A conversation with Billy J. Kramer

Way back in 1964, I was a 12-year-old boy with typical 12-year-old boy interests: Sports, especially baseball; science, especially dinosaurs; and avoiding weeding the peonies. I’m still a sports guy --- I played baseball through Pony League and football in high school, and have written and edited sports for much of my newspaper career. I still read science books for fun, and have picked up on science fiction along the way.

But 1964 awakened me to music, and that has remained a passion ever since. It was the year of the British Invasion, and I was one of the first wave of U.S. Beatlemaniacs. The Beatles always were --- and are --- No. 1 with me, but I loved all the other new sounds coming from the U.K., too. The Animals, Manfred Mann, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Searchers, the Kinks, the Rolling Stones. All made it into my growing record collection.

One of my very favorites was Billy J. Kramer. I bought all three U.S. LPs by Billy & the Dakotas, and played them to the extent that even now, 49 years later, I can put them on the turntable and, as each song ends, anticipate the opening of the next. He was one of the first wave of stars to come out of Liverpool, and friend of the Beatles who had played in the same clubs, often on the same cards as them, and he was managed by Beatles manager Brian Epstein.

I recently interviewed Billy for the Chicago Sun-Times for a preview of the Aug. 9-11 Fest for Beatles Fans. It’s a preview I write nearly every year, and one of my favorite assignments. Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure to speak with many old favorites, including Gordon Waller of Peter and Gordon; Ronnie Spector and Billy Preston.

You can find this year’s Sun-Times Fest preview at http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/people/21773040-421/liverpools-billy-j-kramer-headed-to-beatles-festival.html. Newspaper space limitations being what they are, I couldn’t begin to touch on everything I’d have liked to use. So I thought it would be fun to post a longer transcript here. In it, he talks about his new album, “I Won the Fight,” as well as the old days.

By the way, I received a copy of the CD shortly after this interview, and loved it. I played twice through on the first day.

JG: Thanks for setting this up Billy. I’m looking forward to seeing you at the Fest.

BJK: I’m really looking forward to it. It’s always fun, but we had such a great time this year in New Jersey [at the February Fest for Beatles Fans]. I took my band along and played all my new songs and my old songs, and the people who came --- I was very pleased they seemed to really get off on it. It’s very hard with new material, it can go either way. It’s a worry because an artist never knows if they’ll like it or just wanted to hear the old stuff. But they were very responsive. It was great.

JG: It’s your first album to be released in the U.S. since the 1960s. What have you been doing in that time?

BJK: I was just doing shows. It’s very difficult. When Brian [Epstein] died, it was a time when he was about to form his own label. I was going to record with Brian’s label, as I was finishing with EMI. I tried to continue making records independent over the years, and I thought some of them were pretty good, but some of them were pretty lousy. But I didn’t have the big guns behind me. So it was very difficult.

It was something that I always loved to do and wanted to do. I put out singles here and there, and they never came across the ocean to America, but they were out there in England.

JG: The new album is called “I Won the Fight,” which is also one of the songs. Is there a special meaning?

BJK: I won the fight to me … It’s strange, but I started to write the song here at home one day. My idea was about people, the hillclimbers, I never saw them again. “I had a girl called Maureen, and I never ever saw her again.” And it just developed into this song “Liverpool With Love.” Then “Sunsets of Santa Fe,” I have a house in Santa Fe and the sunsets there are magnificent. I actually wrote this song in New York, which is strange, but I went in and I sort of demoed them. One thing led to another till I had a whole CD.

It’s coming up to 50 years, and I said to myself, if you’ve been in show business for 50 years and been through what I’ve been through, good and bad, you’ve definitely won the fight.

JG: Your website says you’ve written four songs on the CD. Which four?

BJK: “To Liverpool with Love,” ‘Sunsets of Santa Fe,” “I Won the Fight,” and “You Can’t Live on Memories.”

