Alan Sytner

The Cavern Club

The original Cavern Club entrance in 1963.
Location	Mathew Street, Liverpool, England
Owner	Alan Sytner, Bob Wooler, Ray McFall; Tommy Smith; Bill Heckle and Dave Jones
Type	Music club
Genre(s)	Entertainment/night club
Opened	1957, reopened 1984 and 1991
Closed	1 March 1973, and 1989
Website
www.cavernclub.org

The Cavern Club is a nightclub at 10 Mathew Street, in Liverpool, England.

The original Cavern Club opened on Wednesday, 16 January 1957 as a jazz club, later becoming a centre of the rock and roll scene in Liverpool in the 1960s. The Beatles played in the club in their early years.

The original Cavern club closed in March 1973 and was filled in during construction work on the Merseyrail underground rail loop. Focus were the last band to play the original Cavern a few days before the club was shut down.

The Cavern Club re-opened on 26 April 1984 and was rebuilt using many of the original bricks, to the original plans.

Alan Sytner opened The Cavern Club, having been inspired by the jazz district in Paris, where there were a number of clubs in cellars. Sytner returned to Liverpool and strove to open a club similar to the Le Caveau de la Huchette jazz club in Paris. He eventually found a fruit warehouse where people were leasing the cellar, before this it was used as an air raid shelter in WWII The club was opened on 16 January 1957. The first act to perform at the opening of the club was the Merseysippi Jazz Band. Local commercial artist Tony Booth created the poster artwork for the opening night, who shortly after became the original poster artist for The Beatles.

What started as a jazz club eventually became a hangout for skiffle groups. Whilst playing golf with Sytner's father, Dr. Joseph Sytner, Nigel Walley—who had left school at 15 to become an apprentice golf professional at the Lee Park Golf Club—asked Dr. Sytner if his son could book The Quarrymen at The Cavern, which was one of three jazz clubs he managed. Dr. Sytner suggested that the band should play at the golf club first, so as to assess their talent. After performing at the golf club Sytner phoned Walley a week later and offered the band an interlude spot playing skiffle between the performances of two jazz bands at The Cavern, on Wednesday, 7 August 1957.

Before the performance, the Quarrymen argued amongst themselves about the set list, as rock 'n roll songs were definitely not allowed at the club, but skiffle was tolerated. After opening with a skiffle song, John Lennon called for the others to start playing an Elvis Presley song, "Don't Be Cruel". Rod Davis warned Lennon that the audience would "eat you alive", but Lennon ignored this and started playing the song himself, forcing the others to join in. Halfway through, Sytner pushed his way through the audience and handed Lennon a note which read, "Cut out the bloody rock 'n roll".Paul McCartney's first appearance at The Cavern was with The Quarrymen on 24 January 1958. (George Harrison first played at The Cavern during a lunchtime session on 9 February 1961.)