Children from the Beacon Primary School in Liverpool lent their support to the Mersey Sound Wave project when they recorded backing vocals to the official MSW song which Bill Hart has just recently finished recording.

The theme song encapsulates the spirit of the project which is rapidly gathering pace.

But it couldn’t have been done without the magnificent help of the children from Beacon Primary or The Beacles as they are now known after their famous appearance at the Cavern Club last month!

Listen to the theme song!

Stayed tuned to the website for more exciting developments coming very soon….

Bassman of Formby, ex Dominos and member of the Chris Rimmer Band is building a totally unique and ultraspecial bass guitar exclusively to exhibit in Bill Harts MSW exhibtion.

He carefully named the guitar ‘The Spirit Of The Wave. The guitars body, neck and in particular the head stock’s (see exclusive pic) design have been inspired by Bill’s concept of the formation of using 100 guitars as a Tribute To Merseysound: 50 Years On.

As work on the head stock was being carried out a spooky face began to appear as the holes for the tuning keys were being drilled. “Maybe this is a true apparition of the ‘Spirit’ Of The Wave?” thought Ken.

He wasted no time and contacted Bill and he agreed to release this early exclusive pic.

The main Spirit Of The Wave guitar is still under construction but strict security surrounds the final finished design. Bill says he as seen some of the early ‘takes’ of it and it simply blew his mind. “Just wait until you see THIS guitar. It is just so incredibly apt and astonishingly beautiful and now it boasts its very own exclusive ‘Spirit’ .

The Spirit Of The Wave is MSW Guitar No 100. For a full list of guitars so far pledged, click here. To find out about how to pledge your own guitar, click here.

The Mersey Sound Wave crashed into the Cavern Club on Tuesday, September 22 as another massive step was taken towards achieving the dream of exhibiting 100 guitars that have all been played at the world famous Cavern Club.

Thanks to the hard work and dedication of teachers and children from Beacon CE Primary School in Liverpool, a fantastic show took place at the birthplace of The Beatles.

Children from Beacon became The Beacles for the afternoon as students from Years 4, 5, and 6 played guitars, sung, and danced to the classic Beatles tracks Yellow Submarine, With A Little Help From My Friends, Twist and Shout, and A Hard Days Night.

They thrilled their parents and watching tourists at the famous venue and their hard work was rewarded with souvenir guitars and badges.

Head teacher Sally Aspinwall pledged the school’s full support to Bill Hart’s idea and promised to help in anyway they can over the next 18 months to two years.

The school donated the guitars used during their performance for submission into Bill Hart’s exhibition which he hopes to display in 2011 at a location in Liverpool. Click here to find out more.

Look out for video interviews from the day coming soon on merseysoundwave.com!

The Mersey Sound Wave is headed for the home of The Beatles next Tuesday, 22 September 2009.

Bill Hart’s dream of exhibiting 100 guitars that have all been played at the world famous Cavern Club is taking shape with the help of children from Liverpool primary school.

The birthplace of The Beatles will play host to children from the Beacon Church of England Primary School as the youngsters take their own place in rock and roll history.

Students from Years 4, 5, and 6 (8-11 years old) will be playing guitars, singing and dancing to the classic Beatles tracks Yellow Submarine, With A Little Help From My Friends, Twist and Shout, and A Hard Days Night.

Their guitars will then be eligible for submission to Hart’s grand project to exhibit 100 guitars in the shape of a Mersey Sound Wave in Liverpool in 2011.

Sally Aspinwall, headteacher at Beacon Primary says: “The children are really excited to actually get to sing Beatles songs at the home of the Beatles!

“The Mersey Sound Wave project is a great way for children to begin to understand the impact that the Beatles had on Liverpool as a city and also how internationally the band helped raise the positive profile of the city.

“These children have only just started playing the guitar and this has really inspired them to practice and also get involved in live music.”

As well as the children, members of the public are invited to take part in the open day. They can come along, strum a few chords at the famous venue and then submit their guitar for inclusion in Bill Hart’s project.

