Hessy’s Music Centre (Liverpool)

For decades, Liverpudlian music lovers would head to Hessy’s Music Centre (known locally simply as “Hessy’s”) to buy their first musical instruments.

Founded by Frank Hesselberg, Hessy’s began life around 1923 as a series of record stores across Liverpool, at locations including 271-273 Park Road (Liverpool 8), 18-20 Manchester Street (Liverpool 1), 286-288 Breck Road (Liverpool 5), 37 St. Mary’s Road, Garston (Liverpool 19) and 27-29 Stanley Street (the “top shop”) – but most will remember Hessy’s Music Centre at 62 Stanley Street, at the corner of Whitechapel in particular.

By the 1960s, Hessy’s was playing a key role in the Merseybeat scene by providing youngsters like John Lennon with the chance to buy instruments.

It operated an easy payment scheme (“a deposit down, easier, easier payments”), which meant that the young Beatles and bands like Gerry and the Pacemakers could afford to buy their instruments for £2 down and five shillings a week.

George Harrison bought his treasured Futurama electric guitar (now on display at The Beatles Story in Liverpool) when he was a 16-year-old apprentice electrician in 1959. It was paid for in 44 instalments after his mother signed a hire purchase agreement at Frank Hessy’s shop.

A few weeks before Brian Epstein signed The Beatles he wrote a personal cheque to Hessy’s to clear all the hire-purchase debts the lads had with them (around £200 – a fortune at the time).

Other stars who got their instruments from Hessy’s included 70s band Hot Chocolate and 80s groups Frankie Goes to Hollywood and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark.

Liverpool comedians Ken Dodd, Jimmy Tarbuck and Freddie Starr were also among the list of famous customers.

A main supplier of musical instruments to performers across the city, it was the place where many got their first instrument before going on to perform around the globe.

Many also learned to play guitar in the shop, courtesy of demonstrator cum salesman Jim Gretty, who would teach new guitarists three chords to get them started.

Frank Hesselberg suffered long periods of ill health and eventually passed away in 1982.

His family – including his wife, Anne, and daughters, Sara and Michelle – ran the business for many years, latterly with Sara’s husband, Bernard Michaelson.

But on 5 July 1995, it was announced that the historic Liverpool music store was to shut its doors after 61 years in the city. The final Stanley Street store was closing because of the redevelopment of the building in the heart of the Cavern Quarter.

The shop closed on 5 August.

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