Description
:1962 Alan T. Annison Agency contract for the Pete Hartigan Band to perform at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. The support band (not listed) on the 18th November was The Beatles, who had just return from a two-week residency in Hamburg.
The Cavern opened in 1957 as a jazz club. It was inspired by the post war Parisian jazz clubs of the Latin quarter, it’s look modelled on Le Caveau de la Huchette.
The Pete Hartigan Band , also known as the Pete Hartigan Jazzmen were a Trad’ jazz combo, who had played the Cavern since it opened. While they were the old guard, The Beatles were the avant garde.
Despite the myth of the Cavern as the birthplace of the Beatles, the new beat bands had to share the bill with the Trad’ or Dixieland jazz bands in order to secure a booking. Often this meant the club would empty out twice a night, The Beatles would pack the venue earlier in the evening and their audience who wouldn’t stick around for the jazzmen who continued late into the night.
Following the success of the Beatles records in 1963 this all changed and beat band’s took over entire nights at the Cavern.
This contract, which comes from the collection of Cavern compere Bob Wooler, documents the 18th November, when the Beatles held a welcome Home show for fans after Hamburg. They’d made their penultimate trip to Hamburg , performing at the Star Club 1-14th November. With their first single Love Me Do gaining airplay and attention back home, the residency in Hamburg was fast becoming a burden.
McCartney – “Nothing happened: a thoroughly uneventful week has passed … In fact Hamburg is dead as far as we’re concerned.”
A rare and unassuming piece of paper of major historical significance.
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