John Lowe

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

John Lowe · John Charles Lowe, known to his friends as Duff, was an English pianist. He was born in 1942 and lived until 2024. He had known Paul McCartney since 1953. In February 1958 McCartney asked him to play piano with The Quarrymen, the Liverpool group that later grew into The Beatles. Lowe stayed with the band for two years.

Music and breakthrough

His name is linked above all with one recording. In the studio that Percy Phillips had at home in Liverpool, the group recorded a disc for their own use, with two songs: That'll Be the Day and In Spite of All the Danger. Lowe kept the recording himself. In 1981 he sold it to Paul McCartney. McCartney had it remastered, and the two songs appear on The Beatles' album Anthology 1. It is thus one of the earliest surviving traces of the group.

Influence

In 1994 Lowe played with the Quarrymen once more, on the album Open for Engagements. Of that line-up, only he and guitarist Rod Davis had actually played in the group in the 1950s. Together with Davis, Len Garry and Colin Hanton he performed at Beatles events all over the world until 2017, under the name John Lennon's Original Quarrymen. His significance lies not in a career of his own, but in the preservation of a piece of Beatles history.

Listening