“It’s the dream of my life to be here in Liverpool and playing the Cavern because this music got me through my childhood.”—Billy Bob Thornton

“We came down from Newcastle to Liverpool in a little van in 1963 and we carried our own gear into the Cavern for a lunchtime session. We were very nervous about playing there and I said to a girl in a duffle coat who was watching us, ‘Do you think they’ll like rhythm and blues here?’ ‘Like it?’ she said, ‘We invented it.’”—Alan Price of the Animals

Liverpool’s Cavern Club is the most famous club in the world, giving rise to The Beatles and the Merseybeat explosion, but it is far more than that. Respected music writer and Merseybeat historian Spencer Leigh tells the Cavern’s fifty-year history with the help of owners, hundreds of musicians, backroom staff, and fans. From its days as a jazz club, through the Beatle years, the dramatic openings and closures, and the appearance of Paul McCartney in 1999, every page abounds with wit and insight.

Tied in with the best-selling, 120-track, 3-CD collection of the same name, featuring some of the greatest names of the British music scene, including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, Queen, and many, many more, this book is the perfect companion to the soundtrack of fifty years of the greatest music ever made.