 |
| Bill with Virginia without whom 'Mersey Beat' would not have happened. |
Bill Harry was born on the 17th of September 1938 in Smithdown Road Infirmary and was the founder of the hugely influential 'Mersey Beat', a newspaper which covered Merseyside's music scene in the early 1960s. After winning a scholarship to the Junior School of Art in Gambier Terrace, he started their first magazine, 'Premier'.He had further forays in the publishing field while at Liverpool College of Art publishing a magazine, Jazz in 1958, and worked as an assistant editor on Liverpool University's charity magazine, Pantosphinx. He also briefly edited a magazine called 'Frank Comments' produced by Frank Hessy's city centre music store which gave him an insight into the local music scene. It was at the College of Art that he befriended Stuart Sutcliffe who in turn introduced him to John Lennon. Bill and Stuart were very well educated students and Bill even organised the students' Film Society. With Paul McCartney and George Harrison attending Liverpool Institute, part of the same building as the art college, they would frequent the college canteen and rehearse in the life rooms. Referred to as merely the 'college band' at that time, they were booked to appear on Saturday night college dances with jazz outfits such as the Merseysippi Jazz Band. Since they didn't have much money at the time, Bill and Stuart proposed and seconded the motion that the Students Union use funds to buy amplification equipment which the group could use. They actually took the equipment to Germany with them and the college never saw it again. Following a performance by beat poet Royston Ellis at Liverpool University he, Lennon, Sutcliffe and fellow student Rod Murray went to Ye Cracke and decided that Ellis was merely copying the American Beat Generation poets. Bill suggested that it should be about one's own experiences so the four of them decided they should form a collective, the Dissenters, which vowed to make Liverpool famous with their music, painting and writing. A Commemorative Plaque can be seen hung up in Ye Cracke pub at 13 Rice Street, Liverpool, the 19th century public house they frequented.
 |
| The Plaque at Ye Cracke |
He had written to the Daily Mail and the Liverpool Echo about the burgeoning Liverpool music scene but neither paper was interested. So in the summer of 1961, together with his future wife Virginia who he had met at the Jacaranda, and with the encouragement of Sam Leach, they set up in a small room in the attic above a wine merchant's shop at 81a Renshaw Street to produce their own newspaper 'Mersey Beat' for which John Lennon would offer funny inputs in the early days under the pseudonym 'Beatcomber'. These were to form the basis of John's first published book 'In His Own Write'.
Issue One of Mersey Beat had a print run of 5,000 copies, all of which sold out. Bill placed them with the three major distributors in the area - WH Smith, Blackburn's and Conlan's - as well as local newsagents, music venues and record stores in and around the centre of Liverpool. Brian Epstein at his NEMS store agreed to take 12 copies of the first edition which sold 5,000 copies so for the second edition the NEMS request was for 144 copies, showing the demand that was there for such an innovative new newspaper that young people identified with.
The second issue had a front page article about 'The Beatles' recordings in Hamburg. Intrigued by what he read, Epstein invited Bill into his office to discuss the local music scene and asked if he might review new records for the magazine. The third issue featured the column 'Stop the World I Want To Get Off - By Brian Epstein of NEMS'. Epstein also advertised in Mersey Beat and an August 1961 edition had a NEMS advert on the same page as a feature on 'The Beatles' by the Cavern DJ Bob Wooler. This all went to disprove the theory that Brian had no knowledge of 'The Beatles' until the request for 'My Bonny' at his Whitechapel store. Between 1961 and 1964 the magazine provided an invaluable insight into the Merseyside music scene with local bands now calling themselves 'beat groups' playing in 'beat clubs'. By 1962 its circulation had already reached 250,000, and was roundly referred to as the Teenagers' Bible and coverage quickly spread as far afield as Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield and Newcastle. When 'The Beatles' became known nationally the media also referred to the Liverpool sound as 'Mersey Beat'.
From 1965 Bill had gone on to manage 'The Four Pennies', who reached number one in 1964 with their second single 'Juliet'. He and Virginia married and moved to London, where he had columns in Record Retailer, Weekend, Marilyn and Valentine magazines, he wrote features for Music Now, and was news editor and columnist for Record Mirror. Later on he became a press agent for 'The Kinks', 'The Hollies' and 'Pink Floyd', and went on to represent artists including 'The Beach Boys', David Bowie, 'Led Zeppelin', Suzi Quatro, 'Hot Chocolate' and Kim Wilde.
In 1994 Bill was presented with a gold award for a 'Lifetime Achievement in Music' by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA).
No comments:
Post a Comment