British Invasion
Bob Hardy was greatly influenced by the American rock and roll artists he heard on the radio as a kid growing up in 1950's Liverpool, during which time he was a pupil at the Liverpool Institute with George Harrison and Paul McCartney. A few years later, around 1961, he was blown away when a friend...
Beeb Birtles developed a passion for music at a young age when his parents bought him a piano-accordion while growing up in Amsterdam. After emigrating to Australia with his family, Beeb started singing and playing bass in bands with friends from high school. This passion for music eventually...
Leo Lyons became a professional musician early on in his life while playing with bands in London, England. He gravitated to the skiffle genre, playing first the banjo and then the guitar, but then took up the bass and joined the group The Jaybirds with guitarist Alvin Lee. The Jaybirds later...
Pete Best grew up with a strong musical influence within his mother. She encouraged the passion and desire to bring music into the lives of Pete and the kids in Liverpool, England by opening the Casbah, a music club, below his childhood home. Despite picking up a guitar as his first instrument,...
Ivor Davis was working as the foreign correspondent for the London Daily Express when he was assigned to travel with the Beatles. He joined the Fab Four during the summer of 1964 in San Francisco and traveled with them as they toured the United States making their way to New York. His 2014 book, "...
Eric Burdon participated in the British Invasion of the 1960s as an original member of The Animals. It was an exciting time in music that brought popularity to rock bands from England to America such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Eric was greatly influenced by jazz and the blues, which...
Billy J. Kramer took part in the British Invasion, coming to America and performing a number of his hit songs on the Ed Sullivan Show, just like four of his friends from Liverpool did a few months earlier. In fact, several of the songs he performed were written by Paul and John, who wanted to write...
Peter Asher teamed with his school friend, Gordon Waller, to form the group Peter and Gordon. The two hit the pop charts during the golden era of the British Invasion in the mid-1960s. They topped the charts both in America and England with several popular tunes, some of which were written by...
Spencer Davis hit it big with a string of rock songs during the heyday of the British Invasion of the 1960s. His band, The Spencer Davis Group, started with a school mate named Muff Winwood and Muff’s brother Steve. Over the years the band recorded such hits as “Keep On Running” and “Gimme Some...