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As a pop seismograph the charts may not be sensitive to every microtremor, but they never miss a world eruption. Compare 1962 and 1963: of the 12 singles that made no. 1 in Britan in 1962, six were American (B Bumble and The Stingers, Ray Charles, and Elvis Presley - 4 times), two were Australian (both by Frank Ifield), and only four were British (Cliff Richard's 'The Young Ones', the Shadows' 'Wonderful Land', Mike Sarne's 'Come Outside' and the Tornadoes 'Telstar'); in 1963 Frank Ifield had two more no. 1s, Elvis Presley had one - the rest were British. There was an even more rapid turnover of records at the top of the charts. Of the 18 no. 1s, only one retained its position for more than four weeks. What is at least as significant as these statistics is the fact that, after the first three months of the year, nine of the twelve subsequent chart toppers were recorded by groups from Liverpool. Of course, these groups so completely dominated record sales and introduced a new term to the jargon of managers, agents, producers, journalists, DJs, and fans - Merseybeat - had been playing in local clubs and pubs for a bit longer than they'd been making records. The charts, however, reflected the attitudes of the public and business alike: that here, suddenly, was something totally new. The Merseybeat myth abounds with stories of the Tin Pan Alley railway excursions from London to Liverpool, of Alan Williams' Blue Angel club where the groups would hang out after gigs with the London agents outnumbering them, of talent plundered and abandoned, of 'The Ones Who Never Made It', of butchers and bread-slicers, bingo callers and bus drivers. This is the story of the lucky ones - lucky at least for a while. Although the Beatles were the first to break into the charts - with 'Love Me Do', which lasted two weeks in the Top 20 in December 1962 - they soon made it so big that the managers, agents, producers, journalists, DJs, and fans had coined another word: Beatlmania. The Beatles, however, weren't the first Mersey group to make no. 1. Having entered the charts on March 23rd, Gerry and the Pacemakers were at the top, a fortnight later, wth 'How Do You Do It?'. Four weeks later the Beatles reached no. 1 with 'From Me To You', and stayed there for seven weeks before Gerry and The Pacemakers returned with 'I Like It'. The Searchers were next, with 'Sweets For My Sweet' in August. Then Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas with 'Bad To Me'. Between September and December the Beatles got to no. 1 three times - twice with 'She Loves You' (four weeks in September and October), and again with 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'. Gerry and the Pacemakers made the top again with their third no. 1 of the year, 'You'll Never Walk Alone'. Forgetting the Beatles (which nobody could), 1963 was Gerry's year. Three straight no. 1s. He never did it again, not even once. He had a couple more hits in 1964, the first of which, 'I'm The One', almost reached the top, then two more early in 1965, then nothing. Eventually he landed a part, one of the stars didn't want any more, in a West End musical (he'd dropped the Pacemakers by then and was Gerry Marsden on his own), and went on to make appearances on the Sooty TV show feeding lines to the puppeteer, Harry Corbett. For a while, though, Gerry was enormous. He was signed up by Brian Epstein, the Beatles' manager, early on in June 1962: but then Epstein kept him hanging on without a record release for six months while he devoted himself solely to launching the Beatles. Marsden grew impatient, 'Love Me Do' showed in the charts, and he got to make his record. Maybe John and Paul didn't like Gerry, because although they wrote songs for other Epstein acts (notably Billy J. Kramer and Cilla Black), and even for the Rolling Stones, they never did the same for Gerry. Nevertheless, it did him no harm. His first two hits were up tempo, catchy - there was a nifty octave jump in the chorus - and ultimately forgettable apart from the hook. The third was altogether different. He revived a genuine old-time-soul-stirrer: "Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart, and you'll never walk alone'. It went into the charts as soon as it was released in october, and didn't drop out until the end of January. Normally that would have been that, except for the memory, but during those 14 weeks Liverpool's football team was stringing wins together as if the manager was Brian Epstein. it was a great team that season - Lawrence, Yeats, Callaghan, Hunt, St. John, Thompson, Smith, Lawler, Byrne, Strong, Stevenson - and a great season. As an expression of support and encouragement the football fans took up Gerry's song and made it their own. 50,000 sang acapella. Liverpool won the League Championship; indeed, it seems Liverpool cleaned up everywhere. Next up for Epstein was Billy J. Kramer. The Beatles once said they thought he would take up where Elvis left off. They must have been confused by the fact he combed his hair back, because that's about all he and Presley had in common. He had half a dozen hits all the same, the first a Lennon/McCartney song, 'Do You Want To Know A Secret?", and the last by Bacharach and David, 'Trains And Boats And Planes', two years later. In the meantime he got screamed at, and his backing group, the Dakotas, once even had a hit of their own, an instrumental called 'Cruel Sea'. But Billy faded away, changed his hairstyle and made a come-back, dropped out again, tried again under his real name, William Ashton. But it didn't do any good. While his acts were racking up hits through the autumn of 1963, Brian Epstein didn't rest. He saw a toothy, big-nosed girl singer called Priscilla White, and signed her up. Naturally he realised she wasn't quite right to be a star, so he changed her name to Cilla Black. It worked. She used the same formula as Kramer: Lennon/McCartney first, then Bacharach and David. Only 'Love Of The Loved' (Lennon/McCartney) got nowhere. The next two however were both no. 1s. That was nothing new for Liverpool or Epstein, but what happened after was. Cilla didn't stop making hit records. Eventually she became a TV star, married her manager, had a nose job and a baby. She's everyone's Saturday night peaktime favourite, and she's got it made for life. Epstein's other signings were mainly one-hit |
