The Beatles: The True Beginnings

The Casbah Coffee Club, which opened in Liverpool on 29 August 1959, was the brainchild of Mrs. Mona Best, the mother of Pete Best. It is well known that Pete Best was the drummer for The Beatles in their early days in Liverpool and Hamburg. Less well known is that The Beatles' origins were in fact at Pete's mother's club - it was at the Casbah and with Mona Best's blessing that the greatest popular music phenomenon of the twentieth century began.
This book tells the story of how Mona Best created the Casbah, and in the process played a major part in creating The Beatles. The band played the Casbah over ninety times, first as The Quarrymen, then as The Silver Beatles and finally as The Beatles. The Casbah's significance cannot be overestimated - it brought together some of the greatest names in rock music and became the catalyst for the Mersey Beat phenomenon which swept Liverpool in the early sixties.
Seen here for the first time in forty years is the club's interior as it was at the very beginning, juxtaposed with the rooms as they are today, and still showing the ceilings that were painted by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best. A wealth of rare material from the Casbah and the Bests' own archives, together with newly commissioned images by photographer Sandro Sodano, documents the club's and The Beatles' intertwined story. Accompanied by a personal memoir of this extraordinary time, written by Roag Best with his brothers Pete and Rory, this is both a moving family tribute from the Bests to their mother, and a unique insight into a remarkable period of Beatles history.

Before Shea Stadium, The Ed Sullivan Show, and the Cavern, came the Casbah, the club that gave birth to The Beatles and started a music revolution.

The Casbah Coffee Club, which opened in Liverpool on August 29, 1959, was the brainchild of Mona Best, the mother of Pete Best. It is well known that Pete Best was the drummer for The Beatles in their early days in Liverpool and Hamburg. But less well known is that The Beatles’ origins were in fact at Pete’s mother’s club&mdash-it was at the Casbah and with Mona Best’s blessing that the greatest popular music phenomenon of the twentieth century began.

And now, the basement club where The Quarrymen, The Silver Beatles, and finally The Beatles played over ninety times before they hit the Cavern has been reopened and revealed by this remarkable book. Seen here for the first time in forty years is the basement’s interior as it was at the very beginning, juxtaposed with the rooms as they are today, where the ceilings painted by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Pete Best still rest. A wealth of rare material from the club and the Bests’ own archives, together with newly commissioned images by renowned photographer Sandro Sodano, documents the club’s and The Beatles’ intertwined stories.

The Beatles: The True Beginnings features accounts from early fans hearing The Beatles for the first time, stunning new color photography of the rooms and memorabilia of the Casbah Coffee Club, gritty, never-before seen photos of the young Beatles playing for hundreds of their very first fans, and comments from The Beatles and their closest friends from the period.

The Casbah brought together some of the greatest names in rock music and became the catalyst for the Mersey Beat phenomenon that swept Liverpool in the early 1960s. Accompanied by a fascinating personal memoir of this extraordinary time, written by Roag Best with his brothers Pete and Rory, this is both a moving family tribute and a unique insight into a remarkable period of Beatles history. This account of the Casbah’s earliest days blows back its roof, and that of The Beatles’ unbelievable history, forever.

Praise for

The Beatles

I think it’s a good idea to let people know about the Casbah. They know about the Cavern, they know about some of those things, but the Casbah was the place where all that started. We helped decorate it and stuff. We looked upon it as our own personal club.&mdashSir Paul McCartney

Handsomely presented and written in clean, lucid prose, the book informs the Beatles’ story with an unlikely family history and a vivid portrait of Liverpool’s vibrant music scene in the late ’50s and early ’60s.—

Rolling Stone

Enticing. Plenty to enlighten even trivia experts.—

Bookpage

Popular Culture’s Sistine Chapel.—BBC News

A wonderful book.—

Mail on Sunday

(UK)

Lavishly illustrated and the best-looking Beatles book published yet.—

Standard

London

Newspaper

(UK)