How Do You Do It? was Gerry & the Pacemakers' first single. It was released on 14 March 1963, and replaced Cliff Richard's Summer Holiday at No. 1 on 11 April (four weeks later). It stayed at No. 1 for four weeks, and was replaced by From Me To You – the Beatles' first No. 1 – on 9 May.
From Me To You was the third Beatles single to hit the UK charts. Love Me Do (released on 5 October 1962) reached No. 17, and Please Please Me (11 January 1963) peaked at No. 2.
Please Please Me took six weeks to reach No. 2. It was kept off the No. 1 spot by Frank Ifield's The Wayward Wind. I have to say that I was around in 1963, and I remember Frank Ifield's other three No. 1s (I Remember You, Lovesick Blues and Confessin' (That I Love You); but I've forgotten The Wayward Wind, which was the third of the four.
The Beatles had featured on one single previous to Love Me Do. Released in Germany on 23 October 1961, and credited to Tony Sheridan and the Beat Brothers, it was a version of the Scottish folk song My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean, with the title shortened to My Bonnie. The 'B' side was The Saints – a similarly upbeat version of When the Saints Go Marching In. A fan asked for this single in Brian Epstein's Liverpool shop; Epstein was interested enough to investigate the Beatles and become their manager. The rest, to use one of the oldest cliches in the book, is history. The first chapter in that history is that Epstein secured a UK release for My Bonnie on 5 January 1962, credited to Tony Sheridan and the Beatles. It reached No. 48 in the charts, but not until almost 18 months later – in June 1963 – after From Me To You had given the Beatles their first No. 1.
How Do You Do It? was written by Mitch Murray. It was turned down by Adam Faith and Brian Poole, but picked up by George Martin, who wanted it to be a Beatles single. They did record it, in September 1962, but the group preferred to release their own material. Hence the first two Beatles singles were Love Me Do and Please Please Me, after which Gerry & the Pacemakers' version of How Do You Do It? (also produced by George Martin, and essentially a copy of the Beatles' version) was released on the Columbia label. As we've seen, it made Gerry & the Pacemakers the first Liverpool group to have a No. 1 single. The Beatles' version remained unreleased until 1995, when it appeared on the Anthology 1 compilation.
Gerry & the Pacemakers' second single, I Like It, was another Mitch Murray composition – as was Freddie & the Dreamers' biggest hit, I'm Telling You Now. After this Murray formed a fruitful partnership with lyricist Pete Callander, which produced Freddie & the Dreamers' follow–up, You Were Made For Me, and a string of other hits such as Even the Bad Times are Good (The Tremeloes), The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde (Georgie Fame), and Goodbye Sam, Hello Samantha (Cliff Richard). Murray and Callander were also a successful record–producing partnership, with hits such as Tony Christie's Is This the Way to Amarillo? – which was a huge hit in 2005 when revived in post–ironic mode by comedian Peter Kay.
I Like It gave Gerry & the Pacemakers a second UK No. 1, and You'll Never Walk Alone (by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein, from their musical Carousel – reportedly a childhood favourite of Gerry Marsden's) made it a hat–trick. None of the three made the US charts, but they made Gerry & the Pacemakers the first act whose first three singles reached No. 1 in the UK. The next was another Liverpool group – Frankie Goes to Hollywood – in 1983–4 (with Relax, Two Tribes and The Power of Love).
Gerry & the Pacemakers were denied a fourth consecutive No. 1 when I'm the One was kept at No. 2 by yet another Liverpool group – the Searchers, with Needles and Pins.
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