How It All Came Together
Randolph Peter Scanland was born on November 24, 1941, in Madras, British India. His father died in World War II, and his mother met her future husband, Johnny Best, while she was training to become a doctor in the Red Cross. They married in 1944 and moved to Liverpool, England. By 1959, the Best family home had become the Casbah Coffee Club.
Source: Flickr
Mona Best made a humble coffee club that became the “catalyst for the Mersey sound,” as Pete Best puts it. The Mersey sound was the collective name for Liverpool rock bands during the ‘60s. According to Best, every band that played there “still speaks rapturously about the place.” It was at the Casbah Coffee Club that the Quarrymen, an early form of the Beatles, first performed on August 29, 1959.