John Duff Lowe obituary

John Duff Lowe, who has died aged 81, was a pianist on the first record that Paul McCartney, John Lennon and George Harrison made together, in 1958, as the Quarrymen. Despite his rock pedigree, Duff, as he was affectionately known, spent most of his life working in banking and financial services.

His piano playing on McCartney and Harrison’s song In Spite of All the Danger featured at the start of Peter Jackson’s 2022 documentary The Beatles: Get Back. The other song on the privately made recording was a cover of Buddy Holly’s That’ll Be the Day, and both feature in the Beatles album Anthology 1.

Born in Liverpool, he was the son of Betty (nee Keam), an accounts clerk, and Bruce Lowe, a chartered accountant. He attended the Liverpool Institute high school for boys, along with McCartney and Harrison. McCartney, recognising Duff’s talent as a pianist, asked him to join a band that he, Harrison, Lennon and Colin Hanton played in, the Quarrymen. Duff was with the band for just under a year from 1958, playing several gigs as well as making the record with them.

Duff held on to the recording for 23 years, with his second wife, Linda, keeping it safe in a sock drawer. In 1981, when Duff planned to sell the record at auction, McCartney contacted him, and Duff sold it to the singer-songwriter instead.

The same year as the recording, Duff got a job as a stockbroker for Henry Wilson & Co in the city. Around this time, he ran into Lennon at the Cavern, who quipped: “This is Duff. He breaks stock.”

After a couple of years, Duff switched to banking when offered a job as securities clerk at Barclays Bank. An offer of a job as banking hall manager for Hill Samuel Bank took him to Bristol in 1976.

In 1980, Duff shifted from banking to running his own financial services business for 10 years. He then joined the accounting firm Solomon Hare as general manager of financial services and, from 2005, worked in equity release for Equity Advice LLP. Following official retirement in 2007, he continued to work as an equity release adviser.

Duff gave back to the community through numerous voluntary roles, including as a magistrate for four years (1988-92), and as an active member of Bristol Rotary.

He also continued his musical pursuits, playing with Mike Wilsh of the Four Pennies (1992-96), and in 1994 re-forming the Quarrymen with another original member, Rod Davis, for an album, Open for Engagements, and a 1997 anniversary concert at the Woolton garden fete, where Lennon and McCartney first met, at a Quarrymen concert 40 years before.

Duff married twice, first to June Tripp in 1967. Following their divorce, in 1978 he married Linda Maer, an accounts clerk.

He is survived by Linda and his five children: Edward, Louisa and Emily from his first marriage, and Henry and Maudie from his second.