By Brad Dison
As a teenager, John “Duff” Lowe was a budding pianist. In February 1958, a friend of his from school knew of Duff’s playing ability and asked him to join his band. With little consideration, 15-year-old Duff agreed. Being in the band was tough on Duff. On Sunday afternoons, the band would rehearse for Saturday night gigs which were anything but frequent, and his bandmates lived on the other side of the city. Just to get to rehearsals, Duff, too young to drive himself, had to take two buses. Like the rehearsals, their sporadic bookings were usually across town as well. With his school schedule, Duff was unable to meet up with the band during the week.
On Saturday afternoon, July 12, 1958, five months after joining the band, Duff and his bandmates went to a shop owned by Percy Phillips. Percy sold a variety of consumer goods including electrical appliances, batteries, and bicycles from the front of the shop. In the back of his shop was a soundproof room where Percy had a small and simple recording studio. Bands paid a small fee to make a recording, and each song was recorded in a single take directly onto an acetate disc. On that hot July day, Duff and his bandmates went to Percy Phillips’s back-room studio and recorded two songs: “That’ll Be the Day,” a cover version of Buddy Holley’s 1956 hit song, and an original slow-paced doo-wop song called “In Spite of All the Danger.” Duff and his bandmates were proud of the record, but they could not afford to make duplicates. To solve the dilemma of who would keep the record, they decided that each band member would get to keep the record for a week, then he would pass it to another member. Duff was the last member in the rotation.
The band was, as the expression says, going nowhere fast. Duff tired of the long treks to and from rehearsals. He was also missing out on the camaraderie that the other band members were experiencing during the week. Two years after joining the band, Ricky Tomlinson, leader of another band called “Hobo Rick & the City Slickers,” heard about Duff’s abilities. With the lure of fame and fortune, and more importantly, less bus trips, Ricky convinced Duff to abandon his current band and to join his band. Have you ever heard of “Hobo Rick & the City Slickers?” They failed to become household names and only lasted a short time.
Duff became a successful stockbroker. In 1981, Duff was looking in his sock drawer when he found the old 10-inch acetate record that he and his original band had recorded at Percy Phillips’ studio 23 years earlier. We can only speculate as to Duff’s reaction to finding the recording which everyone thought was lost forever. Duff eventually sold the record to one of his former bandmates, Paul, and it is said to be the most valuable record in the world. That 10-inch acetate disc, recorded with Duff as a member of the Quarrymen, was the first recording of the band that became the Beatles.
Sources:
1. “John Duff Lowe – Piano,” The Original Quarrymen, accessed April 20, 2025, http://www.originalquarrymen.co.uk/html/duff.html.
2. “The Percy Phillips Studio Collection,” International Beatle Week, accessed April 20, 2025, https://www.internationalbeatleweek.com/special-events-percy-phillips/.
3. “The Quarrymen – That’ll Be The Day,” Youtube, accessed April 20, 2025, https://youtu.be/R4_LMMKq8Hw?si=_xdGsglSsFxWO_yf.
4. “In Spite of All the Danger – The Quarrymen,” Youtube.com, accessed April 20, 2025, https://youtu.be/RuuOAA9ekbg?si=qWnhgZc9v5EqIisZ.
5. The Daily Telegraph, August 18, 1981, p.8.
6. The Westmorland Gazette, September 7, 2017, p.M73.
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