Allan Williams
Allan Richard Williams (21 February 1930 – 30 December 2016) was a British businessman and promoter who was the original booking agent and first manager of the Beatles. He personally drove the van to take the young band to Hamburg, Germany, in 1960, where they gained the vital show business experience that led to their emergence on the world stage. Williams was also a promoter and agent of a number of other Liverpool rock acts, helping stoke the Merseybeat boom of the early 1960s. Ancestry and early life Williams was born in Knowsley Road, Bootle. His father was Richard Edward Williams, a local council building inspector and dance promoter, and his mother was Annie Cheetham; Williams traced part of his ancestry back to Owen Williams (Owain Gwyrfai), a Caernarfonshire millwright, poet and pioneer lexicographer in the Welsh language. His mother died when he was very young and his father remarried to Millie Twigg, the family living in Litherland and being completed by Williams's ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Bootle, Lancashire
Bootle (pronounced ) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sefton, Merseyside, England, which had a population of 51,394 in 2011; the wider Parliamentary constituency had a population of 98,449. Historically part of Lancashire, Bootle's proximity to the Irish Sea and the industrial city of Liverpool to the south saw it grow rapidly in the 1800s, first as a dormitory town for wealthy merchants, and then as a centre of commerce and industry in its own right following the arrival of the railway and the expansion of the docks and shipping industries. The subsequent population increase was fuelled heavily by Irish migration. The town was heavily damaged in World War II with air raids against the port and other industrial targets. Post-war economic success in the 1950s and 1960s gave way to a downturn, precipitated by a reduction in the significance of Liverpool Docks internationally, and changing levels of industrialisation, coupled with the development of modern suburbs and t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Blackpool Rock
Rock (often known by its place of origin, for instance Blackpool rock or Brighton rock) is a type of hard stick-shaped boiled sugar confectionery most usually flavoured with peppermint or spearmint. It is commonly sold at tourist (usually seaside) resorts in the United Kingdom (such as Brighton, Southend-on-Sea, Scarborough, Llandudno or Blackpool) and Ireland (e.g. Bray and Strandhill); in Gibraltar; in Denmark in towns such as Løkken and Ebeltoft; and in Sydney and Tasmania, Australia. It usually takes the form of a cylindrical stick ("a stick of rock"), normally in diameter and long. Blackpool rock is usually at least in diameter, and can be as thick as across and up to long when made for special retail displays. These cylinders usually have a pattern embedded throughout the length, which is often the name of the resort where the rock is sold, so that the name can be read on both ends of the stick (reversed at one end) and remains legible even after pieces are b ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Rock And Roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm and blues, boogie woogie, gospel music, gospel, as well as country music. While rock and roll's formative elements can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s,Peterson, Richard A. ''Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity'' (1999), p. 9, . the genre did not acquire its name until 1954. According to journalist Greg Kot, "rock and roll" refers to a style of popular music originating in the United States in the 1950s. By the mid-1960s, rock and roll had developed into "the more encompassing international style known as rock music, though the latter also continued to be known in many circles as rock and roll."Kot, Greg"Rock and roll", in the ''Encyclopædia Bri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Lord Woodbine
Harold Adolphus Phillips (15 January 1929 – 5 July 2000), known as Lord Woodbine, was a Trinidadian calypsonian and music promoter. He is regarded by some as the musical mentor of The Beatles, and has been called the "sixth Beatle".Alan Clayson"'Lord Woodbine'" ''The Guardian'', 10 July 2000. Early life Phillips was born in Laventille, Trinidad. In 1943, at the age of 14, he lied about his age and joined the RAF. After World War II, he went back to Trinidad in 1947, where he started to sing calypso. He returned to England in 1948 on the HMT ''Empire Windrush'', the ship which carried the first boatful of West Indian immigrants to post war Britain. The boat also transported two other calypso singers, Aldwyn Roberts (Lord Kitchener) and Egbert Moore (Lord Beginner).James McGrath,Phillips, Harold Adolphus (1929–2000)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, September 2012. Accessed 16 January 2013. Phillips lived in Clapham before moving to Wel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
George Harrison
George Harrison (25 February 1943 – 29 November 2001) was an English musician and singer-songwriter who achieved international fame as the lead guitarist of the Beatles. Sometimes called "the quiet Beatle", Harrison embraced Indian culture and helped broaden the scope of popular music through his incorporation of Indian instrumentation and Hindu-aligned spirituality in the Beatles' work. Although the majority of the band's songs were written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, most Beatles albums from 1965 onwards contained at least two Harrison compositions. His songs for the group include "Taxman", "Within You Without You", "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", "Here Comes the Sun" and "Something". Harrison's earliest musical influences included George Formby and Django Reinhardt; Carl Perkins, Chet Atkins and Chuck Berry were subsequent influences. By 1965, he had begun to lead the Beatles into folk rock through his interest in Bob Dylan and the Byrds, and towards Indi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Paul McCartney
Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained worldwide fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John Lennon. One of the most successful composers and performers of all time, McCartney is known for his melodic approach to bass-playing, versatile and wide tenor vocal range, and musical eclecticism, exploring styles ranging from pre–rock and roll pop to classical and electronica. His songwriting partnership with Lennon remains the most successful in history. Born in Liverpool, McCartney taught himself piano, guitar and songwriting as a teenager, having been influenced by his father, a jazz player, and rock and roll performers such as Little Richard and Buddy Holly. He began his career when he joined Lennon's skiffle group, the Quarrymen, in 1957, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Sometimes called "the cute Beatle", McCartney later invo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
