7 - Some Other Guys

Part 1 – The Big Three, Tuesday 19 July 1988 and repeated Wednesday The Big Three had the roughest, toughest sound on Merseyside and maybe it encouraged disorder as there are plenty of stories of Johnny Hutch playing the drums with one hand and fighting off thugs with the other. They may be apocryphal but there was an element of danger around their appearances. I had seen the Orrell Park Ballroom accounts and quoted the entry for 28 June 1961. The Big Three were paid £7 and the Undertakers and the Fourmost, £6. Maybe this is one reason the Big Three was a trio: they were getting £2.6.8d each, while the five Undertakers got £1.4s each. That is, assuming the money was split correctly. The group split in 1963 largely because Brian Griffiths and Johnny Gus thought that Hutch was pocketing more than his share. The takings, incidentally, for their night at the OPB was £67, so someone was making a few bob. No unreleased material On CD with OTB 0144 Part 2,

Part 2 – The Merseybeats, Tuesday 26 July 1988 and repeated Wednesday I always enjoy seeing the Merseybeats on 60s tours: they have a good sound and good stage personalities with two original members, Tony Crane and Billy Kinsley, in the front line. Their ‘Live And Let Die’ with pyrotechnics is great fun but apparently they have to have the local fire officer around before they perform it. They are possibly the most Scouse of all Liverpool bands; just listen to “Wear your hair just for her” in ‘Wishin’ and Hopin’’. This brief programme shows how good they were – mastering the two-and-a-half minute single where you made your point and got out. They moved with the times and their first version of ‘Sorrow’, sadly unreleased, showed their progress towards a heavier sound. This show from 1988 also indicated that they were heading in a wrong direction but those megamixes, starting with Jive Bunny, were making the charts. Unreleased Merseybeat. ‘Goodbye’ – The Kinsleys Unreleased Merseybeat. ‘Sorrow’ – The Merseys (Original version with Jack Bruce, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Clem Cattini) On CD with OTB 0145, Part 1

Part 3 – Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes, Tuesday 2 August 1988 and repeated Wednesday It is good to have proof that Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes were the first rock and roll group on Merseyside as they made private recordings for Bernard Whitty at Lambda Records in Crosby. He was more used to recording weddings and folk groups but he did a fine job, better I would suggest that Percy Phillips with the Quarrymen in 1958 as the balance of voices on ‘In Spite Of All The Danger’ could be better. The Dominoes made their first recordings in 1957 and then they asked a butcher’s delivery boy, Teddy Taylor, to join them. The 1958 recording was cut at the pianist Sam Hardie’s house in Cambridge Avenue, Crosby when his father was out of the way. To get the balance right, Bernard recorded the group in the living room but put the drummer Dave Lovelady at the top of the stairs. Their ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ (1958) is really atmospheric. When they got to the Star-Club they backed a local singer, Audrey Arno, and they recorded with her. Some say that KST spent too long in Germany and missed out on the UK hits, but he wasn’t a poster boy. They recorded an album of contemporary hits as the Shakers which sold 30,000 in Germany. Gathering stories about KST over the years, I’m surprised that he got into so many scrapes – throwing Teds out of a window at Knotty Ash Village Hall, hanging rugby players on hooks in Southport and overturning a bar in Hamburg. Take one look at him and who would want to challenge him. Unreleased Merseybeat. ‘Roll Over Beethoven’ – Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes (1958) On CD with OTB 0145, Part 2

Part 4 – Denny Seyton and the Sabres, Tuesday 9 August 1988 and repeated Wednesday In Paul Du Noyer’s book on Liverpool - Wondrous Place (Virgin, 2002), he says that many of the Merseybeat bands were happy switching to cabaret as that is what they knew anyway. I had never thought about it before, but he is probably right: Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Fourmost and the Searchers all found their homes among the chicken-in-a-basket crowds. It was relatively easy money once you knew what the crowds wanted. Denny Seyton and the Sabres are a good example and even their chart single, ‘The Way You Look Tonight’, is defiantly middle of the road. There were problems when it came to their first single; Sandie Shaw was covering ‘Always Something There To Remind Me’; Freddie and the Dreamers ‘I Understand’ and Dusty Springfield and the Merseybeats ‘Wishin’ And Hopin’’. In desperation, they revived Larry Williams’ ‘Short Fat Fannie’, which was good fun but lacked the distinctiveness of the original. Denny Seyton and the Sabres were asked to record an album of current UK hits for an album called It’s The Gear! to be released in America. They were told they could either have a percentage of the royalties or £200. They listened to what they had done and chose £200. Unreleased Merseybeat. ‘Little Latin Lupe Lu’ – Denny Seyton and the Sabres (1962) Unreleased Merseybeat. ‘The House Of Bamboo’ – Denny Seyton and the Sabres (1964) talk about missing a hit record. Unreleased Merseybeat. ‘That’s What Love Will Do’ (Curtis Mayfield song) – Denny Seyton and the Sabres On CD with OTB 0146, Part 2

