By Hope, sources http://www.triumphpc.com/mersey-beat/a-z/monabest and https://subtouring.com/Destinations/Liverpool/subTOURS/5-Football-meets-Beatles-Anfield-Casbah/History/Casbah
The Casbah Coffee Club is one of the world’s most legendary Rock ‘n’ Roll venues, located outside Liverpool city centre.
It was started by Mona Best in 1959 in the cellar of their family home.
The huge house had a large complex of cellars and when Pete was sixteen, Mona had noticed the number of young friends visiting him at the house and decided to turn part of the cellar area into a private club for him. But word got out and more ambitious plans developed, which resulted in a club for young people with live groups. It became one of the first cellar clubs to present rock ‘n’ roll exclusively when it opened in August 1959.
And ‘Mo’, as she was called, decided to call it the Casbah club. This was because her favourite film at the time was Algiers, which starred Charles Boyer, who, people asserted, said ‘Come with me to the Casbah,’ although that line of dialogue isn’t actually in the film.
Pete says, “The house at 8 Hayman’s Green, where we lived, was big – big rooms. I used to have a gang of mates come round, school friends, and do what typical fifteen, sixteen year olds did at the time – go to the record player, crank it up to full blast and play every record you could put your hands on.
“Mo said, ‘Look, you’ve got cellars underneath, why don’t you go down and make it into a den for yourself? It’s yours. Do what you want with it.”
The resident group became the Quarry Men, who had re-formed especially for the club’s opening on Saturday 29 August 1959. George Harrison, who was in another band, the Les Stewart Quartet, quit the outfit, along with Ken Brown, and sought out John and Paul to join them. The Quarry Men had been inactive for several months and had more or less disbanded. If Mo hadn’t opened the Casbah, the Beatles might never have existed!
In some ways, the Casbah has more right to be called ‘the birthplace of the Beatles’ than the Cavern, which didn’t book them until two years later, when they had already become established locally.
Pete is of that opinion and states, “We have always said that the Casbah was the birthplace of the Beatles. I know that the Cavern in Mathew Street has now announced that it’s ‘the birthplace of the Beatles’, but as far as I’m concerned, it was the Casbah. If it wasn’t for the club the Beatles might never have got together again and what happened later wouldn’t have transpired.”
Mo proved to be a very hard-working businesswoman and Pete recalls, “Mo also used the club as a showcase for new talent…Mo liked the music. She was like a teenager. She was very avant-garde for the time.
The Casbah, as it became widely known, was originally planned as a members-only club for her sons Pete and Rory and their friends. Mona had the idea after watching a TV report about a London bar where several famous singers had been discovered. The club opened on 29 August 1959.
The pre-Beatles band The Quarrymen with its members John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ken Brown arranged their first booking in here. They even helped Mona to finish painting the club first. So all four guys took up brushes and helped her painting the walls with spiders, dragons, stripes, and stars. Among them, you can still see John Lennon’s Aztec inspired graphics on one of the ceilings. The Beatles themselves often played at the Casbah as other venues had a jazz-only policy at that time. The venue operated until 1962, providing a home for the distinctive Merseybeat sound which would change the face of popular music forever.
The cellar with its original decoration still exists today so you can visit this unique basement club as it was in its very beginning.
And JazairHope…..The menu “Casbah Club” of the website was added as an inspiration because the idea of building this website and creating JazairHope team was born during a youtube live in June 2020 with the famous Algerian political influencer, the patriot 72 Casbah which channel is 72 Casbah , A channel where most of the founding members of JazairHope have met, like the beatles have met in the Casbah Coffee Club. It is in fact a dream and a premonition that JazairHope will last and succeed in promoting a positive Algeria, similar to the Beatles success as Rock band.
1 comment
As a member of jazairhope, I wish that our group would continue to exist, as was the group of The Beatles, so that the dream of a prosperous and fair Algerian Algeria will become a reality in the future and not just a dream …. so we keep hope.
Thank u hope for all efforts you’ve made