Why Liverpool?

Why, when the rest of Britain in the late ’50s and early “60s was back-pedalling away from solid rock & roll into a goo of Bobby Vee and Shadows imitators, did hundreds of groups spring up on Merseyside punching out a raucous no-holds-barred mixture of rock, country music and black rhythm & blues?

As with most questions about Liverpool, the answer lies initially in the city’s role as a major port – or, more particularly, as a major North Atlantic port.

A Historic Port Connection

First becoming prominent in the late 18th Century, when cotton was king, by the early 19th Century, this previously minor port was the main English point in the trade triangle that stretched from the west coast of Africa (with its slaves), to the United States (and its cotton), to England (and the Lancashire cotton industry).

Long after the heyday of cotton, the links that were forged then remained, and Liverpool’s merchant shipping remained particularly dominated by the trade with America. This close tie with the States was to profoundly affect the city’s teenage population in the aftermath of the mid-’50s rock & roll explosion.

The ‘Ted’ culture surrounding rock & roll depended largely on America and Americana for its style and imagery. The classic Teddy Boys that appeared a couple of years earlier were a home-grown phenomenon, but with the advent of rock, the ‘punk’ image of sneakers and sideburns – Lucky Strike and James Dean – came to the fore, and from then on the ‘Ted’ became a strange hybrid of Edwardian draped jackets and imitation cowboy bootlace ties.

And the Americanisms were never more evident than in the seaport of Liverpool. Whereas the kids in most other parts of the UK had to make do with black and white reprints of Superman comics, Woolworths baseball boots and Western shirts made in Manchester, in Liverpool, there was a chance of getting your hands on the real thing.

Everyone had a big brother – or knew someone with a big brother – in the Merchant Navy. Those that didn’t would probably end up at sea anyway.

In a town that depended on the seasonal variations of the docks, full employment was unknown, and for a whole generation of working-class youngsters, after National Service was abolished, the only viable alternative to the Dole was “joining the ‘Merch'”.

The Rise of the ‘Cunard Yanks’

So emerged the ‘Cunard Yanks’ – the lads that worked the Cunard and Blue Star lines to New York and the eastern seaboard of America down to New Orleans, and came home looking real flash, like a million dollars – and acting it.

These were the lads to contact if you wanted anything in the way of American ciggies, clothes or records.

The Black Market of Rhythm & Blues

In this way, the supply of otherwise unavailable records proved to be the most significant part of this strange trans-Atlantic export of a sub-culture.

Even at the height of the mid-’50s rock & roll madness, the record companies only released the most obviously commercial material from the States in Britain, and much important music (especially in the field of black rhythm & blues records) was only available to those who could get it direct.

This situation got worse towards the end of the decade, as fashions once more began to wallow in the more traditional syrup of Tin Pan Alley.

At this time, no shops sold imported records (except for highly specialised fields such as jazz or folk music, and these were few and far between), so the consequence of the ‘Cunard Yank’ trade was that there was a whole wealth of material fairly easily available in Liverpool that simply wasn’t to be found elsewhere.

From Skiffle Boom to Beat Music

The effect of all this on local musicians and groups was to create a tradition quite distinct from what was happening in the rest of the UK. Like every town and city in Britain, Liverpool had felt the effect of the Skiffle boom, resulting in hundreds of teenage (would-be) guitarists and guitar-based groups.

But whereas elsewhere they had generally (those who had stuck at it) bent to the winds of fashion and were, by 1960, churning out the current Top 20, the pressures surrounding a group in Liverpool were very different – skiffle was dead, certainly, but the rock & roll that had been its contemporary back in 1956 was still a vital and developing force, not just a memory.

All the latest releases from the US (although usually a few months late) kept the local musicians in ideas and songs – often the same ones from group to group (there seemed to be a core stock of a couple of dozen numbers that everyone could play).

These Merseyside rock & roll groups (or ‘beat groups’ as they were starting to be called) played a growing local circuit of youth clubs, ‘Jive Halls’ (usually municipal halls hired by a promoter), regular dance halls on rock & roll nights, and, increasingly, in city-centre jazz clubs sandwiched between the trad bands.

The grass-roots teenage following of the groups built up around the youth club venues and the Jive Halls, which catered for a few hundred kids at a time and were to be found in all areas of the city, from the inner working-class areas out to the suburbs, out again to the industrial wastelands of the new estates, and on to surrounding towns.

Pioneering Promoters and Coffee Bars

They were pioneered by promoters who, although interested in making some cash, also had an enthusiasm and pioneering spirit. Men like Bob Wooler (who later was the DJ and driving spirit behind The Cavern), who put on countless events.

Local promoter and businessman Allan Williams opened ‘The Jacaranda’ coffee bar in 1958 in a former watch-repair shop at 21 Slater Street, which attracted a youthful clientele with one of the city’s first espresso machines, an American-style jukebox, and live music.

In 1960, he opened a late-night drinking club called the ‘Blue Angel’, which also attracted the groups. He would later become The Beatles‘ first manager.

The Cavern Underground Takeover

Over in Mathew Street, The Cavern had been going since 1957 as a jazz cellar until, in 1961, the beat groups started to edge out the ring of the banjo.

At first, a group like The Beatles, The Bluejeans Skiffle Group (later to be The Swinging Blue Jeans), or Faron’s Flamingos would appear between two or three trad bands – never more than one rock group a night.

But the kids doing the stomp between the arches of the old warehouse cellar found the groups better to dance to. Soon, the groups had a night all to themselves, and by the middle of 1962, it was the traddies who were playing the intervals every night.

A similar takeover took place at other jazz strongholds – such as the Mardi Gras and the Downbeat – who were all presenting an almost 100% beat programme by the end of 1962, along with places that opened specifically as a response to the growing demand for beat music, places like the Iron Door and the Peppermint Lounge.

Of all these establishments, The Cavern was certainly the most important – for several reasons other than the fact that The Beatles could be heard there two or three times a week (which only became a noteworthy reason in retrospect).

For a start, it wasn’t licensed (the only refreshments on offer were coffee or Coke, hot dogs and the infamous Cavern soup), so kids didn’t have to be 18 to get in, and the management had much more freedom regarding opening hours.

Lunchtime Jive and the Cavern’s Heart

This freedom gave rise to another strong factor in the Cavern’s favour – lunchtime sessions.

Every weekday lunchtime, kids who worked in the offices and shops in the city centre, along with numerous kids who didn’t work at all, would spend their lunch hours jiving to one of the top local groups (The Beatles averaged a couple of lunchtimes a week) – two hours of rock for one and sixpence.

Most importantly of all, the Cavern seemed to have a heart. Owner Ray McFall (pictured) and DJ/Booker Bob Wooler really believed in the music, the fans, and the groups.

Wooler’s non-stop enthusiasm and encouragement rubbed off on everyone in those heady days.

The Merseybeat Explosion Moves Global

Before long, Please Please Me changed the world and the rest is history.

We’ve all read how Brian Epstein discovered The Beatles in The Cavern, how there were five Merseyside artists in the national charts in the same week in 1963, and how less than a year later, The Beatles occupied five places in the American Top 10 simultaneously.

But to read the papers at the time, you’d have thought God had waved a wand over Liverpool and said, “Let there be groups” – as simple as that. Yet things just wouldn’t have happened in the way they did if it hadn’t been for the jam sessions, the jive halls, and those Cunard Yanks.