Billy Fury: Classics And Collectibles

BILLY FURY: CLASSICS AND COLLECTIBLES (1960-1965; 2008)

CD I: 1) Halfway To Paradise; 2) Cross My Heart; 3) I'd Never Find Another You; 4) A King For Tonight; 5) You're Having The Last Dance With Me; 6) Turn My Back On You; 7) Maybe Tomorrow; 8) Wondrous Place; 9) Like I've Never Been Gone; 10) Baby Come On; 11) Do You Really Love Me Too; 12) I'm Lost Without You; 13) Letter Full Of Tears; 14) Turn Your Lamp Down Low; 15) In Thoughts Of You; 16) What Am I Living For?; 17) Somebody Else's Girl; 18) Jealousy; 19) Push Push; 20) Last Night Was Made For Love; 21) Nothin' Shakin' (But The Leaves On The Trees); 22) A Thousand Stars; 23) It's Only Make Believe; 24) Hard Times (No One Knows Better Than I); 25) Once Upon A Dream; 26) This Diamond Ring; 27) I Will; 28) A Million Miles From Nowhere; 29) Run To My Lovin' Arms; 30) You're Swell; 31) Forget Him;

CD II: 1) Break Up; 2) Nothin' Shakin' (But The Leaves On The Trees); 3) The Hippy Hippy Shake; 4) Glad All Over; 5) I Can Feel It; 6) You Got Me Dizzy; 7) Saved; 8) You Better Believe It Baby; 9) She's So Far Out She's In; 10) Straight To Your Arms; 11) Away From You; 12) Am I Blue; 13) That's Enough; 14) Kansas City; 15) From The Bottom Of My Heart; 16) I'll Be So Glad (When Your Heart Is Mine); 17) Lovesick Blues; 18) Keep Away; 19) What Did I Do; 20) Cheat With Love; 21) I Can't Help Loving You; 22) Candy Kisses; 23) I'm Hurting All Over; 24) Nobody's Child; 25) Wedding Bells; 26) Stick Around; 27) Time Has Come; 28) Let's Paint The Town; 29) Begin The Beguine; 30) I'll Never Fall In Love Again; 31) I Will Always Be With You.

Billy's discography after 1963 quickly becomes a poorly-studied mess. He did have at least one movie soundtrack in 1965 (I've Got A Horse, with some new material), but other than that, most, if not all, of his releases for Decca, and then, later, for Parlophone (from 1967 to 1970) were singles — none of them hits, and few of them even gaining the honor of reappearing on later com­pilations. For obvious reasons: with Beatlemania hitting the decks, by the end of 1963 nobo­dy needed Billy Fury, shorn of his «rock'n'roll» reputation, any more, and he just withered away like the «poor man's UK Elvis» he was (and his withering was correspondingly more pitiful — at least Elvis still sold records a-plenty all the way up to 1977).

Anyway, as a brief post-scriptum, here is one of the most readily available comprehensive com­pilations — more than 60 songs in all — that goes way beyond Billy's LP material and includes lots (but far from all) of the single A- and B-sides from 1960 to 1966, that is, his Decca years. In between The Sound Of Fury, which is seriously underrepresented here, and this huge collection, honestly, nobody needs any more of Billy in one's life (well, throw in We Want Billy!, perhaps, just for all the girlie fun). And it is also not very surprising that the Collectibles part, emphasi­zing B-sides and rarities, is generally more enjoyable than the Classics part, mostly dedicated to sentimental and syrupy pop.

«Enjoyable», of course, does not mean «outstanding» or «original» — in fact, the best songs are usually covers of contemporary rock'n'roll and R&B hits, with some surprising choices (LaVern Baker's ʽSavedʼ, for instance, or Hank Williams' ʽLovesick Bluesʼ with some credible yodeling, or ʽYou Got Me Dizzyʼ from the repertoire of Jimmy Reed, the world's greatest toothless home­less bluesman getting the blues-de-luxe treatment with pompous brass and all) and some predictable ones (ʽKansas Cityʼ, ʽNothin' Shakin'ʼ, ʽThe Hippy Hippy Shakeʼ, which every British rock'n'roller knew by heart). Interestingly, Billy almost completely refrained from covering the big pop hits of the British Invasion era, the only exception here re­presented by the Dave Clark 5's ʽGlad All Overʼ — he might have been quite bitter at all those whippersnappers outshining him in droves. But what can you do: with the Beatles and the Stones at the front of the movement, professional singers were pushed back by singer-songwriters, and since Billy no longer writes his own material here, or, when he does, strictly adheres to the reci­pés of corporate crooners, sulking ain't gonna help matters none.

