The Cavern celebrates 50 years

Aug 22 2007 by Liza Williams, Liverpool Daily Post

A CAVERN CD featuring 50 years of famous names and great music is launched today, to mark the club’s anniversary.

The three-disc anniversary edition CD contains 50 tracks from artists who have all appeared at the club over the years.

With a track list which reads like a who’s who of British popular music over the decades, the CD highlights the pivotal importance and influence the club has extended over the years since it opened on January 16 1957.

The CD, called The Cavern – The Most Famous Club In The World, features The Beatles and The Rolling Stones together for the first time ever on a commercial album.

The Arctic Monkeys bring the track list up to date with a previously unreleased live version of The View From The Afternoon.

A VIP night at the club this evening will celebrate the release.

Cavern director Dave Jones said: “We have wanted to make an album since the mid-nineties but it was always so difficult to do.

“Times have now moved on and EMI, along with Universal, have made it so easy.

“We had to wait for clearance from Apple to use the Beatles’ track and we were very happy when that came through – we couldn’t really have a cavern album without a Beatles track.

“The songs picked themselves and there is a huge variety from all eras.

“People often just associate the Cavern with the Merseybeat sound and it is so much more than that, it really shows how music tastes have changed over the years. It also shows how the venue, from the day it opened, is all about the music.” On January 16, 1957, the original Cavern took its first step into becoming one of the most famous destinations in the world when it first opened its doors.

And on August 7 in the same year, a young John Lennon and the skiffle band The Quarrymen first graced the stage.

The Beatles played the club a total of 274 times but it was a showcase for many other Liverpool bands.

In 1973 it was forced to close because the city council decided the space was needed to fit an extraction duct for the underground rail network, and the bulldozers moved in. The Cavern was then resurrected in 1984 as part of the Cavern Walks development, in which bricks from the old club were used to refurbish the new.

lizawilliams@dailypost.co.uk

Names and music which made club the most famous in the world

CD 1

1. Bob Wooler – Intro

2. The Beatles – Please Please Me

3. Chuck Berry – No Particular Place To Go

4. The Shadows – Apache

5. The Spencer Davis Group – Keep On Running

6. Johnny Kidd and The Pirates – Shakin' All Over

7. Cilla Black – Anyone Who Had A Heart

8. The Hollies – I'm Alive

9. Gene Vincent – Be Bop A Lula

10. The Easybeats – Friday On My Mind

11. Lonnie Donegan – Cumberland Gap

12. The Fourmost – Hello Little Girl

13. The Searchers – Sweets For My Sweet

14. Manfred Mann – Do Wah Diddy Diddy

15. Chris Farlowe – Out Of Time

16. Wilson Pickett – In The Midnight Hour

17. Ben E. King – Stand By Me

18. Stevie Wonder – I Was Made To Love Her

CD 2

1. Queen – Killer Queen

2. Paul McCartney – All Shook Up

3. The Kinks – You Really Got Me

4. The Big Three – Some Other Guy

5. The Animals – The House Of The Rising Sun

6. Herman’s Hermits – I’m Into Something Good

7. The Moody Blues – Go Now

8. Gerry and The Pacemakers – Ferry Cross The Mersey

9. The Zombies – She’s Not There

10. The Swinging Blue Jeans – Hippy Hippy Shake

11. Little Eva – The Locomotion

12. Cliff Bennett and The Rebel Rousers – Got To Get You Into My Life

13. Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas – Little Children

14. The Merseybeats – I Think Of You

15. The Flowerpot Men – Let's Go To San Francisco

16. Elton John – Border Song

CD 3

1. The Rolling Stones – It's All Over Now

2. The Who – My Generation

3. The Yardbirds – For Your Love

4. Donovan – Sunshine Superman

5. Wishbone Ash – Blowin' Free

6. Georgie Fame – Yeh Yeh

7. Bo Diddley – Bo Diddley