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Forthcoming Shows
DIAMOND JUBILEE CONCERT
Vanity Fare with Very Special Guest Benny Gallagher, original vocalist, guitarist and songwriter with McGuinness Flint and Gallagher & Lyle, and resident Cavern Club band The Shakers, with their Special Guest, Merseybeat star Beryl Marsden
Saturday, June 9 2012
7.30pm (doors open approx 45 mins before the show)
Tickets £15.00 (see how to book)
This is the big summer concert -- a four-hour extravaganza!!!
Please note the early start at 7.30 p.m. because the artists will be serving
up four sets of music instead of our usual three. At theatres you get just
two!
The show stars:
* Benny Gallagher, original vocalist, guitarist and songwriter with
McGuinness Flint, who had smash international hits with "When I'm Dead
And Gone" and "Malt And Barley Blues", and Gallagher & Lyle, whose
string of major worldwide hits included "I Wanna Stay With You", "Heart
On My Sleeve" and "Breakaway". Benny, now celebrated as one of Britain's
finest singer-songwriters, began his rise to fame as a staff writer with
The Beatles music publishing company Apple, penning songs for Apple
Records biggest star Mary Hopkin with the constant encouragement of Paul
McCartney. A performance by the charismatic, classy and hugely gifted
Benny is never to be missed!
* Vanity Fare of "Hitchin' A Ride" and "Early In The Morning" fame, fresh
from the triumphs of their third successive Solid Silver Sixties tour.
Vanity Fare, of course, played a major role in the success of our New Year's
Eve Concert with Chris Farlowe, Mike Tinsley (Hedgehoppers Anonymous), Colin
Hare (Honeybus) and Alan Warner The Foundations) that many of you are still
talking about.
* Beryl Marsden, who recorded the iconic Cavern Club-era singles "I Know
(You Don't Love Me No More)", "Everybody Loves A Lover" and "Breakaway".
Beryl was also a member of early "supergroup" Shotgun Express ("I Could Feel
The Whole World Turn Round"), with the likes of Rod Stewart, Mick Fleetwood
and Peter Green. She also performed with Martha Reeves and The Vandellas.
* The Shakers, the resident band at Liverpool's world-famous Cavern Club.
For the countless numbers of people who wish they had been able to witness
the birth of Merseybeat at The Cavern, get your ticket to see The Shakers to
relive the dream -- you won't be disappointed! We introduced many of you to
New Amen Corner. If you enjoy New Amen Corner, you will love
their Merseybeat equivalent -- The Shakers.
Benny Gallagher is one of Britain's greatest singer-songwriters, hailing
from The Beatles' hit-making factory Apple Records and enjoying huge chart
success in the early and mid 1970s writing and performing with McGuinness
Flint and Gallagher & Lyle.
Benny Gallagher on stage with Graham Lyle (right)
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Benny and his friend Graham Lyle travelled from Scotland in the late 1960s
to join Apple Records as staff writers. Benny soon found himself composing
songs for life-long friend and the Fab Four label's biggest solo artist Mary
Hopkin. Paul McCartney spotted the young Scotsman's songwriting talent and
always lent a supporting hand.
When Manfred Mann disbanded in 1969, lead guitarist Tom McGuinness began
forming a group with Hughie Flint, drummer with John Mayall And The
Bluesbreakers, and vocalist/keyboard player Dennis Coulson. Word had spread
about Benny and Graham as songwriters, singers and multi-instrumentalists,
so they were invited on board.
The result was an almost immediate international chart-topper with the Benny
and Graham penned "When I'm Dead And Gone" in late 1970 and that was quickly
followed by yet another top five entry "Malt And Barley Blues". There was a
fresh excitement about these catchy, uptempo numbers that made them stand
out from the other hits around at that time.
Benny and Graham decided to quit and form the duo Gallagher and Lyle in
1972, scoring high the charts with romantically charged songs like "I Wanna
Stay With You", "Heart On My Sleeve", "Breakaway" and "Every Little
Teardrop".
Benny stands out because he not only performed on major hits like the ones
mentioned above but also wrote them and so many others as well. Simon and
Grafunkel and Garth Brooks both performed Benny's song "A Heart In New York"
at their concerts in New York's Central Park to audiences of 500,000 and
750,000 respectively. Don Williams had a No.1 Country Hit with
"Stay Young" which generated well in excess of 1,000,000 airplays on U.S.
radio.
Such is the pedigree of the man that some of the artists who have recorded
Benny's songs include Art Garfunkel, Bryan Ferry, Colin Blunstone, Don
Williams, Elkie Brooks, Fairport Convention, Garth Brooks, Judith Durham,
Little Anthony And The Imperials, Mary Hopkin, Phil Everly, Ricky Nelson,
Ringo Starr, Rita Coolidge, Simon and Garfunkel and Status Quo. On record,
Benny has worked with the likes of Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, Pete
Townsend, Ronnie Lane, Ronnie Wood, Gary Brooker, Georgie Fame, Mary Hopkin,
Elkie Brooks, Ralph McTell, and Sandy Denny and Fairport Convention.
Benny Gallagher in concert with Graham Lyle (left)
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These days Benny has been performing reunion concerts with Graham Lyle as
well as doing his own shows. In 2010, Benny released his first ever solo
studio album "At The Edge Of The Wave" to critical acclaim. It includes a
wonderful homage to the late, great Ronnie Lane.
