Great article. And, for anyone who doesn't know, Andy Babuik's great book BEATLES GEAR covers where and how just about every instrument the Beatles purchased came from. A wonderful deep-dive.

Hi I was manager of the guitar department at Hessys and have written two books about the Iconic store. I recently, after many years of campaigning had a blue plaque erected for Hessys outside where the shop once traded. I have also researched and had great info from the Hesselberg family archivist for the 2nd book which includes tributes and interviews from famous local musicians (including Billy Kinsley) and local musicians alike. The Hesselbergs opened their first family musical shop during the early part of the 20th Century and it was situated in Manchester Street by the Mersey Tunnel. I found in the sub-basement in the 1970s ledgers that had entries of purchases that the individual Beatles had bought on Frank's easy terms! Bill Harry who originally along Frank Hessy had a magazine booklet advertising Hessys and information on local groups and music called 'Frank Comments' the forerunner of the 'Merseybeat' paper that Bill Harry created. Regards Tony Bolland http://www.thecapitalofcome...
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Hi Tony, That’s great to hear you managed to get the plaque to register the great history of the store. I guess you could find about 200 entries in your ledgers with my name on (Ken Dobson) as I spent all my my cash from when I started work on £16/week in 1977, on every aspect of gear and was a loyal customer earning an audience with Bernie Michaelson when I was negotiating the purchase of a shiny new Les Paul Custom when he told me about the Beatles purchase history. Unfortunately it was stolen off the pavement after a gig in Frodsham in the Golden Lion pub (maybe local resident Gary Barlow was watching our performance through the window about age 10 😂), but I replaced it on insurance with an Ibanez AS200 semi acoustic I still have today. I still have most of the gear and should perhaps open a museum here in Cyprus. I bought most of my gear from salesman Colin who’s surname escapes me at the minute but he played in ‘Liverpool Express’ and was very helpful with my indecisiveness when choosing gear (no internet for research back then).
Shame the store has closed 😟

Fabulous, long-overdue piece! As a guitarist who started in 1977 in Liverpool, the memories are flooding back.
Lest we forget Curly Music, next door to Hessy's and Spider Sound round the corner.....and even PRS components on Whitechapel, without which we'd never have made our own ropey fuzz-boxes.
Noko (Apollo 440, Luxuria, Magazine, Alvin The Aardvark and The Fuzzy Ants)

Hi Noko! I'm curious... about how long did you play with the Cure and how interesting was that experience?

Hi Mike. I did a full-length concert at Alabamahalle in Munich, at the end of 1983 which was filmed for TV and a live UK TV appearance on BBC's Oxford Road Show in early 1984, where we did 3 songs. The connection came about through my mate Howard Gray, who was one of the 2 engineers on 'The Top' album that they were working on at the time. They didn't have a full-time bass-player at that time and Robert Smith played pretty much all the instruments on that LP - Phil Thornally had been doing the live gigs, but was working with the Thompson Twins elsewhere, or something and wasn't available, so they needed someone for these odd gigs. Because of Robert's recording schedule to get it finished, I had no actual rehearsal with the whole band apart from couple of stolen hours at Genetic Studios, so it was something of a baptism-by-fire to go straight from learning the set on my walkman to playing to 2000 people on TV. Somehow the arrogance of youth gives you the focus to get through these things with the requisite swagger. A truly formative experience. It was definitely my first big gig and the roar of the crowd as I came in with the iconic bassline to "A Forest" will stay with me forever. I saw Robert again for the first time in decades backstage at the Albert Hall when they played there in 2014.

Wow! Thank you for your reply! Do you think you'll be mentioned in the forthcoming Cure documentary? (If it ever happens, of course!)

You young whipper schnappers don't know how good you have it. Back when I was a young hansom man we had to buy our gear from Reverb's predecessor "Delay". It was aptly named too as you ordered from a paper catalog, sent in your check, and then shipping took months!

I got my first two Gibsons from Hessy's in 1971 (thanks to my student grant!) - a Les Paul Deluxe Goldtop and a Southern Jumbo acoustic. I remember Jim Gretty well, as he would insist on playing Freight Train on every guitar he sold! The Les Paul was fine, and I only sold it because I later acquired a used 1967 Goldtop which I still have. The SJD was almost a disaster: it wouldn't play in tune and the cheap version Grovers fell apart. I replaced the machine heads and took it back twice to Hessy's. Jim insisted that the tuning was a truss rod problem. I was only 19 and didn't know any better then. Now I would immediately figure out the problem: there was almost 2mm too much fingerboard between the nut and the first fret. I took it to Stephen Delft in London. He shortened the first fret and reset the nut in about 5 minutes. Then it was a pretty good guitar! I find it ironic that early '70's Gibsons now fetch high prices when actually the quality control then was pretty poor! PS I paid the grant back many times over in taxes since then.

There were no 1967 Goldtops...........

