July 19
John's mother Julia was buried after a funeral service at Allerton Cemetery, Liverpool.
That year (in either late spring or early autumn; none of the participants can clearly remember the date) John Lennon arranged for a recording of The Quarry Men to be made at a small studio in the back room of a house at 38 Kensington, Liverpool 7, where Percy Phillips would record two sides of music for 17 shillings and sixpence. Phillips advertised himself as a "Professional Tape & Disc Recording Service", and continued to operate from the same address until the late 1960s.
Only one copy of the single was cut and the tape itself was destroyed 24 hours later, once the record had been paid for. The A-side featured John singing Buddy Holly's 'That'll Be The Day', while on the B-side was a love song credited to Paul and George (the only known example of them writing as a team) entitled 'In Spite Of All The Danger', loosely built around the tune of Elvis Presley's 'Trying To Get To You'. The line-up on the recording was John, Paul, George, Colin Hanton and John "Duff" Lowe.
On the day of the session, The Quarry Men could only muster fifteen shillings between them, so Phillips held on to the disc until one of the group returned the next day with the correct money.
John "Duff" Lowe: "It was just a shellac demo disc. The more you played it, the worse the quality became. It was just done for a giggle. It was passed around. Anyone who had a friend could borrow it for a couple of days. No one ever asked me to lend it, so it must have come to me after everyone else had had a go. People forgot about it, and it was at the bottom of a linen drawer in my house."
Paul bought the disc from John Lowe in 1981 for an unspecified sum in excess of £5,000. During the 1980s he pressed up a limited quantity of reproductions of the single, which he gave to friends. Edited versions of both songs eventually appeared on Beatles Anthology 1.
Autumn
John and fellow Liverpool Art College student Cynthia Powell began a relationship, after dancing together at a lunchtime party. Cynthia declined John's initial request for a date, but the couple still spent that night together at his Gambier Terrace flat.
December 20
The group played at the wedding reception of George's brother Harry to Irene McCann, in Speke.
Late in the year
The Quarry Men failed an audition for ABC Television in Manchester.
Drummer Colin Hanton left the group after an argument with Paul following a gig at Finch Lane Bus Depot. The lack of a regular drummer severely hampered The Quarry Men's progress over the next year.
January 1
Wilson Hall, Garston, Liverpool. Speke Bus Depot Social Club.
George's father was chairman of the club so naturally The Quarry Men got the gig.
January 24
Woolton Village Club, Woolton, Liverpool.
February 4
The members of The Quarry Men were stunned to hear of the death the previous day of one of their rock'n'roll idols, Buddy Holly - a major influence both as a singer and a songwriter.
Summer
Because The Quarry Men were doing very little in the way of gigs, George began playing with other groups, particularly The Les Stewart Quartet.
July 20
John began a summer vacation job as a labourer at Barton's, an industrial firm based at the Scarisbrook Water Works near Ormskirk. He was booked to work there for two months, but was dismissed on 28th August - described on his official work-card as "unsuitable".
August 29
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool.
The Les Stewart Quartet (featuring George on guitar) was booked for the opening night of Mona Best's new club, held in the basement of her house, but that afternoon Les Stewart had a terrific row with his bass player, Ken Brown, resigned from the group and stalked off. Ken Brown asked George if he knew anyone who could help out and John and Paul were called in. The Quarry Men played the gig and every Saturday night for the next seven weeks. The Quarry Men line-up for these gigs had been reduced to John, Paul, George and Ken Brown. No drummer, but as they always told promoters, "The rhythm's in the guitars".
September 5
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool.
September 12
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool.
September 19
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool.
September 26
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool.
October 3
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool.
October 10
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool. Ken Brown left the group and the group left the Casbah over an argument about wages. Paul objected when Mona Best paid Brown his 15 shillings even though he had not played that evening because of a heavy cold. The future Beatles closed ranks and walked away.
Mid-October
The group changed their name to Johnny & The Moondogs for another audition for Carroll Levis' TV Star Search at the Empire Theatre (held on the 11th, 18th and 25th, though they appeared on only one of these dates). This time The Moondogs qualified for the final round which was held at the Empire Theatre between the 26th and 31st. They appeared twice during the week and qualified for the next round.
