Phillips' Sound Recording Services

Phillips' Sound Recording Services was a studio in the house of Percy Francis Phillips (1896–1984) and his family at 38 Kensington, Kensington, Liverpool, England. Between 1955 and 1969, Phillips recorded numerous tapes and acetate discs for Liverpool acts, people and businesses in a small room behind the shop his family owned.

Phillips first sold bicycles and motorbikes, but later started selling and recharging batteries in a shop in the front room of his house in 1925. After a decline in demand for batteries in the early 1950s, he started selling electrical goods and popular records. In 1955, Phillips set up a recording studio called Phillips' Sound Recording Services.

In 1958, The Quarrymen (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, John 'Duff' Lowe and Colin Hanton) recorded "That'll Be The Day" and "In Spite of All the Danger" in the studio. Other clients included Billy Fury, Ken Dodd, and Marty Wilde. Phillips died in 1984. The Quarrymen recording and the site of the studio were commemorated in 2005, when a Blue Plaque was unveiled by two of The Quarrymen (Lowe and Hanton) on the front of the house.

Early years

Percy Phillips was born in March 1896, in Warrington, Lancashire. He was a veteran of the First World War, and left the British Army (Royal North Lancashire Regiment) at the rank of Corporal in 1918, since he was wounded before the war ended.

After the war, he started selling bicycles and motorbikes in a small shop in Brunswick Street, in the Kensington Fields area of Liverpool. He began selling and recharging batteries in 1925, opening a shop in the front room of his family's three-storey Georgian terraced house, called Phillips’ Battery Charging Depot, and had to install large accumulators in the cellar. Phillips ran the business for 30 years, even during WWII, but due to a decline in demand for batteries in the early 1950s (most people having electricity by then) he started selling household electrical goods. As Phillips had supplied batteries to the Burtonwood air base during the war, he could buy and sell the latest records from America via his contacts there. with a piano and an overturned tin bath in the cellar as a reverb chamber, with a speaker and microphone linked to the studio above. Because of trams, trucks, and horses passing the premises, Phillips hung heavy blankets over the studio door and a rear window to minimise noise intrusion. He cut discs for members of the public, and actors from the Liverpool Playhouse, who often stayed in the first-floor boarding rooms above the studio. Many of the actors would be asked by Phillips to record monologues and poems. These included the actors John Thaw, Richard Briers, and the ventriloquist Ray Alan. As the record shop and studio took over the business, he had a brass plate made which he put on the wall just outside the front door, and had labels made for the discs, but changed the design of the disc label every year. including, "I'm Left You're Right She's Gone", "Playin' For Keeps", "Paralyzed" and "Come Go With Me" (all previously released by Elvis Presley) as well as, "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You" (Lulu Belle and Scotty) and his own composition, "Yodelling Song". The songs were released on DVD/CD in 2008.

The Quarrymen recording

Johnny 'Guitar' Byrne (from Rory Storm and The Hurricanes) and singer Paul Murphy recorded a version of "Butterfly" and "She's Got it" in the studio on 22 June 1957. Byrne later played the recording to George Harrison. Phillips demanded that they pay for the recording before they set up the equipment, so each member paid 3 shillings and 6 pence, but he then asked for an extra surcharge (£1) to cover the cost of transferring the tape recording to acetate disc. As this was too expensive, Phillips said that for a cut-rate price they would not be taped first, but record directly to vinyl. even though Lowe and Hanton had never heard it before. They asked for some time to rehearse, but Phillips refused, saying, "For seventeen and six 17/6d you're not here all day".

Lowe and Hanton busked through the song, which was cut short by Phillips waving his hands to indicate that the cutting needle was getting close to the centre of the acetate. Denny Seyton and The Sabres recorded "Little Latin Lupe Lu" (Bill Medley) in the studio in 1963. Record Collector magazine valued the Beatles related disc (still owned by McCartney) at a value of £200,000 STG in their 2016 "Rare Record Price Guide." (A similar one off acetate recording by a pre famous Elvis Presley by Sam Phillips sold at auction for a similar amount previously).