74th Year! 
74th Year!
The Whole Story of The Famous Kinema Ballroom Dunfermline
(and the Cinemas of Dunfermline & Rosyth)
74th Year! |
| Summary: George Keiller & His All Star Band maintained their resident duties (with The Harry Dewar Quartette on Fridays) until June when Horace Demarco & The Kool Beats took over. The Red Hawks 'Twist Club' continued to be popular throughout 1963 on Wednesdays while they also played support for many touring acts. Who could have foreseen the recent reformation of The Falcons when they made their Ballroom debut in January and played Saturdays throughout the year? 1963 also saw another important debut in April when local boys The Shadettes made the first of many Ballroom appearances with this name and later as Nazareth from 1970 to the present day. The Shadettes played the ballroom only once in 1963, 1964 and 1965 before landing a residency in November of 1966. Another innovation to accommodate the burgeoning popularity of dancing was the Saturday afternoon dances introduced in June.
The Story of how The Beatles played The Kinema (OK, ... nearly played). On Friday 3rd August 1963 The Beatles played for the last time at The Cavern Club, Liverpool and nine weeks and a day later on Sunday 6th October 1963 they played two shows at The Carlton Theatre, Sinclairtown in Kirkcaldy (with Mike Berry and Freddy Starr & the Midnighters). This wasn't their first choice though. The Kinema Ballroom's manager (Cecil R Hunter - 'Mr. Kinema Ballroom') turned them down and popular local legend has it that Cecil's decision was a purely financial one (that their £350 fee was too expensive!). However around the same time it seems, The Fab's manager Brian Epstein had ruled that the group would no longer play ballrooms and dance halls and would only play seated venues such as theatres or cinemas. (Ref: Mark Lewisohn's book 'The Beatles Live!'). So then, which story is true? The truth of the matter is that both stories are sort-of true. 1. The Beatles were in fact booked to play The Raith Ballroom in Kirkcaldy before they were moved to The Carlton Theatre. This helps to substantiate the Epstein 'theatres not ballrooms' ruling but before that they were 'pencilled-in for a booking at the Kinema ... 2. I have it on the best of authority (direct from Cecil Hunter's son, John) that Cecil did turn down their original booking enquiry to play The Kinema Ballroom. However the decision was not made on the basis of finance. The simple fact of the matter is that Cecil's wife, Sally, saw them on TV and "she did not like the look of them". It was that simple. A case of early Girl-Power surely! I can further substantiate this story with an actual quote from Cecil himself who said in an interview with The Dunfermline Press "The wife had seen them on the telly and she did not like the look of them, so when they first came to Scotland I cancelled their booking - but they proved me wrong" admitted Mr Hunter. (I understand that Sally Hunter was a formidable character!) So Cecil booked Horace Demarco & The Kool Beats instead and exactly seven days later, fifteen million people watched 'The Fab Four' perform on 'Sunday Night At The London Palladium' and Beatlemania was born. In March of 2006 a handbill advertising the Kirkcaldy Carlton gig above was advertised for sale on eBay for $3,500! (though did not sell). Of course US President John F Kennedy was assassinated on Friday 22nd November 1963 and Robert McKenzie contacted me to say he clearly remembers a friend telling him the news in the Kinema that night when the music was once more provided by Horace Demarco & The Kool Beats.
Other highlights this year included: The Baron Knights
February 1963
March 1963
April 1963
May 1963
June 1963
July 1963
August 1963
September 1963
October 1963
November 1963
December 1963
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