November 15
Hippodrome Theatre, Ardwick, Manchester. This was the final round of TV Star Search. If they qualified here they would have made it on to the TV show itself. Unfortunately they had nowhere in Manchester to stay, and as the voting was based on a "clapometer" which measured the volume of the audience applause when the group made a brief reappearance, The Moondogs lost out because they had already caught the last train back to Liverpool, and weren't there to be clapped.
November 17
The Second Biennial John Moores Exhibition was held in Liverpool at the Walker Gallery. John's friend from art school, Stuart Sutcliffe, submitted the remains of a large canvas entitled "Summer Painting". It had begun life as a large abstract expressionist painting on two six-feet-by-four-feet panels, with a highly textured surface made from sand and wax. One panel had gone missing when Stuart was evicted from his flat in Percy Street, but his friend Rod Murray helped him to carry the other half to the gallery to submit it for the show. Not only was the painting accepted for the show (Stuart's work showed the influence of Peter Lanyon, the British abstract expressionist who happened to be on the selection panel), but John Moores himself bought it for £65 when the show ended in January.
September
John started at Quarry Bank High School, having left Dovedale Primary School in July. Within a few weeks, he had attracted a reputation as a troublemaker, having been discovered in possession of an obscene drawing.
QUARRY BANK
Quarry Bank was boys only, a grammar school with a high academic record and several cabinet ministers to its name. The masters wore black gowns and the school believed in discipline. To John the school was a challenge. He remembered his first day: "I looked at all the hundreds of new kids and thought, Christ, I'll have to fight my way through all this lot, having just made it at Dovedale." John's marks got steadily worse and his third-year report read: "Hopeless. Rather a clown in class. A shocking report. He is wasting other pupils' time." He often found himself up before the headmaster for six of the best.
Spring
In his final months at Joseph Williams Primary School, Paul was awarded a prize at a ceremony in Picton Hall, Liverpool, for an essay he had written about the Queen's coronation.
September
Paul entered the Liverpool Institute school.
LIVERPOOL INSTITUTE
The Institute was the best known of Liverpool's grammar schools and had an impressive list of old boys, including High Court judges, politicians, even a Nobel Prizewinner. Exceptional 11 Plus results enabled the brightest children in Liverpool to be sent to the Institute. Paul was offered a place and took it up, even though it was a long bus ride from Speke.
September
George started at the Liverpool Institute. Paul was already there, in the year above. George: "It took from four o'clock to five to get home in the evening to the outskirts of the Speke estate and it was on that bus journey that I met Paul McCartney, because he, being at the same school, had the same uniform and was going the same way as I was. So I started hanging out with him. His mother was a midwife and he had a trumpet."
Paul's family moved to 20 Forthlin Road, Allerton, Liverpool 18. The property has since been bought by the National Trust, who have opened it to the public. It has been restored to the way it looked in 1955 in memory of its famous former inhabitant.
June 5
John's Uncle George, Aunt Mimi's husband, suffered a haemorrhage caused by an undiagnosed liver complaint, and died suddenly. John had been very close to him and was deeply shocked, though he found it difficult to express his emotions outwardly.
John Lennon: "I didn't know how to be sad publicly, so I went upstairs. Then my cousin arrived and she came upstairs as well. We both had hysterics. We just laughed and laughed. I felt very guilty afterwards."
September
John was now in the C stream at school because his marks were so poor. By the final term, he was 20th in the class: the bottom of the bottom class.
April
John Lennon bought his first 78rpm single, Lonnie Donegan's skiffle hit, 'Rock Island Line'. He sold it the following year to a fellow member of The Quarry Men, Rod Davis.
June 18
For his 14th birthday, Paul's father bought him a trumpet. After taking a few lessons on the instrument, Paul swapped it at Rushworth & Drapers store in Liverpool for a Zenith acoustic guitar, priced £15.
September
A new headmaster Mr. Pobjoy, took over Quarry Bank High School. He recognised that John's poor marks were due to personal problems and that John was capable of much better work.
