Bob Wooler, 76; Beatles Advisor Planned Band’s First Major British Gig

Bob Wooler, the former disc jockey credited with helping to launch the Beatles, has died. He was 76.

Wooler died Friday at the Royal Liverpool Hospital after a long illness, his friend Allan Williams said. Wooler suffered from a heart condition and diabetes.

Born in Liverpool, England, the former dock railway clerk met John Lennon in the late 1950s, when the two men played in rival skiffle groups. Skiffle music was a mixture of acoustic, black, folk, jug band and country styles rooted in 1920s American music.

Wooler organized the Beatles’ first major British gig after their return from a string of appearances in Hamburg, Germany, in 1960. He also introduced the band on stage hundreds of times at Liverpool’s legendary Cavern club.

Liverpool deejay Billy Butler said Wooler “was there at the birth of it all [the Beatles], with the skiffle groups.”

“He was a legend at the Cavern, and not just for the Beatles but the whole Mersey Beat scene,” said Butler, referring to other Liverpool groups such as Gerry and the Pacemakers.

Lennon, who sometimes introduced Wooler as his father, asked him to accompany the band to its first meeting with future manager Brian Epstein in late 1961.

When Epstein and the group moved to London, they invited Wooler to join them. He chose to stay in his native Liverpool, even though it was obvious to him what phenomenal success awaited the group.

Calling them “rhythmic revolutionaries” and a “personality cult,” he wrote in mid-1961, when they were still mainly a Liverpool sensation, “I think the Beatles are No. 1 because they resurrected original style rock ‘n’ roll music.... I don’t think anything like them will happen again.”

Beatles expert Phil Coppell said Wooler was a friend and advisor to the Beatles, and they trusted him to provide an assessment of Epstein.

“If Bob had turned around and said to them, ‘Don’t trust him,’ then things might have turned out differently. He was a witty man and a good friend whom the Beatles trusted,” Coppell said.

Wooler’s relationship with Lennon did not always run smoothly; the pair came to blows at Paul McCartney’s 21st birthday party, apparently after Wooler made a joke about Lennon’s sexuality. Wooler made light of the incident later and remained friends with Lennon.

He was the Cavern’s emcee for seven years, leaving when the club closed in 1967. He later helped mount Beatle conventions and organized tours of the Beatles’ former Liverpool haunts for visitors.

Wooler was divorced from his wife, Beryl Adams.

Funeral details were not immediately available.