Track Listing

1. I'll Keep You Satisfied
2. Do You Want To Know A Secret?
3. Call Your Name
4. Sneakin' Around
5. Second To None
6. Bad To Me
7. The Cruel Sea - The Dakotas
8. Magic Carpet
9. Oyeh
10. I'll Be On My Way
11. Sugar Babe
12. It's Up To You
13. Little Children
14. From A Window
15. It's A Mad Mad World
16. Neon City
17. Trains And Boats And Planes
18. It's Gotta Last Forever
19. That's The Way I Feel
20. I'll Be Doggone
21. We're Doing Fine
22. Forgive Me
23. The Millionaire
24. Humdinger
25. My Girl Josephine
26. Take My Hand
27. San Diego
28. Ships That Pass In The Night
29. You Can't Live On Memories

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6817 in Music
• Released on: 2005-06-20
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds

Customer Reviews

Sixties Merseybeat group
Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas were one of several Liverpool groups to achieve a measure of pop success in the early sixties. Like the Beatles, they were managed by Brian Epstein. The Dakotas really wanted to be an instrumental group, following the example of the Shadows in Britain and the Ventures in America. It was agreed that they would get to record their own music (included on this compilation) in return for backing Billy J Kramer. The lead guitarist of the Dakotas is the brother of Elkie Brooks, a singer who failed to make it in the sixties but eventually achieved success in the late seventies with Pearl's a singer and some other great songs. To be honest, the Dakotas' musicianship was better than Billy's singing, which was good but not great. However, it doesn't really matter - the songs and the music compensate for any limitation in the vocal department.

The first single by Billy J Kramer and the Dakotas was Do you want to know a secret, a song that the Beatles had already included on their debut album, Please please me. It made number two in the British charts. Next came two more Lennon-McCartney songs, Bad to me, which topped the UK chart, and I'll keep you satisfied, which made number four. Perhaps the best song they ever did was Little children, an American song that gave them their second and last British number one. This was recorded in preference to another Lennon-McCartney song (title unknown to me) that Brian Epstein and George Martin wanted to go with. However, they returned to the Lennon-McCartney songbook for From a window, which just made the UK top ten. After that there was only one more significant hit, a cover of the Bacharach-David classic, Trains and boats and planes, which didn't quite make the UK top ten - it peaked at twelve. It's gonna last forever and Neon city both failed to chart.

Without Billy J Kramer, the Dakotas had a minor UK hit with The cruel sea (titled The cruel surf in America). Two other singles, Magic carpet and Oyeh, missed the charts. One of the B-sides, My girl Josephine, features vocals from one of the Dakotas and is included here.

This collection includes all the hits and misses, several B-sides and album tracks and a few recordings from Billy's comeback attempts (without the Dakotas) in the seventies and eighties.

While not by any means the most essential Merseybeat group, they are worth a listen if you are into this kind of music. But go for Gerry and the pacemakers first if you haven't already got some of their music.

The man who turned down Yesterday
Yes it wasn't just Decca who dropped a clanger-sometimes the artists did as well and Billy J Kramer did just that when Paul McCartney played him a dub of his new song Yesterday. In hindsight though it depends how he heard it-certainly nor the way it turned out.
However he took a risk by favoring the American song Little Children but it turned out his biggest hit!
Having established himself with a batch of Lennon/McCartney songs it was obvious he'd score well in the States where he would have been seen as High School Pop similar to Gary Lewis & the Playboys whose first hit This Diamond Ring had been modelled on Kramer's Bad to me.
The first group Kramer had appeared with were strangely known as the Coasters-not a name they could have kept for long as the real Coasters were not only a big influence on Liverpool groups but still active.He was paired up by Brian Epstein with a Manchester group called the Dakotas-still in the business with lineup changes along the way.
Kramer is a big enough name to have sustained a career when the hits ran out later in the 60s and plays revival circuits.
Never noted fo a strong voice and never a writer he made some interesting covers such as Dee Dee Warwick's We're doing fine and was taken to the States by Brian Epstein before the Beatles

A Merseybeat singer with Lennon & McCartney songs to sing
When we talk about the British Invasion and the music of Merseybeat, then Billy J. Kramer (nee Billy Ashton) occupied the spot at the sedate end of the spectrum. In retrospect, it is clear his popularity was due to the fact that his manager was Brian Epstein who gave the singer several Lennon-McCartney songs to record. The most successful was his cover of "Do You Want to Know a Secret," which hit #2 on the British charts in 1963. The other Lennon-McCartney songs were "I'll Keep You Satisfied," "Bad to Me," "I'll Be on My Way," and "From a Window." Of course, all of these songs are included on this collection of "The Very Best of Billy J. Kramer." Kramer is not that great of a singer (evident on songs like "I Call Your Name") and once the Beatles kept everything they were writing for themselves, his career pretty much came to a halt ("Little Children" is probably the best of the rest). Still, Kramer was one of the more popular of the Merseybeat singers for a couple of years with his pop-rock offerings and even disregarding him there is the inherent historical interest in these "Beatles" songs. Yes, there are as bland as anything John and Paul ever wrote in the early years, which certainly explains why they were handed off to Kramer, but they are still Beatles songs and worth hearing at least once for that reason alone. Final Note: The Beatle's own version of "I'll Be On My Way" was released in 1994 from a BBC broadcast.