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Web Master:

Ian Haskayne

About Merseybeat

The musical influence in Liverpool in the late 1950’s was British artist Lonnie Donnigan who started the skiffle boom, it didn’t last very long so the newly formed skiffle groups turned to rock ‘n’ roll, the most well known being The Beatles who where just one on 100’s of groups performing at dance halls, church halls and ‘jive hives’ in and around Merseyside, the most famous being ‘The Cavern Club’, which started out as a jazz club but, after some resistance, changed over to rock and roll. Not all groups changed to playing this type of music, some groups played country and western others went into folk music therefore various music styles made up the ‘Mersey Sound’, some of these groups recordings have been included on the site. There was also versatility within the groups, listen to the sample recordings on the site, different group members singing to vary the sounds produced, The Dennisons and Farons Flamingos are two examples of different group members taking lead vocal.

One thing to remember, when these recordings where produced, the sophisticated studio equipment in use today was not available and most recordings were made from 1 or 2 ‘takes’, playing and singing at the same time, this must be kept in mind when listening to the music.

Please note, The music on this site is played through Real Player

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Mersey Beat

Merseyside’s Own Entertainment Paper

Mersey Beat was first published in 1960 by Bill Harry and his girlfriend (now wife) Virginia. Because of what was happening to the music scene on Merseyside in the early 60’s and the lack of information available, Bill decided to set up his own fortnightly newspaper, devoted completely to the music of Merseyside, a kind of ‘What’s On’ of the musical events over the coming fortnight.

The newspaper became so popular, it was known as the ‘Teenagers Bible’, full of information about the groups, photographs and who was appearing and where.

This reproduction of the front page, issue date July 30 1964 is an example of the contents and quality of the publication.

Bill has set up a web site based on his Mersey Beat newspaper (see links page) from the 60’s, well worth a visit and a ‘bookmark’.

‘Mersey Beat’ front cover reproduced by kind permission of Bill Harry

[Welcome] [About Merseybeat] [The Cavern] [Can You Help] [Bill Harry] [Farons Flamingos] [The Dennisons] [The Big Three] [The Undertakers] [Kingsize Taylor] [Sonny Webb] [The Kubas] [Swinging Bluejeans] [The Mojos] [The Searchers] [The Merseybeats] [Gerry Marsden] [The Coasters] [Ian and the Zodiacs] [The Fourmost] [Beryl Marsden] [Rory Storm] [The Del Renas] [The Roadrunners] [Freddie Starr] [The Escorts] [Other Groups] [Photographs] [Faron Video] [MerseyCats] [Links Page] [Guest Book]