October 9
John spent some of the money he'd been given for his 16th birthday on two new 78rpm singles, Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog'/'Don't Be Cruel' and the Goons' 'The Ying-Tong Song'.
October 31
Mary Patricia McCartney died of breast cancer, aged 47. For a few days after the tragedy, Paul and his brother Michael stayed with their Uncle Joe and Auntie Joan. From then on, Jim McCartney brought up Paul and Michael single-handedly, as well as holding down a full-time job.
Paul: "We didn't really know what was happening. We were shielded from it all by our aunties and our dad."
Within a few weeks of his mother's death, Paul had written his first song, 'I Lost My Little Girl'.
George's mother bought him a guitar from a boy at school who was selling it for £3. It soon became obvious that he needed something better and his mother saved up her housekeeping money until she could buy him a £30 model with a cut-away neck.
John's Aunt Mimi lent him the money to buy a £17 Gallotone Champion guitar, complete with a sticker promising that the instrument was "Guaranteed not to split". Included in the deal was a book, Play The Guitar.
March
Inspired by Lonnie Donegan and fired up by Elvis Presley's 'Heartbreak Hotel', John and his school friend Pete Shotton started a skiffle group which they called The Blackjacks. John played guitar, bought for him for £17 from Hessy's Music Shop on Stanley Street and "guaranteed not to split". He played it with only four strings and used banjo chords taught to him by his mother as he worked out how to play songs from the repertoire of his idols, like Lonnie Donegan and Elvis Presley. Pete played washboard. The traditional skiffle-group line-up was completed shortly afterwards by the addition of Bill Smith on tea-chest bass. John handled almost all of the lead vocals, with the other members adding back-up support during the choruses.
Featured in the group's repertoire at this point were skiffle standards like 'Rock Island Line', 'Maggie Mae', 'Freight Train' and 'Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O', which were being performed by hundreds of teenage skiffle groups across the UK.
May
John was a difficult and argumentative band leader and the line-up changed rapidly. Since they were all from Quarry Bank High School, The Blackjacks changed their name to The Quarry Men, whose initial line-up was John on vocals and guitar; Eric Griffiths on guitar; Colin Hanton on drums; Len Garry, who quickly replaced Bill Smith on tea-chest bass; Pete Shotton on washboard; and Rod Davis on banjo.
May 24
The Quarry Men played their first gig: John: "Our first appearance was in Rose Street, it was their Empire Day celebrations. They all had this party out in the street. We played from the back of a lorry. We didn't get paid or anything."
June 9
The Quarry Men entered the ABC TV TV Star Search talent contest organised by "Mr Star Maker" Carroll Levis, held at the Empire Theatre, Liverpool. The contest was performed before a live audience and the winners of the audition went on to appear on television. It was a cheap way of producing a variety show, but sadly, The Quarry Men didn't pass the audition and the winners were The Sunnyside Skiffle from Speke fronted by a midget, Nicky Cuff, on vocals and tea-chest bass (he literally played it standing on top).
Among the songs performed by The Quarry Men during the contest was 'Worried Man Blues', recently popularised by skiffle king Lonnie Donegan.
June 22
The Quarry Men played at an outdoor street party at Roseberry Street, Liverpool, to celebrate the 750th anniversary of King John granting a charter to Liverpool making it a free borough. They played their sets from the back of a coal lorry, with the power leads running through the front window of number 76.
Summer
George and his brother Pete, together with Pete's school friend Arthur Kelly and Alan Williams (not to be confused with the future manager of The Beatles), played a gig at the British Legion Club in Speke calling themselves The Rebels. Since no other band scheduled to play had turned up, they were forced to play all through the evening.
George: "I remember The Rebels had a tea chest with a lot of gnomes around it. One of my brothers had a five shilling guitar which had the back off it. Apart from that it was all fine. Just my brother, some mates and me. I tried to lay down the law a bit, but they weren't having any of that. We thought we made a pretty good sound but so did about four million other groups."
