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| Just a
small selection of some of Liverpool's home grown talent. Tommy
Handley, Cilla Black and the Beatles |
The
whole cultural melting pot of the world, has actually been funnelled
through this really interesting city on the Mersey. There’s always
been a very vibrant popular music scene in this city, since the
modern recording industry. We even had a recording company here
in the early part of the 20th century; Liverpool Record Company
issued discs, they’re very rare now.
Music
Hall was very important in this city and of course in Birkenhead
with the Argyle Theatre, one of the most prominent venues in the
entire country. Charlie Chaplain for example, cut his teeth at the
Argyle Theatre.
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Argyle
Theatre, BirkenheadArgyle in the 1920s
Taken from "Yesterday's Wirral No 2" by Ian & Marilyn Boumphrey'.
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When
we go back to the inter-war era, when we’ve got the great dance
bands performing in this country, Liverpool was really prominent
then too. The Grafton was built specifically with a sprung dance
floor, so the very, very best dance bands could go there and the
dancers could dance along with it.
If
you look in the 1940s with folk music and Skiffle, you’ve also got
stars coming out of Liverpool and the Liverpool environs then. Russ
Hamilton for example, a Birkenhead lad, Michael Holiday, these people
were always on the verge of great stardom.
The
Beatles and Merseybeat represent the end of a historical
continuum as well as the beginning of a new one. The likes of Paul
McCartney and Paul McCartney’s Dad, who was a great musician himself
, they would have been very influenced by musical performers like
Billy Bennett for example, who was a massive star, one of the funniest
men of the 20th century and he was based here in Liverpool.
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| The
Beatles rehearsing for the television show 'Saturday Club',
1963 |
One
of the things we always have to remember about Merseybeat was there
was a down side too. People think there were bands coming out of
Liverpool after the Beatles, because of the Beatles. We always produce
musicians, we always have done. So these bands actually found it
very tough going for four or five years.
What
started to develop in the late 60s was a new scene at the Liverpool
boxing stadium, this was before Eric’s. This was a huge catalyst
and really Eric’s came in on the coat tails of the stadium. As a
consequence of Eric’s we have Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Tear
Drop Explodes, Echo and the Bunny Men, The Icicle Works, China Crisis
and that continues right up to this very day.
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| Tommy
Handley who shot to nationwide fame in the Â鶹ԼÅÄ radio show ITMA |
Because
Liverpool is such a massive melting pot, out of division come comedy,
out of adversity comes comedy, out of difference comes comedy. Tommy
Handley, Jimmy Tarbuck and this whole crew of Liverpool
comedians who have developed through television of course.
Liverpool
is full of catchphrases, we shorten words all the time. The way
that Tommy Handley’s
expressions would be turned into catchphrases across the
country, there’s something specifically Liverpudlian about that.
It’s not surprising that in a very short time, Tommy Handley’s voice
became known throughout the country, because of the musicality of
it.
The
idea of turning "A lot off, a lot of", into "A
lorra lorra" is a specifically dialectic thing it’s something
that probably nobody else in the country could do.
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