Lost tapes from some of Liverpool's biggest names of the past have been unearthed,
When Percy Phillips opened the city's first ever recording studio in Kensington out of the living room of his house, the World War One veteran probably didn't expect some of the biggest names of all time to come through the door. However, on July 12, 1958, a young band called the Quarrymen each paid in a pound to use the studio.
The Quarrymen would of course go on to form the Beatles. They weren't the only stars to use the studio however, with Billy Fury and Ken Dodd cutting their first records there.
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The studio was inside the middle living room of 38 Kensington, a red-brick house that is still standing and is now marked with a Blue Plaque. In the front room was Percy’s record shop - set up around 1954 after he was charging batteries at Burtonwood Air Base and bought boxes of records from the American servicemen stationed there.
According to author and local music expert Spencer Leigh, it was not unusual for artists in the period to create several tapes before they are signed to a label, some of which have been lost to the ages. However, Mr Leigh, along with Mike Jones, have unearthed many of these tapes, including some made by the Fab Four.
Mr Leigh told the ECHO: "A lot of artists had these tapes and I've collected them over the years, in fact I've probably got the largest collection in the world."
To mark the 60th anniversary of Love Me Do, Mr Leigh teamed up with Hope University graduate Mike Jones, who had done an extensive survey on Percy Phillips studio, to create a book on these lost tapes, from the Fab Four and their fellow scouse artists.
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Unearthed recordings from the Beatles and their fellow musicians including Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, the Swinging Blue Jeans, Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes, and Rory Storm and the Hurricanes can all be found within the book, along with QR codes which can be scanned, giving the reader the ability to even listen to the tracks. The book is also fully illustrated with unseen pictures of the Fab Four
The Road To Love Me Do. The Beatles & Their Liverpool Contemporaries is set for publication on September 12, retail price £25.
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