The next morning on the bus to school, George told Paul about the gig. After that, Paul began to join George in the Harrisons' front room, where they played their way through his chord books.
George: "Paul was very good with the harder chords, I must admit. After a time though, we actually began playing real songs together, like 'Don't You Rock Me Daddy-O' and 'Besame Mucho'. Paul knocked me out with his singing especially, although I remember him being a little embarrassed to really sing out, seeing as we were stuck right in the middle of my parents' place with the whole family walking about. He said he felt funny singing about love and such around my dad. We must have both been really a sight. I bet the others were just about pissing themselves trying not to laugh."
Paul: "I knew George long before John and any of the others. They were all from Woolton, the posh district, and we hailed from the Allerton set which was more working class. George and I had got together to learn the guitar and we were chums, despite his tender years as it seemed to me then. In fact George was only nine months younger than I was but to me George was always my little mate. But he could really play the guitar, particularly a piece called 'Raunchy' which we all loved. If anyone could do something as good as that, it was generally good enough to get them in the group."
July 2
John and his friend Nigel Whalley signed on the seamen's unemployment register at the Merchant Navy Establishment at the Pier Head. They telephoned Mimi who was horrified at the idea that John might follow in his father's footsteps, and ordered him home at once.
July 6
John and Paul met for the first time, at the Woolton Parish Church Garden Fete, held at St. Peter's Church. The Quarry Men Skiffle Group were invited to perform three times that day, twice during the afternoon festivities in the Lower Church field at 4.15pm and 5.45pm, and again twice that evening (at 8.45pm and 10.00pm) at the church hall, where John's group were supporting The George Edwards Band. Between the two afternoon sets, the City Of Liverpool Police Dogs staged a display. The first evening set at the church hall was marked by a severe thunderstorm, which forced the group to stop performing for a few minutes.
After their 5.45 performance, McCartney was introduced to Lennon by their mutual friend, Ivan Vaughan.
Paul: "At Woolton village fete I met him. I was a fat schoolboy and, as he leaned an arm on my shoulder, I realised that he was drunk. We were 12 then, but, in spite of his sideboards, we went on to become teenage pals."
John: "The day I met Paul I was singing 'Be-Bop-A-Lula' for the first time on stage. There's a picture of me with a checked shirt on, holding a little acoustic guitar - and I am singing 'Be-Bop-A-Lula'."
Paul: "A mate of mine at school, Ivy Vaughan, had said, 'Come along and see this group, they're great.' We used to go to the fair together with these great jackets with flaps here, light blue with flecks in them ... Sharp!... I went to see the group and loved it - it was a young group, instead of dance music. John was obviously leading this thing -he had an acoustic guitar, brown wood with a hole, and a bit of a crew cut, with a little quiff. He didn't know the words for anything, he'd obviously only heard the records and not bought them, but I was pretty impressed. I met up with John backstage in this little church hall, and just picked up his guitar (which I had to play upside down, because I'm left handed), and played 'Twenty Flight Rock'. They were all impressed 'cos I knew all the words, then somebody played the piano, somebody sang 'Long Tall Sally', and later they asked me to join."
John: "Shortly after that we started to do big beat numbers like 'Twenty Flight Rock' -funny really because we were meant to be a skiffle group. 'Let's Have A Party' used to be my big number."
Aunt Mimi: "When Paul first came to Mendips he had a buckle on his shoe. John had never seen anything like it."
Two songs from The Quarry Men's evening performance, which was reported and photographed by the local paper, survived on a reel-to-reel tape, which was made without the group's knowledge by 16-year-old Bob Molyneaux. This tape of 'Puttin' On The Style' and 'Baby Let's Play House' was sold at auction in London during 1994, and purchased by EMI Records for £78,500. Only 30 seconds of 'Puttin' On The Style' has ever been aired in public. Other songs The Quarry Men are known to have performed that day include 'Worried Man Blues', 'Come Go With Me', 'Railroad Bill', 'Maggie Mae' and 'Cumberland Gap'.
July 29
Paul and his brother Michael went to Scout camp at Hathersage in Derbyshire. A few days earlier, John's friend Pete Shotton had passed on the invitation for Paul to join The Quarry Men - an offer that he eagerly accepted.
