William Harry was born on 17 September 1938 and is the creator of Mersey Beat, a newspaper of the early 1960s which focused on the Liverpool music scene.
39 Facts About Bill Harry
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Bill Harry had previously started various magazines and newspapers, such as Biped and Premier, while at Liverpool's Junior School of Art.
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Bill Harry later attended the Liverpool College of Art, where his fellow students included John Lennon and Stuart Sutcliffe, who both later performed with the Beatles.
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Bill Harry published a magazine, Jazz, in 1958, and worked as an assistant editor on the University of Liverpool's charity magazine, Pantosphinx.
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Bill Harry edited the paper in a small attic office above a wine merchant's shop at 81a Renshaw Street, Liverpool.
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Bill Harry arranged for the future Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, to see them perform a lunchtime concert at the Cavern Club on 9 November 1961.
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Epstein subsequently asked Bill Harry to create a national music paper, the Music Echo.
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Bill Harry was born in Smithdown Road Hospital, in Liverpool, Lancashire, on 17 September 1938.
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Bill Harry came from a poor Liverpudlian background and was brought up in a rough neighbourhood near Liverpool's dockyards.
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Bill Harry's father, was killed during the war on the SS Kyleglen British Steam Merchant ship, which was torpedoed in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean by a German U-boat.
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None of the crew survived, and Bill Harry's father died on 14 December 1940, aged 25.
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Bill Harry attended the Catholic St Vincent's Institute, but had to get used to the priests dispensing corporal punishment on a regular basis.
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Bill Harry's mother had no option but to transfer him elsewhere.
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Bill Harry became interested in science fiction and read comics by candlelight, eventually joining the Liverpool Science Fiction Society.
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At the age of 16, Bill Harry obtained a place at Liverpool's College of Art at 68 Hope Street.
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Bill Harry worked as assistant editor on University of Liverpool's charity magazine, Pantosphinx, and on a music newsletter for Frank Hessy's musical instruments store called Frank Comments.
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Bill Harry received a National Diploma in design while at the Liverpool Art College and became the first student in the new Graphic Design course, eventually winning a Senior City Art Scholarship.
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Bill Harry maintained that students at art college should be bohemian in their thoughts and actions and not like the "dilettantes and dabblers", whom Bill Harry disapproved of for wearing duffle coats and turtle neck sweaters.
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Bill Harry organised a students' film society, where he showed Orphee, by Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dali, and Luis Bunuel's, L'Age d'Or.
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Bill Harry met his then 16-year-old future wife-to-be, Virginia Sowry, at the club.
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Bill Harry carried notebooks with him, collecting information about the local groups, once writing to the Daily Mail: "Liverpool is like New Orleans at the turn of the century, but with rock 'n' roll instead of jazz".
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Bill Harry wrote to the Liverpool Echo about the emerging Liverpool music scene, but neither paper was interested in stories about music that was popular with teenagers.
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Leach promised to fund the newspaper, but failed to turn up for three meetings with Bill Harry, leaving him no other option but to find another investor.
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Bill Harry thought starting a fortnightly newspaper covering Liverpool's rock 'n' roll music scene would be more successful, and would differ from national music newspapers such as the New Musical Express and the Melody Maker, which only wrote articles about current chart hits and artists.
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Bill Harry decided to publish the newspaper every two weeks, covering the music scene in Liverpool, Wirral, Birkenhead, New Brighton, Crosby and Southport, as well as Warrington, Widnes and Runcorn.
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Bill Harry borrowed blocks from the Widnes Weekly News, Pantosphinx and local cinemas, but contributed to charities by printing free charity advertisements at the side of the front cover page.
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The paper's circulation increased rapidly as Bill Harry started featuring stories about groups in Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield and Newcastle, with circulation growing to 75,000.
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Two years later Bill Harry arranged for her to sing for Epstein at the Blue Angel club, leading to a management contract.
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Bill Harry often heard Lennon, McCartney and Harrison rehearsing or playing in the Art College canteen in the basement, but after Sutcliffe joined the Quarrymen, Bill Harry complained that Sutcliffe should be concentrating on art and not music, as he thought he was a competent, but not brilliant bassist.
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Bill Harry asked Lennon to write a short biography of the Beatles for the first issue of Mersey Beat, which Bill Harry titled, "Being a Short Diversion on the Dubious Origins of Beatles, Translated From the [sic] John Lennon":.
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Bill Harry convinced Epstein to sell 12 copies of the first Mersey Beat newspaper at his North End Music Stores, which sold out in one day, resulting in Epstein having to order more copies.
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Epstein asked Bill Harry to arrange for him and Taylor to watch the Beatles perform without queuing at the door.
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Bill Harry phoned the owner, Ray McFall, who said he would inform the doorman on the day, Delaney, to let Epstein in.
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On 13 September 1964, Epstein approached Bill Harry to create a national music paper, so Bill Harry coined the name Music Echo, and gradually merged Mersey Beat into it.
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Bill Harry then became the feature writer, news editor and columnist for Record Mirror, and wrote features for Music Now for Record Retailer.
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Bill Harry compiled a 34-track compilation, Mersey Beat, for Parlophone records, which was released on 31 October 1983.
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Bill Harry was a programme assistant for the BBC's Everyman documentary about Lennon, A Day in the Life, and for The Story of Mersey Beat.
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Bill Harry was an associate producer of the film The City That Rocked the World.
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Bill Harry and Virginia have a son, Sean Bill Harry, who is an adult movie actor, director, and producer.