Mersey Beat - Sam Leach

Sam Leach, leaning on Paul at a party at his future wife, Joan McEvoy's house. Joan is next to George

 

Sam Leach was born on the 27th of December 1935 in Liverpool, the son of Stanley Leach, a clerk working on the city docks, and his Canadian wife, Pauline. When he left school, Sam worked for the English Electric, but hated being told what to do and resolved to become self-employed, embarking on a series of ventures that included damp-proofing properties and running a hair salon. He was a perpetually optimistic individual, always expecting something good to turn up.

Sam loved rock 'n' roll music and in the late 1950s started promoting shows in Norris Green, a suburb of Liverpool. He launched his first full time promotion at the historic St George's Hall in the City centre. The very first show he put on was April 1st, 1960 when he had realised that rock 'n roll was taking over from jazz. He moved to the city centre with regular nights at the Cassanova Club and established all-night sessions at the Iron Door, a rival club to the Cavern, in 1961. It was shortly after he started at the Iron Door, doing three and four sessions a week, that he put on the first all nighter on March 11, 1961 and drew almost 2000 fans for a 12 hour session with 12 bands. That night the Cavern had an audience of only 50. He continued big nightly sessions at the Iron Door and also the Cassanova Club.

In the same year he famously organised "Operation Big Beat" at the Tower Ballroom, New Brighton on November 10th 1961. Headlining on that first night were 'The Beatles' alongside 'Gerry and the Pacemakers', 'Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes', 'Rory Storm and the Hurricanes' and 'The Remo Four'. Around 4,300 fans packed into the Tower Ballroom for the first in a series of Sam Leach's "Operation Big Beat" shows. He called his one man set-up 'the Leach Organisation'.

He was indeed a Liverpool visionary with a big rockin' heart and towering dreams. A promoter who was way ahead of his many contemporaries in both scale and daring and who was always seeking bigger and better ways to give beat fans the best in rockin' entertainment, but sometimes promoting too many bands on the same bill. He was the man who caught the emerging spirit of the times and did a huge amount to promote the early success of 'The Beatles', long before Brian Epstein came on the scene and long, long before 'Beatlemania' hit Great Britain and the rest of the world. In fact he staged more than 40 Beatles gigs in 1961 and 1962. Seeing them after their return from Hamburg he recounted, "The very first night I met 'The Beatles' was the 25th of January 1961, when they came back from Hamburg, I went to see them and I immediately realised how big they were. I followed them into the dressing room, which was really a ladies toilet converted. The first thing I said to Paul and John, "You know what lads? One of these days you're gonna be as big as Elvis." John looked at me like I was mental. Paul laughed because he knew I had a new club opening, The Casanova Club. He said "We'll go to work for you Mr. Leach." 

In his book 'The Rocking City' he described the scene at an early gig. "I went back into the ballroom to watch the end of 'The Beatles' set and was confronted by a frenzied scene that beggared belief. The entire dance floor was crammed with ecstatic young girls crying and screaming publishing forward to catch a brief glimpse of their idols. The noise was incredible, and I had to cover my ears."

 

For almost two years he was swept along on a roller coaster ride. He then decided to launch his own independent record label, Troubadour Records and followed that with a bid to become 'The Beatles' manager.

 

 

 

In his attempt to bring them to the notice of Southern audiences and agents he was the promoter for a gig at Aldershot at the Palais Ballroom on the 9th of December 1961. However only 18 people showed up and the lads were not pleased, which Leach said happened because of a mix up with the payment for a newspaper advert saying that the ad issue resulted in 'The Beatles' choosing Brian Epstein over him as their manager.

That failure has become part of Beatles folklore.

 

Sam (front) with John & George in Aldershot

 

In February 1964 Sam bounced back from adversity. Anticipating that 'The Beatles' would soon conquer America following exposure on the Ed Sullivan Show, he produced a magazine 'Beatles on Broadway', which sold almost a million copies in eleven languages. 

Sam Leach was a true rock 'n' roll evangelist.

Paul McCartney refers to their early days as being 'The Sam Leach Era'.
John Lennon once said: "Sam Leach was the pulse of Merseybeat. What he did, the rest copied."

Sam Leach passed away on the 21st December 2016 after a lengthy illness.

see also :-  http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2017/05/mersey-beat-allan-williams.html