August 7
The Cavern, with Ron McKay's Skiffle Group, Dark Town Skiffle Group and The Deltones Skiffle Group.
The Cavern in those days was a jazz club but skiffle was then seen as an offshoot of jazz and so was acceptable, and the evening was billed as a "Skiffle Session". John's group had gained the booking, their most prestigious to date, after the Cavern Club owner Alan Sytner heard them perform at Childwall Golf Club.
The Quarry Men Skiffle Group began with 'Come Go With Me' which was okay, but John blasted straight into 'Hound Dog' followed by 'Blue Suede Shoes', prompting club owner Alan Sytner to send a note on-stage reading "Cut out the bloody rock!"
Though Paul had been invited to join the group he was away at Scout camp with his brother Michael and did not play this gig, which marked John Lennon's debut at The Cavern.
Summer
Paul and George took their guitars and hitchhiked to the south coast. George: "When I was 14 Paul and I went to Paignton in Devon on a hitchhiking holiday. It was a bit of a laugh, too, because we ran out of money and had nowhere to sleep. So Paul suggested we sleep on the beach. Sand, however, is as hard as concrete when you lie on it all night."
September
The McCartney family went to the Butlin's Holiday Camp at Filey in Yorkshire, where Paul and Michael entered The People National Talent Contest and, appearing as The McCartney Brothers, did a rendition of the Everly Brothers' 'Bye Bye Love' and Little Richard's 'Long Tall Sally'. As they were both under 16 they didn't qualify. It was Paul's first appearance on stage.
October
John began attending Liverpool Art School, where he was accepted into the 'Lettering' class.
October 18
Conservative Club, New Clubmoor Hall, Liverpool. Paul's first gig with The Quarry Men.
Paul: "That night was a disaster because I got sticky fingers and blew the solo in 'Guitar Boogie Shuffle', which is one of the easiest things in the world to play. That alone made me resolve never to become a lead guitarist."
Autumn
Paul and John began to practise their guitars together. Paul: "We never played our guitars indoors at Mimi's house. If we didn't go round to Julia's and we stayed there, then we practised outside the front door in the glass porch. John told me Mimi banished him out there from the first day he brought home his guitar on account of all the noise. He didn't mind, though. He liked it out on the porch as the echo of the guitars bounced nicely off the glass and the tiles."
By the end of the year they had begun to write songs together, after Paul revealed to John that he had composed a tune called 'I Lost My Little Girl'. John: "When Paul and I started writing stuff, we did it in the key of A because we thought that was the key Buddy Holly did all his songs in. Holly was a big thing then, an inspiration, sort of. Anyway, later on I found out he played in C and other keys but it was too late and it didn't worry us anyway. It all sounded okay in A so that's the way we played our stuff. Oh yeah, we keep up with all the keys - C, D, G, F but we keep out of B flat and that. It doesn't give you an artistic sound."
November 7
Wilson Hall, Garston.
A notorious teddy boy hangout. The Quarry Men played there four times on Charlie Mac's Thursday "Rhythm Nights".
November 16
Stanley Abattoir Social Club, Liverpool. Good acoustics.
November 23
New Clubmoor Hall, Conservative Club, Liverpool.
The line-up of The Quarry Men at this point consisted of John, guitar and vocals; Paul, guitar and vocals; Eric Griffiths, guitar; Colin Hanton, drums; Len Garry, tea-chest bass.
Late in the year
Nigel Whalley resigned as the group's manager because he developed tuberculosis. Rod Davis also drifted out of the group, without ever resigning or being sacked.
December 7
Wilson Hall, Garston, Liverpool.
A Saturday night hop.
Around this time George saw The Quarry Men play for the first time. George: "I'd been invited to see them play several times by Paul but for some reason never got round to it before. I remember being very impressed with John's big thick sideboards and trendy teddy boy clothes. He was a terribly sarcastic bugger right from day one, but I never dared back down from him. In a way, all that emotional rough stuff was simply a way for him to help separate the men from the boys, I think. I was never intimidated by him. Whenever he had a go at me I just gave him a little bit of his own right back."