Vanity Fare, still boasting three members with roots in the band's heyday
and rated by The Beat magazine as arguably the classiest band on the
circuit, were huge at the end of the 60s and were particularly popular in
the United States where they had two top five hits.
Stunning vocal harmonies and bouncy and catchy tunes are their trademark,
like "Hitchin' A Ride" that became something of an anthem for hippies
catching a lift to the next "Flower Power" gathering.
"Early In The Morning" was an even bigger hit for Vanity Fare in Britain and
their first chart entry "I Live For The Sun" had links with The Beach Boys
camp. Their run of hits continued into the 70s across the world -- from
"Summer Morning" in the United States to "Rock & Roll Is Back" in Germany.
Lead guitarist/ vocalist Eddie Wheeler, drummer/vocalist Mark Ellen, bass
player/vocalist Bernie Hagley and "new boy" keyboard maestro Steve Oakman,
son of Pete Oakman of The Bruvvers who wrote Joe Brown's No.1 "A Picture Of
You", know how to get a party going.
Besides their own hits, Vanity Fare bring you all those wonderful West Coast
and other harmony sounds, ranging from The Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann" to The
Four Seasons' "Sherry" to The Byrds' "Mr Tambourine Man".
On this year's Solid Silver Sixties tour, Vanity Fare were given a more
prominent couple of spots in their own right on the show and solo stars
Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits fame, Brian Hyland, Chris Montez and Brian
Poole all paid tribute to their musicianship as a backing band and insisted
on the group's members sharing the limelight.
Audiences lapped up sights like Peter Noone performing "Mrs Brown You've Got
A Lovely Daughter" just with Eddie Wheeler on banjo and Bernie Hagley doing
the Chuck Berry "ducktail walk" across the stage during Brian Poole's set.
Beryl Marsden, blonde, beautiful and one of the finest singers to emerge
from the Merseybeat era, has something special to celebrate this year -- the
release of her first album on her 50th anniversary in showbusiness.
Beryl, who performed with The Beatles and other top groups at The Cavern
before they were famous and was on the bill when the Fab Four toured at the
height of Beatlemania, is also at the heart of celebrations to mark the 50th
anniversary of Merseybeat. She has just been to Hamburg to mark the 50th
anniversary of the famous Star Club as part of a star-studded
bill that included the likes of Chris Farlowe, Cliff Bennett, The Nashville
Teens, Kingsize Taylor and The Dominoes and Tony Sheridan.
Poor promotion by her record label meant Beryl never quite won the
recognition she deserved like a Cilla Black or Lulu, but her singles like "I
Know (You Don't Love Me No More)", "Break-A-Way", "What's She Got (That I
Ain't Got)" and "Everybody Loves A Lover" are now widely looked back on as
"hits" and have become Merseybeat collectors' items.
Beryl was younger than most to be going into the recording studio. She had
just turned 16 when she cut her first single and others tended to try and
decide what they thought was best for her.
Despite the arguably poor handling of her career that was beyond her
control, Beryl enjoyed a high profile in the 60s because of the respect she
commanded from her peers in the business, a fact underlined by her being
asked to join forces with the then budding Rod Stewart and future key
Fleetwood Mac members Peter Green and Mick Fleetwood in the R'n'B group The
Shotgun Express in 1966.
Beryl was on joint vocals with Rod on The Shotgun Express single "I Could
Feel The Whole World Turn Round".
Mention Beryl Marsden to any Merseybeat fan and there is instant
recognition. Her Merseybeat profile is such that her performance of "I'll Be
There" was used to close a television documentary last year on The Cavern.
Beryl will always be associated with The Cavern and The Beatles.
"The Cavern? Hot, sweaty, smelly but wonderful! The music was just amazing,
especially when The Beatles were on. It was electric. The thing was because
they played there so often we all knew each other -- it was like a little
family."
No one can ever replace The Beatles and other great groups who created the
Merseybeat sound in the small and sweaty confines of the original Cavern,
but The Shakers stand out as the next best thing to recreating that
wonderful image and that exciting music from those halcyon days of 1960-64.
The Shakers are not a tribute band and do not try to pretend to be John,
Paul, George, Ringo or any of the other legendary names. Tribute bands tend
to produce a very manufactured sound based on the records, whereas The
Shakers go on stage like all the early 60s Merseybeat groups did to win over
audiences -- with raw live music played with energy and gusto.
The result is that when The Shakers perform any of the hits by The Beatles,
Gerry and The Pacemakers, The Searchers and so on, there is a quantum leap
in the thrill-factor. Numbers like "Please Please Me", "I Want To Hold Your
Hand", "Needles And Pins", "Do You Want To Know A Secret" and "Ferry Cross
The Mersey" have that extra punch you don't get from listening to the
records.
You are truly transported back to the live Merseybeat music of 1960-64 by
Tony O'Keefe (The Shakers' leader and drummer), Eddie Harrison (lead
singer/guitar), Phil Melia (lead guitar/vocals) and Martin Davies
(bass/vocals).
The Shakers make you want to dance, tap your feet or, to borrow John
Lennon's words, "rattle your jewellery"! You'll love their Scouse accents
too!
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