Still, there is no denying that Billy was a fairly decent chameleon. Elvis was his main, but not on­ly role model. He could have his way with smooth vocal jazz (ʽBegin The Beguineʼ), could inject the required subtle slyness into a Jerry Lee Lewis song (ʽBreak Upʼ), could stir up the soul on an R&B classic (ʽWhat Am I Living For?ʼ). He just never really took it to the very top — and this is where he fails, because in the long run, nobody needs one guy scoring a bunch of B's when one can have instead several different guys, each one scoring one A.

Anyway, as long as this whole compilation stretches out, there are no unjustly forgotten classics here, but fans of strong, reliable British vocal cords set to family-entertainment-level arrange­ments will find a lot to heartily nostalgize to. And oh yes, the first disc actually ends with Billy's last recorded track — ʽForget Himʼ, recorded in the early 1980s (yes, synthesizers and elec­tronic drums are included) and released already after his death in January 1983, at the awfully young age of 42. For the record, the song shows that Billy's music remained loyal to cheesy atmosphere until the very end, but also that his vocal power stayed with him for all that time (although the singing does seem a little thinner, probably due to health problems).

Billy Fury: We Want Billy!

BILLY FURY: WE WANT BILLY! (1963)

1) Sweet Little Sixteen; 2) Baby Come On; 3) That's All Right; 4) Wedding Bells; 5) Sticks And Stones; 6) Unchain My Heart; 7) I'm Moving On; 8) Just Because; 9) Halfway To Paradise; 10) I'd Never Find Another You; 11) Once Upon A Dream; 12) Last Night Was Made For Love; 13) Like I've Never Been Gone; 14) When Will You Say I Love You.

Well, this is a semi-interesting project at least — in that it allows Mr. Fury one last chance to showcase whatever little of the «fury» was still left. It may not sound exactly like a real live al­bum from real early 1960s, but it is, in a way: recorded live at Decca Studio No. 3, in front of a small (but still annoyingly loud) audience — hence, We Want Billy! may be counted as the first live album by a UK pop-rock act of any importance. (As distinguished from «the first important live album by a UK pop-rock act», which may or may not be Five Live Yardbirds a year later — produced in worse quality, but in an actual club environment).

Backed by the semi-professional Tornadoes, whose skills at playing guitar and organ leads seem a little better developed than the skills of the rhythm sections, Billy cuts here through a long chains of rockabilly and R&B standards — then, two-thirds into the album, switches gears and gives us a long medley of his «sweeter» hits. The screaming girls are nowhere near as overwhel­ming as if this were Shea Stadium or Madison Square Garden, but it is not quite clear which si­tuation is better: an evenly spread screaming background of tens of thousands, or singular howls and yelps of dozens that come and go. (The funniest of all is ʽWedding Bellsʼ, where all the ma­jor screaming fits are triggered by the chorus of "wedding bells are ringing in my ears..." — sup­posedly, were polygamy to be allowed, Billy could have walked right out of that studio prouder than a Turkish sultan).

Anyway, the rock'n'roll part is passable and sometimes even a little inventive: for instance, ʽThat's All Right (Mama)ʼ starts out as slow country, spiced up with organ flourishes, then gra­dually accelerates, turning only about halfway into the classic Elvis version: a somewhat banal way for us today, perhaps, to show the roots and sources of the rockabilly craze, but not quite so trivial back in 1963. ʽJust Becauseʼ develops, with a key change, out of a short «clap your hands» R&B baby-jam (curious, but unnecessary — Billy can do a passable Elvis, but he's no single-han­ded match for the Isley Brothers). The two Ray Charles tributes (ʽSticks And Stonesʼ and ʽUn­chain My Heartʼ) are, as usual, emotionally charged and further prove that Mr. Fury was a big fan and promoter of Ray's, but, alas, you'd have to have an ego (and a throat) the size of an Eric Bur­don or a Joe Cocker to do Ray any sort of true justice.

