Colin Hanton | |
|---|---|
 Hanton in 2011 | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Colin Leo Hanton |
| Born | 12 December 1938 Bootle, England |
| Genres | |
| Instrument(s) | Drums |
| Years active | 1956–1959, 1997–present |
| Member of | The Quarrymen |
Colin Leo Hanton (born 12 December 1938) is an English musician, best known as the drummer for the 1950s skiffle band the Quarrymen, led by a young John Lennon. He currently plays for the reformed version of the Quarrymen.
Hanton was born in Bootle and moved to Woolton, Liverpool when he was eight in 1946. [1] Hanton's mother died of tuberculosis, when Colin was a child, and he and his siblings moved into their grandparents' house. Colin left school and worked trained as a carpenter, before moving to working as an upholster in Speke. [1]
In the summer of 1956, Hanton helped form the Quarrymen along with John Lennon, Eric Griffiths, Pete Shotton and Rod Davis. He was asked to join the nascent band, largely because he had recently purchased a new drum kit. Hanton played drums on the Quarrymen's first recordings, a cover of The Crickets' "That'll Be the Day" and an original song by Paul McCartney and George Harrison, "In Spite of All the Danger", in 1958. [1]
He left the Quarrymen after an argument with the rest of the band following a disastrous performance at the Speke Bus Depot Social Club in Wavertree on 1 January 1959. The band had gone through several line-up changes until January 1959 (by then, the group's members were Lennon, Hanton, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and John "Duff" Lowe): [1]
We had drunk a few beers during the interval and an argument started on the way home on the bus. I got off to catch another bus to take me home to Woolton and somehow or other that was that, they never contacted me again to ask me to play. I saw John a few times and he told me that they had got a drummer called Pete, which must have been Pete Best. After that I lost touch completely.
In 1997, Hanton reunited with the then-surviving members of The Quarrymen to perform a concert, to commemorate 40 years since the group's formation. [2] Shortly after, they embarked on a tour which took place in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, and Japan, among many others. Hanton has participated on all Quarrymen releases since; including their three albums; Get Back – Together (1997), Songs We Remember (2004), and Grey Album (2012). Their recent material primarily consists of rock and roll and skiffle songs from the 1950s.
Hanton was portrayed by actor Sam Wilmott in the 2009 biopic Nowhere Boy . [3]
The Quarrymen performed in New York City, for what would have been Lennon's 70th birthday, in 2010. [2]
As of 2016, Hanton still tours with Len Garry and Rod Davis.
Hanton married his wife, Joan, in 1965. Together, they had two children. Hanton continued to work for the Guy Rogers carpentry company until it shut down in 1979. [1] Afterwards, he opened his own upholstery business, which he still runs today. [1] Colin still lives in Liverpool.
| Title | Year |
|---|---|
| That'll Be the Day | 1958 |
| In Spite of All the Danger | 1958 |
| Title | Year |
|---|---|
| Get Back – Together | 1997 |
| Songs We Remember | 2004 |
| Grey Album | 2012 |
| Title | Year |
|---|---|
| Live at the Halfmoon Pub Putney | 2005 |
| The Quarrymen Live! In Penny Lane | 2020 |
Randolph Peter Best is an English musician who was the drummer for the Beatles from 1960 to 1962. He was dismissed immediately before the band achieved worldwide fame and is one of several people who have been referred to as a fifth Beatle.
The Quarrymen are a British skiffle/rock and roll group, formed by John Lennon in Liverpool in 1956, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Originally consisting of Lennon and several school friends, the Quarrymen took their name from a line in the school song of their school, the Quarry Bank High School. Lennon's mother, Julia, taught her son to play the banjo, showed Lennon and Eric Griffiths how to tune their guitars in a similar way to the banjo, and taught them simple chords and songs.
Alice Mona Best was a British music club proprietor, best known as the owner of The Casbah Coffee Club, a club in Liverpool which served as a venue for rock and roll music during the late 1950s and 1960s. Among the bands to play at The Casbah was the Beatles, for whom her son Pete Best was a drummer at the time. Mona Best also had two other sons, John Rory, and Vincent "Roag" Best. It was later confirmed that Roag's father was The Beatles' associate, music executive Neil Aspinall, although he was not registered as the father on Roag's birth certificate.
Len Garry is an English musician, best known for being a member of The Quarrymen, a band that would later evolve into The Beatles.
Rory Storm was an English musician and vocalist. Born in Liverpool, Storm was the singer and leader of Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, a Liverpudlian band who were contemporaries of The Beatles in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Ringo Starr was the drummer for the Hurricanes before joining the Beatles in August 1962.
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"In Spite of All the Danger" is the first song recorded by the Quarrymen, then consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, pianist John Lowe, and drummer Colin Hanton.
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John Charles Duff Lowe was an English pianist. In the late 1950s, he played piano for the Quarrymen, the group who would evolve into the Beatles.
The Casbah Coffee Club, officially Casbah Club, was a rock and roll music venue in the West Derby area of Liverpool, England, that operated from 1959 to 1962. Started by Mona Best, mother of early Beatles drummer Pete Best, in the cellar of the family home, the Casbah was planned as a members-only club for her sons Pete and Rory and their friends, to meet and listen to the popular music of the day. Mona came up with the idea of the club after watching a TV report about The 2i's Coffee Bar in London's Soho where several singers had been discovered.
Songs We Remember is the third album by the re-incarnated version of the Quarrymen, which was the band that eventually evolved into the Beatles. It is also the final album to feature founder member Eric Griffiths before his death in 2005.
Get Back – Together is the second album by the reformed Liverpool band the Quarrymen, which was the band that, in its original conception, evolved into the Beatles. It is also the first of two albums by the band that feature all surviving founding members together, as while the name the Quarrymen name was used in the 1994 album Open for Engagements seen as the first album since the reformation, it only featured Rod Davis and part-time member John Duff Lowe. Eric Griffiths and Len Garry make their first appearances on a studio recording with drummer Colin Hanton also returning to the band for the first time since 1959, having previously appeared on the "In Spite of All The Danger" recording in 1958 as a b-side to a cover of Buddy Hollys "That'll Be the Day". It is also the only full length album featuring Pete Shotton who also returned to the band in 1997 but later retired due to ill health. Shotton subsequently died in 2017. Recorded and mixed at Liverpool Music House by record producer and recording engineer Lance Thomas.
Phillips' Sound Recording Services was a studio in the house of Percy Francis Phillips (1896–1984) and his family at 38 Kensington, Kensington, Liverpool, England. Between 1955 and 1969, Phillips recorded numerous tapes and acetate discs for Liverpool acts, people and businesses in a small room behind the shop his family owned.
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