Mersey Beat Revival

Mersey Beat no. 2 had news about the record deal with Polydor in Germany. Paul McCartney’s surname was rarely spelt correctly in the paper. Yet, it was Paul who provided Harry with this photo, as well as the “My Bonnie” single.

Liverpool’s own music paper “Mersey Beat” was founded and edited by one of John Lennon’s art school friends and member of “The Dissenters”, residing in the Ye Cracke pub. Lennon participated with his own texts in the Beatcomber column. Brian Epstein reviewed records for the paper, and sold the paper in his music stores. According to him, he did not discover the Beatles through the paper, although they were heavily featured there. Bill Harry doesn’t believe Epstein’s story about having no knowledge of The Beatles until people started asking about the “My Bonnie” record.

Copies of Mersey Beat from the sixties are getting expensive, and especially early copies featuring The Beatles on the front page appear at auctions and sell for serious money.

Despite having had several computer breakdowns and harddisk failures, Bill Harry is looking to revive the paper. Here is a first attempt of a front cover, which he shared on his Facebook page.

The photo of Bill Harry with The Beatles has been colourised.

Exactly what Bill has in mind, we are not sure of, but by the looks of it, it appears to be both a printed magazine as well as a website.

Highlights of early Beatles articles in Mersey Beat was released as a softcover large size book in the seventies.

Mersey Beat: The Beginnings of The Beatles book 1979.

Bill Harry is currently looking for collaborators for his new project.

Here’s a Special Edition Mersey Beat which was included with Liverpool Echo, the local paper in 2009.

The special included the programme for the 2009 Beatle Week