It was at the Hartford Community Centre in Davyhulme in July 1963 that Harvey Lisberg realised he was into something good. He and a friend, Charlie Silverman, had been writing "pretty rubbish" pop songs that no one wanted to record.
He was about to set up a talent contest through the Manchester Evening News to find a local unknown band who would record them when a friend of a friend mentioned a local group he should check out.
As Harvey now recalls: "That night in July 1963 changed my life." At the time he was working for Binder Hamlyn, one of the biggest accountancy firms in Manchester for a "pittance" of £10 a week compared to the £70 a week he had been making doing 80 hours a week at the Wall's sausage factory as a summer holiday job - the equivalent of £1,450 a week today.
But the band he went to see - Herman and His Hermits - as they were called then, would be his route to a fortune. For the Jewish lad from Salford with a BA in Commerce from Manchester University, his ambition of being a stockbroker would soon being extinquished for rock n roll excess and all the financial clout it can bring.
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