Song of the Day 1/4: Gerry and the Pacemakers, “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying”
Gerry Marsden, lead singer and main songwriter for Merseybeat pioneers Gerry and the Pacemakers, died yesterday of a heart infection at age 78.
Before Beatlemania became a worldwide phenomenon, Marsden and his mates — originally billed as the Mars Bars until the candy company objected — were the main rivals to the Fab Four. They played the same clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany, and shared the same manager, Brian Epstein, and producer, George Martin. They even reached the top of the British charts before the Beatles, performing “How Do You Do It?” a song the Beatles recorded but rejected as too sappy, and anyway they wanted to record their own material.
After a string of three straight No. 1 hits in England, Marsden started writing most of the band’s material, though the entire group was credited. These songs included their biggest American hits, “Ferry Cross the Mersey” (No. 8) and this ballad, which reached No. 4 in mid-1964.
In the fast-moving world of pop music in the ’60s, their popularity in the U.S. masked a decline in the UK, where their look and sound seemed dated by the end of 1965. The band broke up in 1966 and Marsden started a solo career that never really took off.
“How Do You Do It?” bears more than a passing resemblance to “That Thing You Do,” the reverse-engineered 1960s pop “hit” featured in the eponymous 1996 film.