Bill Hart’s Mersey Sound Wave dream is gathering momentum with more support and guitars pledged over the last few weeks.

Thursday, August 27 was a particularly productive day as Bill Harry, founder of the Mersey Beat newspaper and a man at the centre of Beatlemania in the 1960s, pledged his support.

Harry was launching his new book ‘Bigger Than The Beatles’ at The Beatles Story on Liverpool’s Albert Dock and was only too happy to lend his support to the MSW.

Bill Harry and his wife Virginia with Bill Hart

Hart also caught up with Billy Kinsley (below on far left) of The Merseybeats who promised to donate a Fender ‘Scrapacaster’ Guitar to the MSW project.

And finally, later that evening Lucrecia Lopez of Nube 9, a Beatles Tribute Band from Argentina agreed to donate her Eko acoustic guitar to the MSW after playing a gig at the historic Cavern Club on Liverpool’s world famous Matthew Street.

For a full list of guitars pledged so far click here.

]]> http://jazzartists.tv/2009/09/05/the-bill-hart-project-this-is-why/ Sat, 05 Sep 2009 15:43:23 +0000 Jazzy Joan http://jazzartists.tv/2009/09/05/the-bill-hart-project-this-is-why/ http://tatersandgophers.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/hart-gets-appendix-removed/ Mon, 03 Aug 2009 01:45:27 +0000 Ryan Gaydos http://tatersandgophers.wordpress.com/2009/08/02/hart-gets-appendix-removed/ http://downtownvoices.org/2008/09/07/phoenixs-transformation-into-big-city-has-benefits-burdens/ Sun, 07 Sep 2008 14:15:30 +0000 dvcwebsite2008 http://downtownvoices.org/2008/09/07/phoenixs-transformation-into-big-city-has-benefits-burdens/

[Source: Yuri Artibise, Grady Gammage Jr., and Nancy Welch, Morrison Institute] — Columnist Gregory Rodriguez wrote recently in the Los Angeles Times: “No city is more burdened by its myth than LA.  That’s because ours, crafted by regional boosters even before the birth of LA as a modern American city, is the ultimate myth: Los Angeles as paradise.  It makes the gulf between the ideal and the real deeper here than anywhere else.”

Other than its eponymous pyrotechnic bird, Phoenix has not been a city of deep myth.  Only a few movies have been set here.  The closest thing to a signature song is about a guy driving away from LA, musing on what his lost love will be doing “by the time I get to Phoenix.”  Yet, Phoenix and Los Angeles have an apparent shared heritage: huge water projects, real-estate developers, parking lots, palm trees, and faux Spanish architecture.

Our city seems so obviously the younger sister of a Hollywood starlet that comparison and emulation are inevitable.  The Phoenix/LA conceit is deep-seated, chronic, and nearly always offered as something to avoid.  Consider just part of a collection from a 1996 Phoenix Gazette column by Bill Hart:

• “Do you want this to be another Detroit or New York or, worse yet, another Los Angeles?” – Former Gov. Howard Pyle, 1987
• “We don’t want to be another Los Angeles.  Nobody wants that.” – Jim Marsh, former director, Arizona Department of Commerce, 1991
• In a recent poll, 90% of Arizonans said it would be bad if Phoenix became more like Los Angeles. – The Arizona Republic, 1991
• “Phoenix still can avoid becoming another Los Angeles by building a balanced transportation system.” – David Baron, director, Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, 1993
• There are things that can be done to stop the Valley’s slide toward becoming another Los Angeles. – The Republic, 1994

Phoenix, a city often accused of having no identity, certainly has long known what it doesn’t want to be.  What is it we are so afraid of?  All big cities have mixed images, but the uber-negative view of Los Angeles is grounded in three attributes: smog, congestion, and sprawl.  These problems and the comparisons between Phoenix and LA are worth a closer examination.  [Note: to read the full op-ed piece, click here.]