BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS
Born: Eric Ronald Griffiths
Description: Guitarist, UK
Known For: Eric played guitar for the Quarrymen from 1956 until 1958
Instruments: Guitar
Music Styles: Rock
Location: United Kingdom
Date Born: 31st October 1940
Location Born: Denbigh, United Kingdom
Date Died: 29th January 2005
Location Died: Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Cause Of Death: Cancer
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BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE
Eric Ronald Griffiths
An English musician.
He was the guitarist in the original lineup of The Quarrymen until he left the group in the summer of 1958.
Born in Denbigh, North Wales, to Liverpudlian parents, Eric’s mother returned to Liverpool in 1945 to live with her parents after her husband’s death as an RAF pilot in World War II.
In 1950 the family moved to Halewood Drive, Woolton and at the age of 11 Griffiths won a scholarship to Quarry Bank High School where he met John Lennon, Pete Shotton and Rod Davis.
The four boys were in the same House at school and shared an interest in American music; particularly skiffle. Lennon and Griffiths attended some guitar lessons but found it too slow to learn and dropped the lessons when Lennon’s mother taught them to play easier banjo chords.
When Paul McCartney joined The Quarry Men he aspired to be lead guitarist but his ineptitude at his one public attempt stymied that.
The other band members decided that neither McCartney nor Griffiths were suitable lead guitarists. When George Harrison joined the band they suggested that Griffiths buy an electric bass and an amplifier but he could not afford this. Griffiths was not invited to McCartney’s house for the next rehearsal.
When he coincidently phoned them during the practice session, Colin Hanton had to let him know he was no longer in the band.
Griffiths decided to abandon engineering too and he joined the Merchant Navy as a cadet navigating officer. He continued to meet his old friends from the band when he was on leave but he lost contact with Lennon and McCartney after they first recorded with EMI.
He spent the next thirty years working in the prison service modernising prisoners’ working practices.
In January 1997, Griffiths returned to Liverpool to meet some of his former band members at the Cavern Club’s 40th anniversary. All the surviving original Quarry Men were there and that evening they gave an impromptu performance with borrowed instruments on the stage. When the band were persuaded to reform for a charity gig in Woolton in July 1997 Griffiths had to buy a guitar and re-learn a few chords.
The reunion was a huge success and generated demand for a CD.
Griffiths then toured widely with The Quarrymen until his last performance at SAS Garden Hotel, Trondheim, Norway on 27 November 2004.
He died at his Edinburgh home on 29 January 2005.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia