Bandleader Mrs Mary Hamer and Her Boys: Popular Music and Dance Cultures in Interwar Liverpool

The city of Liverpool is renowned for its popular music, although the formidable hagiography which has developed around the Beatles tends to dominate historical considerations to the virtual exclusion of the many other varied genres which have flourished in the city before, during, and after them. Within Liverpool’s popular-music past is a partially hidden history of women’s musical leadership. This Element concerns the Grafton Rooms’ bandleader, dancer, and pianist Mary Hamer (1904-1992). Hamer led the otherwise all-male dance band at the Grafton for two decades, providing dancers with first-class dance music. The Element considers Hamer within the rapidly evolving dance music culture of interwar Liverpool, and discusses the different genres and sub-genres of popular music and dance presented at the Grafton and the role(s) of women in popular music and as bandleaders. This is contextualised within the contemporary social anxieties of popular dance cultures, sexuality, faith, class, and race.