The village fete in
Woolton,
Liverpool in
1957 was the scene of an event that would change music forever.
A 14 year old boy had been invited along to watch a band that a friend of a friend was in. The band in question was The
Quarrymen, and the boy liked the lead singer, although he noticed he was playing his
guitar in
banjo tunings and was getting some of the words wrong or making up his own (singing 'come go with me/right down to the penitentiary' during
Come Go With Me by the
Dell-Vikings for example.)
The boy went up to the singer in the bar afterwards and played him
Twenty Flight Rock by
Eddie Cochran. The singer was in turn impressed by the boy's guitar playing, and more importantly, by the fact that he knew all the words.
The boy in question was
Paul McCartney, the singer was
John Lennon, and from that meeting came
The Beatles.
Recently a short tape of that historic gig has turned up, and thirty seconds of it can be found (*cough*Napster*cough*) - part of a performance of Puttin' On The Style. The performance is bad, and the sound quality is worse, but it's still fascinating to hear history in the making...
Incidentally, the stage on which this historic event took place is soon to be destroyed, unless Beatles fans can match the money parishioners have raised to renovate their church. The fans have so far raised £800 to the parishioners' £1,000,000