Earliest Known Recording of The Quarrymen - Woolton Village Fete 1957
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- čas přidán 29. 05. 2022
- #TheBeatles #Quarrymen #WooltonVillageFete #johnlennon
This is the earliest recorded material of John Lennon. What you're hearing now is what a young James Paul McCartney heard when he went to watch The Quarrymen for the first time.
The tape was recorded on a portable Grundig TK8 by Bob Molyneux, a member of the church's youth club who is now a retired policeman.
In 1963, he offered the tape to Lennon, through Ringo Starr. But Lennon never responded, so Mr. Molyneux put the tape in a vault. When he offered it to Sotheby's in May 1994, the auction house asked Mark Lewisohn, a Beatles expert who wrote about the performance in "The Complete Beatles Chronicle," to listen to the recording.
"As soon as I heard the tape it was quite clear that it was John Lennon," Mr. Lewisohn said yesterday. "He was 16 years old, but it was that same distinctive voice. To suddenly come across a tape of an unknown band of teen-age musicians playing in a small town 37 years after the fact is almost unbelievable. It is a holy grail that no one knew existed."
The Quarry Men performed twice that day, outside the church in the afternoon and in the church hall in the evening. Mr. Molyneux recorded the evening performance. Between the two sets, Lennon was introduced to Mr. McCartney, then 15, who tuned Lennon's guitar, something the older musician had not yet mastered. Mr. McCartney was invited to join the Quarry Men two weeks later. The other members were Eric Griffiths on guitar, Pete Shotton on washboard, Len Garry on bass and Rod Davis on banjo. Colin Hanton, the drummer, did not perform in the evening set.
On the tape, Lennon sings "Puttin' on the Style," a No. 1 hit at the time for Lonnie Donegan, and "Baby Let's Play House," an Arthur Gunter song that Lennon knew from an Elvis Presley recording. Lennon used a line from the Gunter song -- "I'd rather see you dead, little girl, than to be with another man" -- as the opening line of his own "Run for Your Life" in 1965.
"When you first hear the tape," said Stephen Maycock, the expert in charge of rock-and-roll sales at Sotheby's, "it sounds rough. It was recorded with a hand-held microphone in the worst venue you could want, a church hall with a high ceiling and probably a hard floor. Despite that, it has been stored carefully, and the sound has probably not deteriorated from what it was in 1957. - Zábava
Just goes to show that confidence is everything when you’re performing. John had confidence.
Especially in tandem with the talent and skill.
John's voice is so distinct - even at this age!
I agree, some people are doubting this recordings authenticity but the vocal is very distinctly Lennon IMHO
Absolutely!! I noticed that as well.
In this recording he sounds like a 16yr old boy.
@@ktcarl That's because he was a 16 year old boy, when this was recorded.
@@robinrobyn1714 I was making a joke.
Even with the rough recording, his voice sounds really powerful. The talent is obvious.
You know it's John within seconds.
Crawler if it hadnt informed you it was Winston you would not have known
Ive been listening for nearly 60 years I didnt know
@@tiki_trash stop it please
Such blatant lies
I totally agree he had a unique voice.
@@andrewjohnstone963
John was versatile, as later Beatle recording's show, he did a lot of his own vocal harmonies and backing vocals.
After 'Beatles for Sale', they each recorded in a more singular way, only using one another if necessary.
Each were different from each other, each had their own sound and style.
That's the village I grew up in, my sister is still there. Such a lovely little place
How unbeleivable to hear this moment. After all this time, too. No words.
I have been an historic studier of the Beatles for over 40 years and I was TRULY blown away by these photos of them riding in the Fete parade on their way to way to ensure John's fate by meeting, for the first time, Paul McCartney. It was on the back of this truck that they would play from too behind the churchyard cemetery. These photos were lost for almost 60 yrs when the photographers son found them in an old box. They are truly history in the making.
