A 25-track Gerry and the Pacemakers anthology from 1991 is subtitled The Definitive Collection, but that claim no longer applies because a new three-CD compendium delivers a whopping 98 numbers from this British Invasion group. Called I Like It! Anthology 1963–1966, it collects all their hit singles (some in both stereo and mono) plus a 1964 California concert, an EP, and lots of album tracks.
When they started out, the Merseybeat pop/rock artist Gerry Marsden and his band had much in common with the Beatles, with whom they often shared stages. Not only did both groups hail from Liverpool and hone their acts in its Cavern Club and Hamburg, Germany’s Top Ten Club; they also covered some of the same American hits and were managed by Brian Epstein and produced by George Martin.
Gerry and the Pacemakers got off to a promising start in 1963 as the first act to reach No. 1 in England with each of their three initial releases there: “How Do You Do It?” and “I Like It,” both by songwriter and producer Mitch Murray, and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” from Broadway’s Carousel. While fun, however, those numbers were no less fluffy than, say, early recordings by Herman’s Hermits, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, or Freddy and the Dreamers.
The group improved, though. Besides being a likable singer, Marsden, who died in 2021, was an increasingly skilled songwriter, and the group’s production values became more sophisticated. As a result, Gerry and the Pacemakers wound up issuing two fine orchestrated ballads that made the Top 10 in the U.S. in 1964: “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” and “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” both of which Marsden wrote. They also made some relatively little-known recordings that are as enjoyable as those ballads, among them Marsden’s “Now I’m Alone,” and scored additional stateside hits with his “It’s Gonna Be Alright,” Bobby Darin’s “I’ll Be There,” and the Happenings’ “Girl on a Swing.”
Nevertheless, by 1966, when the Beatles’ Revolver debuted trailblazing songs like “Taxman,” “Tomorrow Never Knows,” and “Eleanor Rigby,” Gerry and the Pacemakers were still cranking out music that didn’t seem all that far removed from their early releases. They were also still struggling to develop a distinctive sound as they continued to feature a preponderance of wildly disparate covers—everything from Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night” and the Jerome Kern/Dorothy Fields standard “The Way You Look Tonight” to Larry Williams’s “Dizzy Miss Lizzy” and Willie Dixon’s “My Babe.”
Gerry and the Pacemakers were honing their musical skills and evolving but not fast enough.
Also Noteworthy
Ronnie Self, Rocks. “It’s a shame he didn’t have more success as a singer because the few records that he did make rocked like nobody’s business,” so said Bob Dylan on his Theme Time Radio Hour in an introduction to Ronnie Self’s recording of “Ain’t I’m a Dog.”
This anthology – part of the Bear Family label’s series of CDs focused on early rock and rockabilly acts – backs up Dylan’s comment. Containing 33 tracks first released between 1956 and 1969, it is dominated by self-penned material, a reminder that Self—whose writing credits include several of Brenda Lee’s biggest hits—was also a talented composer.
On rockers and ballads such as “Bop-a-Lena,” “Wild and Wooly Life,” and “I Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” he shows off a degree of versatility, energy, and vocal prowess that should have produced the level of success enjoyed by contemporaries like Gene Vincent and Carl Perkins. Instead, as liner notes in the album’s 32-page booklet explain, “a toxic combination of bad breaks and worse behavior ensured that Ronnie Self would never really crack the big time.” That “worse behavior,” which included heavy drug and alcohol use, also led to an early end for the singer, who died in 1981 at age 43.
Duke Robillard, Roll with Me. Blues-rock singer and guitarist Duke Robillard – a former member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds who also founded Roomful of Blues – started working on this record in 2005. It got put aside as his focus turned to another project, but, he says, “All this time, I knew we had to get back to the album.”
You’ll be glad he finally did, because the set, which features a prominent horn section, is excellent. Among the many highlights are covers of Fats Domino’s “Are You Going My Way” and Big Joe Turner’s “Boogie Woogie Country Girl” as well as Robillard’s own “My Plea,” which sounds Domino-influenced, and “Just Kiss Me,” a guitar-and-horns showcase that he also wrote.
Roll up the rugs and roll with Duke.
Greg Copeland, Empire State. Back in the late 1960s, Greg Copeland co-authored “Buy for Me the Rain,” Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s 1967 pop single, and collaborated a bit with Jackson Browne, a friend since high school. During the decades that followed, however, he worked as an attorney and issued only three full-length albums: 1982’s Browne–produced Revenge Will Come, 2008’s Diana and James, and 2020’s The Tango Bar.
Now in his late seventies, he’s back with Empire State, a release whose brevity doesn’t exactly make up for lost time: an EP, it clocks in at only about 20 minutes and includes just four songs, all self-penned. (A fifth track is a 53-second recording of coyotes howling in Copeland’s backyard.)
More would have been better but take what you can get. Copeland – accompanied here by a small ensemble that includes his producer, Tyler Chester on keyboards – is a quirky but fascinating folk and rock performer with a distinctive perspective and an eclectic approach. The best cuts on Empire State include the acoustic, affecting “4:59:59,” a song about drug addiction; and the poetic title cut, the first-person tale of a woman who leaves New York and her boyfriend and proclaims, “Everybody’s got their own little jukebox, this is mine.”
Jeff Burger’s website, byjeffburger.com, contains five decades’ worth of music reviews, interviews, and commentary. His books include Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, and Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters.
