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 47th 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.”
