Special thanks to ThisDayinMusic.com.
There are numerous characters in the story of The Beatles whose contribution has been significant and sometimes crucial in the rise of four Liverpool musicians to the very top of the rock and roll mountain.
Sam Leach, Alan Williams, Tony Sheridan, Brian Epstein, George Martin – the list goes on and on, but one name is often overlooked by historians and commentators. And that name is Bill Harry. Not only did Harry go to college with John Lennon and Stu Sutcliffe but one cold, wet, Liverpool night, he and Lennon both made a vow to make their city famous. Lennon would do it with his music, Harry with his writing. And so it came to pass that on this day in 1961, Harry put out the debut issue of Liverpool music paper Merseybeat, a paper that would play a major role in The Beatles’ success story.
Harry recalls on BeatlesAgain.com:“Students would go over to Ye Cracke pub in Rice Street for a beer. I’d got to know an extremely talented student, Stuart Sutcliffe and his best friend Rod Murray. I’d also got to know a new student John Lennon and introduced him to Stu and Rod in the pub.
“It was the four of us who, early in 1960, in that same pub, decided to call ourselves the Dissenters and made a vow to make Liverpool famous – John with his music, Stuart and Rod with their painting and me with my writing.”
In 1960, Harry decided that someone should be writing about music in Liverpool. Harry had written letters to the Daily Mail and Liverpool Echo, suggesting a column about the burgeoning music scene in Liverpool, but was turned down. The only solution was to do it himself, with the help of girlfriend Virginia.
Scraping together the money and running the operation on a badly frayed shoestring, he managed to print 5,000 copies, which he distributed himself to newsstands, music shops and record stores. Contributors to the paper included Lennon writing his first article.
“On page two I published John’s first printed work, a short biography of The Beatles which I’d commissioned him to write for me,” Harry said. “He hadn't given it a title, so I called it ‘Being a Short Diversion on the Dubious Origins of Beatles, Translated From the John Lennon.”
The paper was immediately popular and branched out covering other cities in the north of England. Harry even took on a record reviewer who’d play quite a role in the Fab Four’s future.
“At NEMS in Whitechapel I asked to see the manager and a dapper young man called Brian Epstein came down the stairs from his office,” Harry said. “I showed him the publication, explained its content and he took a dozen copies. Then he began to phone me ordering more and more copies. With issue #2 he ordered 12 dozen copies, an incredible amount of newspapers from a single store… Brian called me into the office to discuss the newspaper. He asked if he could be my record reviewer and his reviews began to appear beginning in #3.”
It was Harry whom Epstein called when he decided he’d like to check out these intriguing Beatles himself and see one of their lunchtime Cavern gigs. Harry made some calls and made sure Epstein could get into the club on November 9, 1961 without lining up with all the other fans. He got the star treatment, being announced by compere Bob Wooler with, “We have someone rather famous in the audience today, Mr. Brian Epstein, the owner of NEMS.”
Merseybeat became the music paper in the U.K. in the early ‘60s. It was hip, cutting-edge and completely in touch with what was happening with the new music scene. Epstein tried to take it national, which led to a falling out with Harry and the end of the paper.
Harry left Liverpool for London in 1966 and embarked on a successful music industry career, writing more than a dozen Beatles books and working as a press officer for numerous rock and roll heavyweights like Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin and David Bowie. In 2009, Merseybeat made a comeback, this time as an online paper.
----Gibson.com
There are numerous characters in the story of The Beatles whose contribution has been significant and sometimes crucial in the rise of four Liverpool musicians to the very top of the rock and roll mountain.
Sam Leach, Alan Williams, Tony Sheridan, Brian Epstein, George Martin – the list goes on and on, but one name is often overlooked by historians and commentators. And that name is Bill Harry. Not only did Harry go to college with John Lennon and Stu Sutcliffe but one cold, wet, Liverpool night, he and Lennon both made a vow to make their city famous. Lennon would do it with his music, Harry with his writing. And so it came to pass that on this day in 1961, Harry put out the debut issue of Liverpool music paper Merseybeat, a paper that would play a major role in The Beatles’ success story.Harry recalls on BeatlesAgain.com:“Students would go over to Ye Cracke pub in Rice Street for a beer. I’d got to know an extremely talented student, Stuart Sutcliffe and his best friend Rod Murray. I’d also got to know a new student John Lennon and introduced him to Stu and Rod in the pub.
“It was the four of us who, early in 1960, in that same pub, decided to call ourselves the Dissenters and made a vow to make Liverpool famous – John with his music, Stuart and Rod with their painting and me with my writing.”
In 1960, Harry decided that someone should be writing about music in Liverpool. Harry had written letters to the Daily Mail and Liverpool Echo, suggesting a column about the burgeoning music scene in Liverpool, but was turned down. The only solution was to do it himself, with the help of girlfriend Virginia.
Scraping together the money and running the operation on a badly frayed shoestring, he managed to print 5,000 copies, which he distributed himself to newsstands, music shops and record stores. Contributors to the paper included Lennon writing his first article.
“On page two I published John’s first printed work, a short biography of The Beatles which I’d commissioned him to write for me,” Harry said. “He hadn't given it a title, so I called it ‘Being a Short Diversion on the Dubious Origins of Beatles, Translated From the John Lennon.”
The paper was immediately popular and branched out covering other cities in the north of England. Harry even took on a record reviewer who’d play quite a role in the Fab Four’s future.
“At NEMS in Whitechapel I asked to see the manager and a dapper young man called Brian Epstein came down the stairs from his office,” Harry said. “I showed him the publication, explained its content and he took a dozen copies. Then he began to phone me ordering more and more copies. With issue #2 he ordered 12 dozen copies, an incredible amount of newspapers from a single store… Brian called me into the office to discuss the newspaper. He asked if he could be my record reviewer and his reviews began to appear beginning in #3.”
It was Harry whom Epstein called when he decided he’d like to check out these intriguing Beatles himself and see one of their lunchtime Cavern gigs. Harry made some calls and made sure Epstein could get into the club on November 9, 1961 without lining up with all the other fans. He got the star treatment, being announced by compere Bob Wooler with, “We have someone rather famous in the audience today, Mr. Brian Epstein, the owner of NEMS.”
Merseybeat became the music paper in the U.K. in the early ‘60s. It was hip, cutting-edge and completely in touch with what was happening with the new music scene. Epstein tried to take it national, which led to a falling out with Harry and the end of the paper.
Harry left Liverpool for London in 1966 and embarked on a successful music industry career, writing more than a dozen Beatles books and working as a press officer for numerous rock and roll heavyweights like Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin and David Bowie. In 2009, Merseybeat made a comeback, this time as an online paper.
----Gibson.com
