as the Beatles drummer!

The Beatles played at the Cavern for the last time in Aug 1973, a month after recording their bestseller, She Loves You. But other rock groups from Liverpool continued as Cavern Club favourites eg Gerry & the Pace-makers, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, The Merseybeats, The Liverbirds, Cilla Black, and Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas. The Liverpudlian domination of British rock meant that decades later, I still remember every word of Wishin' and Hopin’, Ferry Cross the Mersey, Anyone Who Had a Heart, You're My World and Do You Want to Know a Secret? and many other songs.

I was receiving 5 shillings a week pocket money in August 1963. Since 45 RPM vinyl records used to cost 10 shillings and 6 pence each back then, I most certainly could not afford to buy my own records. Fortunately, friends often brought a 45 as a treasured birthday present.

By 1964 the Beatles had taken America and Australia by storm, leaving millions of screaming adolescents in their wake. Their huge success gave the Cavern Club a magical status, with both British bands and artists visiting from abroad. But nothing stays the same. The limited space at the Cavern Club made it more crowded, less comfortable and less popular with audiences. And despite its legendary status and the introduction of alcohol sales and a disco room, The Cavern Club declined somewhat.

By Feb 1966 the owner of the club was declared bankrupt and although subsequent owners tried their best, the original Cavern club closed in March 1973. Once const­ruct­ion work began on the Merseyrail under-ground rail loop, the teenagers’ beloved hangout space underground had to be filled in.

The original bricks were saved, treated and re-utilised in the re-building of the second Cavern, very near the original site. In 1984 The Cavern Club re-opened! But that is a story for a different time.