![]() “We believe you walked till you could not walk, you carried your baby in your arms / They took her from you at the border,” sings Seeger.ĭavid Mansfield (known for being a key member of Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Review) coproduced with Jones and contributes violin, mandolin, guitar, and dulcimer. “I believe you had no choice / I believe you had no voice,” adds Thompson. “I believe the gang said they would kill you,” sings Earle on the single. The album’s debut single, “We Believe You,” features choruses sung by folk singers Peggy Seeger and the great Steve Earle as well as Richard Thompson, who plays guitar throughout the CD. The vast majority, Jones reminds us in these well-crafted original songs, are neither criminals nor freeloaders they are voiceless victims, fleeing poverty, gang violence, and other dire circumstances. Her empathetic vignettes put human faces on the displaced thousands arriving at America’s southern border. That’s a full 60 years after they first took the stage in Liverpool.ĭiana Jones, Song to a Refugee. The worldwide refugee crisis is the subject of this poignant and timely album by folk singer/songwriter and acoustic guitarist Diana Jones. Incidentally, while the Merseybeats may not have sold as many records as the Beatles, they sure have the Fab Four beat in the longevity department: they reformed and toured in the 1970s, and while they disbanded after that, Crane and Kinsley reassembled the outfit once again in 1993 and are still touring today as the Merseybeats, with U.K. As the title promises, this two-CD, 63-track, two-and-a-half-hour collection serves up all of their work from that decade-singles, album tracks, outtakes (including an alternate rendition of “Sorrow”), home recordings, even German-language versions of “It’s Love That Really Counts” and “I Think of You.” Also on the program are 13 tracks from spinoff artists, such as the Crackers, the Kinsleys, Johnny Gustafson (who went on to play with Roxy Music), Johnny and John, and the Quotations (not to be confused with the American doo-wop group of the same name). The best place to catch up with all this music is the new I Stand Accused: The Complete Merseybeats and Merseys Sixties Recordings, which includes a thick booklet with a 9,000-word essay on the history of both groups. Other winners include “I Stand Accused,” which Elvis Costello later covered “Lavender Blue,” the 1959 Sammy Turner pop hit and Pete Townshend’s “So Sad About Us.” (The Merseys had the same management team as the Who, and that group’s Keith Moon and John Entwistle lent a hand on a few of their tracks.) On Boudleaux Bryant’s “All I Have to Do Is Dream” and Irving Berlin’s “The Girl That I Marry,” for example, they deliver vocal harmonies that prove redolent of the Everly Brothers. There’s a lot of noteworthy material in the Merseybeats and Merseys catalog beyond the hits. David Bowie included “Sorrow” on Pinups, his 1973 collection of 60s covers, and the Beatles slipped a line from it into “It’s All Too Much” on their Yellow Submarine soundtrack. Under that moniker, they’re best known for “Sorrow,” their hit version of an obscure track from the McCoys (who are themselves known for “Hang on Sloopy”). The group disbanded by the mid-60s but enjoyed a second life starting in 1966 when cofounders Tony Crane and Billy Kinsley reformed as a duo called the Merseys with backup that included Badfinger’s Joey Molland. ![]() Later hits include “Wishin’ and Hopin’,” the same song that scored stateside for Dusty Springfield “Don’t Turn Around” and “Mister Moonlight,” where they sound a lot like the early Beatles, who also covered that composition. hits, such as 1963’s “It’s Love That Really Counts” and 1964’s “I Think of You,” both catchy pop numbers featuring excellent vocal harmony work that recalls Peter & Gordon and Chad & Jeremy. Like the Beatles and other well-known groups, the Merseybeats played at the Cavern Club in Liverpool and scored multiple U.K. ![]() Still, if you want to fully understand the Merseybeat scene (named for 1960s rock bands around Liverpool and the River Mersey), you need a taste of the outfit that actually bears that name. While such contemporaries as the Searchers, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Troggs, and of course the Beatles took America by storm, the Merseybeats’ music rarely even aired in the U.S., much less invaded. The Merseybeats-a rock group that formed in Liverpool, England, in the early 1960s-were very much a part of the scene that led to the British Invasion, but for whatever reason, they weren’t part of the Invasion itself.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |