Gerry Marsden has been remembered from his early days performing in a small club off Lord Street in Southport and for his many popular performances at Southport Theatre.
The Merseybeat pop star, famous for his anthemic number one 1963 hit You’ll Never Walk Alone, sadly died of a heart infection yesterday (3 January), aged 78.
The founder of Gerry and the Pacemakers, You’ll Never Walk Alone became the anthem of Liverpool Football Club. Originally from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1945 musical Carousel it became a comforting tune for many people in troubled times. During the first national lockdown, the NHS fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore, Michael Ball and the NHS Voices of Care choir scored a No 1 hit with the song.
Southport Dukes Ward councillor and music enthusiast, Sir Ron Watson, said: “I was sorry to learn of the passing of Gerry Marsden who was a truly iconic figure in the Merseybeat era.
“I saw Gerry perform dozens of times at Cavern lunchtime sessions where he alternated with the Beatles but in 1961-2 he also appeared on quite a regular basis at a small upstairs club off Lord Street in Southport whose name now escapes me.
“One of the most significant shows when Brian Epstein tried to expand the scope of his artists was headlined by Joe Brown on 26 July 1962 and Joe was supported by The Beatles and Gerry and the Pacemakers.
“His first EMI single How Do You Do It went to No 1 and there was an irony in the fact that EMI had wanted The Beatles to record it but they did not like the song as you can hear from a very lacklustre demo recording they made at the time.
“Throughout the whole of his career I saw Gerry perform many times at Southport Theatre as part of ‘60s package shows.
“I last saw him a couple of years ago at his final tour when he was presented with a lifesize oil painting portrait.
“For most people, however, Gerry will always be associated with his version of You’ll Never Walk Alone which became the anthem for Liverpool Football Club of which he was an energetic and lifetime supporter and the club awarded him lifetime membership in recognition of his support.
“To hear 40,000 plus people all singing his version of the song in a lusty manner was a sight and sound to behold and the song was also used on numerous occasions to try and bring communities together.”
For a brief and heady moment in the early 1960s, The Beatles’ main rivals for dominance of the pop charts were not the Rolling Stones, but Gerry and the Pacemakers.
Like the Beatles, Gerry Marsden and his group came from Liverpool and like their Merseybeat compatriots, they were managed by Brian Epstein and their records were produced by George Martin.
When the Pacemakers’ first three singles went to number one in 1963, they outstripped The Beatles to become the first act in chart history to score such a triple. The Beatles did not score a UK No 1 until their third single, From Me to You.
After hitting the top with How Do You Do It? and I Like It, Gerry and the Pacemakers’ third No 1 conferred civic immortality in their home city when the song was adopted as the anthem of Liverpool FC.
Sung in suitably melodramatic fashion by Marsden, the group’s version of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s You’ll Never Walk Alone is to this day played over the PA system before every Liverpool home match and has been sung by supporters in celebration when the club has won the cup and the league and in commiseration of 1989’s Hillsborough tragedy, which cost 96 Liverpool fans their lives.
Although The Beatles soon left the Pacemakers trailing in their wake, Marsden and his group enjoyed further hits with I’m the One, Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying and Ferry Cross the Mersey. The latter became the theme tune of the 1965 film of the same name, scripted by the Coronation Street writer Tony Warren and which starred Marsden and his group.
In 1989, Gerry Marsden re-recorded Ferry Cross The Mersey with Paul McCartney and Holly Johnson of Frankie Goes To Hollywood to raise funds for the families of the victims of the Hillsborough stadium disaster. It gave him his fifth British number one, a quarter of a century after the song had originally been a hit.
Although he had a property in Spain, he kept his main home in Wirral and remained a regular attender at Liverpool FC matches all his life.
He is survived by his wife, Pauline (nee Behan) whom he married in 1965.
He is further survived by their daughters, Yvette and Victoria.
Gerard Marsden was born in Toxteth, Liverpool in 1942, two years after his older brother Freddie.
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