The Casbah Coffee Club
A Topic Post
The True Beginnings
Back in December, you may remember that we talked about Mona Best and her contribution to the legend of The Beatles. In this post, I’ll go into more specific detail about the origins and importance of the club that Mona opened, The Casbah Coffee Club. As Paul McCartney himself said, “I think it’s a good idea to let people know about The Casbah. They know about The Cavern…but The Casbah was the place where all that started…We looked upon it as our personal club.”1
In the summer of 1959, very little was going on for John, Paul, and George as a working group. The Quarrymen were effectively long gone. George, while still playing with John and Paul, had joined the Les Stewart Quartet, who were playing weekly shows at The Lowlands, at 13 Hayman’s Green in West Derby, Liverpool. Meanwhile, down the block at number 8, Mona (Mo) Best and her family were living in a large Victorian house that she had bought using the proceeds from a bet on a horse named Never Say Die, who came in as a 33:1 longshot.
Mo, along with her sons Pete and Rory, had decided that the basement of their house would be a good place for the boys’ friends to come and hang out, and according to Roag Best, one evening the family and a friend, Bernie Grindley, watched a television program about the 2is club in London, which was attracting no end of new musical talent. When the program finished, said Grindley, “Mo stood up and said, ‘Let’s have a coffee bar downstairs, not just a den…we’ll call it The Casbah Coffee Club.’”2
Next, Mo went The Lowlands and talked to the Les Stewart Quartet about helping to set up the club and offered them the opportunity to play on Saturday nights. Everyone agreed, and the group began the work of getting The Casbah ready for the public. Then disaster (well, for the original plan) hit. Paul and George decided to go on a hitchhiking trip starting on August 15. No problem, George simply had to be back by showtime at The Lowlands on August 22. He didn’t make it in time. In addition, another Les Stewart Quartet guitarist, Ken Brown, didn’t show up. Les Stewart was furious. He decided to break up the group and give up the Casbah residency.
Finishing the Preparations
Mo was at a loss about what to do, but George quickly assured her that he had a solution to the problem. He called John and Paul, who jumped at the chance for a regular Saturday night gig. They allowed Ken Brown, who conveniently had a good amplifier, to join them, and they all finished the preparations for the grand opening. There is an often told story about how Mo asked John to paint the ceiling black. Theoretically due to his short-sightedness, he accidentally used gloss paint instead of matte, which meant that there was a panic about whether or not the paint would dry in time (I know next to nothing about paint, but I have it on good authority that this is a very funny story looking back at it. 😉).
The Casbah is one of my favorite places to visit when I’m in Liverpool, and we are all incredibly lucky that it is still there and is practically intact. You can see the black ceiling, as well as one ceiling area full of stars, Paul’s rainbow ceiling over the original stage, Cynthia’s silhouette of John, and the dragon whose head you would tap for good luck, and much much more. One of my favorite “decorations” is the hole in the ceiling over the spiderweb stage that was created by Rory Storm when he jumped a bit too high while singing.
The Quarrymen Again
Opening day came on Saturday, the 29th of August, 1959. And they would need a name. Since Ken Brown was a member, they couldn’t use Japage3, which the trio had sometimes used. They didn’t care to use other names they had used before, such as The Rainbows or Johnny and the Moondogs. So they once again settled for The Quarrymen. They were paid £3, or 15 shillings each. According to Hunter Davies, “there were nearly 300 [people] there the first night…very soon there was a membership of 3000.”3
All good things must come to an end, and in this case it didn’t take that long. Depending on which source you consult, The Quarrymen played either into October or into January on Saturday nights at The Casbah. But why they stopped is pretty well agreed upon. One day, Ken Brown felt ill and couldn’t play. Mo had him help collect admissions at the door. When the evening was over, she paid the four members of The Quarrymen their 15 shillings each.
John, Paul, and George protested. Since Ken didn’t play, he should not receive his cut and the three should receive an extra 5 shillings each. Mo disagreed and neither side would back down. For the time being, our boys stopped playing at the club and never played there again as the Quarrymen.
For the next several months, another group started a residency at The Casbah (and many other bands began to get bookings). That group was called The Blackjacks, and it included Ken Brown and a young drummer who happened to be Mo’s eldest son, Pete Best. During the following summer of 1960, The Blackjacks would disband and Pete would join another group that would soon be leaving for a residency in Hamburg…
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Next up: Raymond Jones. Looking forward to that!
- Adamson
Photo: Andrew Martin Adamson, 26th June 2017.
Quotes:
1) The True Beginnings, by Roag, Pete, and Rory Best (St. Martin’s Press; New York; 2003) p. 1.
2) Ibid., p. 22.
3) The Beatles, by Hunter Davies (W.W. Norton, New York, 2009 edition), p. 69.