Truly amazing these photos captured the day. Here’s a little nugget of truth which most people aren’t aware of (and would perhaps find trivial) but since you’ve studied Beatles history.. The Quarrymen rode the lorry to the fete (as shown in these amazeballs pictures) however they did not perform from the truck bed that day. Paul and so many others in the audience went round to the back of the church where there was a stage set up for the band. The lads got off the truck amongst the crowd and made their way to the stage to perform. It is easy to confuse that famous photo of John in check shirt looking right at camera for “they were on the lorry bed playing” (which is what I had thought for most of my life) but in truth they were in the back garden area of the Woolton parish, rollicking on a wooden stage. Who knew? 🤷🏽♂️
@@beatledrama8689 I just assumed they never got down from the truck. I could've sworn Paul had said one time that they were in the truck. Now they did play a second show later in the day. Maybe the stage was set up in between? I know they were in that back, far corner as part of a still existing roof top shows in these photos of the Quarrymen. Do you know this for sure?
@@bluzzedude2677 Only someone who was actually there would know for sure, mate. As it happens I was in pre-production of the pilot episode of an audio drama of The Beatles Story when I had the conversation with someone who was indeed at the fete that day, right beside John. That person is Rod Davis, banjo player in The original Quarrymen. Rod : “They always have us playing on the lorry. We didn’t play on the lorry we arrived as a group on the lorry, then quickly hopped out and made our way to a stage around the back of the church.”
The Quarrymen - in that famous photo of John in center - are performing on a stage, not a truck.
This would’ve been the only show possible between the two they played that day, as the 2nd show was performed inside the church hall (like a gymnasium in U.S. terms). Paul met John inside the church hall before the Quarrymen’s 2nd performance.
But yeah, I originally had them playing on top of the truck bed (the lorry) until my chat with Rod where he absolutely insisted I not portray them playing from the back of the lorry, as they weren’t on one during their set.
So I didn’t.
Have a listen. I can’t stress enough that this show is FOR YOU, Bluzze! And fun fact: Rod Davis plays the voice of the garden fete MC (“Dr Thelwall Jones, according to the church poster which can be found online these days)
It’s kinda meta but old Rod brings on The Quarrymen in the opening scene and thus, introduces his younger self in this world! 🤯
Have a listen 🎧🧠💭 🎭
Enjoy! czcams.com/video/BGvaZpwUWPg/video.html
@@beatledrama8689 Thanks for clearing that up for me. I'll have to tell you about me trip to "Mendips" in March, 1981 someday when the then-owner threw a shovel that, almost, hit my head as I was taking a picture. Then, the neighbor came from next door and gave me a piece of HER mind. The man, who was the miserable jerk who bought the house from John's aunt, HATED Beatle fans. The neighbor had been there since John and his aunts days there, fared no better. I wondered why my cab driver friend was smirking when he dropped me off. He did return in 30 minutes like he promised though and said. "I should've warned ya". There was NOTHING but meanness towards Beatle fans in those days...especially if you were an American. Apparently that has all changed now. Probably because they realized they could make money from them. I was only there for 48 hrs. I never even thought of going to St Peters churchyard. I did go to Seville Row and Abbey rd though.
@@bluzzedude2677 That is quite a story! And Liverpool has certainly made an abrupt turnaround when it comes to Beatle fans and tourism. Money money money, yes, probably. But I can also imagine your visit (and no doubt hundreds of others) in 1981 was so soon after John’s murder (at the hands of an insane “American”) that perhaps anyone seen lurking around the Mendips grounds at that time in history would’ve been considered a potential threat of some sort. So here, ‘av a shovel!’
By contrast I’ve been to Liverpool 3x over the past two decades and the people and sights and history continue to be most welcoming and spectacular. So “get back” when you can, JoJo! 👐🏼
In any pub in Liverpool you can find at least 25 men who were members of The Quarreymen. It was the biggest band in musical history.
It's increadible how quickly they progressed. This is only a decade earlier to the likes of A Day In The Life.
Yes, but this is also a question of age. There is a huge difference between being 26 and 16.
Only a decade?
@@coast73I guess your perception of how long a decade is depends on your age!
