Hessy's Music Store Again

History and music of Liverpool
charity
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Hessy's Music Store Again

Post by charity »

Hi,Wondering if anyone could offer up some info on ths store.Mostly on the owner Frank Hesselberg?Also how long was the store open from when to when?Where guitar's made there at all.I know of Jim Getty and all he did.The reason for my inquire is actually a cool story.I have just been given a guitar by my father,which belonged to my grandfather.I never knew him as he passed away before I was born.Anyway's the history behind this guitar is,my grandfather bought it from a English sailor way back when for 20 dollars canadian.The sailor was to return to buy it back,but he never returned.So it has been passed down to me and i would like to find out anything about it as it has a plate on it that say's supplied by hessy's along with the address livepool.The serial number on it is 6935.The guitar in question is a dobro wooden with a beautiful pattern on it with a d in the middle on the back in with the pattern.If there is anyone who can help me with this that would be great,as it has been hard to find any info on this place or owner
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

Post by admin »

Charity: Welcome to the RickResource Forum and the Liverpool Project. What wonderful story. It is through life events such as this one that a love of history springs. I too am fascinated with this music store and I expect we will learn more as folks from Liverpool and other music historians read your post. In the meantime, you will find some brief information here.
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charity
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

Post by charity »

Hi Peter,Yes I thought what a wonderful story.I have been pulling my hair out looking for info on this dobro.So I took a shot and ran the patent number,what a find.I now know who made it and what year and where.I was made by the Dopyera brother's in california in 1934-1935 stopped being made in 1935 that make.The neat thing is the guitar must of been sent over to Liverpool for some reason to Hessy's bought from there.Made its way all the way to Canada which is where i am.Would be cool to find out if stuff was being shiped over to there at that time.If your interested drop in Dopyera brothers ni google and look for link called history of the pre-war dobro great reading,pretty neat stuff.
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

Post by hamilton_square »

Old black and white photo of the 60 Stanley Street exterior of Hessy’s Music Centre
Old black and white photo of the 60 Stanley Street exterior of Hessy’s Music Centre
For info on one Jim Gretty suggest one might what to go to……

http://triumphpc.com/mersey-beat/a-z/gretty.shtml

Also on this site, punch the name of Jim Gretty into the search engine facility for additional anecdotal recollections – last time I checked there were a total of 12 references.
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

Post by hamilton_square »

Unfortunately, there’s not a lot widely known about Frank Hesselberg, other than he was of Lithuanian Jewish descent and came from a family that still to this day retains a presence on Merseyside. It’s very likely that the Hesselbergs moved in the same social and business circles as the Epsteins. Being that Liverpool had, and to some lesser extent still does have a small notoriously close-knit Jewish community.

It’s an unfortunate fact that for principally anti-Semitic reasons, Jewish run businesses in a then predominately Catholic Liverpool would often hide or anglicise their names for commercial purposes. Hence, the Epsteins of ‘North End Music Stores’ (commonly referred to as NEMS) and the Hesselbergs of ‘Hessy’s Music Centre’.

Bill Harry credits Frank Hessy, as he liked to be referred to, for putting up the money [circa 1958] to start a local jazz influenced publication then called ‘Frank Comments’ – Hessy’s idea of a title not Harry’s – that later morphed into the more widely read ‘Mersey Beat’ that first saw the light of day during the summer months of 1961.

To the best of my knowledge, Hessey’s Music Centre, unlike the much larger, more upmarket and diverse concern of Rushworths (and Dreaper), was a purely musical instrument retail outlet that was near perpetually in competition with its much bigger and more well established Liverpool rival. More prone to exchange and subsequently resell second-hand instruments and equipment, Hessy’s naturally attracted a more economically conscious type of customer who was invariably inclined towards such modern musical trends that were emanating from a far away former English-speaking colony. Indeed, Bill Harry is on record as saying that at any one time during the late 50s to early 60s there were some 350 groups live and active (to some degree or other) in and around Merseyside. Which when one thinks about it is some target audience for a couple of locally based musical instrument retailers to fight over.

