From a Storm to a Hurricane: Rory Storm & the Hurricanes

2016 | Biography

Rory Storm and the Hurricanes were the top band in Liverpool between 1960 and 1962, bigger even than The Beatles. They were also friends with the Beatles and played with them many times in Liverpool and Hamburg. They set all the trends for the burgeoning 'Mersey Sound' and people who saw them play say they far outshone the Beatles on stage, led by their charismatic front man, Rory Storm, who would scale ballroom curtains and walls, and once dived from a swimming pool high board half way through a song. They were very talented with a huge following. They also played their part in the Beatles story. Their drummer was one Richard Starkey, later nicknamed Ringo Starr by Rory Storm. Ringo left to join The Beatles in 1962. The Hurricanes' guitarist, Ty Brien, collapsed and on stage and later died, aged 26. Rory died after a chest infection aged 34, his mother found him and took her own life. Rory was born Alan Caldwell. He had a terrible stammer but used his talents to overcome it. He was a gifted sportsman, and once he found music, a gifted front man. Fame somehow passed them by. Rory's stammer seems to have put companies off as he would have struggled through TV interviews.

There are many who believe that Brian Epstein deliberately sabotaged their careers after he had signed the Beatles, scared of The Hurricanes making it in case they outshone The Beatles, as they had done in Liverpool. Author Anthony Hogan has painstakingly researched the lives and careers of Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, from the very earliest days of them growing up as kids in Liverpool, in this fascinating and moving account of one of rock 'n' roll's great untold stories.

Anthony Hogan (Author)