When the Beatles met the Pacemakers: inside the friendliest rivalry in rock

In the spring of 1960 several of Merseyside’s brightest rock ’n roll prospects auditioned for a coveted spot opening for Gene Vincent at Liverpool Stadium. Among those trying their luck were a collection of scrappy up-and-comers who had recently changed their name from The Quarrymen to The Silver Beetles.

To their disgruntlement, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and bandmates were passed over. The honour of raising the curtain at Liverpool Stadium instead went to Lennon’s friend Gerry Marsden, who has just passed away at age 78 (Ringo Starr was also on the bill, drumming with Rory Storm and his Hurricanes).

It would not be the last time the histories of the Beatles – they dropped the “Silver” that August – and Gerry and the Pacemakers became entwined. But as the years went by, Marsden’s triumph in early 1960 would come to look like an aberration.

At that time, the Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers appeared cut from the same teenbeat cloth. They’d come up in the same skiffle circuit and if anything the mercurial John Lennon seemed to find Marsden a more natural soulmate than the squeaky clean McCartney or the brooding George Harrison.

And early on, their careers proceeded in lockstep, as Marsden and the Pacemakers were signed by Beatles manager Brian Epstein, followed the future Fabs to Hamburg, where they cut their teeth playing seven 45 minute sets each night, and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

In October 1961, the Beatles and the Pacemakers even combined on stage, at Litherland Town Hall in Liverpool, to play as one group, The Beatmakers, with Marsden on vocals, Lennon on piano, McCartney on bass, Harrison on guitar and Pete Best and Freddy Marsden (Gerry’s brother) taking turns on drums.

Eighteen months later, the Pacemakers went to number one with their debut single How Do You Do It? (eclipsing the Beatles’ first record, Love Me Do, which only reached 17). And the band went to number one again with their second and third singles, I Like It and You’ll Never Walk Alone; a feat not matched until the mid-1980s, when Liverpool group Frankie Goes to Hollywood also hit the top of the charts with their first three records.

The Pacemakers created a terrace anthem with You’ll Never Walk Alone (a cover of the 1945 Rodgers and Hammerstein song from Carousel, spruced up with strings from Beatles producer George Martin).

But, in the end, despite one last great song - 1965’s Ferry Cross The Mersey - Gerry and the Pacemakers never had the same enduring success as the Beatles, perhaps because they didn’t move with the times. The Beatles were sponges – adapting to musical change and embracing the counterculture. Marsden simply tried to replicate his success.

By 1966, the Beatles were creating futuristic masterpieces such as Tomorrow Never Knows on the Revolver album, while the Pacemakers were still playing teen-friendly nuggets like La La La and Girl on a Swing. The psychedelia of the era simply held no interest for Marsden. As Hunter Davies wrote in The Beatles Book, “[Gerry] was far too down to earth to follow the Beatles and visit the Maharishi.”

“Never the hippest of acts image-wise, with their conservative suits and short hair, they were rapidly becoming outdated, sticking to the same basic feel-good formula that had seemed fresh in 1963, but was utterly passé by 1966,” music writer Richie Unterberger once wrote.

This contrast in fortunes, though, says something about Marsden’s lack of pretension, his amiability and the fact that, unlike Lennon and McCartney, he was happy with his lot. Three number ones and an unofficial place in the hall of fame of Liverpool FC – what more could a lad from Birkenhead dream of?

“We were deadly rivals onstage, but the best of friends offstage,” is how Marsden described his relationship with the Beatles and the other Merseybeat groups in an April 2008 interview with Record Collector. “We never expected to make any money, or even a record even. So we were all very pleased while it was happening.”

That down to earth quality extended to his personal life. Whether stepping out with models or comparing themselves to Jesus, the Beatles’s off-stage lives were the stuff of high drama through the Sixties. Marsden, by contrast, tied the knot with long-term girlfriend Pauline Behan in 1965 and stayed happily married.

Asked which of his songs he was proudest of he would always list Don’t Let The Sun Catch You Crying, which he wrote for Behan after she dumped him. Two days after hearing it, they got back together.

Marsden, if anything, was happy to see the Beatles achieve such huge success, having formed a close bond with Lennon during their time together in Hamburg. They got into all sorts of scrapes. Fascinated by the seedier side of the city, the pair once scrimped their Deutschmarks and mustered their courage to visit a brothel.

“We just went to see what it was like,” he told Record Collector. “We paid our money, went in, and sat down. This guy came out with the biggest lady we had ever seen in our lives…I looked at John, he looked at me, and we ran out that door so quick. Waste of money but we had a good laugh. We were too frightened to go back again. I wanted to go back to get my money back, but John said, “No, we’d better not. Might cause trouble.”

"We had no interest in engaging in the act. We just wanted to take the mickey, have a giggle, drink the booze, then leave.”

His easy-going outlook served Marsden well across the next 60 years. Where some artists might have fought to stay relevant, Marsden was happy for Gerry and the Pacemakers to have had their moment. Music meant everything to him. However, there were more important things in life than being number one.

“I obviously knew that our style of music was out. The music was changing. The kids were changing. The whole era was changing, and I wasn’t into that whole scene. So I thought, “Get out. You’ve had a good time. You’ve enjoyed it. Move on.”