The Best of Gerry & the Pacemakers: The Definitive Collection

As part of the first wave of British Invasion bands, Gerry & the Pacemakers had a brief but brilliant career. Except for their final chart single in 1966 all of their hits came in a brief 10-month period. The group, led by singer-guitarist Gerry Marsden, became the second band signed by Beatles' manager Brian Epstein. Like the Beatles, they also used George Martin in the studio, they played the Cavern and the Hamburg club scene (often sharing the same bill), and were the second Liverpool band to play the Ed Sullivan Show--three months after the Beatles. Their first UK hit was "How Do You Do It," a song the Beatles rejected in favor of the Lennon-McCartney "Please Please Me." They would follow that up with another Mitch Murray tune "I Like It" and then the Rodgers and Hammerstein show tune ""You'll Never Walk Alone." All three songs went No. 1 in the UK. [The only group (other than Frankie Goes To Hollywood 21 years later) to have their first three singles go to No. 1 in England--not even the Beatles did this! "You'll Never Walk Alone" is finally released in the US almost two years later, but by then the band's popularity is waning and it fizzles at No. 48.] While George Martin convinced Gerry & the Pacemakers to record someone's else's song for their first hits, Marsden (like Lennon and McCartney) would compose most of the rest of their hits, including the gorgeous ballads "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying" and "Ferry Cross the Mersey." In January of 1965 the film Ferry Cross the Mersey is released. Another Marsden original "It's Gonna Be All Right" is taken from the film. Unlike their previous ballad-style numbers, this is a faster tempo song but reaches only U.S. No. 23. It marked the beginning of the end. It would be another year before Gerry & the Pacemakers would release their final chart single "Girl on a Swing." It would do no better than No. 28 in the U.S. and it failed to chart in the UK. Here's where the Beatles and the Pacemakers parted ways. The Beatles took their eary Merseybeat sound and evolved musically. The Pacemakers did not. By the time "Girl on a Swing" was on the U.S. charts, the band had split up. What they left behind is a collection of wonderful songs to remind us of everything that was vibrant and exciting about the early sixties British pop scene.