Yes. Only a decade to SF. But also just 5yrs, just half a decade, to the rise of Beatlemania in GB with groundbreaking songs Please Please Me, Saw Her Standing There…and on and on. The late 50s original rock n roll had died w Elvis in the army and Buddy Holly dead, and Chuck Berry in prison…then suddenly here’s a guitar based band revitalizing rock n roll, only with a whole NEW sound, performing songs THEY wrote. And Just a year after that-worldwide Beatlemania.
@@scottamichie rock and roll died in the late 50s?!
funny you think there were only 3 men playing rock and roll, and two of them were white
rock and roll died when it went commercial in the mid fifties
Are we lucky or what to hear the masters voice at such an early age. No one can touch his voice.
🥱 Elvis Presley.
No comparison...
John was young and so terrific! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
The beginning of a world changing act.
It was astonishingly good luck that Bob Molyneux was at hand to record this historic performance and kept it for nearly 40 years before selling it at auction in 1994.
Purchased by EMI for around £78,000, they subsequently decided in their infinite wisdom not to release it due to the poor quality of the recording.
Nearly 30 have passed since then and digital audio technology has developed in huge strides to the point where the audio recording can be restored, cleaned up and enhanced. Isn’t it time EMI used its vast profits from selling The Beatles back catalogue for more than 60 years to actually do something useful with this incredibly important archive material?
Wait til AI gets hold of it, I spy another Beatles single.
I highly doubt you can do that much to this to enhance it even with AI, this is mostly a mush were you can barely hear that its someone singing, to clean up things the information (audio) has to be there, in this case there doesnt seem to be much information (audio) of value that can be restored unfortunately.
@@Stefan- Actually, you'd be surprised by what can be done with even a downloadable desktop AI mixer. I have put some old cassette recordings of a band I was in (back in the early 80s) through a desktop filter and have managed to isolate vocals, de-noise, remove rumble and hiss, basically ''tidy up'' the instruments, lessen echo and unwanted reverb... then mix the whole lot back to get....
... a beautifully restored, relatively clear track of 5 boys doing a terrible rendition of a Rolling Stones number. 🙂
sorry, this audio can't be "restored, cleaned up and enhanced". :(
@@v1e1r1g1e1 Almost any recording done on an 80´s boombox or similar will sound infinately better from the get go unless it is heavily distorted, this does not really contain any information of value that can be restored. I know quite a bit about audio technology as i have used professional recording softwares (DAW´s) since the mid 90´s and i am currently recording and mixing an album for my band. Is there something that can be done to improve the sound ? Probably. Will there be significant improvements so that it will really be listenable ? Probably not, only marginal improvements are likely.
My father went to Quarry Bank, a few years before Lennon. It’s where they got their name from.
Quite electrifying. Cuts right through everything. The next step in Rock n Roll evolution
What an awesome young band.i sincerely hope that they will become a successful band soon.
Haha I wish that your statement was true in a sense that I would love to go back in time and see them become successful and perform live.
Yeah, they passed the audition...
Thank the lucky stars Paul was there that day. It's crazy to think one small change and The Beatles might have never happened. But it did and we got so much good music from these two talents and the others of course. Without those exact 4 together (and with the help of George Martin) we could have been a Beatleless world.
I think they would have met anyway on the Liverpool music scene, at the Cavern or at some other festival, and Paul was always going to introduce his mate George - and all in time for the Beatles to become what they were. I don't think there's any way on Earth these two songwriters and musicians were never going to have met. The scene, the talent, the drive to succeed, and the music gods would not have allowed that.
My God, a world without the Beatles. Unimaginable, but could so easily have happened. 😮
No big deal. There's always The Archies.
@@TheLarryBrown 😄✌️
Unmistakably... Lennon.
This is absolutely wonderful! I get quite emotional listening to it.
I miss him so much ❤❤🙏🙏✌️
Be great to see Paul McCartney go back to Wooton Church; where it all began.
This recording would be really interesting to hear if it could be cleaned up by the people who worked on now and then. Obviously it will never sound brilliant but im sure it could sound better.
Weird to hear Paul talk about John in the check shirt as a memory and then to actually see a photo of John in it. Weird to think Paul might even have been in the crowd singing along like we hear in this recording,
And in an interview (it's on CZcams), John's sister Julia Baird talks of her mother (also Julia) buying checked shirts for rhe Quarrymen.
