How Did They "Turn" the Cavern?

February 21, 1961

The Beatles play three venues today, and all three are certainly among the most important.  They play their lunchtime at the Cavern followed by evening appearances at the Cassanova Club and Litherland Town Hall.  If you are into fantasy, this would be a great day to travel back in time, follow them around, and see all three shows.

Stage of the Cavern in 1961

London Road, site of the Cassanova Club today (left side of street)

Tomorrow, the Beatles play at the Aintree Institute and run the teddy boy gauntlet at Hambleton Hall.

Gerry and the Pacemakers were another band playing these same places and would in future years achieve some measure of success as members of Brian Epstein's "stable of artists".  They took a Beatles reject song, "How Do You Do It" and made it into a hit early in  the British Merseybeat craze of 1963.  Front man Gerry Marsden gives the impression of being a very nice person and the Pacemakers fine musicians, but you can tell from the video they just don't generate the same electricity in person as the Beatles.  A band like the Beatles comes around only once in a hundred years.

About the Cavern, in his book "I'll Never Walk Alone", Gerry remembers, "Paul McCartney and I often approached the club manager Ray McFall on behalf of our bands asking for dates there - it would be prestigious to play right in the centre of town.  But he refused us for what seemed like months."  Economics and the fading fortunes of traditional jazz in Liverpool have finally begun to change his mind.  For the Beatles, it was one more step up the ladder.

A Red Letter Day

February 9, 1961

The events in the history of the Beatles do not get any bigger than this.  Today, the Beatles play their first lunchtime date at the Cavern Club in central Liverpool.  (Please feel free to pass this posting on to your friends who are Beatle fans.  They'll thank you for it.)

The Cavern was opened by a local jazz impresario named Alan Synter in January of 1957.  It was modeled after a ground breaking club in Paris called "Le Caveau" which featured jazz in a cool cabaret setting.  The Liverpool version was established in the basement of a warehouse near the docks.  The rooms, featuring three parallel barrel vaults made of brick, had no outside ventilation to speak of, and had been used as a bomb shelter during the war.

In the late 50's, there was a surge in the popularity of American traditional jazz, invented in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Cavern was strictly a jazz club and uncouth rock and roll was very much frowned on.  There were lots of local practitioners, such as the Merseysippi Jazz Band (still going strong today) who needed a place to play.  Skiffle, the music practiced by the 17 year old John Lennon's earlier band the Quarrymen, was seen as an offshoot of this style of jazz and the Q-men actually played the Cavern in '57.  Of course, when they strayed into more rock influenced territory they were quickly and severely reprimanded.  (Want more evidence of the huge influence that skiffle had on British rock? Check out this amazing video of a very young Jimmy Page, guitarist of the Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin, playing it.  Do not miss this!)

Fast forward to 1961.  The club has changed hands and now is managed by Ray McFall.  The burgeoning local rock scene has finally convinced him to allow rock music to get its foot in the door of the Cavern.  But only for the lunch crowd.  The office and shop girls of downtown Liverpool bring in a few bob at each lunchtime session and the jazz aficionados can listen to "real" music in the evenings.

The Beatles are paid 5 Pounds for providing the music for today's lunchtime crowd.  (Oh! For a real working time machine!)

Me at the "reconstructed" Cavern.  Sadly, the original site is the parking lot to the right.