Part 6: Validating The Fury Connection

Manchester Evening News Archives

In an attempt to further validate the connection between Billy Fury and the Moondogs, a visit to the Manchester Evening News was in order. Comfortably stored away in the newspapers' archives was a wealth of information about Manchester. After only a brief read, it became apparent that the press had traditionally been at every show in town on the first Monday night showing of each week. But for a budding historian there is much more. The Manchester Evening News published a brief review of each show in the Tuesday edition of the paper. There were many shows in town, and most of them were the same show each night, so a review of any one show would describe them all. Each Carroll Levis talent show was different featuring different competitors, so we only get a review of the particular show attended by the reviewer.

I could not copy the reviews, but there are some interesting similarities between the MEN review of the Monday 24 November 1958 talent contest and Graham Nash's comments in "Beatle Gear". Nash states that he and Allan Clarke (as Ricky and Dane), Freddie Garritty (later Freddie of the Dreamers), Billy Fury and Johnny and the Moondogs performed at the show.

The MEN states that "four out of the five acts were guitar-twanging, amplifier-fiddling rock'n'rollers" - might this be more than just coincidence ? The MEN review of the show on Monday 16 November 1959 refers back the the previous year's review, and notes that "this year only a solitary rock'n'roll act assaulted the ears". Not conclusive by any means, but it does seem statistically more probable that Johnny and the Moondogs were amongst the 1958 crop, and possible that they were seen by the MEN reporter on Monday 24 November 1958. As they are known to have had to leave early to catch the last train to Liverpool, unable to afford overnight accomodation in Manchester, it may be that they appeared on the later of the two shows that evening : the earlier one would have finished in plenty of time for them to get a train home afterwards.