Mona Best - The Casbah Coffee Club

The Casbah Coffee Club

Mona came up with the idea of the club after watching a TV report about The 2i's Coffee Bar in London's Soho where several singers had been discovered. She decided to open The Casbah Coffee Club—which was located in her cellar—on 29 August 1959, for young people to meet and listen to the popular music of the day. Mona charged half a crown annually for membership—to "keep out the rough elements"—and served soft drinks, snacks, cakes, and coffee from an espresso machine, which no other club had at that time. The popular records of the day were played on a small Dansette record player, which amplified them through a speaker of 3 inches (76 mm).

Mona had booked the Les Stewart Quartet to play the opening night with Harrison on guitar, but they cancelled the booking after Stewart and Brown had a quarrel. Stewart was angry that Brown had missed a rehearsal, because Brown was helping Mona to decorate the club. As 300 membership cards had already been sold, Harrison said that he had two friends in a band called The Quarrymen who would play instead. Lennon, McCartney, Stuart Sutcliffe and Harrison went to the club to arrange the booking, to which Mona agreed, but said she needed to finish painting the club first. All four took up brushes and helped Mona to finish painting the walls with spiders, dragons, rainbows, stars, and a beetle, which still survive. John Lennon was short-sighted, mistaking gloss for emulsion paint, which took a long time to dry in the dark, damp cellar. Cynthia Powell, later the wife of Lennon, painted a silhouette of John Lennon on the wall, which is also still intact.

The Quarrymen played a series of seven Saturday night concerts in The Casbah for 15 shillings each, starting on 29 August to October 1959, featuring Brown, Lennon, McCartney and Harrison, but without a drummer, or a PA system. The opening night concert was attended by about 300 local teenagers, but as the cellar had no air-conditioning, and people were dancing, the temperature rose until it became hard to breathe. As there was no amplification, Lennon later persuaded Mona to hire a young amateur guitar player called Harry to play a short set before The Quarrymen, but this was only so they could use his 40-Watt amplifier. After the success of the first night, Mona gave The Quarrymen a residency, and paid the whole group £3 a night. Every Saturday thereafter, queues lengthened onto the street, which was financially good for Mona, as she charged one shilling admission on top of the annual membership fee.

Pete was studying at the Collegiate Grammar School when he decided he wanted to be in a music group, so Mona bought him a drum kit from Blackler's music store and Best formed his own band; The Black Jacks. Chas Newby joined the group, as did Ken Brown, but only after he had left The Quarrymen. The reason for Brown's exit from the group was that he turned up on the seventh Saturday night of The Quarrymen residency at The Casbah with the flu, so Mona ordered him upstairs to the Best's living room to rest. This caused a massive quarrel with the rest of the group when Mona came to pay them, as they wanted Brown's money to be shared amongst the three of them, as Brown had not played. Mona refused, so The Quarrymen angrily cancelled their residency and stormed out. Colin Manley from The Remo Four was also given a booking to play in the club, which was the only venue that young amateur bands could play at the time. Other groups like The Searchers and Gerry & The Pacemakers later played in the club. The Black Jacks became the resident group at The Casbah, although The Quarrymen occasionally played there again and often visited. It was in The Casbah Club that Lennon and McCartney convinced Sutcliffe to buy a Hofner President bass guitar and join The Quarrymen.

Even though the membership list later spiralled to over a thousand, Mona closed the club on 24 June 1962, with The Beatles as the last group to perform. In 2006, the Best's ex-coal cellar was given a "Grade II listed building status", after being recommended by English Heritage. It has now been opened as a tourist attraction in Liverpool, along with McCartney and Lennon's previous homes.