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Cherry Red [Release date 16.08.24]
As the sixties’ “Merseybeat” pop explosion recedes further into the past, ten album, multiple hits band, Gerry And The Pacemakers seem less and less likely to get the credit they deserve.
And so this anthology comes at the right time to remind us that the Gerry Marsden written ‘Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying’ (1964), and ‘Ferry Cross The Mersey’ (1965), were No.1 hit singles on both sides of the Atlantic.
Until the sixties it was unusual for artists to write their own material. Both of the band’s first two no.1 singles, ‘How Do You Do It’ and ‘I Like It’ (both 1963) had been written by professional song writer, Mitch Murray.
In between times, the band recorded their most memorable hit song ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ (1964), from the Rodgers and Hamerstein musical, Carousel.
It became the band’s signature tune, and indeed the song most associated with Liverpool Football club. No, not a song, an anthem. Sung with religious intensity. Once heard, never forgotten.
No exaggeration to say that this song immortalised Gerry Marsden.
CD1 includes all the tracks from the band’s debut album, mainly covers of songs that influenced the Liverpool sound in the early sixties, live staples like ‘What’d I Say’, ‘Summertime’, ‘Maybelline’ and ‘Jambalaya’ got an inevitable airing.
In addition, it comprises material written by Goffin& King, Mann& Weil, and Stephens& Reed, plus Larry Williams and Bobby Darin (who both started life as songwriters) and others who were fast becoming the usual “go-to” suspects for budding UK pop artists.
CD2 : Managed by Brian Epstein and produced by George Martin, the band were stablemates of the Beatles. The “Ferry Across The Mersey” movie came out a year after the Fab Four’s “A Hard Days Night”. Anything you can do etc etc.
Apart from the chart topping title track, the CD includes ‘It’s Gonna Be Alright’, a US top 40 hit, plus a suite of what would nowadays seem to be an unlikely choice of covers.
Ray Charles, Hank Williams, Chuck Berry, Willie Dixon, Pomus & Shuman, Charlie Rich all loom large as the originators, with the band giving all they’ve got to ‘Reelin’ and Rockin’ (A US Billboard hit for the Dave Clark 5 in 1965), ‘A Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On’ and ‘Skinnie Minnie’, to name but three.
CD3 : It gets even more interesting now.
Going back to ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, it was clear that Marsden knew how to tease out and power up the emotion in a song. And so his covers of two standards, previously recorded by Sinatra, ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ and ‘Strangers In The Night’
might at first seem unusual choices until you hear them.
Same goes for his selection of songs from Musicals, “West Side Story”, and ‘The Roar Of The Greasepaint.
Rounding out this third CD, The Pacemaker’s gig at California’s Oakland Auditorium is here in full. The audience response is testament to the band’s popularity in the USA at that time. It came shortly after the band’s appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Gerry and The Pacemakers’ star burned brightly for those mid sixties years, leaving behind many memorable songs, but unlike the Beatles and others in their peer group, to their loss, they failed to move on. ***1/2
Review by Brian McGowan
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