大象传媒

by Bob Stanley of .

Always shyer than his contemporaries, and with fluctuating weight issues (which Brian Matthew rather bluntly asked him about at the time), was maybe happier out of the limelight.

From Brian Epstein's impressive stable of stars, Billy J Kramer is probably the least well remembered today: became a TV celebrity, the Gracie Fields of her generation; became Mr Liverpool, always ready with a quote; and the Beatles just about managed to stay in the public consciousness. But Billy J - in spite of two or three number ones (depending whose chart you followed) - has been rather more enigmatic.

Originally he was William Howard Ashton from Bootle, the youngest of seven, and his widescreen pseudonym that seemed more suited to a Madison Avenue executive was as unlikely as Hank B Marvin's: 'Kramer' was picked from a phone directory, and John Lennon suggested adding the 'J' to make shy Billy seem a bit more imposing. After signing with Epstein's NEMS management he was teamed up with Manchester instrumental combo the Dakotas, who had a Top 20 hit of their own with The Cruel Sea.

The new combination were given a Lennon/McCartney song, , and watched it rise to no.2 - it went all the way to the top on the NME chart. Billy had a soft, easy-going voice well suited to the gentler, super-melodic side of the Beatles catalogue: he then scored with specially written Lennon and McCartney songs (no.1 '63), (no.4 '63) and, best of all, (no.10 '64).

Could he score a hit without the Beatles' support? Offered their One And One Is Two in early '64, Billy turned it down and plumped for , a Brill Building song by J Leslie McFarland and Mort Shuman. It reached no.1 in Britain and no.7 in the US, and Billy's stardom seemed secure. Yet, like many of his Merseybeat comrades, his star was dimming by late 1964. gave him a final Top 20 hit in early 1965.

As is often the case, the sun set on his career just as Billy started to get a little more adventurous. Among his sixties flops are some real gems: was a melancholy Bee Gees song they never recorded; the powerful, echo-drenched was written by the Dakotas; and wasn't the Peter & Gordon song but a gorgeous, baroque Teddy Randazzo ballad that really deserved to be a hit for him in 1969. Dig deeper into his catalogue and you'll find there's a lot more to Billy J Kramer than Beatles off-cuts.

In 2015, he's back on stage and on top form. His current shift on the Solid Silver Sixties Show follows a 2013 album of new material called I Won The Fight. After some 'British Invasion' shows in America, he's playing in Britain again this spring.