Buddy Holly Anniversary
Celebrity Charity Concert
Liverpool Royal Philharmonic Hall, Thursday 20 March
The Quarrymen were greatly honoured to have been invited to play on the Buddy Holly Anniversary Charity Concert in aid of concert at the Royal Philharmonic on Thursday 20 March. This takes place 50 years to the day from the first appearance in Liverpool of the man who inspired so many Liverpool musicians, especially of course the Quarrymen! John Lennon himself was there at the original concert with Quarrymen manager Nige Walley, four rows back on the right as you face the stage.
We were asked to play “That’ll be the day”, which was of course one of the two tracks recorded by the Quarrymen at the famous Percy Phillips recording session in 1958 with the lineup comprising John, Paul, George, Colin Hanton and John Duff Lowe The other side of the recording was “In Spite of all the Danger”. The Quarrymen were joined on stage by the legendary Liverpool bass player, Owen Clayton, who was a member of the audience at the actual concert fifty years ago, as also was Geoff Rhind who took the famous photo of Lennon and the Quarrymen in 1957. Our lead singer, Len Garry, was unfortunately taken ill with the ‘flu and could not be present, so Rod Davis had to sing lead and play the guitar solo as well! However, his job was made much easier by the driving rhythm provided by Colin and Owen, even if Colin was about 50 yards away on the drums!
We got to meet Buddy Holly’s guitarist. Tommy Allsupp who performed with the fantastic American Buddy impersonator Johnny Rogers.
Other Merseyside acts on the fabulous bill included China Crisis, Phil Jones, Ian McNabb, Pete Wylie, Howie Casey, The Merseybeats, The Merseysippi, Karl Terry, The Fourmost and loads more!
On this page.........
Quarrymen on TV
Last July BBC Newsnight produced a short feature on the Quarrymen (which is on Youtube if you missed it!) and also on the Inside Out programme from Manchester in September ‘07 and February of this year. The BBC Manchester Inside Out team are producing a 55 minute video about the Quarrymen which is due to be shown later this year.
During the filming, which has taken place over the previous twelve months, we have had the pleasure of meeting many old friends including former Quarrymen manager Nige Walley and several people who appear on the famous Geoff Rhind photo of John and the Quarrymen at St Peter’s. We have to say how much we are looking forward to seeing the finished film!
Left:
With Sheila Stewart and Eileen Thomas who were at the St Peter’s Garden Fete in 1957. Eileen appears on the famous photo.
Quarrymen at the Echo Arena
On Thursday 10 July as part of Liverpool’s Beatle Day celebration the Quarrymen played at the Echo Arena as part of the evening concert in aid of the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital Appeal. Loads of top Merseyside acts 
donated their services free for this good cause, including Gerry Marsden, The original 4Most, Karl Terry & The Cruisers, the Merseybeats, The Undertakers, King Size Taylor & the Dominoes, the Black Knights, the Swinging Bluegenes and loads more!
The show was compered by Billy Butler and Ricky Tomlinson, and because Quarrymen pianist John Duff Lowe played for Ricky’s own band in the late 50’s after he left the Quarrymen, we invited Ricky to sit in with us and play “Maggie May”. A great time was had by all! Photo shows Rod & Len with show compere Ricky Tomlinson and guest bassist Owen Clayton.
Quarrymen on Youtube
There are loads of videos of the Quarrymen on Youtube, but have a look at this one which was made to promote the Quarrymen’s US tour in October 2008. Sadly John Duff Lowe was not be able to make this trip so he does not feature in the video - for those of you who wondered why. Please let us know what you think of it. It’s called “Introducing John Lennon’s Original Quarrymen”.
The Quarrymen & Peter Donegan
On 27 August Colin and Rod, together with Welsh musician Huw Williams, travelled to Cardiff to play with Peter Donegan, son of Lonnie, as part of a radio programme being made by Darren Broome of Radio Wales about the Rock Island Line railroad. Of course the whole idea was to make a recording of Lonnie’s famous “Rock Island Line” which was the song which inspired thousands of young men and women in the 1950’s to start playing Skiffle. Just about every rocker and folkie since owes a great debt to Lonnie and “Rock Island Line”. Peter played his father’s special prototype Lonnie Donegan Signature model guitar, made by Martin Guitars, Colin and Rod played drums and guitar and Huw sat in on washboard. They guys had a load of fun picking together and the afternoon was over all too soon.
Left to right:
Rod Davis, Peter Donegan,
Colin Hanton and programme narrator and folksinger Huw Williams
Peter Donegan admires Rod’s copy of “Rock Island Line” which he bought from John Lennon in 1957 for half a crown!
The Quarrymen in Dahme
At the end of May Len, Colin and Rod and guest bassist Frank Cairns flew to Hamburg and then travelled on to the little seaside resort of Dahme on Germany’s Baltic Coast. There they were to top the bill on the Sunday night of 
the “Oldie Tag” (= Oldie Day!) which was part of the fantastic entertainment organised by the resort’s Events Director Frank Timpe to amuse the thousands of tourists who flocked to Dahme during the bank holiday weekend.
An additional bonus was that our entire 90 minute performance was to be filmed and recorded in 24 track sound for Horst Fascher’s Star TV, which meant of course we were to meet Horst himself - pictured above sharing a beer and a sausage with us!
We had a marvellous weekend and met some great people, especially film director Gary Danker and his girlfriend Steffi. The evening went off really well and Gary has some brilliant footage which he is now working on to produce the finished video.
Dahme is certainly on the list of places we intend to revisit!
With BBC “Inside Out” reporter Andy Johnson.
2008
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