January 10
New Clubmoor Hall, Garston, Liverpool.
January 24
The Cavern (evening), with the Merseysippi Jazz Band.
They were billed as "The Quarry Men Skiffle Group". This was Paul's Cavern debut.
February 6
Wilson Hall, Garston, Liverpool.
After the gig (or, according to some sources, the gig at the Morgue in March), John accompanied Paul and George part of the way home.
Paul: "George slipped quietly into one of the seats on this almost empty bus we were on, took out his guitar and went right into 'Raunchy'. Some days later I asked John, 'Well, what do you think about George?' He gave it a second or two and then he replied, 'Yeah, man, he'd be great.' And that was that. George was in and we were on our way."
The Quarry Men line-up now consisted of: John, Paul, George, Len Garry, Eric Griffiths and sometimes John "Duff" Lowe on piano.
Paul: "We had a bloke called Duff as pianist for some time, but his dad wouldn't let him stay out late. He'd be playing away one minute, and the next he would have disappeared, gone home in the middle of a number."
Griffiths left The Quarry Men soon after George was recruited.
Despite joining The Quarry Men, George also continued to perform occasionally with his own band, The Rebels, and also guested with local groups like Rory Storm & The Hurricanes.
March 13
The Morgue Skiffle Cellar, Broadgreen, Liverpool.
The first of several appearances at this illegal club held in the cellar of a Victorian mansion. The police closed it down a month later.
March 20
John and other members of The Quarry Men attended Buddy Holly & The Crickets' concert at the Liverpool Empire theatre.
Summer
Paul and George made another hitchhiking trip, this time to Wales.
George: "We ran out of cash again, and Paul had the idea that we could sleep at the police station in one of the cells. Unfortunately the police refused but did suggest we could kip in the grandstand of the local football club. With great difficulty we climbed the wall surrounding the football ground, and with even greater difficulty got to sleep on the concrete steps of the grandstand. Just as day was breaking, I woke to see the caretaker standing over us.
" 'What are you doing in my grandstand?' he demanded.
" 'S-sleeping,' Paul croaked.
" 'Well, you're not anymore!'
"We didn't need telling twice."
July 15
John's mother, Julia, was killed in a road accident as she left her sister Mimi's house. She was run down by a policeman who was driving illegally alone on "L"-plates, speeding because he was late for work.
Paul: "When I look back on Julia's death, all I can see is the word TRAGEDY written in big black letters. The only way I could help John was to empathise, as I'd had the same thing happen to me. There wasn't anything I could say that would magically patch him up. That kind of hurt goes far too deep for words."
Julia's death affected John very deeply. His work at art college - poor at the best of times - suffered badly and he virtually lost interest in the group. The Quarry Men played very few gigs during 1958.
July 19
John's mother Julia was buried after a funeral service at Allerton Cemetery, Liverpool.
That year (in either late spring or early autumn; none of the participants can clearly remember the date) John Lennon arranged for a recording of The Quarry Men to be made at a small studio in the back room of a house at 38 Kensington, Liverpool 7, where Percy Phillips would record two sides of music for 17 shillings and sixpence. Phillips advertised himself as a "Professional Tape & Disc Recording Service", and continued to operate from the same address until the late 1960s.
Only one copy of the single was cut and the tape itself was destroyed 24 hours later, once the record had been paid for. The A-side featured John singing Buddy Holly's 'That'll Be The Day', while on the B-side was a love song credited to Paul and George (the only known example of them writing as a team) entitled 'In Spite Of All The Danger', loosely built around the tune of Elvis Presley's 'Trying To Get To You'. The line-up on the recording was John, Paul, George, Colin Hanton and John "Duff" Lowe.
On the day of the session, The Quarry Men could only muster fifteen shillings between them, so Phillips held on to the disc until one of the group returned the next day with the correct money.
John "Duff" Lowe: "It was just a shellac demo disc. The more you played it, the worse the quality became. It was just done for a giggle. It was passed around. Anyone who had a friend could borrow it for a couple of days. No one ever asked me to lend it, so it must have come to me after everyone else had had a go. People forgot about it, and it was at the bottom of a linen drawer in my house."
