1961-1962 | The Beatles

"I loved The Cavern. It was a claustrophobic hell, but it was a great one."

“On Saturday 28th October, 1961, I was asked by a young boy for a record by a group called The Beatles. It had always been our policy in records to look after whatever request was made. I wrote on a pad: “My Bonnie”, The Beatles. Check on Monday.’ (…) Before I had time to check on Monday, two girls came into the store and they too asked for a disc by this group. This, contrary to legend, was the sum total of demand for The Beatles’ disc at this time in Liverpool. But I was sure there was something very significant in three queries for one unknown disc in two days. I talked to contacts and found what I hadn’t realised, that The Beatles were in fact a Liverpool group, that they had just returned from playing clubs in the steamy, seedy end of Hamburg. A girl I know said: ‘The Beatles? They’re the greatest. They’re at the Cavern this week…’”

“On Saturday 28th October, 1961, I was asked by a young boy for a record by a group called The Beatles. It had always been our policy in records to look after whatever request was made. I wrote on a pad: “My Bonnie”, The Beatles. Check on Monday.’ (…) Before I had time to check on Monday, two girls came into the store and they too asked for a disc by this group. This, contrary to legend, was the sum total of demand for The Beatles’ disc at this time in Liverpool. But I was sure there was something very significant in three queries for one unknown disc in two days. I talked to contacts and found what I hadn’t realised, that The Beatles were in fact a Liverpool group, that they had just returned from playing clubs in the steamy, seedy end of Hamburg. A girl I know said: ‘The Beatles? They’re the greatest. They’re at the Cavern this week…’”

“We were the first working-class singers that stayed working class and pronounced it and didn’t try and change our accents, which in England were looked down upon. The only change was our image.”

“They’d sold a lot of records for ‘Love Me Do’ to get to Number Seventeen, which was great for a Liverpool band - they’d made the charts! Now that The Beatles were known nationally, not just in the Northwest and Liverpool, they were being played on the radio and people everywhere were hearing them.”