THE MERSEYBEATS
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Recording years |
Main genre |
Music sample |
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1963–1966 |
Classic pop-rock |
Don’t Turn Around (1964) |
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- The
Merseybeats (1964)
THE MERSEYBEATS
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Recording years |
Main genre |
Music sample |
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1963–1966 |
Classic pop-rock |
Don’t Turn Around (1964) |
Page
contents:
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Album
released: 1964 |
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Tracks: 1) Milkman; 2) Hello Young Lovers;
3) He Will Break Your Heart; 4) Funny Face; 5) Really Mystified; 6) The Girl
That I Marry; 7) Fools Like Me; 8) My Heart And I; 9) Bring It On Home To Me;
10) Lavender Blue; 11) Jumping Jonah; 12) Don’t Turn Around; 13*) It’s Love
That Really Counts; 14*) Fortune Teller; 15*) I Think Of You; 16*) Mr.
Moonlight; 17*) Wishin’ And Hopin’; 18*) Send Me Back. |
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REVIEW
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Anyway, the Merseybeats used to be the Mavericks
(1960), then they became the Pacifics (1961), and then they decided to follow
the advice of Bob Wooler, the famous DJ at the Cavern Club, become
Liverpool’s champions, and take on the honor of defending and promoting the
name of the Liverpool music scene across the country. In their defense, they
did adopt the name before the
Beatles struck gold, at a time when there was absolutely no guarantee that
the Mersey Beat would go on to conquer the UK and, later, the entire world,
and at a time when the Beatles were just one of the many bands on the local
scene. However, they did not manage to get a recording contract before the
Beatles did — it was not until ‘Please Please Me’ hit the airwaves and placed
Liverpool on the map as a nationally relevant pop music storehouse that they
struck a deal with the Fontana Records label, well known for kickstarting and
nurturing the early careers of a whole series of second-rate British bands
(including a little-known outfit called the High Numbers, who later became...
well, you know). At the time of their first single, the group
consisted of Tony Crane (lead guitar and vocals), Billy Kinsley (bass guitar
and vocals), Aaron Williams (rhythm guitar) and John Banks (drums). That
first single, rather tellingly, was not a rock’n’roll song, but a cover of
Bacharach and David’s ‘It’s Love That Really Counts’, made famous by the
Shirelles the previous year. Symbolically, the Merseybeats replaced the
girls’ beautiful group harmonies with a (rather thin-sounding) electric
guitar lead, but they were still unable to elevate the song in the same way
the Beatles elevated the Shirelles’ ‘Baby It’s You’ — mainly because Tony
Crane’s lead vocal is weaker and less expressive than Lennon’s, and just
about everything else about the song, from backing vocals to rhythm section
to production, sounds limp and dull compared to what their competitors were
able to do with that girl group aesthetics. The B-side was a passable cover
of ‘Fortune Teller’, which everyone did at the time — good song, bad vehicle
for expressing any sort of personality because it locks anybody who’s playing
it into its own formula (the Stones’ version, for instance, sounds almost
identical; the Who tried to do something different with the song in their
live shows, but I think they mostly just spoiled it). The second single was far more successful, going all
the way to #5 on the UK charts: ‘I Think Of You’, written by outside
songwriter Peter Lee Stirling specially for the group, was a cute little
soft-rock ditty with a deliciously serenading opening riff and a subtle
reference to Ben E. King’s ‘Stand By Me’ in its opening line ("when the
night is cold..."). Unfortunately, it does not go anywhere interesting
after those pretty ten first seconds: Mr. Stirling was unable to come up with
a properly affirmative and inspiring hook in the vein of "stand by me,
stand by me". Furthermore, the song was even further from the ideal
conception of a true Mersey Beat than ‘It’s Love That Really Counts’; and the
fact that the B-side was ‘Mr. Moonlight’, which the band most likely pilfered
from the Beatles’ set list at the Cavern and sneakily released a year earlier
than the Fab Four themselves, certainly did not help — playing the
Merseybeats’ and the Beatles’ versions back to back almost did the impossible
in making me gain extra respect for the Beatles’ recording, which, to me, as
well as to many other people, had always been a relative lowlight in the
context of Beatles For Sale. In
comparison, the Merseybeats’ take on the song is like an attempt to make a
100-yard dash immediately after completing a 20-mile hike, without a break. Still, there is no arguing with the record-buying
public, and for their third single, the Merseybeats readily turned to Peter
Lee Stirling once again. The result was probably their best song, ‘Don’t Turn
Around’, on which the intensity dial was very slightly pushed forward, the
rhythm section remembered the meaning of the word «beat», and the vocal