Paul was indeed there. That’s the day he asked his friend Ivan Vaughan to introduce him to John because Ivan had played with the Quarrymen a few times, and then played Twenty Flight Rock by Eddie Cochran and Be-Bop-A-Lula by Gene Vincent for him, and shortly after he was in the Quarrymen. Then Paul brought George to the band as well.
A history moment ! Incredible !
Music will be never the same since this moment !
Thank you, John. I still miss you. And it sucks.
I was three months old when this event took place. Six years later my parents took me to see the Beatles and Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas at Llandudno while we were on holiday. I'm now sixty six and remain a music obsessive. The Beatles changed everything.
Wow. No idea this existed. Even though the audio quality is crummy, it's still cool to hear.
For some reason i find this recordimg very haunting, the echo, everything about it
And of course the first line of Run For Your Life was taken from Baby Let’s Play House.
Thanks for posting this!
Well spotted! I also posted an early recording of Elvis singing that song too, from 1956...it's incredible to think how close they were in time, If you're interested here's the clip czcams.com/video/nouPF1cbNl0/video.html
@@whathappenedtoclaudio Thank you for this Link
There is a recently discovered recording from a 1962 gig, just before their first hit. Much clearer than this one. It will be interesting to see what can be captured from it - potentially a remarkable resurfacing of their pre-Fab set
A long recording of The Beatles in Hamburg in 1962 -- released as an album in the seventies -- was fortunately preserved. They were an incredible live act. This was not long before they became the biggest band in England, and then the biggest band in the world.
what a piece of history. Beatles forever x
Everything seems to be very well documented - even their earliest moments. Really astonishing.
Earth Soul Blues RocknRoll...
Sends chills up my spine. Incredible.
I'm from Hunts Cross which is the next area to Woolton and know Woolton village very well. This is the first time I've heard the recording so thanks for uploading it.
That tells you it's a fake
It's crazy when you actually reflect on it, but in just 10 years, they'd be putting the finishing touches on the Sgt. Pepper album. Never has there been a more prolific display of immense musical talent in such a short period of time.
Wow! What a find, and what a piece of history. I wonder if they can clean the sound quality up a little.
For the first time, August 1960, they were known as The Beatles.
People think that is when 'the Beatles' started.
It started when John had a band and others joined. and he's really rocken on this precious piece of history
Because The Beatles necessarily requires Ringo, as has been discussed in detail elsewhere, it wasn"t The Beatles until Ringo joined. By your argument all John Lennon work, like "Imagine" is The Beatles, which it isn't. As George tells it: How many Beatles does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Four. Besides that, Ringo was a crucial part of The Beatles, musically, image-wise, and personality wise. Ringo is just as much a part of The Beatles as is John. John without the rest of them was not The Beatles and he would have never been. Likewise, Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were not The Beatles just because Ringo was their drummer.
Thats amazing.
John Lennon, 16, Paul McCartney, 15 and George Harrison, 14 at the time (July, 1957) Just kids that already planned their future in music and a wise choice.
No doubt that was John Lennon. Wow he was a star even back then.
would rather have heard John Lennon's memories of that day
Uploaded this on my old channel that Yoko bombed (it was actually her agency that shut me down for copyright) Oh blast. :D Well, it went up to 500k or so. :) Hope you get much more views so we can see what happened to Claudio. Also thanks for uploading so that gem is still around. I still love the rawness of this sound here. You can clearly hear John's voice and I think this is just amazing after all this time.
Thanks Ash, I've also had a strike from you-know-who for some of my Curt Claudio content, I'm arguing it should be open-source cos he didn't sign a waiver and wasn't asked if his image could be used in the film at the time. Unfortunately he wouldn't live long enough to see the meeting itself on the big screen. Thanks for the support!
Yoko oh no
It’s owned by EMI not Yoko
I see what you are doing Jemaine, you're saying ono aren't you. (Flight of the Concords)@@stansirlmkhope2312
Phenomenal. John was not holding back, even then, with this crude set-up around him.
It's amazing this this stuff still exists.
