This seemingly legit CD from Italy contains not only the complete recorded history of
the Merseys but also that of those other
Merseybeats offshoots
Johnny Gus,
the Johnny Gus Set, the Kirbys, and
the Quotations. The music is all fine and sometimes even better than that (the
Gustafson material has some genuine excitement), and is very diverse, even allowing for the fact that four different corners of
the Merseybeats' membership are represented.
Tony Crane and
Billy Kinsley handle the harmony singing and
John Gustafson and
John Banks the harder sounds, and the result isn't all that different in range from what a compilation of early solo sides by the ex-
Beatles would have sounded like around 1970-1971, even with a fair number of originals interspersed with work by
Roger Cook and
Roger Greenaway,
Richard Gottehrer,
Bob Feldman and
Jerry Goldstein, et al. The sound is excellent and the annotation is reasonably thorough, considering the extremely complex history of the group and its members.
–
Bruce Eder, Rovi