John Duff Lowe joins the Quarrymen - again!

John - or Duff, as he likes to be called as it’s his real middle name - played with the Quarrymen during 1958 when Paul McCartney drafted him in after hearing him play Jerry Lee Lewis riffs on the school music room piano. Duff and Paul were in the same year at Liverpool Institute Grammar School for Boys and Duff and Len were in the same class. Duff played with John, Paul, George and Colin on the famous “In spite of all the Danger” & “That’ll be the day” recordings which are on the “Anthology”.

     I was born in the Liverpool suburb of West Derby on the north eastern side of the City where my mother still lives.  Getting to Paul’s house on the south side of the City on Sunday afternoons for rehearsals or on Saturdays if John or Paul had arranged a gig which was usually over their way, was a bit of a hassle for me as I was too young to drive or own a car and had to travel by bus.  I think this, and a complaining girlfriend, was why I eventually decided to leave the band, and also I didn’t live near enough to get together during weekday evenings. 
     I later played piano for a while in a band called “Hobo Rick & the City Slickers” which was fronted by a young Ricky Tomlinson who went into acting and has now become very well-known. After it opened in 1959, I spent many evenings in the Casbah Coffee Club at the Best family home which was just a short walk from my house. The first time I went with Neil Aspinall who was a mate from the Institute and lived in the next road to me.  All the Mersey bands including the Beatles used to play at the Casbah which was always buzzing and a great place to chill out. 
     After leaving school I joined a firm of Liverpool stockbrokers and was able to spend a lot of my lunch breaks at the Cavern.  I remember one time talking to John (Lennon) during a fag break and he introduced me to a friend saying, “this is Duff, he breaks stock.”   When I went back to the Stock Exchange trading floor afterwards my mates would all complain that I stank of disinfectant! After a spell on the London Stock Exchange, I decided I’d had enough of “breaking stock”, and changed course and went into banking and financial services. In 1975 a job moved me to the Bristol area where I now live with my wife Linda and son Henry. My daughter Maudie got married to Shane in 2005. I also have a son (Edward) and two daughters (Louisa & Emily) from a previous marriage. Shane & Maudie front a fantastic band called Sister Morphine and Henry plays keyboards in a band called Flukestar, so music certainly runs in our family!!
     From 1992-1997 I played keyboard in The Four Pennies after being invited in by Mike Wilsh the original bass player who wrote the hit “Juliet”.  It’s really great to be back playing in the Quarrymen with Rod, Len and Colin. I know we’re gonna have a ball!!      

John Lennon’s
Original Quarrymen