The Cavern Mecca was a

Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

museum in

Liverpool Liverpool is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. It is situated on the eastern side of the River Mersey, Mersey Estuary, near the Irish Sea, north-west of London. With a population ...

. Founded in 1981 and named for the

Cavern Club The Cavern Club is a music venue on Mathew Street, Liverpool, England. The Cavern Club opened on 16 January 1957 as a jazz club, later becoming a centre of the rock and roll scene in Liverpool in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The club becam ...

, it was instrumental in the birth of Beatles fan-based tourism in Liverpool. It was located on the corner of Rainford Square and Mathew Street. The museum was founded and run by Liz and Jim Hughes, who "single-handedly jump-started" what became the annual Beatles Convention in

, now part of the Beatles Week festival. When the museum and fan club were founded, the Beatles had been out of fashion and little acknowledged in Liverpool. The

itself, where the

had frequently played in their early years after returning from Hamburg, was closed in 1973 and later filled in as part of construction of the

Merseyrail Merseyrail is a commuter rail network which serves Merseyside and adjacent areas of Cheshire and Lancashire in the North West England, North West of England. Merseyrail serves 69 Railway station, stations, 67 of which it manages, across two lin ...

underground rail loop. In the same year as the opening of the Cavern Mecca, plans were announced to excavate and reopen the

. The Cavern Club, complete with excavation of the original club, remained open from 1984 to 1989 before again closing, only to re-open again in 1991 as both a club and museum. The Cavern Mecca closed in December 1984 when founder Liz Hughes fell ill. Co-founder Jim Hughes died in 2018. In 2003, a signed copy of the

album ''

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band ''Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' (often referred to simply as ''Sgt. Pepper'') is the eighth studio album by the English rock band the Beatles. Released on 26May 1967, ''Sgt. Pepper'' is regarded by musicologists as an early concept ...

'', together with an official souvenir programme from the fourth annual Beatles Convention of Cavern Mecca, sold for $290,000 at auction, breaking the record at the time for the price of a signed

album cover.

References

Bibliography

* *

External links

* * – created by Alan Curran in 1984 after the original statue in 1981. Original was a fruit of the John Lennon Statue Appeal Fund organized by Jim Hughes of Cavern Mecca. Music in Liverpool Music museums in Liverpool Museums established in 1981 Cultural depictions of the Beatles Defunct museums in England {{UK-museum-stub

See also

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Bibliography

External links