Priceless.
Beautiful place woolton..childwall...only when you start getting to wavertree further down Smith down Rd ..you see intercity slums granby Dingle area.ringo from worst area..pure working class
Cool ❤
Wait til they get Peter Jackson's AI on this
Magic!
Groups with guitars are on the way out.
Paul must've been thinking; How could I sing with another whooo since I saw him singing there!
More like "Hooooow can I sing with that singer.....whooooo...since I saw him siiiiiiinging there.
fair, I'll edit it@@TheLarryBrown
I was born on that day and as it happened, allowing for the difference in time zones, the event coincided pretty closely with John and Paul's first meeting.
What. so your point is that you're their love child?
I'm a bit confused about this recording. I believe it is Lennon with the Quarrymen in 1957 and that Bob Molyneux recorded it personally. But photos of the fete and Paul McCartney's recollection is of a performance outdoors on a truck or platform stage. This recording is not that. It's clearly inside a room or hall. It's loaded with room reflections. It sounds like a room of all hard surfaces that causes the sound to reverberate and that is captured on the recording. So is this a different Quarrymen gig that was inside the church hall and wrongly attributed to this July 6 fete?
Good point Ned, it seems that memories have been conflated here. According to Julia Baird the group arrived at the church field by truck, there are some photos to back this up showing John and the rest of the lads sat down. The Quarrymen did 2 shows that day, one on the church field and one in the church hall. The conventional wisdom seems to show that McCartney arrived at the field to see them, whether or not he did is unknown. This recording is almost 100% from the church hall gig, which Macca was at, he has spoken about talking to Paul inside the church hall many times.
@@whathappenedtoclaudio Whether or not Paul arrived at the field to see them is not "unknown". Paul McCartney himself, in this very video, is on record stating that he was walking across the field, when he first saw John Lennon. He even states the type of shirt John was wearing and exactly where John Lennon and the Quarrymen were at, when he ( Paul McCartney) first saw them that day - Saturday July 6,1957.
@@whathappenedtoclaudio "This recording is almost 100% from the church hall gig, which Macca was at, he has spoken about talking to Paul inside the church hall many times." Paul does that all the time (self-talk), but he also talked with John on that day.
I was on The Beatles Pilgrimage Tour in April. We were fortunate enough to have lunch at Strawberry Fields with both Len Garry and Colin Hanton. They were in the Quarrymen on this day. Len Garry told me that for whatever reason they didn't end up playin the church hall show that day, only the outdoor show. Another thing that came to light was that John and Paul had crossed paths a few time socially, but this was the day they were formally introduced
My thoughts exactly. The Vocal and Drums are bouncing off the walls.
Woolton Village FATE !
that's great as far as it goes but i'm really interested in the recordings of the Band Of Cheshire Yeomanry that performed before The Quarrymen at 3-30pm the same day.Would you be able to help?
Ha ha ha ha ha. I laughed out loud.
💗🎸
Are we sure that this is THE actual JULY 6 1957 recording ? At the Saint Peter's Garden FETE in Woolton , England - ? Or it maybe another recording of JOHN LENNON and the Quarrymen in 1957 ?
Sign them up.
To the toppermost of the poppermost.
Damn its 65 y.ago
The tape recorder that this audio was recorded on, is on display at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio....
An original Leonardo Da Vinci prototype tape recorder no less.
@@user-jr7sf7zj2mNo, it was invented by Amelia Earhart and that"s why this tape was lost.
"Puttin' on the Style" - from the White album. Remember it well.
Wow . pretty cool . :O)
There's an excellent book about the day called the day john met paul. Author, Jim O'Donnell.
Little did they know!
Playing Lonnie Donnegan. Class.
It's always confused me that one of the fragments of "Putting On The Style" seems to be much faster than the rest.
Outra Dúvida e ao vivo numa jam usa os monitores ou liga a pedaleira em linha?
Could the sound be restored using the modern technology on the latest Beatles single?
I wonder what software like MAL and some techs who know what they're doing could potentially do with this.