Paul bought the disc from John Lowe in 1981 for an unspecified sum in excess of £5,000. During the 1980s he pressed up a limited quantity of reproductions of the single, which he gave to friends. Edited versions of both songs eventually appeared on Beatles Anthology 1.
Autumn
John and fellow Liverpool Art College student Cynthia Powell began a relationship, after dancing together at a lunchtime party. Cynthia declined John's initial request for a date, but the couple still spent that night together at his Gambier Terrace flat.
December 20
The group played at the wedding reception of George's brother Harry to Irene McCann, in Speke.
Late in the year
The Quarry Men failed an audition for ABC Television in Manchester.
Drummer Colin Hanton left the group after an argument with Paul following a gig at Finch Lane Bus Depot. The lack of a regular drummer severely hampered The Quarry Men's progress over the next year.
January 1
Wilson Hall, Garston, Liverpool. Speke Bus Depot Social Club.
George's father was chairman of the club so naturally The Quarry Men got the gig.
January 24
Woolton Village Club, Woolton, Liverpool.
February 4
The members of The Quarry Men were stunned to hear of the death the previous day of one of their rock'n'roll idols, Buddy Holly - a major influence both as a singer and a songwriter.
Summer
Because The Quarry Men were doing very little in the way of gigs, George began playing with other groups, particularly The Les Stewart Quartet.
July 20
John began a summer vacation job as a labourer at Barton's, an industrial firm based at the Scarisbrook Water Works near Ormskirk. He was booked to work there for two months, but was dismissed on 28th August - described on his official work-card as "unsuitable".
August 29
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool.
The Les Stewart Quartet (featuring George on guitar) was booked for the opening night of Mona Best's new club, held in the basement of her house, but that afternoon Les Stewart had a terrific row with his bass player, Ken Brown, resigned from the group and stalked off. Ken Brown asked George if he knew anyone who could help out and John and Paul were called in. The Quarry Men played the gig and every Saturday night for the next seven weeks. The Quarry Men line-up for these gigs had been reduced to John, Paul, George and Ken Brown. No drummer, but as they always told promoters, "The rhythm's in the guitars".
September 5
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool.
September 12
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool.
September 19
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool.
September 26
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool.
October 3
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool.
October 10
Casbah Coffee Club, West Derby, Liverpool. Ken Brown left the group and the group left the Casbah over an argument about wages. Paul objected when Mona Best paid Brown his 15 shillings even though he had not played that evening because of a heavy cold. The future Beatles closed ranks and walked away.
Mid-October
The group changed their name to Johnny & The Moondogs for another audition for Carroll Levis' TV Star Search at the Empire Theatre (held on the 11th, 18th and 25th, though they appeared on only one of these dates). This time The Moondogs qualified for the final round which was held at the Empire Theatre between the 26th and 31st. They appeared twice during the week and qualified for the next round.
November 15
Hippodrome Theatre, Ardwick, Manchester. This was the final round of TV Star Search. If they qualified here they would have made it on to the TV show itself. Unfortunately they had nowhere in Manchester to stay, and as the voting was based on a "clapometer" which measured the volume of the audience applause when the group made a brief reappearance, The Moondogs lost out because they had already caught the last train back to Liverpool, and weren't there to be clapped.
November 17
The Second Biennial John Moores Exhibition was held in Liverpool at the Walker Gallery. John's friend from art school, Stuart Sutcliffe, submitted the remains of a large canvas entitled "Summer Painting". It had begun life as a large abstract expressionist painting on two six-feet-by-four-feet panels, with a highly textured surface made from sand and wax. One panel had gone missing when Stuart was evicted from his flat in Percy Street, but his friend Rod Murray helped him to carry the other half to the gallery to submit it for the show. Not only was the painting accepted for the show (Stuart's work showed the influence of Peter Lanyon, the British abstract expressionist who happened to be on the selection panel), but John Moores himself bought it for £65 when the show ended in January.