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Gerry Marsden, whose band Gerry and the Pacemakers proved to be formidable rivals to the Beatles in the early 1960s Liverpool rock scene, scoring hits like “Ferry Cross the Mersey”, “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying ”and“ You will never walk alone ”, died Sunday in the Liverpool area. He was 78 years old.
His death, at Arrowe Park Hospital in the Merseyside metro area, was confirmed by his family in a statement. British media said the cause was a heart infection.
Gerry and the Pacemakers were the second group signed by Beatles manager Brian Epstein, but they won a No.1 single on the UK’s official singles chart before the Beatles did, accomplishing this feat in 1963 with their first single, “How Are You Doing It.” It broke the Beatles’ first chart for three weeks, “From Me to You”.
The Pacemakers’ next two singles, “I Like It” and “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” followed suit, making them the first act to reach the top of the UK singles charts with their first three releases. They held that record for two decades, until another Liverpool band, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, equalized.
The Pacemakers didn’t write their first flurry of hits; the first two were by Mitch Murray, while the group chose the valiant ballad “You’ll Never Walk Alone” from the musical “Carousel” by Rodgers and Hammerstein. (The Beatles recorded an earlier version of the effervescent “How Do You Do It” at the behest of their producer George Martin, but they weren’t happy with the song, so it wasn’t released at the era. to surface up to three decades later on The Beatles’ “Anthology 1” collection.)
Mr. Marsden’s talent as a songwriter emerged in 1964, first as a co-writer, with his bandmates, of “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” and then as only author of “Ferry Cross the Mersey”, named after the waterway that passes through Liverpool.
The melodies of these songs had a grandeur that exuded both melancholy and rapture, heightened by the floating voice of Mr. Marsden. While he could nail the bouncy flair of the band’s lighter singles and reflect it with his lively rhythm guitar work, his soaring range gave him the chops to turn songs like “You’ll Never Walk Alone” into hymns. His band’s version of ‘Walk Alone’ became the signature song of Liverpool Football Club and was subsequently adopted by sports teams around the world.
The Pacemakers took off more slowly in the United States. Their first trio of British hits missed the US charts before “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” climbed to No. 4 in Billboard Magazine and “Ferry Cross the Mersey” reached No. 6. The group has two other American scores. , a reissued “I Like It” and “I’ll Be There”, which each made Billboard’s Top 20 in 1964.
After his death, Paul McCartney wrote on Twitter: “Gerry was a companion on our debut at Liverpool. He and his band were our biggest rivals on the local scene. His unforgettable performances of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ and ‘Ferry Cross the Mersey’ remain in the hearts of many as reminders of a joyous period in British music. “
Gerard Marsden was born on September 24, 1942 in the Toxteth section of Liverpool to Fredrick and Mary (McAlindin) Marsden. His father was a railroad worker who played the ukulele, wrote The Guardian. His parents encouraged Gerry and his older brother, Fred, to play instruments. Gerry chose the guitar; Fred, the drums.
The brothers’ first group, Gerry Marsden and the Mars Bars, performed skiffle music, a British precursor to rock ‘n’ roll. After the Mars Company objected to the group’s appropriation of their chocolate candy name, they became Gerry and the Pacemakers, followed by Les Chadwick on bass and Les Maguire on piano.
The quartet honed their skills at the same clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany, which nurtured the Beatles. “In 1959 we started playing rock ‘n’ roll to the Germans,” Mr. Marsden told the New Zealand TV show “The Beat Goes On” in 2009. “We were playing from 7 p.m. at 2 a.m. , with a 15-minute break every hour. It was an excellent learning of music.
Mr. Epstein met the band at the record store he ran, NEMS Music. After seeing them perform, he signed them and made a deal with Columbia Records. Much to Mr. Marsden’s delight, Mr. Martin produced their first recordings. “We’ve only heard our voices on crappy tape recorders before,” he told The Beatles Bible website. “We couldn’t believe we sounded so good.”
The group’s UK No.1 string was almost four, but their single “I’m the One”, written by Mr. Marsden, missed out on first place by one position, just behind “Needles and Pins” , by another group of Liverpudlian researchers. In 1965, the band performed in a musical, “Ferry Cross the Mersey,” but it was not popular and made unflattering comparisons to The Beatles’ “A Hard Day’s Night” a year earlier.
“It’s slightly funny,” wrote The New York Times. “But we’ve seen it all before.”
The group obtained its last American Top 40 score in September 1966 with “Girl on a Swing”. A month later, they dissolved. Mr. Marsden then worked as a solo artist before reforming the Pacemakers in 1974, with no success in the charts.
In the 1980s, Mr. Marsden reclaimed first place twice in the UK with re-recordings of his 1960s hits for charitable causes. Following a 1985 fire at Bradford Football Stadium in Yorkshire that killed 56 people, he formed a group called Crowd to cut a new version of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.
Four years later, following a fatal human crash during a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in South Yorkshire, he joined Paul McCartney, Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes to Hollywood and other artists to re-record “Ferry Cross the Mersey” for the benefit of the families of the victims. Mr. Marsden continued to visit the Alumni Circuit until his retirement in November 2018.
He married Pauline Behan in 1965, and she survives him, with their daughters Yvette and Victoria. Her brother, Fred, died of cancer in 2006.
Even in his later years, the famous humble Mr. Marsden was surprised by the international success of his group.
“I used to believe that you had to be something special to have a successful record,” he said on “The Beat Goes On”. “We were just kids from Liverpool.”
He remembers that even when his band’s first single, “How Did You Do It” took off, his mom didn’t let it go through her head: “When I told my mom the song was going being number 1, she said, “This is awesome. Now finish your fish and chips. ”
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