Gerry Marsden
Musician
GERRY MARSDEN, who has died at 78, was swept to fame on the tide of Merseybeat music from 1960s Liverpool. But his most famous hit, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s You’ll Never Walk Alone, spanned the generations as an enduring anthem in times of troubles.
Marsden re- recorded it after the Bradford City fire disaster in 1985 to raise money for the families of victims, and again after the Hillsborough disaster of 1989. The song became an anthem in Liverpool and last year, the fundraiser Captain Sir Tom Moore achieved a number one hit with another version of it.
Marsden, who was awarded an MBE in 2003 for his charity work, was best known as the lead singer of Gerry and the Pacemakers, which in the early 1960s worked the same Liverpool/ Hamburg club circuit as the Beatles before being signed by their manager, Brian Epstein.
Born in Liverpool in 1942, Marsden made his first public
appearance aged just 13 as a member of a local youth club. In 1959, with his brother Freddie, bass guitarist Les Chadwick and pianist Arthur Mack, he formed a band called The Mars Bars, hoping it would bring sponsorship from the chocolate makers.
When their bid for corporate backing failed, they changed their name to The Pacemakers after Gerry heard an athletics commentary on TV.
As the band’s success grew, Marsden gave up his job as a tea chest maker to turn professional, and the band went from strength to strength. Mack left the band in 1960, but Les Maguire joined a year later and they
went on to perform alongside the Beatles. Their first three releases reached number one in 1963 – How Do You Do It, I Like It, and You’ll Never Walk Alone, which had originally been the second act showstopper in the musical Carousel. Other chart hits included I’m The One and Ferry Cross The Mersey, the title song of a 1965 film in which the group played an up and coming band taking part in a music competition.
They split in 1967 and Marsden pursued a solo career before reforming the band in 1974 to tour the world, a feat they repeated in 1993 to mark their 30th anniversary. In 1993, he recounted the story of his success in
which also became the basis of a musical theatre production.
He had triple heart bypass surgery at Broad Green Hospital, in Liverpool, in 2003, and finally retired after 60 years of live performances to spend time with his wife Pauline and his family.
He marked the award of the Freedom of Liverpool in April 2009 by boarding a ferry across the Mersey, where he surprised sightseers by getting out his guitar to perform the song with which it is forever associated.
“Everyone knows that I’m extremely proud of Liverpool and this really is the icing on the cake for me,” he said.