Gerry & The Pacemakers Biography, Photos and Posters

Gerry & The Pacemakers

Biography

Started: Late 1950s
City and Country of Origin: Liverpool, England
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Gerry & The Pacemakers Biography: Gerry and The Pacemakers were one of the English invasion rock and roll groups of the 1960s, and one of the few groups to initially challenge The Beatles in popularity. They like The Beatles, were a part of manager Brian Epstein's Liverpool sound.

The group was formed by Gerry Marsden in the late 1950s with his brother, Fred, Les Chadwick and Arthur McMahon. Early in their careers they rivalled the Beatles, playing in the same areas of Hamburg, Germany and Liverpool, England. Mac (Arthur was called Mac as he didn't fancy the name Arthur) was replaced on piano by Les Maguire around 1961.

The band was the second to sign with Brian Epstein, who later signed them with Columbia Records (a sister label to The Beatles label Parlophone under EMI). They began recording in early 1963 with "How Do You Do It?", a song written by Mitch Murray that Adam Faith had turned down and one that The Beatles chose not to release (they did record the song but chose to release their own song "Please Please Me"). The song produced by George Martin became a number one hit, until being replaced at the top by "From Me to You," The Beatles' third single.

Gerry and The Pacemakers' next two singles, Murray's "I Like It" and Rodgers and Hammerstein's "You'll Never Walk Alone", both also reached number one in the UK Singles Chart. Never before had the first three singles by a performer all reached the top spot (the feat would not be duplicated until Frankie Goes to Hollywood did it in the 1980s). "You'll Never Walk Alone" had been a favourite of Gerry Marsden's since seeing Carousel growing up (he turned down the Beatles' "Hello Little Girl" for this slot, which then became the first hit for The Fourmost), and in subsequent years it would become an anthem for Liverpool Football Club's supporters.

Despite this early success, Gerry and The Pacemakers never had another number one single in the UK. Gerry Marsden began writing most of their own songs, including "It's All Right", "I'm the One", and "Ferry Cross the Mersey", as well as their first and biggest U.S. hit, "Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying". All of these represented the band's light, poppy, enjoyable sound. They also starred in a moderately successful early 1965 film called Ferry Cross the Mersey, for which Marsden wrote much of the soundtrack.

By later in 1965, though, their popularity was rapidly declining on both sides of the Atlantic. They lacked both the innovations of the Beatles and the rawer musical and visual edge of some of the other British Invasion groups, and they soon seemed un-hip. They disbanded in October 1966 (see 1966 in music), with much of their latter recorded material never released in the UK.

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