WORDS BY MIKE STEPHENS ILLUSTRATION BY GRAHAM FOWELL
THE QUARRYMEN
Percy Phillips was no rock’n’roll visionary. He was, after all, born in 1896. But the Warrington-born, Liverpool-based tradesman is yet another figure who, even unwittingly, played his own key role in the birth of British rock’n’roll, as Phillips was the man who recorded what remains the most valuable recording ever to emerge from the UK. It wasn’t by him, of course, it was cut by pre-Beatles band The Quarrymen. Now, this landmark recording and others made at Phillips’ modest home studio at 38 Kensington, L1, have been compiled in CD and LP formats as The Percy Phillips Studio Collection.