This summer Scott Wheeler, a native of Boston , USA , will be participating in his 21^st  Liverpool Beatles convention since 1989 and in his 12^th Mathew Street Festival since its inauguration in 1993. During the last two weeks of August he will perform four shows in the Cavern Club and two in the Cavern Pub, along with a live appearance on BBC Radio Merseyside and another dozen shows at a variety of venues all over Merseyside. Scott specializes in the British Invasion sound of The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and The Searchers, along with hits by a variety of other top artists, including Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, and U2.

 

Scott will be supported onstage by Liverpool ’s top rockabilly band, Nashville , plus two very special guests: Scott’s longtime friends and performing partners Len Garry and John Duff Lowe of John Lennon’s reunited, pre-Beatles skiffle band, The Quarrymen. (In 1958 Duff Lowe played piano accompaniment to John, Paul and George on The Quarrymen’s first recordings, “That’ll Be The Day” and “In Spite Of All The Danger,” both of which can be heard on Volume 1 of The Beatles’ “Anthology” CD.)

 

This year Scott will also be promoting his first book, “Charlie Lennon: Uncle To A Beatle” (432 pages, 585 photographs), published by Outskirts Press in Colorado , USA . Scott and Charlie were friends and performing partners for 13 years prior to Charlie’s death in 2002. The book, which will be on sale at bookstores all over Merseyside and at Scott’s shows, provides a unique, fascinating look into John Lennon’s Liverpool roots and a vivid portrait of John’s remarkable Uncle Charlie, who is lovingly remembered by thousands of John’s fans from all over the world who met Charlie at Liverpool’s annual Beatle conventions over the years. World-renowned Beatles expert Mark Lewisohn has called Scott’s book “mind-blowing.” (For more information on the book, visit the dedicated website at outskirtspress.com/charlielennon)

 

The “crown jewels” of Scott’s book are a selection of rare Lennon family photos from Charlie’s personal collection that have never before been published, including the only known photograph of John’s Irish grandfather, John “Jack” Lennon (1885?-1921), who achieved fame in the USA as a Kentucky Minstrel singer and dancer before returning to Liverpool and raising a family.

 

“Charlie Lennon: Uncle To A Beatle” also includes a great deal of background history on Merseybeat, the history of the Cavern Club and the Jacaranda Club, the history of Beatles conventions in Liverpool, and profiles and exclusive photographs of numerous personalities well known to Beatles and Merseybeat fans. The book is rounded out by a foreword written by Bill Harry and by tributes by more than a dozen of Uncle Charlie’s friends, including former Beatles promoter Sam Leach and the late Alistair Taylor, The Beatles’ former personal assistant and former general manager of Apple Corps Ltd.

 

Cavern City Tours has acknowledged Scott as the first tourist and Beatle fan known to have made the “pilgrimage” from America to Liverpool during the days of Beatlemania. In August 1964, at the age of thirteen, Scott became the first Beatles fan from the USA to visit and make friends with George Harrison’s parents and his brother Peter at the family’s home in Hunts Cross, Liverpool . That same day he and his parents visited Mathew Street and took pictures and films outside the original Cavern Club. Their visit with the Harrisons received mention in one of the final issues of Bill Harry’s famous music newspaper “Mersey Beat.” Then, two summers later, during a reunion visit with George’s parents in the luxury bungalow George had bought them, Scott became the first fan to hear a track from The Beatles’ “Revolver” album, more than a month before its release: George’s sitar opus “Love You To.”

 

On August Bank Holiday Monday 1994, 30 eventful years after his first visit to town, Scott played a triumphant rock and roll show in the Cavern Walks atrium for a huge, enthusiastic crowd with his friend and hero Beatle Pete Best backing him on drums, along with guitarists from legendary Liverpool bands The Undertakers and The Mojos. Since then he and his bandmates have gone from strength to strength.

 

In the course of their past 16 Merseyside tours Scott and company have entertained hundreds of thousands of fans all over Merseyside and north Wales at a wide variety of rock and roll venues, including several where The Beatles played: Pete Best’s Casbah Club, the Cavern Club (both front and rear stages), the Jacaranda Club, the Mersey Ferry “Royal Daffodil III,” Orrell Park Ballroom, Vale Park in New Brighton, and dozens of other rock clubs, convention events, social clubs and charity benefits in Lancashire, Cheshire and north Wales. Scott has also done twelve interviews and live performances on BBC Radio Merseyside, two interviews on BBC-TV’s “Northwest Today” and “Northwest Tonight” programmes, and two live performances on Liverpool Channel One’s “Billy And Wally’s Night Out” cable-TV show with local personalities Billy Butler and Wally Scott.

 

Scott has also received press coverage in “The Beatles Book Monthly,” the Liverpool Echo, the Wirral Globe, “Northwest Live” entertainment magazine, and various other publications; and his original recordings have received airply on BBC Radio Merseyside and CityRadio 96.7.

 

Scott has performed with many stars of the original Merseybeat era of the 1950s and ‘60s, including former Beatle Pete Best and his brother Roag of The Pete Best Band, Len Garry and John Duff Lowe of John Lennon’s original Quarrymen, Kingsize Taylor, Geoff Nugent of The Undertakers, Nick Crouch of The Mojos and, of course, Charlie Lennon. Scott is also an award-winning journalist and a former producer and station personality for Boston radio powerhouse WBCN-FM. Among the many luminaries he has interviewed are former NASA shuttle commander Brian Duffy, musicians Dizzy Gillespie and Rosemary Clooney, six members of the original cast of “Star Trek,” and ten survivors of the 1912 “Titanic” disaster.

 

In 1996 Scott became the first musician from outside the UK to be inducted into Merseycats, the Liverpool-based fraternity of 1950s/’60s skiffle and rock and roll band alumni, whose membership includes Paul McCartney, Pete Best and Ringo Starr. Scott’s Merseycats appearances have helped raise thousands of pounds for children’s charities aroung Merseyside, including the famous Strawberry Field children’s home.

 

BAND LINEUP:

Scott Wheeler – bass & lead vocals.

Paul Galvin – guitar.

Chris Evans (of The Undertakers) – guitar.

John Duff Lowe (of The Quarrymen) – keyboard & vocals.

Len Garry (of The Quarrymen) – guest vocals.

Les Evans – guitar & vocals for Nashville ’s sets.

Desi Roddy – bass for Nashville ’s sets.

Joe Barrow – blues harp.

Bobby Stafford – drums.