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Ian Haskayne

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

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