wonders. At least the Fourmost were and the Big Three. Tommy Quickly he never managed to break, and that was his one big failure. A lesser one was missing the Searchers. They were the one Liverpool group at the top of the charts that weren't his. But the Searchers, although putting out some fine singles, didn't last any longer than most of the others, and never made the Top 10 after March, 1965. There were the Swinging Blue Jeans as well. They managed three hits in the first half of 1964, two of them reaching the top 3: 'Hippy Hippy Shake' and 'You're No Good'. Like the Searchers and the Fourmost, when the boom was over and the hits stopped coming the Swinging Blue Jeans moved over into the Northern club-circuit, where they could play a medley of their hits twice a night ... forever. Amongst all those Merseybeat no. 1s in the autumn of 1963, was Brian Poole. He wasn't from Liverpool, wasn't even from the North; he came from Barking in the suburban sprawl of London. In 1963 he was the only Southerner to offer much in the way of opposition. In August he had reached no. 4 with 'Twist And Shout' (he didn't claim to be offering any real alternative to Mersey sound), and made no. 1 with 'Do You Love Me?' two months later. He had a backing group called the Tremeloes and was plain and wore glasses. He had very little going for him. Later, incredibly, he dropped his backing group and went solo. He failed. On the other hand the Trems, as they came to be known by their close fans, did well. They weren't quite as homely as Poole, but they carefully chose a good-looking singer for the girls to ogle while they played, and ended up with twice as many hits as they had ever had with Brian Poole. Although Brian Poole and the Tremeloes represented the first Southern 'answer' to the Beatles, they were far from perfect. In January 1964 it looked as if the Dave Clark Five might be; for not only was Dave Clark himself extremely handsome, but the arrival of the group's 'Glad All Over' at no. 1 was greeted as the start of a new sound. One that would match Liverpool's - the Tottenham Sound. However that notion was just as silly as the tag, for Clark lacked almost everything that made the Liverpool sound successful, except the fringe. The music was unimaginative and almost charmless, but perhaps Clark himself was not really to blame for he appeared to make little significant contribution. He drummed, harmonised, and grinned widely all the time, while Mike Smith sang and played organ. Smith evidently didn't mind, for he stuck with Clark even when the hits dried up. When the Rolling Stones first emerged in the summer of 1963 and their single, 'Come On', almost made the Top 20, it was generally assumed that they were merely Beatles imitators - just longer-haired, scruffier and ruder. The fact that Lennon and McCartney wrote their second release, 'I Wanna Be Your Man', seemed like confirmation. The Stones and their followers could hardly have thought more differently. A year before (in July 1962), when the band played their first gig at London's Marquee Club, Mick Jagger was quoted in Jazz News as saying: 'I hope they don't think we're a rock & roll outfit.' The Beatles would never have said that. Besides appearance, the assumption of similarity was based on common musical sources - Chuck Berry especially. The two attitudes to Berry, in fact reveal just how far apart the groups were. Whereas the Beatles thought of him as a rock & roller, the Stones regarded him as a bluesman. The real competition wasn't from the South at all, but from other Northern towns, and in particular from Manchester - a city barely 30 miles inland from Liverpool. First were Freddie and the Dreamers, who reached no. 3 at the end of June, 1963, with a cover of an American R&B hit, James Ray's 'If You Gotta Make A Fool of Somebody'. They followed this up with formula songs in the style of Gerry and the Pacemakers, and managed six hits altogether. They were finished by the end of 1964, but at least they knew they hadn't made it on their looks alone. One had a face something like a potato, one was bald, another had a dodgy eye - Freddie himself was extremely small, wore glasses, and had curly hair. Presumably because of the way they looked, they decided to be silly on stage. Freddie was silliest. He jumped into the air repeatedly, skipped, and, once, on television, he performed a number swinging on a wire. Better equipped for a more lasting assault were the Hollies. Their first two hits were re-worked American hits - the Coasters' 'Searchin', and Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs' 'Stay' - but subsequently they alternated between material by British pop writers like Graham Gouldman, and their own songs. They never missed the charts. Herman's Hermits were straight formula. They owed their success almost entirely to Mickie Most, and he wasn't even in the group. He was a failed rock & roll star, but a great producer. He chose their songs and told them exactly what to do in the studio. In this way they had hit after hit - right up until Herman decided to become a solo performer under his real name of Peter Noone The longevity of Herman's Hermits was exceptional, since few of the groups who rode the Beatles' bandwagon survived beyond 1964 or 1965. The following had no hits after 1964: the Fourmost, the Swinging Blue Jeans, Freddie and the Dreamers; those none after 1965: Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, the Searchers (apart from one week at no. 20 in January, 1966), Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. And the Dave Clark Five went two years without a hit between 1965 and 1967. Of those groups that outlasted the soul boom of the mid-'60s, flower power, and psychedelia, only Herman's Hermits did it without writing: for what pulled the Beatles through and the Stones and the Hollies, was their self-sufficiency and their ability to adapt without losing (even, in the case of the Stones, establishing) their originality. Merseybeat might have been the start of 'Swinging Britain', but by the time Roger Miller sang of it in 'England Swings' late in 1965, the country had almost swung itself to death. Certainly Merseybeat was finished in Liverpool itself, and it wasn't too long before they were selling off bits of the stage from the Cavern itself. |