Thriving locally in Liverpool in 1961, dominating the charts by 1963 and all but over by 1965, Merseybeat was a short-lived phenomenon that reverberated around the world. The sound of young working-class Liverpudlians recasting their love of American R&B, rock’n’roll and doo-wop in their own image, it was the scene that birthed the Beatles – whose debut album recently turned 60 – alongside other stars like Gerry and the Pacemakers, Cilla Black and the Searchers, becoming the UK’s first significant contribution to pop music history. It inspired similar scenes across the UK and beyond, and was sold back to Americans in the British Invasion. “It felt like something was about to happen,” remembers Billy J Kramer, who had two No 1 hits with his backing band the Dakotas. “But it was just an explosion. Liverpool was at the centre of things out of nowhere.”
Merseybeat had its roots in the late 1950s. Always a musical city, jazz and skiffle were the popular sounds of the day until an influx of the latest, hard-to-find American rock’n’roll records and instruments were imported into Liverpool from the US via its docks, changing the pulse of the city. “The place was buzzing with it,” says Nick Crouch of Faron’s Flamingos and the Mojos (two of the bands included on a new Merseybeat compilation, Let’s Stomp! Merseybeat and Beyond 1962-1969). “Virtually every street you walked down, you’d hear guitar music.”
For postwar youth, these sounds were thrillingly edgy. “It was also a way to get out of being poor,” says singer Beryl Marsden. Indeed, gigging was a means to earn money amid Liverpool’s backdrop of high unemployment, decaying infrastructure, closing factories and industrial action. As ever, Liverpool’s socioeconomic climate hadn’t gone unnoticed by the national press: the Daily Worker dismissed the burgeoning Merseybeat scene as “the voice of 80,000 crumbling houses and 30,000 people on the dole”. “Liverpool has always been regarded as the bad boys,” says Crouch.
Yet the scene’s self-containment was its core strength. Influential DJ Bob Wooler, the compere at the Cavern, the scene’s legendary spiritual heart, once estimated there were around 350 working groups in the Merseyside area. Irked by a lack of coverage from the London-based media, former art student Bill Harry launched a newspaper, Mersey Beat, in 1961 to promote the scene. He’d been encouraged by his friend and record shop owner Brian Epstein, who became something of a figurehead and kingmaker, managing the Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers and Cilla Black.
With venues also sensing the change and accommodating the new sound – not just the Cavern, which ditched its jazz-only policy, but other ballrooms and dancehalls such as Orrell Park Ballroom, Tower Ballroom, the Sink and the Iron Door – it all added to a sense of everyone being in it together. “It was like a little city on its own,” says Ray Ennis of the Swinging Blue Jeans. “Between the bands there was no jealousy. We all got on, jammed together, shared songs. There was real camaraderie.”
Most of the time, anyway. Of John Lennon, Crouch says: “Oh, he’d fight about anything. Stupid things. He could be quite violent, John. But if you stood up to him, you were a friend for life.”
Being a Merseybeat band was demanding work. Gigs around Merseyside, at lunchtime and evenings, were lengthy, strict and disciplined affairs – no alcohol was permitted at the venues. Bands tore through their favourite rock’n’roll, R&B, rockabilly, Tamla and blues numbers – very few sang their own material at first – in sweaty, high-energy shows. But that was nothing compared with the experience of those who went to Hamburg to play residencies at the famous Star Club: Merseybeat’s second home acted as a boot camp. “We’d play from 4pm Saturday till 6am Sunday,” says Charlie Flynn of Ian and the Zodiacs. “Our bed was a cellar under the stage.” Yet bands were invigorated by the reception and Hamburg’s cosmopolitan allure. The Beatles came back transformed; some went down so well they didn’t go home. Ian and the Zodiacs never had a hit in the UK, but became massively popular in Germany. “We’ve still got a tribute band over there today,” Flynn says; the city will host a new Beatles and Merseybeat-related music festival, Come Together Experience, later this month.
The Liverbirds became such a live draw they too stayed in Hamburg, and in a scene of few women, are now recognised as the UK’s first ever all-female rock band. “We wanted to be the female Beatles, and we wanted to do it first,” says Mary Dostal, nee McGlory. “Everybody was really curious at first; people were like, ‘I don’t know what to think about this’.” That included John Lennon, who told them “girls don’t play guitars”. “We thought: let’s prove to him that we can. It gave us more enthusiasm rather than putting us off.”
The scene the Liverbirds left behind was in full swing, with an unprecedented cultural dominance. In 1963, helped by the Epstein-organised Mersey Beat Showcase UK tour, four Merseybeat acts reached No 1 – the Beatles, Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J Kramer & the Dakotas, and the Searchers – holding the top spot for a combined 36 weeks. Suddenly, everybody wanted to be from Liverpool. “We played in Scotland” says Flynn, “and the promoter said ‘we had so and so from Liverpool here last week’. I said, ‘I think you’ll find they’re from Birmingham!’ Bands were all saying they were from Liverpool to get a gig.”