The balladeering part, unfortunately, is quite skippable: the only reason to listen to these songs in the first place is a willingness to take them in as «pop confections» — the strings, the harmonies, the meticulously rehearsed notes and modulations. In this «live» context, though, even a really good song like ʽHalfway To Paradiseʼ becomes limp and unconvincing (and the idea of recreating the five-note string motif with pseudo-martial drumming does not work), not to mention all the lesser ones, whose titles all speak for themselves.

Still, in the overall context of Billy's post-Sound Of Fury career, We Want Billy! is a relatively high point, and it can easily be understood how these tepid (especially to the modern ear), but sin­cerely delivered performances were, indeed, «the next best thing» for UK teenagers who could only dream of meeting their real idols in person. Even regardless of the disappointing ballad med­ley (disappointing for me, of course, not for the orgiastic girls in the audience), the whole impres­sion is that of a modest — okay, condescending — thumbs up. It also helps that the only CD re­lease of the record that I know of pairs it with Billy, which makes for a very seductive contrast.

Billy Fury: Billy

BILLY FURY: BILLY (1963)

1) We Were Meant For Each Other; 2) How Many Nights, How Many Days; 3) Willow Weep For Me; 4) Bumble Bee; 5) She Cried; 6) Let Me Know; 7) The Chapel On The Hill; 8) Like I've Never Been Gone; 9) A Million Miles From Nowhere; 10) I'll Show You; 11) Our Day Will Come; 12) All My Hopes; 13) One Step From Heaven; 14) One Kiss; 15) Hard Times; 16) (Here Am I) Broken Hearted.

Unsurprisingly for 1963, Billy's best-selling LP was his artistic nadir — and with the Beatles on the near horizon, ironically, it would also be his last proper LP. Nothing here is self-written; most of the songwriters involved in the project are hack-like professionals, long since forgotten; and the emphasis is rapidly shifting from light, cutesy pop-rock to saccharine balladry.

The voice is still there, and, actually, Billy's range and art of imitation are the only things that seem to have been improving with time. For instance, Ray Charles' ʽHard Timesʼ will never make anyone forget the original, but it is not a bad cover: sung with the proper feeling, without su­per­fluous over-emoting, and it's hardly probable that the record industry people forced this cover on Billy — why not just another hack tune from a local craftsmanship instead? Even at this point he might have been allowed the liberty to make a small bunch of «artistic choices», and this one's not bad, and neither is the LaVern Baker nursery-R'n'B of ʽBumble Beeʼ (with Billy's British audiences, most likely, wondering their heads off about the title, because instead of the expected "you hurt me like a bee, an evil bee, an evil bumble bee", Billy prefers to sing "oo-wee, my life is misery, get out of here and don't come back to me". Was «bumble bee» a slang term for some­thing offensive at the time in Britain? Who knows?).

But the rest of the songs leave rather faint traces, to put it mildly — even a bare glance at song titles like ʽThe Chapel On The Hillʼ is quite enough to get a preliminary idea of the content and the style: strings, strings, more strings, superstrings (okay, not really), and epic romantic vocali­zing over passable, ten-for-a-dime melodies, of which old Tin Pan Alley standards like ʽWillow Weep For Meʼ are actually the «highlights». The upbeat, but still heavily orchestrated, ʽHow Many Nightsʼ and especially ʽLet Me Knowʼ are the only tracks on here that could even barely suggest that four years earlier, this here gentleman was the unofficial head of Britain's rockabilly scene — on ʽLet Me Knowʼ, the familiar Elvis «snap» reaches out from under the softcore arran­gement — but barely suggest is the key phrase here.

Overall, this is just for those who can't get enough out of their Paul Anka records; but, perhaps, Beatles fans also deserve a listen — it would be interesting to try and imagine the Fab Four's re­action to this act of «musical betrayal» (and appreciate their own force of resistance: as we all re­member, even George Martin almost fell into the trap of «taming» and «teenifying» their act by trying to saddle them with silly soft crap like ʽHow Do You Do Itʼ at the beginning). An utterly ignoble thumbs down.