JG: In the time between your last chart hits and this CD, did you stay in show business the whole time?

BJK: I was in show business throughout that time. I continued. I had a band. I just did shows. Cabaret became a big thing in England. You’d go and play for a week in one city, then go to another city. I played in Australia and Africa and wherever people wanted me to play.

JG: With audiences demanding the old hits, did you ever feel like, “I never want to do bloody ‘Bad to Me’ ever again?

BJK: I never said that. I feel it’s an artist’s duty to the audience who came along to hear these songs to do them. I’ve done other material but I’ve always included the old songs too.

JG: Turning back the clock, when your recording career began, how much of what you were doing on stage in Liverpool made it onto those albums.

BJK: Not much. I always tell people that this is is my first album because most of the songs on the old albums, apart from the hits and the B-sides, on most of the songs I’d get the lyric sheet put in front of me and I’d sing them, and I’d never sing them again. Also, when you think back, we only did like 20 minute sets. When I started doing the cabaret and the clubs and one-night stands, I would do an hour, and in the hour I would do the A-sides, my B-sides and some things that I thought were cool.

JG: In Liverpool before fame, what kinds of things were you doing onstage?

BJK: Mostly I would do like Jerry Lee Lewis songs, Rick Nelson songs, Fats Domino songs. A lot of cover stuff, things that were being played the radio that I liked.

JG: In November 1963, you came with Brian to New York. [Billy was the first artist Epstein brought to the U.S.] What were your impressions?

BJK: My first trip over here, when I saw the New York skyline, I thought it was unbelievable, but I felt totally intimidated by New York and I wanted to get on the next plane back to England. It overwhelmed me. It was very interesting. I was amazed by the time TV was on [JG---U.K. television had limited hours at the time]. I was amazed that I could buy records at midnight. Have dinner on the 47^th floor of a skyscraper. It really blew my mind.

JG: Why did Brian bring you on the trip [which was mainly to sign contracts]? What did you do?

BJK: At first, I think Brian thought I have this clean image that may be for America. I always think that maybe people think there was something going on with Brian. John Lennon went to Spain with Brian, and everybody thought … you know, I came to America with Brian, and nobody’s ever asked me that question.

JG (laughing): No, no, I wasn’t referring to that at all.

BJK: I did some local TV, I did some radio, and stuff like that, and I saw the sights. We saw some shows. We had a great trip together.

JG: Was John the Beatle you were closest to?

BJK: Yes, I think so. John and Paul. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about John Lennon. I’d really like to write a song about him, but I find it to be very, very difficult. The first time I met John Lennon was at Aintree Institute in Liverpool and he was so nice. I was asking about his guitar, and he said, ‘Do you want to play it?’ They were just cool guys to me. I did a lot of shows with them before they were famous. The song “Do You Want to Know a Secret” [a No. 1 hit for Kramer in the U.K.] was given to me by Brian on a tape. It was John singing it on his own on an acoustic guitar. At the end, John said, “Billy, I’d like to apologize for the quality of the tape, but it’s in the quietest room in the building, and he flushed the toilet, which I thought was hilarious.

I never asked the Beatles for an autograph, and I toured with them all over the place. When I got the song “Bad to Me,” [which Kramer to No. 1 in the U.K, No. 9 in the U.S.) funny enough, I was backstage at a theater and everyone was jamming on the stage. Paul McCartney, I remember, was playing drums, and John was reading a newspaper. He said, “I’ve got a great song for you.” I said, “Are you going to play it for me?” And he said, “No, I’ll see you the next time you’re at Abbey Road.” The next session I did at Abbey Road, to tell you the truth, I wondered if he was going to show up or what. There he was at 10 o’clock at the morning, and I can always say it was an unbelievable experience to sit in a room with John Lennon and have him play “Bad to Me” to me.

Then he said, “I have another one I’d like you to listen to.” And he played “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” I said, “Can I have that one?” He laughed and said, “No, no that’s our next record.”