Mersey Beat
Encyclopedia
Mersey Beat was a music publication in Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in the early 1960s. It was founded by Bill Harry
Bill Harry
Bill Harry is the creator of Mersey Beat, an important newspaper of the early 1960s, which focused on the Liverpool music scene...

, who was one of John Lennon
John Lennon
John Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...

's classmates at Liverpool Art College
Liverpool College of Art
Liverpool College of Art is located at 68 Hope Street, in Liverpool, England. It is a Grade II listed building.The building is currently owned by Liverpool John Moores University housing its School of Social Science....

. The paper carried news about all the local Liverpool bands, and stars who came to town to perform.

The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

 had a close association with Mersey Beat, which carried many exclusive stories and photos of them. They also published several of Lennon's early writings, including a history of the band, and occasional comical classified advertisements
Classified advertising
Classified advertising is a form of advertising which is particularly common in newspapers, online and other periodicals which may be sold or distributed free of charge...

 by him as space filler.

The poll

In 1962, Mersey Beat held a poll to find out who was the most popular Merseyside group. The results were announced on 4 January 1962:

1. The Beatles

2. Gerry & The Pacemakers
Gerry & the Pacemakers
Gerry and the Pacemakers were a British beat music group prominent during the 1960s. In common with The Beatles, they came from Liverpool, were managed by Brian Epstein and recorded by George Martin. They are most remembered for being the first act to reach number one in the UK Singles Chart with...



3. The Remo Four
The Remo Four
The Remo Four were a 1950s-1960s rock band from Liverpool, England. They were contemporaries of The Beatles, and later had the same manager, Brian Epstein...



4. Rory Storm & The Hurricanes

5. Johnny Sandon and The Searchers
The Searchers (band)
The Searchers are an English beat group, who emerged as part of the 1960s Merseybeat scene along with The Beatles, The Fourmost, The Merseybeats, The Swinging Blue Jeans, and Gerry & The Pacemakers....



6. Kingsize Taylor & The Dominoes

7. The Big Three
The Big Three (musical group)
The Big Three were a Merseybeat group from Liverpool. They are best known for their 1963 recording of "Some Other Guy".-Career:The Big Three evolved from a group called Cass & The Cassanovas, formed in May 1959 by Brian Casser as a trio comprising Casser , Adrian Barber The Big Three were a...



8. The Strangers

9. Faron & The Flamingos

10. The Four Jays

11. Ian and the Zodiacs

12. The Undertakers
The Undertakers
The Undertakers were a British beat group, contemporaries of The Beatles and a leading group in the Merseybeat music scene of the early 1960s.-Band members:Their best known line-up was:*Jackie Lomax *Chris Huston...



13. Earl Preston & The TTs

14. Mark Peters and the Cyclones

15. Karl Terry and the Cruisers

16. Derry and the Seniors
Derry and the Seniors
Derry and the Seniors were a British rock and roll group of the early 1960s. They were the first band from Liverpool to play the club scene in Germany, paving the way for The Beatles and others...



17. Steve and the Syndicate

18. Dee Fenton and the Silhouettes

19. Billy Kramer
Billy J. Kramer
Billy J. Kramer is a British Invasion/Merseybeat singer. In the 1960s he was managed by Brian Epstein, who also managed The Beatles, and he recorded several original Lennon and McCartney compositions.-Early life and career:He grew up as the youngest of seven siblings and attended the St George of...

 and the Coasters

20. Dale Roberts and the Jaywalkers

The results were printed in issue 13 of Mersey Beat on 4 January 1962, with the front page announcing, “Beatles Top Poll!” Paul McCartney
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...

 supplied the issue's cover photograph, which was taken by Albert Marrion.

Such was the popularity of the poll, Rushworth's music store manager, Bob Hobbs, presented Lennon and George Harrison
George Harrison
George Harrison, MBE was an English musician, guitarist, singer-songwriter, actor and film producer who achieved international fame as lead guitarist of The Beatles. Often referred to as "the quiet Beatle", Harrison became over time an admirer of Indian mysticism, and introduced it to the other...

 with new guitars. Many groups in Liverpool complained to Harry that his newspaper should be called Mersey Beatles, as he featured them so often.

The Stern
Stern (magazine)
Stern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...

 magazine in Germany phoned Harry and asked if he could arrange a photograph of all the groups in Liverpool. Harry suggested Kirchherr (then Sutcliffe's girlfriend) be the photographer, who would stand on a crane to take the photograph. Virginia phoned every group in Liverpool and arranged for them all to turn up on the same day at St. George's Hall
St. George's Hall, Liverpool
St George's Hall is on Lime Street in the centre of the English city of Liverpool, opposite Lime Street railway station. It is a building in Neoclassical style which contains concert halls and law courts, and has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building...

. Kirchherr and Max Scheler said that every group would be paid £1 per musician, but over 200 groups turned up on the day, and Kirchherr and Scheler ran out of money as a result.

Another of the paper's noted supporters was Brian Epstein
Brian Epstein
Brian Samuel Epstein , was an English music entrepreneur, and is best known for being the manager of The Beatles up until his death. He also managed several other musical artists such as Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Cilla Black, The Remo Four & The Cyrkle...

, the future Beatles' manager, who wrote a regular column about new record releases available at NEMS Enterprises.

The phrase Mersey Beat was also used to describe local music of the time, sometimes also called the Mersey Sound, see Beat music
Beat music
Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll, doo wop, skiffle, R&B and soul...

.

External links

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