Billy Fury: Halfway To Paradise

BILLY FURY: HALFWAY TO PARADISE (1961)

1) Halfway To Paradise; 2) Don't Worry; 3) You're Having The Last Dance With Me; 4) Push Push; 5) Fury's Tune; 6) Talkin' In My Sleep; 7) Stick Around; 8) A Thousand Stars; 9) Cross My Heart; 10) Comin' Up In The World; 11) He Will Break Your Heart; 12) Would You Stand By Me.

This marks the end of Fury's transition from «wannabe-rocker» into the «lite entertainment» ca­tegory: the cover of Goffin & King's ʽHalfway To Paradiseʼ, originally recorded by Tony Orlan­do, sent him to the top of the charts, lost him a squadron of devoted hardcore fans but gained an army of newly evolved softcore ones. But was he really to blame? The British Elvis, after all, had to follow in the footsteps of the American one, and now that the real Elvis, back from the army, was softening up his act, the UK shadow had to follow suit — no serious alternatives. «Guitar bands are on their way out», after all.

Even worse, Billy is no longer willing to (or allowed to) write his own songs — apart from a little semi-nostalgic, semi-comic number (ʽFury's Tuneʼ), a folk-poppy ditty where he amuses himself by quoting as many titles of his own past hits as possible. Everything else is just stuff by contem­porary US and UK professional songwriters, writing for the lite-pop scene: I mostly do not recog­nize the titles, other than ʽYou're Having The Last Dance With Meʼ, which, for some reason, in­vents new lyrics for the recent Ben E. King classic ʽSave The Last Dance For Meʼ.

Still, if you have nothing against early 1960s «soft-rock» per se, Halfway To Paradise is as nice and elegant a ride back into the epoch as anything. There is only one syrupy, orchestrated ballad, floating along at a slow waltz tempo (ʽA Thousand Starsʼ); most of the rest is upbeat, catchy pop with occasional echoes of blues and R'n'B, and if only the arrangements were relying a little less on keyboards, strings, and girlie harmonies, than on a well-recorded guitar sound, the whole thing could have been a cool, tasteful example of pre-Beatles pop.

For starters, ʽHalfway To Paradiseʼ, want it or not, is a Carole King classic (perfect melody reso­lution and all), and Billy, with his Elvis-like style, does a grittier, less manneristic job with it than Tony Orlando. Then there's some piano-led country-pop stuff like ʽDon't Worryʼ and ʽTalkin' In My Sleepʼ (imagine Elvis guest singing lead on a Jerry Lee Lewis album from his «country» pe­riod, but do remember to dim the lights a little — this is Billy, after all, not Elvis or Jerry), some bossa nova influences (ʽHe Will Break Your Heartʼ), some further cuddlifying of the sentimental approach of Buddy Holly (ʽStick Aroundʼ)... nothing jaw-dropping, that is, but still a respectably diverse bag of styles, created with a modicum of intelligence, arranged with a big nod to catchiness, and, for the most part, delivered without any signs of overt «sweetening» or theatrical exaggeration.

Of course, all of it is way too smooth — the addition of even a single track that would have a faint hint at going a little deeper (such as ʽWondrous Placeʼ) would have helped a lot, but no dice. Still, this is just the kind of album that would get one of those «slanted» thumbs up — mildly plea­sant, «average» with a positive-rather-than-negative shade, etc. Historically, it helped make Billy a national star while at the same time forever burying his hopes of artistic growth — but the same could, indeed, be said about Elvis' early 1960s records, and we do still enjoy them from time to time. Seems like there is more to life than artistic growth, after all.

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Billy Fury: Billy Fury

BILLY FURY: BILLY FURY (1960)

1) Maybe Tomorrow; 2) Gonna Type A Letter; 3) Margo; 4) Don't Knock Upon My Door; 5) Time Has Come; 6) Collette; 7) Baby How I Cried; 8) Angel Face; 9) Last Kiss; 10) Wondrous Place.

Billy's second LP seems to have been mainly a «recent singles scoop-up», which is why, unlike most of his early 1960s records, it never got a CD release, and I had to do a little reconstruction from a variety of sources (including some extremely poor quality recordings). It is relatively im­portant, though, since it contains both the A- and B-sides to his first two singles from 1959, the stuff that made him a star in the first place.