Age 16 but Quarrymen John sounds exactly like Beatle John so clearly his teenage voice had already changed to an adult voice. Also interesting that the older John could not tune his guitar. The much younger Paul helped him to do it. Showing that even then Paul was the best natural musician.
It shows fck all of the kind
John and Paul were a great duo for about 13 years -- until their egos got in the way.
I think Paul also had the benefit of some music lessons. John said so in an old interview: "Paul had some training; he could play a lot of instruments and so forth."
@@57highland But tuning is something you can learn straight away, IF, you have the musical ear. Regardless of playing proficiency. In this case a 14 1/2 year old Paul was tuning for a much older 16 year old John. Very telling.
its not that John couldnt tune his guitar
he didnt know how to play it properly, or what notes to tune each string to
his aunt had played the banjo, and showed him how to tune it to play a chord on open strings, so it wasnt the proper way to tune a guitar
but you could play chords by bridging all 6 strings straight across any of the frets
John did not learn how to play a guitar that was correctly tuned till a few years later
Just think with a little practice these boys will go somewhere
Just add some more members.
nahh
If it were possible to separate the instruments and make the sound a little clearer...
They should see what AI could do with this recording!
What is the song called that’s playing in the background at 0:56
It's called Come Go With Me by the Dell Vikings
Gibt es denn Fotos, auf denen Paul mit John bei den Quarrymen spielt?
Just to let all you guys & gals know... if you are looking for photos for August 7 1957 at Cavern Club (Search online for images), most every single photo has the *incorrect* information [and some are *not* even from The Cavern Club, despite the photo info].
I'm doing my own research for a playlist... and *all* sources indicate that Paul [and/or George] did *not* play at the Cavern Club on August 7, 1957. Paul had a Boy Scout Club meeting... [his] very first appearance at Cavern Club would not be until January 24, 1958 [oh, and Stu Sutcliffe was not even in The Beatles (Silver Beetles) until their first audition at Blue Angel (May 10, 1960).
* Paul's very *first* appearance with The Quarrymen was at New Clubmoor Hall in Liverpool, on October 18, 1957.
I hope this helps. I've been spending months on this... and trying to keep up with when The Quarrymen (Quarry Men) changed to Johnny And The Moon Dogs (for a whole, two months in '59) before becoming The Silver Beetles (May 1960) -- then The Beatles (August 1960) is a pain in the butt.
beatles fans when your favorite song is "hey jude" and not a poor record audio from 1957: 😭😭😭
What songs are those?
what recording?
Colin Hanton on drums !
Hey, he actually did a good crack at Lonnie's voice!
Do you have the rest of this recording, instead of brief samples?
it sounds like it was recorded on a carbon microphone, like the ones used in telephones back then.
they were standard on the little 3 1/2" reel to reel recorders that you would buy to record conversations.... but not music
I wonder what Peter Jackson could do with this tape??
When Rock and Roll was already a hit in England and already had many Rock 'n' Roll singers recording and making shows, John Lennon was a member of a skiffle group...
Uh....he's singing Elvis here.
All John, all the way, a deaf man could hear it a hundred years from now!
Random person recorded this?
What happened to Claudio by the way ?
Apparently, he died in a plane crash about a year after he met J&Y
@@BeatlesBowieKrimson Thank you for your answer
Love the drums!
Give these tapes to Peter Jackson!
The Paul taking is not the original Paul. He got his info grom the photo.
💀
I guess it would take the next level of AI to bring this to publishing quality...
Sounds like George Formby !,,
Cool that "fete" is pronounced Fate, which of course it was.
Somebody call Peter Jackson... he's got some work to do 🙂
Be fun to tweak that recording (AI maybe?) and clean it up some.
That's John Lennon's voice for sure, but that isn't James Paul McCartney's voice.
Rejected for the Anthology project. Maybe with AI it could be a #1 in ten years?
Wonder how his normally straight hair was curly that day.
Isn't it coincidental that Paul Mc Cartney describes his memory of that day just as if he was looking at the photo we see here. Sort of impossible really because the liklehood that Billy Shears was at that fete that day would be exrremely low.
Oh dear
Troll.
@@jerryodonovan8624 definitely not a troll, just trying to educate.