Ken Brown

29 August 1959 – George, Ken, John and Paul Open The Casbah as the Quarrymen

Ken Brown’s name pops up in the history of The Beatles but, like so many, is often overlooked. He had an important role to play, so I spoke to him about his story.

Ken came into the picture when the band he was in, the Les Stewart Quartet, was offered the residency at the soon-to-be opened Casbah Coffee Club. He had heard about it through his fellow band member George Harrison’s girlfriend, Ruth Morrison. Ruth, a friend of the Best family even before they moved to Haymans Green, told George that the first Beat Club in Liverpool was to open soon. So Ruth took George and Ken along to meet Mo.

“We hit it off straight away,” recalls Ken, of his first meeting with a lady for whom he still holds great affection. “She was very warm and friendly, and took everyone as they were. She was shrewd, mind you, but she could read people well. She was so full of energy and enthusiasm. She was always on the move and not like the other mothers, and she had the energy of a teenager. I was so drawn in that I would go to work, come home and go to the Casbah, and then work there until 3 am, when I’d slip home, go to bed, get up and do it all again. It was a magical place.”

This desire to be there and help get the club ready was to cause friction in the band. The Les Stewart Quartet had played at Lowlands at the bottom of Haymans Green, but was now without any gigs. They would still meet up once a week or so to rehearse at Les’ place, but there was nothing on the horizon.

“I thought that if we got in with Mo and got the residency I was doing well for the group. So I worked hard there helping as much as I could so that our band would have a regular place to play, because there were so few opportunities to have a residency anywhere. Anyway, I started missing rehearsals, so one night at Les’ place he tells us that we weren’t going to play at the Casbah. In fact, Les was quite quiet, and it was his girlfriend Sheila who spoke up, telling me how I’d missed rehearsals and wasn’t committed to the band, and I thought, hang on, I’m doing this for the band. I said to Sheila, ‘Why don’t you let Les speak for himself?’ But he didn't. She was adamant, so that was it. I said I’d given my word to Mrs. Best, which I had: I made a promise that if she would give us the residency, I would bring the band and I would help in whatever way I could. I couldn’t go back on that. I promised I wouldn’t let her down.

They wouldn’t change their minds, so I said, ‘Right, I’m going, who’s coming with me?’ George stood up and out we went and left the group.”

This was all a few weeks before the club was due to open, and so Ken was left with a dilemma.

“I had promised to have a band for the opening night, and here I was with only George! It’s a start, but we needed to do something. It wasn’t unusual then to have a group and no drummer, so that was ok. It was then that George told me about his two friends who he had played with, and he gave them a ring. That, of course, was Lennon and McCartney. I went to see Mo and told her what had happened and that George had a couple of friends who could help us out. So they came down and we had a few practices in the Casbah to be ready to open in a couple of weeks time.”

On 29 August 1959, George, Ken, John and Paul opened the club using a name that three of them had used before: The Quarrymen.

“By that time,” says Ken, “I was living and breathing the Casbah. Mo just had this way of attracting you in and making you feel welcome there, that this was a special place to be. Of course, we had no idea how important it would become, but it didn’t matter. It was our personal club and it holds so many good memories.”

This is an excerpt from the full interview with Ken. See the book for the full interview.