Nail on the head hit Mr. McCormack. While only a distance of 200-mile separates Liverpool from London, the we-know-what-sells recording powers that be just didn’t get what was going on at the time. They thought they could take the sound out of its natural live small club habitat, dress it up and make it presentable - a task at which they failed miserably subject of course to a few notable exceptions.
Even though half-a-century has since passed; it ultimately fell to Star Club Records in Hamburg - backed by Holland’s Philips Records - to occasionally capture snippets of what all now survives of the authentic “Merseybeat” sound that I can still vividly recall. This I put down to the practice - borne out of economic necessity - of recording in a live or near live on-stage setting inside the Star Club itself. While many of these recordings were of the one-take, rough-and-ready variety, the object of the exercise at the time was to quickly establish a home-grown popular record label for a previously ignored German teenage music buying public.
Also, over the years, I’ve come to agree with the views expressed by John Schroeder, who as a young A&R manager with independent Oriole Records (and aided by sound engineer Geoff Frost and a van load of mobile recording equipment) took over the Rialto Ballroom on Liverpool 8’s Upper Parliament Street for a hectic two days during May 1963. The purpose being to record tracks by a number of local groups later released under the title of “This Is Mersey Beat” Volumes 1 & 2.
1974 view of the Rialto Ballroom on Upper Parliment Street ...
Inside the Rialto Ballroom during the two-day recording of "This Is Mersey Beat"
Geoff Frost (left) John Schroeder (right) ...
In essence, John Schroeder is on record as saying that while the general standard of musicianship was ‘high’ he didn’t find anything that ‘knocked me out because I was hearing nothing that was vitally different’. Reserving his main criticism for the range and type of material being played. Though said jokingly, he did say he was thinking of releasing the album under the title '12 Ways To Get My Mojo Working!'
The bottom line was, no matter how refreshing interpretations were for those Liverpool times, they all adapted and covered the material of others – that is with one obvious and notable exception. While it was definitely fun while it lasted, the scene was largely a regional phenomenon that quickly ran out of steam once the main protagonists moved on. Take the cream away and what remains is common everyday milk.
