Over the generations, the North-West and Manchester area in particular has nurtured thousands of musical acts, ranging in styles as diverse as music hall and Madchester.

But it was the sixties that was the first to bring the music to the people. There were groups in almost every street, kids playing their music without thought of fame - just fun.

Although many were adopted on a national scale, others were content to stir only local interest before their eventual demise. Despite their lack of national commercial success, they were part of the tremendous North-West area music scene that continues to play such a major part in many lives.  That is the basis of the site.

Proudly based in the sixties, these pages salute the groups, agents, disc jockeys, shops and venues in the Manchester and North-West area that gave us all such a great time! Memories that have lasted a lifetime! 

"No one can erase the days we left behind" - Paul McCartney 2026

Enjoy the site ... Add to it ... Revisit!

Regular visitors will know that we continue to spend many hours per week on developing the site for you. It's not just a "now and then" thing, so please add to the site whenever you can!  

Please note:  We do not include any AI created content.  Why?  We see the site as original images and content.  We do not want it corrupted with AI. Enjoy!

Biography of John Mayall now out in Paperback

The paperback edition of John Mayall’s biography “Blues From Laurel Canyon - My Life As A Bluesman” by John Mayall with Joel McIver is now available.

Originally published in 2019 in hard back, the paperback is essentially a reprint of the hard back with a short and affectionate end note by Samson Mayall (one of John’s sons), John Mayall died in 2024 aged 90.

Info courtesy Tony Burke

What's new?

The team of highly experienced, extremely well-paid and incredibly hard-working researchers at Manchesterbeat headquarters (not housed in Trump Towers despite recent speculation) are building a small library of the Entertainments pages in the Evening News during our main period of interest.

Takes time - especially as we are trawling the repository for additional ads to add to our many pages.  Finding groups we had forgotten about playing at clubs we didn't even know existed or we knew under different names.

Interesting sections of the site you may have missed

My Story

We all have a story to tell  - no matter what part we played in this great period in Manchester music.   Add your personal story or contribute to the many tributes for Manchester musos who have now passed.

Visit ...

Clubland Beat

A small section on the site that gets lots of interest.  Not all of us worked the beat/pop scene, many of us made a good living working the hundreds of local Working Men' Clubs.  Can you add anything in this section?

Visit ...

Stuff!

You may not have noticed a new menu option - Stuff.
Click on it and there's lots of extra information and reading for you on a huge variety of ... err, stuff! 
Enjoy!

Popular pages

Pages added/modified

Manchesterbeat music - the tracks of our years

Use the "hamburger" menu (bottom left) to choose tracks ... more to come :-)