Interestingly, both of the A-sides are sweet ballads, with the rocking material relegated to the B-sides: apparently, British marketeers were not willing to take chances and counted on Billy's po­tential lady fans to be a more stable source of income than the masculine, rowdy rock'n'roll riff-raff rabble. The ballads are syrupy enough, but not hopeless: ʽMaybe Tomorrowʼ is an attempt to write something in the Everleys' style, with a vocal part that finds a good balance between pathos and humility (it also helps that no strings are involved), and the somewhat denser ʽMargoʼ, re­plete with echoey female backups and woodwind flourishes, is more in the Roy Orbison vein (it also features the wonderful lyrical line "Oh please be mine / Most of the time" — I'm sure the author never noticed the ambiguity, but I wonder what the BBC radio services must have thought of it). Anyway, could have been worse.

Of the rockers, ʽDon't Knock Upon My Doorʼ is the more important one — one of Billy's fastest and raunchiest tunes, a straightforward Elvis homage in the spirit of ʽHard Headed Womanʼ, but a little less «dangerous»-sounding due to all the have-a-good-time cheerleader harmonies (you'll be getting those sexy visions of early 1960's girls in tights in a jiffy) and the lack of any sharp lead guitar work (even the solo is handed over to the bass edge of the piano). Still, it's as fun as any second-tier rockabilly number, and so is ʽGonna Type A Letterʼ, although the latter is, unfortu­nately, marred by a rather inept brass backing (whatever these wind blowers were doing in the studio on that day, they surely weren't prepared for a rock'n'roll number).

Most of the other tracks are ballads, ballads, ballads, ranging from the easily tolerable (the bluesy waltz ʽBaby How I Criedʼ) to the questionable (ʽColletteʼ, way too hard trying to become the Everleys here, even double-tracking the vocals so as to sound like Phil and Don at the same time) to the awful (an overtly-sickeningly sweet attitude on ʽAngel Faceʼ, sadly, presaging many of the disappointments to come). But the album does get a modestly-excellent conclusion with ʽWond­rous Placeʼ, a moody Latin/Western hybrid with a melancholic flair that Billy pulls off real well, even if, once again, it is just one of several of Elvis' incarnations that he is modelling here.

Overall, the album does sound significantly different from The Sound Of Fury — more echo, more atmosphere, less rockabilly, more balladry — which is curious, considering that most of this stuff was recorded at approximately the same time. Recommending it is beyond my abilities (not to mention that this would require setting up an Ebay search), but putting it down due to cheesiness is not something I'd like to do, either: most of the ballads are well within the adequacy limits, and some even have original hooks. It is pathetic, though, just how few rockers they let him place on the LP, despite his obvious attraction to the bawdy side of the business.

Billy Fury: The Sound Of Fury

BILLY FURY: THE SOUND OF FURY (1960)

1) That's Love; 2) My Advice; 3) Phone Call; 4) You Don't Know; 5) Turn My Back On You; 6) Don't Say It's Over; 7) Since You've Been Gone; 8) It's You I Need; 9) Alright, Goodbye; 10) Don't Leave Me This Way.

Billy Fury. Was this guy just a cheap plastic imitation of American rock'n'roll, temporarily acting as a local substitute on UK soil before «the real thing», like the Beatles and the Stones, came along? Or was he the real thing all along? It's a tough question, not unlike the one that is often asked about the Monkees on the other side of the ocean. Furthermore, is there a single solitary reason, real thing or not, to listen to his recordings today?

I think the key factor here is that — unlike quite a few of the supposedly more «authentic» Bri­tish Invasion acts that came in the guy's wake — Ronald Wycherley, a.k.a. Billy Fury, wrote all of his material himself. Yes, he idolized American pop music and rockabilly, and had no idea whatso­ever about going out there and making something different; but he crafted his own melodies and constructed his own lyrics, and when you are doing this in the genre of light entertainment, you either fall flat on your face or you come up with something interesting. Given Billy's tremendous popularity from 1960 to 1963, he must have come up with something interesting, you'd think. And when you take a listen to The Sound Of Fury, his first and best record, just a quick couple of listens might convince you that he really did.

