The Cavern: a blow by blow account

May 21 2008 by Aaron Boland, Liverpool Daily Post

The Cavern: a blow by blow account

IF YOU nipped down to the Cavern Club at lunchtime on July 27, 1962, you would have seen Joe Brown and His Bruvvers; a few days later, on Tuesday, July 31, 1962, Gerry and the Pacemakers were doing the lunchtime show.

Such minutiae is mother’s milk for thousands of music fans who love every cough and splutter of Liverpool’s music history.

Details of these shows and much more are included in The Cavern, the latest book by Liverpool musicologist Spencer Leigh.

It’s his “21st or 22nd” book, explains one of the most prolific writers on the Merseybeat scene.

In fact, he has written about the Cavern before with Let’s Go Down the Cavern published in 1984, and republished some years later, with amendments, as Twist and Shout.

The amendments were necessary, it seems.

“In my early days, I believed almost everything people told me. Now I realise people tend to embellish stories and sometimes they don't really remember things, but think they can.”

He is unwilling to guarantee 100% accuracy in the new boo – “but it is as accurate as I can make it.”

He says: “It is an interesting story with lots of drama, the battle between jazz and rock and roll and adjusting to the new scene when the club reopened in 1984.”

Current owners Bill Heckle and David Jones asked Leigh to write the book as an official biography of the club, probably the most famous in the world (indeed, the book’s full title is The Cavern: The Most Famous Club in the World).

One thing he did discover was that most of the owners got their fingers burned while running the club, often dogged by bad luck.

“Roy Adams, for example, was unaware there was a demolition order on the club when he took over.”

Leigh has used his own broadcast tapes for most of the interviews. “I transcribe them all as soon as I have recorded them”, and gone through numerous cuttings and diaries.

The diaries of early owner Ray McFall were particularly illuminating.

Leigh was aware that not even newspaper ads for shows were always accurate. “Sometimes the dates didn't happen or people just did not turn up.” So he has cross-checked them all.

The result is as detailed and true a story of The Cavern as we are likely to get in a book produced not just for the Liverpool market but worldwide sales, with copies already selling well in the USA.

* THE Cavern: The Most Famous Club in the World is published by S.A.F, at £12.99.

philkey@dailypost.co.uk