GUITARIST KNEW GREATS IN LIVERPOOL
By Doug Robinson
Deseret Morning News (7/18/2006)
As a young teen in Liverpool, England, Terry Sylvester often walked to the bus stop, guitar in hand, to play his music downtown. If he was lucky, sometimes one of the older neighbor boys named Paul would stop and give him a ride.
Little did Sylvester know where Paul was really taking him, not to mention the rest of us. It would not be overstatement to say that Paul McCartney — the kid who lived on the next road over from Sylvester's house — changed the world and charted the course for Sylvester's life. Some 45 years later, Sylvester — formerly of the Hollies and one of the Beatles' peers — is still playing music.
"People always ask what Paul is like," says Sylvester. "Well, he's a nice guy, and I'm grateful to him and his pals for paving the way."
On Saturday night, Sylvester will give a free concert in Draper Park, along with
John Ford Coley, Maxine Nightingale and
Otis Hayes. That will cap off three consecutive nights of music from the Beatles era. On Thursday, the stars from the Broadway musical "Beatlemania" will put on a Beatles concert as a fund-raiser for LaVar Christensen's congressional race. (Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is expected to perform, as well.) That will be followed by another Beatles act Friday night in Draper Park.
If anyone knows that era, it's Sylvester. He was right in the middle of it when it all began four decades ago. You have to understand that being a musician in England in the early '60s, and especially in Liverpool, was like being an impressionist painter in Paris during the 1860s. The musical foment in Liverpool spawned some 300 musical venues and more than 500 bands from 1958 to 1964. Liverpool produced Jerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, the Beatles and, up the road in Manchester, the Hollies.
"No one could have foreseen what happened — the music of that area taking over the world," says Sylvester. "How the whole thing evolved is unbelievable."
Many of the future stars' lives were intertwined. Sylvester took up music at 14 and quickly formed his own group, the Escorts, whose drummer was the cousin of Ringo Starr. Sylvester dropped out of school a year later and took a job as an apprentice in a garage pounding out dents in cars. His boss was Peter Harrison, brother of George Harrison.
One of Sylvester's friends was Michael McCartney, younger brother of Paul. Their fathers once played together in a band.
Years later, when Graham Nash left the Hollies to form "Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young," the Hollies turned to Sylvester as his replacement and the group continued to produce hits. When the Hollies needed a piano player for their smash hit "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother," they turned to a young teenager named Elton John.
Sylvester shared the stage regularly with the Beatles until they outgrew Liverpool. (McCartney played tambourine for one of the Escorts' records.) "They were just another Liverpool band," he recalls of the Beatles.
The Beatles were atop the British Chart when they returned to play one last show at Liverpool's famed Cavern Club to honor a contractual obligation. The Beatles handpicked Sylvester's "Escorts" as the lead act that night. A year later, the Beatles appeared on Ed Sullivan and the group took off.
"I was a bit jealous," says Sylvester, "but they were a few years older than I was. They were always a bit different. They didn't sing the same songs. They were doing their own songs. Paul would say, 'Here's one I wrote in the bathroom this morning.' He wrote 'When I'm 64' about his dad long before it was a hit. They dressed different, too. We were all wearing Cliff Richards outfits (suits and ties), and they were wearing black leather. It's funny, when they made it big, Epstein cleaned them and they wore suits."
Now a youthful 59, Sylvester has four platinum records to his credit. After Sylvester joined the Hollies in 1969, the group recorded hits such as "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother," "Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress," and "Air that I Breathe," among others.
He cut his first solo album in 1974. A few years later he quit the Hollies and continued to work steadily. Looking back, he counts the Beatles as friends and pioneers.
"They're the ones who paved the way for everybody else," he says. "I'm very proud of the Beatles."
