The Big Three

In the early days of the Beatles' recording career, the Big Three ranked among their foremost rivals from Liverpool. The band's fresh power trio approach centered on drummer Johnny "Hutch" Hutchinson, who stepped in as an emergency replacement behind the Beatles' kit for several gigs. Also handled by manager Brian Epstein, the Big Three built a local name as a hard-edged, R&B-inflected unit, yet most of their singles forced them to tackle pop songs better aligned with Gerry & the Pacemakers. Across 1963 and 1964 the group issued only four singles plus a Live at the Cavern EP, the sole official release taped at that storied rock venue. A pair of those singles scraped briefly into the British Top 40 before the original lineup split in late 1963; bassist Johnny Gustafson later spent time with the Merseybeats and appeared on three Roxy Music albums in the '70s. Though live witnesses recall the Big Three as a formidable stage act, the band never translated that drive to vinyl, leaving them a minor footnote in the British Invasion.