In 1964, nearly 20% of all songs to reach the Top 10 were by Merseybeat acts, including the Fourmost and the Merseybeats. Of the six artists to feature on the first ever broadcast of Top of the Pops on 1 January, two were from Liverpool: the Beatles and the Swinging Blue Jeans, performing their hit Hippy Hippy Shake. The latter got into a fistfight with the Rolling Stones in the BBC canteen after Mick Jagger refused to lend his ballpoint pen. “Our claim to fame is that we gave Mick Jagger his big lips,” Ennis says.
But as the Beatles went supernova – “a lot of the bands were resentful that they sort of deserted everybody,” says Crouch – combinations of misfortune, mismanagement and poor decisions denied many acts who deserved better. Scene favourites Faron’s Flamingos, who boasted an eccentric, explosive performer in frontman William “Faron” Ruffley, thought they had a hit in the bag with a Merseybeat makeover of the Contours’ Do You Love Me – until a fateful gig in St Helens with Brian Poole and the Tremeloes.
“I saw their lead guitarist talking to Faron, writing on a paper napkin,” Crouch says. “Faron told him the lyrics and chords to Do You Love Me, and they literally went home to London, recorded our version and rushed it out the week before ours.” The Tremeloes went to No 1; Faron’s single sank without trace. He must have been annoyed with the Tremeloes? “Oh yeah, of course,” he says. “But I was more annoyed with Faron!”
The Cryin’ Shames’ debut hit Please Stay, the last single produced by Joe Meek, led to interest from Epstein; they not only turned him down, but told him to “fuck off”. A second single flopped and they soon split up. “Let’s just say it didn’t help,” says Derek Cleary, who joined just after the doomed meeting. “You have to be crazy not to sign with Brian Epstein. And to swear at the guy, too? It was mad.”
Beryl Marsden also turned down Epstein – “Brian would have tried to pop me in frocks like Cilla” – but her lack of success is more curious. Marsden was hugely popular on the scene: featured on the moment-capturing At the Cavern live LP aged just 16, she supported the Beatles on their last UK tour in 1965. Yet she recorded only a handful of singles – excellent Dusty Springfield-like soul-pop rather than the Merseybeat sound she loved – and never charted. “I wanted to be more rock’n’roll,” Marsden says. “But every time I went to the studio there’d be a flipping orchestra. I never felt comfortable. I thought, ‘why am I being taken away from the band?’ But that’s just what they did with the girls back then.”
By 1965, Merseybeat was fizzling out. Even those who had success were struggling to maintain it. Billy J Kramer rues what he calls a “disastrous, shitty performance” at the prestigious ITV variety show Tonight at the London Palladium. “I really didn’t want to do it. In a very short space of time, I’d gone from being an engineer on the railroad to doing the London Palladium. I was overwhelmed.” He thinks it damaged his career. “Because people look at things like that, and maybe think ‘he’s not that good’.”
Several factors brought about Merseybeat’s end. The scene hollowed out as acts moved away, often to try their luck in London or Hamburg. But culture also shifted: just as Merseybeat had usurped jazz and skiffle, the bands now sounded out of date themselves as psychedelia and singer-songwriters flourished. “I think music was starting to change,” Marsden says. “It wasn’t as naive and pure as Merseybeat.”
As bands became more experimental with instruments and sounds – led, ironically, by the Beatles’ retreat into the studio – a repertoire of covers wasn’t enough: writing your own material became expected. “Publishers stopped offering songs for bands to record,” Ennis says. “If your contract was up, nine times out of 10 it wasn’t getting renewed.”
Exhaustion was also common, as years of gruelling schedules took its toll. “I was tired of driving up and down motorways,” Marsden says. Crouch joined the Mojos, whose 1964 hit Everything’s Alright was later covered by David Bowie. But excessive touring – including months in Ivory Coast, one of many “peculiar” gigs they did after signing up with Frank Sinatra’s agent – meant he wasn’t concerned when the Mojos split. “I just wanted a rest. I hadn’t seen my family for years.”
And so after its big bang, Merseybeat ended with a whimper. But 60 years on, its legacy is a treasured one, especially to those that were there. “It didn’t seem as wonderful then as it does now,” Ennis says. “It was just normal. But when you look back you think – wow, what a fantastic time that was.”
• Let’s Stomp! Merseybeat and Beyond 1962-1969 is out now on Cherry Red. Come Together Experience takes place in various Hamburg venues, 30 June and 1 July.
