#roddavis

[the-cosmic-empire]

“The procession started outside the church, on Church Row. The lorry was pointed downhill and we were on the back of the lorry. I can still feel the lurch as the driver let the handbrake off on the way down, because you’re standing on the back of a lorry and it’s quite precarious!

“When we were going down King’s Drive, some of the other guys were playing - I don’t know why I wasn’t playing. We didn’t notice him [Rod’s Dad, James Davis] take the photograph. There’s one photograph where John is singing with his eyes closed. I’m standing, leaning against the back of the cab, and it must have been a hot, sticky day because my glasses have slipped down my nose. I’m pushing my glasses back up my nose and the banjo’s at my feet, in the case. Then we noticed it was my dad so there’s a second photograph where we’ve all turned around to look at him, but John unfortunately is obscured by Len. That particular photograph had been undiscovered from 1957 until 2009.

“Paul McCartney arrived on his bicycle and saw us playing. I met Paul in 2005, bumped into him on the seafront in Brighton. He said, “Oh, you must have been there on the day I first met John at St. Peter’s?”

“I said, “Yeah, in the famous photograph, I’m standing behind John’s right shoulder.” So he remembers it, I don’t remember him!

“Apparently at some stage during the day - and there are various contradictory versions of what happened - John and Paul were introduced by Ivan Vaughn (there doesn’t seem to be any doubt about that bit). No one invited Paul to join that night. Lennon is on record in an interview saying, “I immediately saw how fantastic he was and I asked him to join there and then!” Well, no, that didn’t happen. Pete and John were walking home because they both lived very close to each other, and John said to Pete (this is from Pete’s own mouth), “What did you think to Ivan’s friend then? Should we have him in the group?” and Pete said, “Yeah, I think he’s good. We should have him in the group.” So if Pete hadn’t said that, if Pete had said, “No, I think he’s an idiot,” then he wouldn’t have been in!

“I remember going to Aunt Mimi’s and there was somebody else there. I said to John, “Who’s that? Who’s this?” and he said, “Oh this is Paul. He’s come to listen to us practice,” so obviously by that time, he’d been invited to join the group.”

[Rod Davis, Banjo player in The Quarraymen, via The Liverpool Echo, 2017]

Photos - James Davis, taken on 6th July, 1957, the day John met Paul. (John with his eyes closed in the centre of the first photo)

[the-cosmic-empire]

"I got to know the Quarrymen originally through their drummer, Colin Hanton. I started to knock around with them – going to practice sessions and gigs for a couple of years. 

“I last saw John in 1962. I was sat at the front of a double-decker bus and as I got up to get off the bus John was sitting on the back seat, he was the only other person on the top deck. I asked him how it was going, he said ‘I’m knackered, I just got back from Hamburg’. 

“My mum organised the Rosebery Street party, I asked the Quarrymen would they come and play there. I remember it was a nice warm sunny day.  I took a number of photos of the group playing that day.”

[Charles Roberts, photographer]

The Quarrymen playing on Rosebery Street, Liverpool on the 22nd June, 1957. They were performing as part of a street party to celebrate the 550th anniversary of Liverpool receiving it’s charter from King John (which happened on 28th August, 1207 (my birthday! 28th Aug, not 1207!) and gave Liverpool - or ‘Liuerpul’ official ‘town’ status). 

Photo: Charles Roberts.

[the-cosmic-empire]

“It really started when I got to know John first because my mum and dad wanted a bit of peace on a Sunday afternoon. So they packed my off to St. Peter’s Sunday School. In my class was Pete Shotton, Ivan Vaughn, Nige Walley, Geoff Rhind, Barbara Baker. There must have been fifteen or so of us. When John came to live with his Aunt Mimi, she obviously also wanted a quiet Sunday afternoon, and packed John off to St. Peter’s. [...]

“We were all in this Sunday class aged five or six, and in our house, as in many other houses, he was known as “that Lennon”, in the phrase, “You stay away from that Lennon,” which didn’t help, it only made him more attractive! [...]

“[John and I] were outside a record shop, and the sound of Lonnie Donegan’s Rock Island Line came wafting out of the shop, and I thought, ‘Wow! That is absolutely fantastic. I’m going to have some of that!’ So I started pestering for a guitar or a banjo. Eventually we found out that an uncle of ours, who played in a dance band in North Wales, he played the fiddle and the musical saw. My brother had the saw and I had the fiddle, and his brother-in-law, who played in the same band, had a banjo and a guitar which he was selling. By the time we found out about it, the guitar had already been sold, which is to my eternal regret because if I’d got the guitar instead of the banjo, McCartney probably never would have got into the Quarrymen! But that’s another story!

“I went into school the following day and said to my friend, Eric Griffiths, “Oh Eric, I got a banjo the other other day.”

“Oh yes?” he said. “Do you want to be in a group?”

“The problem was not finding people who knew how to play, it was finding people who had an instrument! So I said, “Who’s in this group?” So he said himself on guitar, Pete Shotton on the washboard and Bill Smith on tea chest bass, and John Lennon on guitar. They were all friends of mine in the same year, so that was how it started and that was how I got in.”

[Rod Davis, Banjo player in The Quarrymen, via The Liverpool Echo, 2017]

Photos: The Quarraymen playing on 6th July, 1957, the day John met Paul. 

(1. Geoff Rhind, 2. Unknown (maybe Geoff Rhind?).