Part 5 – The Escorts, Tuesday 16 August 1988 and repeated Wednesday Neat tidy group, second generation if you like as they came up with the Merseybeats, having been a fan of the Beatles and Gerry and then wanting to do it themselves. They formed in 1961and they had a residency at the late night Blue Angel club. Their debut single, ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzy’, had a fine backbeat, but they sounded so young. They realised the potential of a Drifters’ B-side, ‘I Don’t Want To Go On Without You’, but, unfortunately for them, so did the Moody Blues. Their manager, Jim Ireland was so pleased with their recording of ‘Come On Home To Me’ that he gave them a tenner for a meal. In 1966 Paul McCartney produced a Smokey Robinson for them, ‘From Head To Toe’, but the B-side should have been the top side, Paddy Chambers’ ‘Night Time’, a Liverpool song as strong as Curtis Mayfield’s. There is an amusing postscript as years later, Paddy Chambers was reading my book, Let’s Go Down The Cavern, and had no idea that his song had been recorded by Elvis Costello. He was able to contact the publisher and got several hundred pounds. Mike Gregory and Terry Sylvester moved to the Swinging Blue Jeans and Terry then moved onto the Hollies. Mike Gregory did session work for the Bay City Rollers: well, let’s not beat about the bush – he did it for them. Unreleased. ‘Here We Go Again’ – Paddy Chambers and Beryl Marsden, working as Sinbad. On CD with OTB 0147, Part 1. (Also on this CD at the end is a dreadful Larry Parnes protégé, Julian X with ‘Saturday Night’) On CD with OTB 0148, Part 2. (Also on this CD at the end is a dreadful Larry Parnes protégé, Julian X with ‘Saturday Night’)

Part 6 – The Swinging Blue Jeans, Tuesday 23 August 1988 and repeated Wednesday If history were different, the Swinging Blue Jeans would have been the first Merseybeat group with a recording contract, only they weren’t a beat group at the time. They had an audition at Oriole Records in 1961 and ‘Yes Sir That’s My Baby’ and ‘I’m Shy, Mary Ellen, I’m Shy’ are more in line with the Trad Jazz movement with touches of George Formby. They were booked for the Star-Club and quickly realised they had better switch to beat, coming back to England with the greatest transformation of any Liverpool group. In 1966 they wanted to switch to psychedelia but HMV said no. They cut a track independently, ‘Keep Me Warm Til The Sun Shines’, but EMI supported their producer, Wally Ridley. More fool, EMI. When the Blue Jeans returned to a hotel after a gig, they might go to the bar and even entertain the patrons. They had worked out an opening song for such performances and this closes the show. Unreleased. ‘Yes Sir That’s My Baby’ – The Swinging Blue Genes (sic) Unreleased Merseybeat. ‘Keep Me Warm Til The Sun Shines’ (Jimmy Campbell) – The Swinging Blue Jeans, produced by Paddy Chambers. Unreleased. ‘We’re Here Again’ – The Swinging Blue Jeans. On CD with OTB 0148, Part 1

Part 7 – The Dennisons, repeated 30 August 1988 and repeated Wednesday Decca didn’t sign the Beatles and they didn’t really push their Merseybeat acts – the Big Three, Kingsize Taylor, Lee Curtis and the Dennisons – though they were all potential hitmakers. The Dennisons’ ‘Come On Be My Girl’ (No.46) is archetypal Merseybeat. The Dennisons were a fine band with a good lead vocalist (Eddy Parry), supported by Ray Scragg who had a feel for R&B and delivered a Joe Cocker-style vocal on ‘Walking The Dog’ (1964). They toured with Ben E. King who wrote them a song, ‘You Don’t Know What Love Is’. The Dennisons toured so much that they had a cigarette machine in their van. The drummer Clive Hornby became an actor and found fame as Jack Sugden in Emmerdale Farm. In 1983 he returned to Merseyside to sign the wall at the new Cavern. Steve McLaren became an acclaimed guitar teacher. Unreleased Merseybeat. An early demo of the Dennisons practising Joe Brown’s ‘A Picture Of You’. Unreleased. Ray Scragg with a jazzy vocal and piano on ‘Makin’ Whoopee’. On CD with OTB 0149, Part 1

Part 9 – Lee Curtis and the All Stars, Tuesday 13 September 1988 and repeated Wednesday Like Kingsize Taylor, Lee Curtis is bitter. I don’t think he can appreciate why he missed out on hit records and world acclaim. There are, I think, several reasons for this but mainly, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time: he was too late for Elvis and too early for Tom Jones. He was a good entertainer with a fine voice but was far too overwrought for the Merseybeat scene and not taken seriously. He was managed by his brother, Joe Flannery, which didn’t help but surely they could have seen what was going wrong and corrected it. Also, Lee Curtis found success at the Star-Club and like Kingsize Taylor, he was in Hamburg when the hits were coming thick and fast in 1963. Again, Joe should have realised he would be better off in the UK. I also feel that for all his vocal skills he sometimes doesn’t get the meaning of a song. Take ‘It’s Only Make Believe’ which had been recorded at a recent Star-Club reunion. He sings “My hearts, a wedding ring” three times but what does “My hearts” mean: he has only got one heart. Because he never had his dream job, he never really settled and everytime I met him he was doing something else. On this recording, I said he was running a health club in Runcorn. The saddest was when he ran a boarding-house and in the evening, he would play records, including his own, and say, “A drink for anyone who can guess who this is.” Unreleased Merseybeat. ‘It’s No Good For Me’. On CD with OTB 150, Part 1