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St Lukes Hall, Crosby
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The Jive Hive - The Comrades Club
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The Jive Hive was the name given to The Comrades Club Crosby next to St Luke's Church Hall, Crosby, some seven miles north of Liverpool, as people attended dances there up to three times a week promoted by Jim McIver and Doug Martin. They both also promoted at other venues in the area at Seaforth and Litherland with up to four bands performing on any given night. 'The Zodiacs' had formed as a jazz band in Crosby in 1958 and were a popular local live attraction who became the resident band here.
One of the first gigs at the Jive Hive featured the 'Deltones', the 'Bobby Bell Rockers' and 'The Hurricanes'. Johnny ‘Guitar’ Byrne of 'The Hurricanes' commented, "The place had a great atmosphere. It was a big hall with a wooden sprung floor and when the crowd used to jive in time together they would all bounce in unison. As was common at most music venues at the time, there was no alcohol served there and it was really friendly, never any fights."
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| Ringo with Rory Storm & The Hurricanes at 'The Jive Hive' |
He also said, "Early on we would get the L3 bus from Stanley Road. Ringo would put his drum kit in the luggage rack. We would then get off at the stop nearest to the hall and lug all our stuff there. Later on, after we'd made a bit of money, we all drove there in new cars."
'The Zodiacs' became resident group each Wednesday and Saturday at The Jive Hive and 'Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes' appeared regularly.
Tony Barrow, 'The Beatles’ press officer from 1962 to 1968 was a pupil at Merchant Taylors school in Crosby and also promoted gigs in and around Crosby. He recalls "I was running jazz gigs and skiffle contests and used local venues like St Luke’s Hall and Alexandra Hall. We called St Luke’s Hall the Hive of Jive, and Ringo Starr was actually in a group that entered one of the skiffle contests there – they came second. Another time I arranged for Lonnie Donegan, who was appearing at the Liverpool Empire, to come and draw the raffle."
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| Rory Storm announcing Starr Time in October 1961 |
The Jive Hive closed in 1962 and the venue was later to become the Crosby Comrades Club.
The photo depicted is not the "Jive Hive" it is the old Crosby town hall or Alexandra hall, now demolished,which also had dance evenings with local groups. The "Jive Hive" was actually in St Lukes hall Crosby which is now the "Comrades Club".
ReplyDeleteThanks for that.
DeleteWe used to go on a Saturday night ,we just called it the Lukes, this would have been about 1968 , had some great nights and great memories
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