melody took a turn toward trying to ascend to epic-climactic heights — along
the same lines as the Dave Clark Five’s ‘Because’, although ‘Don’t Turn
Around’ cannot really compete with that mini-masterpiece in terms of melodic
perfection. The toughening up of the rhythm section also had to
do with an important lineup change, with Kinsley temporarily out of the band,
replaced by John Gustafson — probably the most famous member of the
Merseybeats, since he would later go on to play with the Ian Gillan Band and,
more importantly, with Roxy Music (yes, that is his bass you hear driving ‘Love Is The Drug’ a decade later). His
presence also marks the first original songwriting credit for the band: the
B-side ‘Really Mystified’ is credited to himself and Crane, and while the
song does not quite approach the songwriting level of ‘Don’t Turn Around’, it
is at least an upbeat pop rocker, with a ringing and energetic lead riff, a
cymbal-thrashing percussion onslaught, and an overall heightened level of
adrenaline that finally begins to justify the band’s name. It is more or less at this point that Fontana
executives, satisfied with the improving commercial status of their
protegés, allow the band to put out a full-fledged LP — as fate would
have it, the only one the Merseybeats would ever release under their questionable
name. Curiously, the LP included both ‘Don’t Turn Around’ and ‘Really
Mystified’, but not ‘I Think Of You’ (maybe because the latter had already
been re-released once, on a 4-song EP of the same name). However, the only
other truly original song, also credited
to Gustafson and Crane, was ‘Milkman’, another loud pop-rocker clearly
inspired by the spirit of ‘Please Mister Postman’, but nowhere near as good
(once again, you get to learn all there is to the song in the first 10–15
seconds: lead riff, harmonic chorus, rinse and repeat). All the other credits taken by the boys are rather
embarrassing. Crane’s ‘Funny Face’ is basically Bo Diddley’s ‘Pretty Thing’,
or any of the other Bo Diddley beat hits, with new lyrics — admittedly,
hilarious ones, in the solid tradition of classic UK R&B «misogyny»
("Mama said you got a funny face / But even though you look a disgrace /
Girl I love your funny face"), but Tony Crane is no Eric Burdon when it
comes to justifying doing a Bo Diddley cover. ‘Jumpin’ Jonah’ is even
weirder; credited to Gustafson, it is a straightahead Little Richard rip-off,
putting together parts of ‘Ready Teddy’ and ‘Long Tall Sally’ for what is
inarguably the single most kick-ass performance on the album — actually,
though, the most interesting thing about it is how completely and totally
Gustafson’s bass part swallows up both rhythm and lead guitars, which even makes it somewhat sonically unique
among all the UK-based imitations of Little Richard I’ve ever heard. The
playing itself isn’t exactly Entwistle-level, but it is an interesting early
example of the «worship the bass, you fuckers!» attitude to come out of the
first years of Beatlemania-era rock, so you might want to take a peek at
that. Unfortunately, most of the other inclusions are just
embarrassing. Confessing one’s love for the Shirelles may be one thing, but
stuffing your album with covers of Rodgers and Hammerstein (‘Hello Young
Lovers’), Irving Berlin (‘The Girl That I Marry’), and old-fashioned nursery
rhymes (‘Lavender Blue’) is quite another, particularly in 1964, when the
signal that such a selection sent out to its audience simply couldn’t be more
wrong: it showed quite transparently that not only were the Merseybeats
unable to compete with their betters in the grand and noble rock’n’roll
tournament — they were, in fact, just as keen, if not more so, to appeal to
the older generation as well. These songs simply do not fit in well with
imitations of Bo Diddley and Little Richard, or even with their by-the-book
cover of Sam Cooke’s ‘Bring It On Home To Me’. Somehow the record still managed to hit #12 on the
UK charts, which gave the Merseybeats another year-long probation term —
which they were unable to use to their advantage; allegedly, by the end of
1965 Gustafson was fired by the band’s management for expressing
dissatisfaction with the handling of their financial affair, and Crane broke
up the entire group in response. Out of the ashes of the Merseybeats then
rose the Crane-Kinsley duet of the Merseys — but that is already a separate
story. Meanwhile, the poor Merseybeats largely remained in
history for their name, which is so easy to remember: anybody who knows
anything about the Mersey Beat probably also knows that there used to be a
band called the Merseybeats (I
knew that there was a band called the Merseybeats literally decades before
hearing a single song by them; so, upon second thought, maybe the name
selection wasn’t really that dumb
in the first place). The music, though... is the album, along with the
accompanying singles, really worth
checking out? Well, if you are seriously hungry for early UK pop-rock, I
guess it’s at least more inspiring than, say, the Swinging Blue Jeans. But
decidedly «third-rate», next to which even the earliest Hollies and Dave
Clark Five records seem like masterpieces. |
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