In 1960 there was a burgeoning beat scene around the church and village halls on Merseyside, and on 14 May that year the most promising rock and roll band in north Liverpool, Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes, were playing at Lathom Hall in Seaforth. The promoter Brian Kelly had also granted a guest appearance to a new group, the Silver Beatles – John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Stu Sutcliffe.
The Dominoes thundered through favourite songs by American performers, such as Dizzy Miss Lizzy and Slow Down. They noticed that the Silver Beatles – who not long afterwards would become the Beatles – were scribbling down lyrics so that they could perform the songs themselves.
Kingsize Taylor, who has died aged 83, often reflected on this incident in the decades that followed. He was in no doubt as to who had influenced whom, and he never gave the Beatles any credit. According to him, their hit songs were the product of Tin Pan Alley songwriters who had reached a deal with their devious manager, Brian Epstein. Although this was nonsense and it was never clear whether Taylor really believed it, his was a continual voice of dissent on Merseyside from someone who believed he should have had the hits himself.
Taylor was a fine singer and guitarist, basing his playing style around Chuck Berry and the licks he heard on Carl Perkins’ Dance Album (1958). “It was a good band to be in,” recalled an early Dominoes drummer, Dave Lovelady. “We always got paid.” Few argued with the 6ft 5in, 22st Taylor, who might turn a promoter upside down to get his money. The venues could be rough but, rather than retreat and go backstage, Taylor was more likely to go into the fray and sort it out.
The band’s lack of chart success had nothing to do with the Beatles. The Dominoes accepted a year-long residency at the Star-Club in Hamburg in 1963, at the very time that everything was happening in Liverpool. Taylor was also held back by his “Kingsize” appearance in an era when a band’s looks could matter as much as their music.
He was born Edward Taylor in Seaforth, Liverpool, the son of Arthur, a bricklayer, and his wife, Gladys. He attended a local school but, growing up tough and strong, Ted left to train as a butcher.
The Dominoes, formed in 1957 out of a school skiffle group, were the first rock’n’roll band in north Liverpool, but it took some time for them to find the right personnel. When the original members played at Savoy Hall in Waterloo, they heard a skiffle group, the James Boys, featuring Taylor. Or rather, Taylor heard them. “I couldn’t believe they were playing rock and roll and I wanted to join them. It was the advent of Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Fats Domino. They were my inspiration.”
In August 1958 the Dominoes made a private recording at the pianist Sam Hardie’s home in Crosby with a local engineer, Bernard Whitty of Lambda Records. This has miraculously survived, and their renditions of Roll Over Beethoven and Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On show how exciting they could be. Their lead singer became Kingsize Taylor, borrowing a cigarette marketing term and a joke from Huckleberry Hound cartoon, which described a kangaroo as a “kingsize mouse”.
The group became popular in Liverpool, playing the Cavern and the Iron Door clubs, and sometimes working with Cilla Black, billed as Swingin’ Cilla. But during the day Taylor was still cutting up and delivering meat.
By the end of 1962, both the Beatles and the Dominoes were playing at the Star-Club. Taylor put a tape recorder on stage to capture his band; and Lennon asked him to record the Beatles too. It was a poor-quality recording but it is a historical record of what the Beatles were doing on stage at that time. In 1998 Taylor lost a high court battle after releasing the recordings.
The Beatles went back to Liverpool and up into the stratosphere, while the Dominoes remained in Hamburg throughout 1963, now with a saxophonist, Howie Casey. They accepted a one-off payment to record, as the Shakers, an album of rock’n’roll standards called Let’s Do the Madison, Twist, Slop, Hully Gully, Monkey. The LP made the German charts and their version of Hippy Hippy Shake reached No 4.
As themselves, they released a storming version of Solomon Burke’s Stupidity for Decca in April 1964 and later that year undertook a highly successful UK tour with Berry, but by then the Mersey sound was moving on.
Taylor left the music business in 1966. He had married Gitta Dunfarth in 1964 and they raised a family. He became an accomplished butcher, first in Southport market, and then with his own shop in Birkdale. Having to get up at 5am for meat deliveries meant that he could no longer play in clubs.
But around 2000, a poster went up around the city proclaiming: “Your worst nightmare has come true – Kingsize Taylor is coming back to Liverpool”. Taylor formed a Merseybeat charity and worked with two former Dominoes, Sam Hardie and John Frankland. In 2002 he returned to Hamburg for a Star-Club reunion. By now twice divorced, he met up again with his girlfriend from the 60s, Marga Bierfreund, who berated him for not having kept in touch with her. They married shortly afterwards.
In 2009 he promoted a new song, I’m the Man (Who Taught the Beatles How to Rock). The following year, he was on the same bill as Burke in Hamburg; Taylor said that the highlight of his career was performing Stupidity for Burke and receiving his praise.
He also sometimes performed with Mark, his son from his first marriage, who has his own band, the Extras, and who survives him. Marga predeceased him.
• Edward William “Kingsize” Taylor, singer and guitarist, born 12 November 1939; died 2 January 2023
