Meet the man who helped put the Beatles on the map
In the days before the internet and social media, posters were the main way of promoting a gig. And one of those who helped sell Merseybeat – and some up and coming band called the Beatles – to the Liverpool public was Tony Booth. Now more than 50 years after he created a slew of posters for Brian Epstein and his stable of rising stars, artist Tony is set to hold his first ever exhibition of his work, coinciding with International Beatleweek.
The 83-year-old’s show will open at the View Two Gallery on Wednesday, just down the road from the Cavern Club in Mathew Street. Only a handful of the original posters produced in the hundreds by Tony in the 1960s have survived, with the majority thrown away once the gigs had taken place.
Although one Cavern Club poster, which he produced for a fee of five shillings (25p), sold to an American collector in a London Auction House for £27,500. Instead Tony, who trained as a poster artist after leaving school at 15 and started off creating promotional sales material for the Epstein furniture business and record shop, has faithfully reproduced 40 of his favourite posters for the exhibition. He says: “I never imagined in a million years they would one day be so valuable. I wished I’d kept some myself, but they were simply thrown in the waste paper basket.
By: Catherine Jones
Source: Liverpool Echo
