Merseybeats/ Merseys - I Stand Accused: Complete Merseybeats & Merseys Sixties Recordings

Two CDs. Emerging from the Liverpool group scene during the goldrush years, The Merseybeats' combination of Everly Brothers-style vocal harmonies and adroitly-chosen beat boom ballads saw them record several hit singles (including 'I Think Of You', which reached the Top Five), a brace of very popular EPs and a self-titled album that spent a couple of months in the LP charts. After their superb version of 'I Stand Accused' (a big favourite of local teenager Elvis Costello, later to cover the song) failed to become the huge success that it deserved to be, group leaders Tony Crane and Billy Kinsley reinvented themselves as vocal duo The Merseys, who recorded one of the classic mid-Sixties pop hits in 'Sorrow', subsequently quoted in Beatles track 'It's All Too Much' and taken back into the charts a few years later by David Bowie. I Stand Accused: The Complete Merseybeats and Merseys Sixties Recordings features everything known to have been recorded by both acts, including demos, out-takes, alternative versions and home recordings. The set also incorporates the various splinter projects that took place during the same time-frame, with a pseudonymous single as Crackers joined by some highly sought-after 45s involving Merseybeats drummer John Banks and former Big Three bassist Johnny Gustafson, who had briefly replaced Kinsley in The Merseybeats.