Yes, he likes all of them whitebread rockers, and alternately writes and sings in the style of Bud­dy Holly, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, the Burnette brothers, and/or Elvis — all of whom he had to be at once for the hungry British crowds. But the simplest thing to do would be to simply ap­propriate their melodies and add new lyrics, and I do not recognize direct rip-offs. Each time a song starts off exactly like some other classic, it quickly shifts into its own territory — like ʽIt's You I Needʼ, for instance, starts off just like ʽThat's Alright (Mama)ʼ, then gets its own brief poppy chorus. A trifle, of course, and one might seriously argue that all these cosmetic changes were mainly designed as safe guarantee against lawsuits while all the royalties could be kept for the artist. But I hope there was more to it than just financial reasons — that Billy Fury really liked writing songs in the manner of his idols.

Of course, The Sound Of Fury is quite a misleading title, and anyone looking for the album in hopes of uncovering a long-lost classic of kick-ass early rock'n'roll must immediately lower the pulsating expectations. Even something like ʽShakin' All Overʼ, also recorded in the UK that same year by Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, blows Fury's «fury» out of the water — not to mention most of the major American rock stars of the 1950s. The «wildest» track on here is ʽTurn My Back On Youʼ, an echoey, suggestive, bass-heavy rockabilly romp in the vein of Gene Vincent and Johnny Burnette, but altogether about four years late to seem in any way «dangerous» to any­body but the most killingly conservative grandparents (not that there weren't still quite a lot of them in 1960, of course). Everything else is even more tame, with a poppy or a country under­lining to it. Heck, even such a little-known wussy band as The Silver Beetles, who once refused to be­come a backing band for Billy because he wanted them to fire their bass player (Stuart Sutcliffe at the time, not Paul McCartney, so I sort of understand), was «heavier» than Fury's ensemble. So take the album title with a grain of salt.

On the other hand, Billy did have himself a nice playing outfit — including a young and ambi­tious guitarist called Joe Brown (yes, the Joe Brown who went on to many different things, including befriending George Harrison, becoming the father of Sam Brown, and writing some good music in between), helping him out with original riffs (he doesn't solo all that much), and Reg Guest on piano, playing much in the style of such American greats as Amos Milburn and Johnny Johnson (meaning that he mostly favors the boogie pattern).

If anything, The Sound Of Fury does sound like a perfectly professional endeavor — it just seems a little bit out of date for 1960, what with all the echo and reverb and bass slapping and a near-total lack of drums (at least loud ones; extra bit of trivia — Andy White, later to play on the Beatles' recording of ʽLove Me Doʼ, is the drummer here). You'd almost think the radio didn't work and it took these guys four years for a steam­ship to deliver The Sun Sessions to their doorstep. (The story also goes that, while doing the bass slapping, they had to have two bassists — one to pick the notes and one to actually do the slap­ping. Hey, but it works!).

But they made their own Sun Sessions, and they do sound somewhat like the real thing. As a singer, Billy ne­ver had a unique voice, but it was capable of many things: he can have it all glottalic and hiccupy and rockabillish on ʽTurn My Backʼ, or he can have it slyly sweet with a hillbilly whiff à la Bud­dy Holly on ʽThat's Loveʼ, or he can do tender sentimental pleading on ʽAlright, Goodbyeʼ (al­though the from-the-bottom-of-my-heart crooning style on ʽYou Don't Knowʼ is one time where he seems to severely overcook it: his frail lungs simply cannot handle the ambition). So, looking back on this stuff from more than a half-century distance, I wouldn't call this «empty posing». The guy really dug whatever he was doing here. Thumbs up.

That said, the best track on the current CD issue is to be found not on the album itself, but on one of the accompanying bonusy B-sides: ʽDon't Jumpʼ is a terrific pop-rock exercise in the style of post-army Elvis (think something like ʽLittle Sisterʼ), but with heavy emphasis on Duane Eddy-ish twangy guitar and an independently invented «heartbreaking» story of a teenage suicide set to Billy's own lyrics. Just a juicy, seductive example of one of those «light somber moods», set to a stea­dy pop rhythms, that were produced so frequently in the early Sixties and then vanished al­most completely, replaced by genuinely depressing heavy somberness.

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