Bill Harry
William Harry (born 17 September 1938) is the creator of Mersey Beat, a newspaper of the early 1960s which focused on the Liverpool music scene.
[1] He later attended the Liverpool College of Art, where his fellow students included John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe, who both later performed with the Beatles.
Harry met his wife-to-be, Virginia Sowry, at the Jacaranda club—managed by Allan Williams, the first manager of the Beatles—and she later agreed to help him start a music newspaper.
The newspaper was published every two weeks, covering the music scenes in Liverpool, Wirral, Birkenhead, New Brighton, Crosby and Southport, as well as Warrington, Widnes and Runcorn.
Harry arranged for the future Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, to see them perform a lunchtime concert at the Cavern Club on 9 November 1961.
After disagreements with Epstein about editorial control, he decided to become a public relations agent, and went on to work for artists such as Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Procol Harum, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and the Beach Boys.
[3] His father (John Jelicoe Harry), was killed during the war on the SS Kyleglen British Steam Merchant ship, which was torpedoed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean by a German U-boat.
[13] Harry organised a students' film society, where he showed Orphee, by Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dalí, and Luis Buñuel's, L'Age d'Or.
[14] The three often spent time together at the Cracke pub in Rice Street, or on the top floor of the Jacaranda club (run by Williams, who later managed the Beatles).
[17] A fellow student, John Ashcroft, introduced Harry to rock 'n' roll records, and the members of Rory Storm & the Hurricanes and Cass & the Cassanovas.
Harry carried notebooks with him, collecting information about the local groups, once writing to the Daily Mail: "Liverpool is like New Orleans at the turn of the century, but with rock 'n' roll instead of jazz".
[6] Harry decided to publish the newspaper every two weeks, covering the music scene in Liverpool, Wirral, Birkenhead, New Brighton, Crosby and Southport, as well as Warrington, Widnes and Runcorn.
[12] Virginia gave up her accountancy/comptometer operator job at Woolworth's[16] and worked full-time for £2.10/- a week (also contributing a Mersey Roundabout article), while Harry lived on his Senior City Art Scholarship funding.
[10] Matthews photographed groups, while Anderson found a small attic office for £5 a week above David Land's wine merchant's shop at 81a Renshaw Street, Liverpool.
After taking Virginia home to Bowring Park in the evening, Harry would often return to the office and work throughout the night, pausing only to go to the Pier Head to buy a cup of tea and a hot pie at four in the morning.
[19] Virginia's parents helped the paper during this time, as they paid for classified ads, and arranged for Harry and his future wife's first photographs together.
[21] Harry personally delivered copies to more than 20 newsagents as well as to local venues and musical instrument and record stores, such as Cramer & Lea, Rushworth & Draper and Cranes.
Mersey Beat was their voice, it was a paper for them, crammed with photos and information about their own groups, which is why it also began to appeal to youngsters throughout Britain as its coverage extended to other areas.
The results were printed in issue 13 of Mersey Beat on 4 January 1962, with the now famous front page announcing, "Beatles Top Poll!
"[29] Such was the popularity of the poll, Rushworth's music store manager, Bob Hobbs, presented Lennon and George Harrison with new guitars.
[51] Epstein and Taylor bypassed the line of fans at the door and heard a welcome message announced over the club's public-address system by Wooler:[52] "We have someone rather famous in the audience today, Mr. Brian Epstein, the owner of NEMS ..."[53][54] Lennon had once given Harry a collection of photos taken in Hamburg, showing Lennon standing on the Reeperbahn reading a newspaper and wearing nothing but his underpants, performing on stage with a toilet seat around his neck, and one of McCartney sitting on a toilet.
"[55] When Epstein finally secured a recording contract with EMI, he sent Harry a telegram from London to the Mersey Beat office to announce the news.
[57] Epstein had promised Harry full editorial control, but then hired a female press officer in London to write a fashion column and a D.J.
During the next 18 years he was the PR to many artists, including Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, Procol Harum, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, the Beach Boys, Clouds, Ten Years After, Free, Mott the Hoople, the Pretty Things, Christine Perfect, Supertramp, Hot Chocolate, Arrows, Suzi Quatro and Kim Wilde.
[61] Harry was presented with a gold award for a "Lifetime Achievement in Music" by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) in 1994,[58] has taken part in over 350 international television/radio shows, and was hired by Rediffusion to be programme assistant for the documentary Beat City.