For a near comprehensive PDF file list of the Liverpool groups that were involved around this time please see…

http://triumphpc.com/mersey-beat/birth/ ... 9-1964.pdf

……many of whom, some more often than others, I can still recall seeing and hearing play on some stage or other all those decades ago.

Unfortunately, following the wane of the all too short, so-called Mersey Beat scene, Frank Hessy’s trade slowly but surely dwindled away to the point where it was barely a going concern and in no shape to compete with Rushworths more diverse part-manufacturing part-retail business model. I also seem to recall that none of Frank Hessy’s family were all that keen to continue the business during such hard times – which certainly didn’t help matters.

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Footnote # Rushworths were originally established in Liverpool [circa 1828] ostensibly to manufacture and repair pipe organs. Sometime later they also turned their hand to manufacturing pianos to cater for the burgeoning musical tastes of a Victorian clientele. Rushworths got into the retail side of the musical instrument business via their acquisition of Dreaper Brothers at the start of the 20th century. And, fairly quickly established a reputation in and around the North-West of England for the quality (if not somewhat pricey nature) of their merchandise.
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

Post by jingle_jangle »

Fabulous, Peter!

When does the book come out?
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

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Nice work, Peter and thanks for the additional references. A fascinating story.
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

Post by hamilton_square »

I knew this old black and while film clip was buried somewhere on YouTube – it was just a question of patience until I found it.

The film : ‘Ferry Cross the Mersey’
The 2 minutes 35 seconds clip scene of the actual interior of Hessey’s Music Centre on Stanley Street where Gerry and the Pacemakers do a number called ‘Baby you’re so good to me'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgmlVqL7 ... re=related

Watch out for the rather rotund gentleman in the white shirt holding the LP cover in his hand who halfway through the clip attempts to bar the door to excited fans trying to get into shop – that’s Jim Gretty.

The other urbanely dressed person that the camera focuses on is T P McKenna, an Anglo Irish character actor, who played the part of Hanson, a would be Brian Epstein.
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

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Peter: Thanks for this outstanding find. It is great to see the layout and atmosphere of Hessy's Music which was frequented by The Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers, The Undertakers and countless others I am sure.
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

Post by espidog »

Rats! The video has been removed. :( I was looking forward to seeing that. It would have brought back some memories.

Having been born in Birkenhead and growing up during the 60s, I visited Hessy's frequently, usually with my brother. It really was the hub of all things musical in that most musical of cities. The last thing I remember buying there was a Farfisa Mini-compact organ in the 70s. £60, I think it was - quite an investment for a teenager earning £20 a week!

EDIT: Hang on... I've found the video again! Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP_wiT7VgzE

Now that's odd. I've just watched that footage, and I'm SURE that isn't Hessy's shop in Stanley St. It's far too big! Hessy's was deep and narrow, with a basement - and they definitely didn't sell records, only instruments. To be honest, the place in the film looks more like Rushworths. They had the pianos, high ceilings, big wide windows etc, and sold records. I think this is a case of 'poetic license' on the part of the film-makers.

Here are some pics by way of demonstration.
This is the location of Hessy's shop, as it is nowadays - notice how tiny it is:

Image

...and this is Rushworth's - a huge department store by comparison:

Image
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

Post by JimN »

Hi,

As someone born, bred and educated in Liverpool, I can help with the history of this one...

Frank Hessy's music store was originally situated in Manchester Street, Liverpool. This was back in the earlier part of the twentieth century, possibly before the Mersey Tunnel to Birkenhead was opened in 1934. Manchester Street linked the complicated junction of St John's Lane, Whitechapel, Victoria Street, and Old Haymarket with Dale Street near the junction with Hatton Garden. The street layout changed with the building of the tunnel and has been even further vandalised in recent years, but you can see that Manchester Street still exists, at:

http://tinyurl.com/5o9jh3

The Hessy shop was still marked out decades later by the fading painted sign on brickwork high on the gable end of the building, where that particular shop projected higher than the neighbouring premises. It might still be so marked. That shop was on the south side of the street, about half to two thirds of the way between Old Haymarket and Dale Street. The sign was painted on a north-facing gable. Is anyone nearby to check? It's decades since I moved south.

