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Obituaries
Quarrymen co-founder dies
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 29 June 2010
Ken Brown, a guitarist on the Liverpool music scene in the early sixties, has died aged 70. Brown didn’t enjoy a huge amount of success as a musician, but retains a place in rock n roll history for being an original member of The Quarrymen, the band that became The Beatles.
Brown was originally in a band with George Harrison, but when that outfit fell apart with a gig already booked to be played at Liverpool club the Casbah Coffee Club, they asked John Lennon and Paul McCartney to make up a new four piece which went by the name The Quarrymen.
It was a short lived musical collaboration because Brown broke his leg and couldn’t play. Legend has it that when Brown’s bandmates discovered the owner of the Casbah, one Mona Best, had paid him for a gig he hadn’t played (as a result of his leg) arguments ensued and the guitarist was kicked out of the band.
Brown formed another short lived band with Mona’s son Pete , but when The Beatles were offered a residency in Hamburg they invited Best Junior to join them, leaving Brown without a band. He subsequently moved to London and made a life outside of music, though in his later years posted a few songs to his website, and started to write a book about his time with the band that became The Beatles.
He had been suffered from emphysema, and it is thought that caused his death.
