BONUS: A Tribute to Gerry Marsden

I just heard the sad news that Jerry Marsden of Jerry and the Pacemakers has died today, aged seventy-eight.

As the latest episode of the podcast is late, due to personal issues, I thought I'd make this available to the general public.

This is a ten-minute Patreon bonus episode I did back in October on Jerry and the Pacemakers, so it's here as a little tribute.

He'll be missed.

Today, we're going to look at a group that were for a very short while arguably the most successful band to come out of Liverpool, one that set a record that wouldn't be broken for 21 years, and who deserved rather better than the reputation they've ended up with.

We're going to look at Jerry and the Pacemakers, and at How Do You Do It?

How do you do what you do to me?

I wish I knew.

If I knew how you'd do it to me, I'd do it to you.

How do you do what you do to me?

Jerry and the Pacemakers were, in the very early 60s, one of the bands that was most strongly competing for the title of Liverpool's Best Band.

They were so good that before he joined the Beatles, for a while Richie Starkey was considering quitting the Hurricanes and joining them, even though it would mean switching instruments.

Jerry's brother Freddie Marsden was the pacemaker's drummer, but they didn't have a bass player, and everyone was sure that Richie could pick it up no problem.

The Pacemakers had been around before the Beatles, and they shared similar musical tastes, and even a similar repertoire.

The Beatles dropped What Did I Say from their set because the Pacemakers were also doing it, and when Paul started to sing Over the Rainbow in the Beatles set, the Pacemakers responded by adding the old Rogers and Hammerstein song You'll Never Walk Alone to match it.

Both bands played Hamburg backing Tony Sheridan, and both were playing songs by Arthur Alexander, Larry Williams, Richie Barrett, and Carl Perkins.

The main difference between the two was that the pacemakers would have a slightly harder-edged sound.

The pacemakers only had one real singer, Jerry, and so they couldn't do the kind of girl group harmonies that the Beatles would do.

And so they couldn't move off into the songs by the Chevrelles or the Cookies that the Beatles performed, and instead had to fill out their set with bluesy songs like Little Walter's My Babe.

My babe don't stand no cheater.

All she does is cry,

my baby.

Little baby, my baby.

There was a friendly but real rivalry between the Beatles and the Pacemakers, so much so that when Mersey Beat had a popularity poll among its readers, the Beatles bought up as many copies of the magazine as they could, and filled out the poll under fake names, with themselves at the top and the pacemakers at the bottom, to make sure they won and the Pacemakers only came second.

Rory Storm and the Hurricanes tried filling out the poll with themselves at the top, too, but Bill Harry disqualified 40 ballots written in green ink in the same handwriting, posted from the same letterbox, so they came in fourth.

It even looked for a while like the Pacemakers would be the very first Liverpool band to release a record.

A local promoter called Sam Leach was planning to set up his own label and record them, before they realised he was better at coming up with plans than coming up with with money.

The Pacemakers also had their own PA system, rather than just relying on the club ones, at a time when no other band did.

Indeed, when Brian Epstein took the Decca AR man Mike Smith to see the Beatles at the cavern, when it looked like they would be signed to Decca, he seemed to have taken Smith out for dinner before the show, because the Pacemakers were the support act, and Paul McCartney was worried that if Smith saw the Pacemakers set, he might choose to sign them rather than the Beatles.

So it made sense sense that when Epstein was looking to sign up some more artists to a management contract, he signed the Pacemakers.

And it made sense that once the Beatles had had some success, George Martin trusted Epstein enough to sign Jerry and the Pacemakers.

And as there was no awkward publishing company contract to deal with, like there had been with the Beatles, he could give them How Do You Do It?, the song that he'd tried to foist on the Beatles.

Suppose that you think you're very smart,

but won't you tell me how do you do it?

How do you do what you do to me?

If I only knew

that perhaps you'd fall for me like I fell for you

when I do it to you,

Martin's ear for a hit was proved right, and the song went to number one.

And it was the first record from a Liverpool group to do so, on what is now considered the official chart, though it was then just one of several.

Unsurprisingly, the second single released was another Mitch Murray song, one that was almost identical to How Do You Do It.

through my hair,

and I like the way you tiddle my chin,

and I like the way you let me come in when your mama ain't there.

I like it, I like it,

I like the words you say, and all the things you do.

That also went to number one, as did their third single, You'll Never Walk Alone.

With hope

in your heart,

and you'll never

walk

That last became almost the unofficial anthem of Liverpool after the Pacemakers' release, and is to this day still sung by fans of Liverpool Football Club at every match.

It also made them the first act ever to have their first three singles go to number one in the British charts, something that wouldn't be repeated until another Liverpool act, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, twenty one years later.

After that, the group started recording songs Jerry wrote himself, and he proved to be quite good.

Their first original single, And a One, went to number two, just behind needles and pins by the searchers, and was very much in the same style as their first two hits.

But he also started writing a few more interesting and meditative songs, most notably Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crane, which became their first and biggest hit in the US.

that you've been left

for another.

But don't forget my blood's again

and then can always

come again.

Oh,

don't let the sun

catch you crying.

Don't

But the Pacemakers came along, sadly, at just the wrong time.

As the first of the Liverpool bands, other than the Beatles, to get signed, they were initially pushed into the same all-round entertainer role that groups like Cliff Richard and the Shadows were in, and their early singles were light pop, even as their first album was full of covers of Arthur Alexander songs like A Shot of Rhythm and Blues.

By mid-1964, the light pop style of their early singles was considered hopelessly passe when compared to groups like The Animals, The Rolling Stones, and The Yard Birds, all of whom were playing the same kind of material that the Pacemakers' free fame club sets and first album had been made up of.

On the evidence of the small number of live recordings of the Pacemakers, had they been signed even a year later, they would have fit easily into that milieu.

And while Jerry Marsden's friendly singing voice and persona would never have allowed him to become a menacing, rebellious figure like Mick Jagger, the group could easily have had a much longer period of success and respect than they did.

I say,

what I say,

oh, it's the end of the day.

The Pacemaker split up in 1966, but Jerry later revived the name for tours on the Nostalgia Circuit.

He's now retired due to health problems, but I saw him on what was his last tour a couple of years back, and he was still good enough that you could understand why, for at least a few weeks, he had once been bigger than the Beatles.

sea.