How I Didn't Become a Beatle: Liverpool in the 1950s and 60s

by Brian James Hudson

In the late 1950s and early 1960s Liverpool was an exciting place to be a university student. For Yorkshire-born Brian Hudson, it was a joy to be on Merseyside at a time when the Cavern Club was just one of many Liverpool clubs where live music could be enjoyed. A jazz enthusiast and a keen drummer, Brian tried to find work for the university jazz band at the Jacaranda Club. Unable to persuade the owner, he was invited instead to join two guitarists and form a new beat group, Cass and the Cassanovas, later to become part of the Beatles story. Brian's decision to leave the group to focus on his studies and devote his leisure time to university jazz may have steered him away from a life in rock & roll, but it allowed him to remain on the Liverpool scene, meeting and getting to know many of its most colorful characters. Many entertaining, amusing, and sometimes deeply touching anecdotes are recounted here, sure to strike a chord with anyone who remembers the city during the heady days of Liverpool Sound. Accompanying the text are a wide variety of photographs, which have as a backdrop a rapidly changing Liverpool.