The Turning Point for The Beatles

27th December 1960: Litherland Town Hall

Author Tony Broadbent takes a look at the defining moment in Beatles history.

The Beatles’ first 16-week stint in Hamburg, playing the Indra and Kaiserkeller clubs, all but ended in disaster. George Harrison was deported for being underage and not having a proper work permit. Paul McCartney and Pete Best were ordered to leave Germany immediately afterwards, on a trumped-up charge of arson; later rescinded. Stu Sutcliffe decided to stay on in Hamburg with his new girlfriend Astrid Kirchherr. And John Lennon travelled home, alone, by train and cross-Channel ferry; his guitar-case in one hand, his suitcase in the other, his amplifier strapped to his back.

Direct from Hamburg

For the first couple of weeks of December 1960, everyone kept to themselves and licked their wounds. Paul even got himself a temporary job as a delivery van driver to help with the Christmas rush. Then John resurfaced. The group played a couple of evenings at the Casbah Coffee Club, owned by Pete’s mum, Mona Best. The posters on the walls, hand-drawn by young accountancy student Neil Aspinall, the group’s new part-time roadie, proclaiming: ‘Direct from Hamburg’. But the momentum and drive The Beatles had built up as a group playing the Indra and Kaiserkeller had essentially stalled.

It was then that their booking agent-cum-manager Allan Williams, in another of his still relatively unsung all-important acts, given its later significance, introduced the group to 28-year-old Bob Wooler; itinerant disc jockey and compère extraordinaire. Wooler listened to The Beatles’ tales of recent woe; developed a liking for the young lads in the group; and offered to help get them some bookings. And he contacted promoter Brian Kelly, for whom he sometimes acted as compère, and for the agreed-to princely fee of £6; about $18 at the time, but still £2 short of what he’d originally asked for; set The Beatles up as last minute additions to Beekay Promotions’ ‘Post-Boxing-Day’ dance, scheduled to take place at the Litherland Town Hall ballroom, located some five miles north of Liverpool city-centre.

Chas Newby on Bass

The Beatles grasped hold of the opportunity with four sets of hands. But with Stu Sutcliffe still in Hamburg they still had to convince Chas Newby, then a college student, to fill-in on bass. (Chas had been the bass-player with Pete’s original Casbah Coffee Club band, The Blackjacks, before he’d suddenly disappeared off to Hamburg with The Beatles.) The Beatles all spent Christmas with their respective families; did a quick rehearsal with Mr. Newby; and on the evening of Tuesday, 27th December, 1960, donned their leather gear and got ready to rock ‘n’ roll.

Meanwhile, posters proclaiming The Del Renas, The Deltones, and The Searchers were already up, so Bob Wooler, ever the professional, was busy pasting overlays with ‘The Beatles – Direct from Hamburg’ across as many of them as he could. It’s hardly surprising that many in the audience thought John, Paul, George, and Pete were German. Especially when they first saw them in their black leather jackets and trousers and cowboy boots. What they made of tweed-jacket wearing Chas Newby, filling in for the still absent Stu Sutcliffe, is anybody’s guess.

Long Tall Sally

But right from the start, when Paul nudged Bob Wooler off the microphone before he could even finish his mellifluous behind-the-stage-curtain introduction: “Ladies and Gentleman… direct from Hamburg… the Be…” and started belting out the opening words to Little Richard’s ‘Long Tall Sally’, The Beatles stunned the crowd. No one had ever seen or heard anything like it. The group’s hard rocking, hard-hitting, boot-stomping ‘Hamburg’ sound was so new, so raw, so loud, and so very, very different; it blew everyone and everything else away.

All the dancers in the ballroom; there were over a thousand people there that night; just stopped, turned, and rushed the stage to get closer to the action; again totally unprecedented. The Beatles’ nonstop set of rock ‘n’ roll and R&B classics was an absolute smash. It instantly established The Beatles as a top ‘live’ draw all around Merseyside. Brian Kelly immediately booked them for two months straight. And every other Liverpool promoter, worth his salt, scrambled to book the group to do more gigs. From this point on the group never really looked back; only ever forward, towards the future, and reaching ‘the toppermost of the poppermost’.

Top of the Bill

The Beatles played 19 dates for Brian Kelly and an ever- growing number of other local promoters in January 1961. They played 31 dates in February, including their first lunchtime sessions at the Cavern Club and appearances at the Cassanova Club. They did 37 dates in March; three bookings in a single day increasingly the norm; including the first ‘all-nighter’ at the Iron Door for Sam Leach and their first evening appearance at the Cavern. The Beatles played Litherland Town Hall for Beekay Promotions fully 19 times during 1961; although never again as last minute additions, only ever as ‘top of the bill’ headliners.

“Up to Hamburg we’d thought we were OK, but not good enough. It was only back in Liverpool that we realised the difference and saw what had happened to us while everyone else was playing Cliff Richard shit.” — John Lennon