John Lennon
John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon's work was characterised by the rebellious nature and acerbic wit of his music, writing and drawings, on film, and in interviews. His songwriting partnership with Paul McCartney remains the most successful in history. Born in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the Skiffle#Revival in the United Kingdom, skiffle craze as a teenager. In 1956, he formed The Quarrymen, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Sometimes called "the smart Beatle", he was initially the group's de facto leader, a role gradually ceded to McCartney. Lennon soon expanded his work into other media by participating in numerous films, including ''How I Won the War'', and authoring ''In His Own Write'' and ''A Spaniard in the Works'', both collection ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Stuart Sutcliffe
Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe (23 June 1940 – 10 April 1962) was a Scottish painter and musician best known as the original bass guitarist of the English rock band the Beatles. Sutcliffe left the band to pursue his career as a painter, having previously attended the Liverpool College of Art. Sutcliffe and John Lennon are credited with inventing the name "Beetles" (sic), as they both liked Buddy Holly's band, the Crickets. They also had a fascination of group names with double meanings (as Crickets, for example, the word referring to both an insect as well as a sport), so Lennon then came up with "The Beatles", from the word '' beat'' (though Lennon's original spelling was "Beatals"). As a member of the group when it was a five-piece band, Sutcliffe is one of several people sometimes referred to as the " Fifth Beatle". When he performed with the Beatles in Hamburg, he met photographer Astrid Kirchherr, to whom he was later engaged. After leaving the Beatles, he enroll ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Beatnik
Beatniks were members of a social movement in the 1950s that subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle. History In 1948, Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation", generalizing from his social circle to characterize the underground, anticonformist youth gathering in New York City, New York at that time. The name came up in conversation with John Clellon Holmes, who published an early Beat Generation novel titled ''Go (Holmes novel), Go'' (1952), along with the manifesto ''This Is the Beat Generation'' in ''The New York Times Magazine''. In 1954, Nolan Miller (author), Nolan Miller published his third novel ''Why I Am So Beat'' (Putnam), detailing the weekend parties of four students. "Beat" came from underworld slang—the world of hustlers, drug addicts, and petty thieves, where Allen Ginsberg and Kerouac sought inspiration. "Beat" was slang for "beaten down" or downtrodden, but to Kerouac and Ginsberg, it also had a spiritual connotation as in "beatitude". Oth ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Liverpool Art College
Liverpool College of Art is located at 68 Hope Street, in Liverpool, England. It is a Grade II listed building. The original building, facing Mount Street, was designed by Thomas Cook and completed in 1883. The extension along Hope Street, designed by Willink and Thicknesse, opened in 1910. The building was until 2012 owned by Liverpool John Moores University. The university's School of Art and Design moved out of the building to new premises at the Art and Design Academy in 2008. 68 Hope Street also currently houses the School of Humanities and Social Science. Amongst its former students are John Lennon, Cynthia Lennon, Maurice Cockrill, Ray Walker, Stuart Sutcliffe, Margaret Chapman, Ruth Duckworth, Phillida Nicholson and Bill Harry. In 1975, Clive Langer, Steve Allen, Tim Whittaker, Sam Davis, Steve Lindsey, John Wood and Roy Holt (a mix of Fine Art students and tutors at the college) founded seminal 'art rock' band Deaf School and went on to sign a record deal with ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Jacaranda
''Jacaranda'' is a genus of 49 species of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas. The generic name is also used as the common name. The species ''Jacaranda mimosifolia'' has achieved a cosmopolitan distribution due to introductions, to the extent that it has entered popular culture. It can be found growing wild in Central America, the Caribbean, Spain, southern Africa, China, and Australia. Etymology The name is of South American (more specifically Tupi-Guarani) origin, meaning fragrant. The word ''jacaranda'' was described in ''A supplement to Mr. Chambers's Cyclopædia'', 1st ed., (1753) as "a name given by some authors to the tree the wood of which is the log-wood, used in dyeing and medicine" and as being of Tupi-Guarani origin, by way of Portuguese. Although not consistent with the Guarani source, one common pronunciation of the name in English is given by . Description The species are shrubs to large tree ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
The Jacaranda
The Jacaranda is a Liverpool music venue closely associated with the rise of the Merseybeat phenomenon in the 1960s. Opened by The Beatles' first manager Allan Williams in 1958, it played a key role in launching the band's early careers, in addition to providing a stage for local acts like ''Gerry and the Pacemakers'' & ''Rory Storm and The Hurricanes''. The headquarters of independent record label Jacaranda Records and still operating as a live music venue, record store and bar, the club has occupied a place in Liverpool's music scene for over 60 years. History Local promoter and businessman Williams opened The Jacaranda in September 1958 in a former watch-repair shop at 21 Slater Street, Liverpool, attracting a youthful clientele with an establishment offering one of the city's first espresso machines, an American style jukebox, and live music. He named the venue The Jacaranda, after an exotic species of ornamental flowering tree, ''Jacaranda mimosifolia.'' The venue, kno ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |