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Gerry Marsden, the British singer who was instrumental in turning a track from the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical Carousel into one of many nice anthems on the planet of soccer, has died. He was 78.
His buddy Pete Price stated on Instagram after talking to Marsden’s household that the Gerry and the Pacemakers frontman died after a brief sickness associated to a coronary heart an infection.
“I’m sending all the love in the world to (his wife) Pauline and his family,” he stated. “You’ll Never Walk Alone.”
Marsden was the lead singer of the band that discovered fame within the Merseybeat scene within the Sixties. Though one other Liverpool band — The Beatles — reached superstardom, Gerry and the Pacemakers will at all times have a spot within the metropolis’s consciousness due to You’ll Never Walk Alone.
“I thought what a beautiful song. I’m going to tell my band we’re going to play that song,” Marsden advised The Associated Press in 2018 when recalling the primary time he heard the track on the cinema. “So I went back and told my buddies we’re doing a ballad called You’ll Never Walk Alone.
WATCH | Gerry Marsden performs You’ll Never Walk Alone at Liverpool game:
Marsden is best known for his band’s rendition of the song from Carousel, which was a 1945 musical that became a feature film in 1956.
The Pacemakers’ cover version was released in October 1963 and became the band’s third No. 1 hit on the British singles chart.
It was adopted by fans of the soccer club Liverpool and is sung with spine-tingling passion before each home game of the 19-time English champion — before coronavirus restrictions have meant that many matches have been played in empty stadiums.
Its lyrics, showcasing unity and perseverance through adversity — including “When you stroll by a storm, Hold your head up excessive, And do not be afraid of the darkish” — have been a rallying cry for the Liverpool faithful and the song’s title are on the Liverpool club crest.
The song has also been adopted by supporters of Scotland’s Celtic and Germany’s Borussia Dortmund.
Liverpool tweeted alongside a video of the fans in full voice that Marsden’s voice “accompanied our largest nights” and that his “anthem bonded gamers, employees and followers all over the world, serving to create one thing actually particular.”
‘Liverpool legend’
The song was embraced during the outset of the coronavirus pandemic last spring when a cover of the song, which featured Second World War veteran Tom Moore, reached number one. Moore had captivated the British public by walking 100 laps of his garden in England in the run-up to his 100th birthday in April to raise some 33 million pounds ($57 million Cdn) for the National Health Service.
The Cavern Club in Liverpool, the music venue which was the venue for many of The Beatles’ early gigs, described Marsden as a “legend” and a “excellent buddy.”
In 1962, Beatles manager Brian Epstein signed up the band and their first three releases reached No. 1 in 1963 — How Do You Do It? and I Like It as well as You’ll Never Walk Alone. Later hits included Ferry Cross the Mersey and Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying. The group split in 1967 and Marsden pursued a solo career before reforming the band a few years later.
Frankie Goes To Hollywood singer Holly Johnson, who is from Liverpool and covered Ferry Across The Mersey tweeted that Marsden was a “Liverpool legend.”
Marsden is survived by his spouse Pauline, whom he married in 1965. The couple had two daughters.
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