I was already a player when I arrived in Liverpool in September 1965, to go to the University. I was used to the London shops around Denmark Street, particularly Selmers and Lew Davis, both in Tottenham Court Road. The staff in those stores were welcoming, even to folks like me who (mostly) weren't there to buy so much as to admire, and get a bit of hands on experience of the instruments. I did buy a 30-watt Selmer Selectortone Twin from Selmers in 1963, and used it well into the time I was with Liverpool Scene, and later, in 1969 once I was a pro player, I bought a beautiful Gibson Dove acoustic there as well. The point of the story is to contrast my experience with Jim Gretty, and Hessy's. I, too, suffered Jim's not very proficient version of Freight Train - this was the only chance you had of hearing the guitars on display in the mid-60s, because the rule in Hessy's shop was that you couldn't touch the guitars until you'd paid for one, and then only the one you'd bought! Still, Rushworth's, Hessy's and Crane's were temples filled with objects of desire, and I can still feel the thrill.

Better make that Charing Cross Road, not Tottenham Court Road . Age is a terrible thing...……….!

This cannot be said often enough: when John and George bought their Gibson J160E guitars from Rushoworth & Dreaper in the late summer of 1962, they were not photographed with James Rushworth. They were, naturally enough, photographed with guitar department manager Bob Hobbs (who wore spectacles and wasn't all that tall, which identifies him in the relevant photographs. The picture with James Rushworth was a later air-brushed and doctored figment of imagination by some commercial artist, probably in-house and certainly after Bob left the store in about 1969 or 1970. The picture has had Bob erased and Rushworth superimposed, though not brilliantly well.

This is the real picture (Bob): https://i.pinimg.com/origin...

This is the faked picture (Rushworth):
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ne...

You can see immediately that the fake is a reworked version of the original.

Other photos were taken at that session, but Bob was the one connecting with The Beatles and with the Gibson guitars.

For the umpteenth time, the man handing over the Gibson guitars to John and George in that photo is NOT James Rushworth. It is the guitar department manager at Rushworths, Bob Hobbs. Bob was himself a great guitarist in the Django style. In the 1970s, after Bob had left Rushworth's for a better-paid job elsewhere, the shop commissioned a commercial artist to doctor that photo so as to make it look as though James Rushworth had done the deal. He hadn't. Why would he? He employed guitar department staff for that. The photo here, though, is the undoctored original featuring Bob.

There's always a Gibson geek. This one is called Carl. The LP Model guitar in question is either a 68 67 reissue of a 1955 or 57 whichever it was that was reissued - frankly I don't care which because I'm not obsessed with trivia. I got it as a swap for a pre-CBS strat from a guy when we were both trying to trade our respective guitars in at SAI Standish. We did a straight swap outside instead. It was a gold top, whether you want to call it a goldtop or a gold top. But most of the finish was missing, the headstock was split becuase the previous owner had tried to bash in Schallers without routing and the body was hacked as the P90's had been replaced with early humbuckers. This all happened in 1974 or 1975 and I had the guitar refinished in tobacco brown and repaired by Stephen Delft, unfortunately the serial number got buried but the pots are dated 1968 and the angle of the headstock tallies. I'm sure the serial number would emerge if ultra violet or similar forensic methods were applied but who cares? Not me. I just want a great guitar (which it is) I never plan to sell it so the value is irrelevant and I prefer it in tobacco brown than gold so bollocks to all the twats who say "never refinish...". If you don't beilieve all this then I'll post all the pics to prove it - the guitar now and me playing it in 1975; but please grow out of your obsessiveness.

Fantastic article with a very, very commendable subtext seeking to undermine the current fabric of 'music' towns that have happily acquiesced to trashy cheap cynical short term solutions in town centres (see also Birmingham and Manchester), turned their backs on the past while happy to cash in, for tourist dollar.

Indeed. Times change, motivation changes, yes, the past is the past. See Paul Rutledge on facebook for the real story,(he's related to Paul) and all the vinegar and truth you can stand. Liverpool is famous for music. Now also famous for "culture" and "taking the piss"...yet somehow The Music we love lives forever. oh Yeah, SFF. In 4 short years these 4 lads went from ritual dance music to 'High Art'. What they accomplished is remarkable.

Hessy's was always expensive compared to buying mail order from the ad pages of Sounds. My first electric (about 1973) was a falling apart Hofner, pots missing, covered in red vinyl from a guy who was supposedly John Lennon's best school pal. Only £4.50 including the amp though.

I got my first guitar, a Sunn Mustang Stratocaster copy, at Rushworth's in the 90s. A few days later I picked up a Park practice amp at Hessy's. So many good shops in Liverpool gone now, all to make way for redevelopment.

Bought my first real guitar from Tony's in East Baltimore, MD in 1973. (chocolate 335). That area was loaded with pawn shops and music stores. Guitar is mostly absent from modern pop
and the music stores go away too. God I'd wish I kept that guitar....

Unfortunately it's the same story throughout the UK, even in London. There used to be so many music shops in Denmark St., Charing Cross Rd and Shaftesbury Ave you could spend a whole day there drooling.

I quite often did exactly that (drooling, but not going in) when I was abt 13.