Billy J. Kramer

Jerry Marsden had three.

Billy J. Kramer had one.

The Searchers had one.

So there was only two weeks in that year, in that pivotal year where all the singing started, where it wasn't a Scouse accent at the top of the charts.

was a red-letter day in 1961.

Also, on the anniversary yesterday, 1961, Just before the Beatles, roughly the time of Billy Fury, Billy J. Kramer, hundreds of Algerians, hundreds were murdered in those very same streets of Paris.

We don't know how many hundreds because the French police threw them into the river Seine.

And many of the bodies were never seen again.

I'm just beginning to see Now I'm on my way It doesn't matter to me Chasing the clouds away The trees are drawing me near I've got to find out why Those gentle voices I'm looking at myself, reflections of my mind It's just the kind of day to leave myself behind So gently swaying through the peril and the love If you would just come with me, I'll see the beauty of I'm just beginning to see Now I'm on my way It doesn't matter to me Chasing the clouds away Something calls to me The trees are dry I've got to find out why Those gentle voices I hear

Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas were part of the Liverpool music scene and they shared manager Brian Epstein with the Beatles.

And John Lennon even wrote their biggest hit, Bad to Me.

If you ever leave me I'll be set in blue Don't you ever leave me I'm so in love with you The birds in the sky would be

This is Big Tony, your host, and I opened the program this week with a pair of songs from the early days of the British Beat Boom.

First, we heard Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas with Bad To Me, followed by Gerry and the Pacemakers with How Do You Do It.

And those two songs introduce the subject of today's program, one of the most important record producers of all time, the late, great Sir George Martin.

This is the second installment of an occasionally recurring Prog Watch series that I'm simply calling Producers, in which I turn the spotlight on some of the people behind the control room glass who helped shape the music that we know and love.

Be-be-be-bop.

Once again, that was Paul McCartney with Ballroom Dancing from the 1982 album Tug of War, produced by the man we've been celebrating throughout today's program, Sir George Martin.

From Billy J. Kramer and Gerry and the Pacemakers, through his extraordinary partnership with the Beatles and on to America, Jeff Beck, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Cheap Trick, Ultravox, and beyond, George Martin left an enormous and remarkably diverse body of work behind him.

But perhaps what impresses me most is that he never seemed to impose a single, quote, George Martin sound on everybody he produced.

Yeah, yeah, yeah

... and Cilla Black and, uh, Billy J. Kramer and, uh, Tommy Quickly and ...

Um, but then in the business side, he, he, he brings, he brings down, you know, Peter Brown and-

Yeah

Bad to me.

It's calling out for Billy J. Kramer, isn't it? Exactly.

Overall, worthwhile, this project?

Yeah, I mean, it's sure, especially if you've got iTunes, because then you get it for free.

So they're singing all these Liverpool [laughs] songs.

They're already made for them, you know, whether it's Gerry and the Mars and, uh, Billy J. Kramer, The Beatles.

Um, and then a c- and then so every week it's a big Scouse singing song, and that's, and that's what fascinates everyone.

That's why, like, Panorama, they're going love to sing and Cilla Black and She Loves You, and then You'll Never Walk Alone is number one for three weeks, and they think this is brilliant.

Lieber and Stoller got...

Anyways, you and I met Billy J. Kramer last year at a local musician's dinner.

Yeah, Dean Milano's dinner.

Yeah,

Well, instead of

talking so much, we'll listen to a song.

Billy J. Kramer of the Dakotas doing Little Children.

Little children, you better not tell on me.