Some time later, the shop relocated to Stanley Street, a couple of hundred yards away to the south-west, just off Whitechapel.

The shop shown in the film "Ferry Cross The Mersey" was not Hessy's shop, though oddly, the double-fronted premises depicted were themselves in Manchester Street, where it had all begun for Hessy's some decades earlier. That particular building was a drinking club, known as the "[Something] Tiger". It might have been "The Royal Tiger", or "The Bengal Tiger", but "tiger" was definitely in the name. If I'd realised it would be so important forty-five years later, I'd have made notes!

That building was farther south than the "old shop", nearer to the Victoria Street junction (Shaw Hill Street, behind Manchester Street, points more or less at the back of that building. The premises all still exist, I'm certain of that.

To complicate things just a little further, in the second half of the 1960s, Hessy's opened a second showroom specialising in electronic keyboard instruments (which t that time meant organs). That shop was also in Stanley Street, about seventy-five yards north of the main shop, and on the other (north) side of the street. It didn't last all that long. I knew the shop's joiner/carpenter quite well.

So, to sum up, there are at least four different Liverpool addresses associated with Hessy's (though one of them only loosely):

(a) the "old" Manchester Street store
(b) the "new" Stanley Street store
(c) the Manchester Street club which was dressed up to look like a Hessy's store for the FCTM film, and
(d) the Stanley Street organ showrooms (c. 1967-1970).

It's more complicated than you thought, isn't it?

Best wishes,

JimN

PS: Want to know where Rushworth's & Dreaper's was before it moved to Whitechapel?

And about the rest of the Liverpool music shops of the time?
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

Post by kiramdear »

Welcome, Jim, to RRF and The Liverpool Project!

Thank you for your detailed accounting of Hessy's premises' and timeline. Google Earth has taken me to Manchester and Stanley Streets for a bird's-eye look at the spots you mention, but I'll have to wait till next summer to look for the painted sign in person.

Please do tell us about the other shops as well. Your participation is much appreciated :D
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

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Jim: What a wonderful history of Hessy's Music Store. I really appreciate the detail that you have provided and the correction about the music shop shown in Ferry Cross The Mersey.

I would certainly love to hear about the other music shops in Liverpool and for organization purposes, perhaps you could start a new thread for them.

Should you have any photos of the street scape in the 1960s I would be most interested in seeing them.

If you need any assistance finding your way around the functions in the RickResource Forum, please don't hesistate to ask and welcome aboard from me too.
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

Post by JimN »

Thanks, Kira and Peter.

I feel a bit of a fraud in this forum because I'm not a Rickenbacker user, though I did once have the "Rose-Morris" 330-type model with traditional F-holes, two toasters, the Ac'cent vibrato and the blend control (a 1997?). That was in London back in 1972 and I only got rid of it because I wanted to get a Burns Marvin guitar and an echo unit in order to futher my Shadows obsession. I wish I hadn't parted with the Rick now (don't we all?). I still have the Burns, thirty-six years later.

Hessy's store was run by Mr Hesselburg himself, with his wife operating the cash register and the accessories counter (on the right about half-way into the sales space). There were various assistants over the years, but increasingly, the shop was run in later years by Mr Bernard Michaelson, Frank's son-in-law. Frank's daughter could often be seen in the shop during the sixties, presumably in an administrative capacity. I bet all those hire-purchase plans took some arranging - and that there was a mountain of paperwork. The family was openly listed in the local phone directory and and the main family home was in Dunbabin Road in the affluent Childwall suburb (not far from the home of the Epstein family and very near the city's only Jewish grammar school).

The footage from "Ferry Cross The Mersey" was very nostalgic. I certainly remember Jim Gretty (the guitar/amp salesman from Hessy's music store). In fact, anyone who ever had ambitions to play in a group in the city from the late 1950s onward must still have strong memories of Jim and also of the late Bob Hobbs, his legendary opposite number at Rushworth and Dreaper's. Bob it was who sold those two iconic Gibson J160Es to John and George in the summer of '62 (and a T60 to Paul), and his posed picture handing the jumbos over to the Beatles was displayed for many years in the store. After he left their employment though, the photograph was rather ignominiously replaced by a similar one featuring James Rushworth instead of Bob, which effectively claimed that the managing director had handled the deal. How likely that was I'll leave you to judge.

With both Bob and Jim, if you were known to them, this could pay dividends in the form of extra special "blind eye" discounts on things like strings, and occasional handfuls of free plectra. Outside business hours, Jim was well-known on the local club circuit with his solo C&W act, whereas Bob was a very accomplished jazz guitarist in the Django vein and a friend of American legend Roy Smeck. I got to know Bob and his jazz cronies quite well via a local guitar club.

I remember buying a Danelectro Bellzouki, a Harmony H77 and a Shaftesbury copy of a Gibson Barney Kessel from Bob, and a Les Paul Custom and a Fender Electric XII from Jim. I still have the Gibson and the Fender.

My parents kept a pub on the corner of Byrom Street and Hunter Street (in the city centre, a hundred yards from Manchester Street) and we used to live in the flat on the upper floors. One of my routes home ran via Mill Lane (a tiny alley no longer marked on maps) and Hunter Street itself (then a mere side-street). The first commercial building along Islington (after the grand municipal and court buildings) was the old Rushworth and Dreaper's shop, a long-demolished Victorian building with huge picture windows. That was in 1960/1961, and I know that the store had moved to its more central site in Whitechapel by 1962 (when the Gibson guitars were ordered by the Beatles).

Although Hessy's and Rushworth's then predominated, there were several other well-known guitar stores in the city. Crane's (still sort of in existence, though not in Liverpool) was a department store in Hanover Street on the corner of School Lane. Whilst best known for the manufacture and sale of pianos (of which they had impressive stocks), they also had a large record and hi-fi department and a thriving new and secondhand guitar/amplifier section. The first place I ever saw a Fender Jaguar was Crane's. Another city centre store was Bradley's Music, on the south side of Lord Street, near the junction with South John Street. This was managed by jazz guitarist Bert Birch (from whom I later took guitar lessons). A relatively small store, it stocked mainly high-quality instruments - Gibson and Fender chief among them. The other store in the city centre (in the first half of the sixties) was Samuel's - another Manchester Street connection, their shop being almost next door to the club which was dressed up as Hessy's for the "Ferry Cross The Mersey" sequence. Samuel's didn't have agencies for the big American or German names and so stocked brands like Watkins and Klira. They weren't a big player.

Out in the suburbs, there were two other shops which were operating at the time. Shurrock's in Breck Road (Anfield) was a small store but had a JMI account, displaying Vox amps in their window, and Crease's in County Road, Walton, tended to deal in acoustic instruments as well as school staples like mandolins, recorders, etc. Crease's stayed in business right up until the early 1980s.

By 1966, Samuel's and Bradley's had gone. There was also a general feeling that the beat boom was over. Groups playing at the Cavern and other city-centre clubs were increasingly playing Tamla-Motown and similar soul music, with the R&B sound of the early decade falling completely out of favour. By then, any sense of connection with Mersey Beat had virtually disappeared, and the city was just another provincial centre with no pretensions of current musical greatness. The focus of the scene had shifted entirely back to London, with the advent of the blues boom and the imminent arrival of psychedelia and prog-rock. A sad end to Liverpool's brief period in the spotlight.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,

JimN
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Re: Hessy's Music Store Again

Post by admin »

Jim: Thank you again. There is no requirement to own or to have played a Rickenbacker to participate in any of the Rickenbacker Forums. I am glad, however, that you did have the good fortune to have one at one time.

I would ask that you stop by the Venturing Into The Shadows forum at RRF and comment on your Burn's Marvin.
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