As you know if you’ve read Tune In, Mark Lewisohn’s peerless history of the Beatles’ pre-fame years, the Fab Four were hardly the only musicians blazing new trails in and around Liverpool in the U.K. in the early 1960s. Hundreds of groups were vying for fame while creating the genre that came to be called Merseybeat (after the river that runs through northwest England). Also known as British beat and beat music, the genre combines the influences of pop, skiffle and R&B with a large dose of the American rock and roll that many of its purveyors adored.
A fascinating 2023 three-disc anthology called Let’s Stomp! Merseybeat and Beyond 1962-1969 covers the best of this music (aside from the Beatles, who are excluded due to licensing constraints). It also features tracks issued by Liverpool-area acts from the mid-’60s, when the Merseybeat craze started to fade, through the rest of the decade.
Listening to these CDs will remind you that, like most musical genres, Merseybeat is a bit of a catch-all term for material that in fact varies widely in style. It will also demonstrate that whatever you call their songs, the acts that came out of this time and place produced a heck of a lot of good music.
Don’t look to this set for the British Invasion’s best-known numbers. The 93-track program does make room for a few Top 40 U.S. hits, such as the Swinging Blue Jeans’ “Hippy Hippy Shake,” The Searchers’ “When You Walk in the Room” and Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas’ “Bad to Me,” but much of this material will likely be unknown to many listeners on both sides of the Atlantic. Its freshness only adds to the pleasure.
Quite a few of the tracks have links to the Beatles. The set includes four John Lennon/Paul McCartney compositions, for example, among them “I’m in Love” by the Fourmost, a group that played the Cavern Club with the Fab Four; the above-mentioned track and another number by Kramer, who was under contract to Beatles manager Brian Epstein; and two selections by Cilla Black, who had also been signed by Brian Epstein. Also featured are Gerry and the Pacemakers, another act Epstein handled; Focal Point, who were named by Epstein and signed to Apple Publishing; future Apple artist Jackie Lomax; Beryl Marsden, who performed at the Cavern Club and supported the Beatles on their last U.K. tour; and Lee Curtis and the All-Stars, who featured ex-Beatle Pete Best. Here, too, are the Big Three’s version of “Some Other Guy,” a song the Beatles recorded early on; and “Lend Me Your Comb,” by Rory Storm and the Hurricanes, a group that employed a drummer by the name of Ringo Starr.
Related: Lost British Invasion hits of the ’60s
American rock and roll, however, looms even larger in this program than the Beatles. There are covers of hits by many U.S. bands, including the Contours’ “Do You Love Me” (performed here by Faron’s Flamingos), the Marvelettes’ “Beechwood 4-5789” (by Ian and the Zodiacs), Ruby and the Romantics’ “Our Day Will Come” (by The Merseybeats), Dobie Gray’s “The In Crowd” (by the Fourmost), the Jaynetts’ “Sally Go Round the Roses” (by Lyn Cornell) and Clyde McPhatter’s “Lover Please” (by the Vernons Girls).
Some of these covers—such as the Cryan Shames’ Joe Meek–produced version of the Drifters’ “Please Stay”—are arguably even better than the excellent American hit versions.
The set comes with a 24-page booklet that inexplicably fails to identify the composers of many of the tracks. However, it does offer copious notes about each number as well as a wealth of color photos.
