Mersey Beat - The Swinging Blue Jeans

The Swinging Blue Jeans

Ray Ennis and Norman Kuhlke began playing together in a variety of skiffle bands around 1956 when they joined up with Bruce McCaskill on guitar and vocals and Spud Ward as oil drum/bass player to form 'The Bluegenes' with Tommy Hughes as banjo player. Later on Les Braid joined the band to replace Ward having spent some time playing with Karl Terry. Hughes and McCaskill later left to be replaced by Johnny Carter and Paul Moss respectively.

With The Cavern in its early days primarily a Jazz club, 'The Bluegenes' were installed as the resident band for a one hour slot every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night playing their own take on 'Trad Jazz' featuring such gems as 'I’m Shy Mary Ellen' and 'Yes Sir That’s My Baby'. The Cavern had been closed on Tuesdays and so they made arrangements with Ray McFall about playing on those nights and Ray suggested we had guest groups. This was in 1961 and the groups we had as guests included 'Gerry and the Pacemakers', 'The Searchers', 'Billy Kramer & The Coasters' and, of course, 'The Beatles'. Ray Ennis recalls, "On the night 'The Beatles' made their debut as guests in March 1961, we thought they were German, it was the leather gear which we had never seen before and it wasn't until they spoke that I realised they were from Liverpool. I thought they were awful and I only listened to two minutes and went to the White Star for a drink."

By 1962 they were working full-time and playing the same venues in Liverpool as rival bands such as 'The Beatles', 'Gerry and the Pacemakers' and others, and they also performed for the first time at the Star Club in Hamburg later in the same year. However they unfortunately flopped as their style was considered out of date and the German audiences booed them off the stage.
It was this that made the band change focus. Out went the banjo, on John Lennon's advice, and the double bass, and in came the bass guitar and two electric guitars together with a name change to 'The Swinging Blue Jeans'. They not only won over their German audiences but earned a coveted recording contract with EMI's HMV label.

Before Paul Moss left the band they had made their recording debut as a quintet with a Ray Ennis original, 'It's Too Late Now', which made the British Top 30 but it was to be in December 1963 that they broke through to stardom with their rendition of 'Hippy Hippy Shake' which would become one of the seminal songs of the 1960s. Years later Ray was to tell Radio Merseyside broadcaster Spencer Leigh, "We had to fight like hell with EMI to get 'Hippy Hippy Shake' released. They said, "No, this will never make it." We felt so strongly about it, four little humble lads from Liverpool that we said, "If you don't release it, we won’t make any more records." They released it and Wally Ridley, the A&R man, apologised afterwards. 'Hippy Hippy Shake' sold three million copies and successfully went all the way to the number two chart spot in England, right behind the 'Dave Clark Five's', 'Glad All Over', and earned them a place on the first-ever broadcast of Top of the Pops in January 1964 after also featuring in the Christmas Day edition of 'Z-Cars'. They became very popular nationally and in November 1963 they began their own Radio Luxembourg show 'Swingtime'. Unfortunately their appearance on Top of the Pops also involved them in punch up with 'The Rolling Stones' over Keith Richards' pen which someone had 'borrowed' for signing autographs for a dinner lady.
Their line-up was now Ray Ennis on vocals and lead guitar, Ralph Ellis on vocals and guitar, Les Braid on bass guitar and vocals and Norman Kuhlke on drums and vocals and they were now achieving some local fame with their many appearances at the Mardi Gras Club and The Cavern. The Cavern's DJ Bob Wooler referred to them as the "Swinging Blue Geniuses".

Their follow-up single was a cover of Little Richard's 'Good Golly Miss Molly' which, when released in March of 1964, charted in England to Number 11 and the Betty Everett 'You're No Good' followed two months later, and soared to Number 3 in the U.K. charts.
Surprisingly, although a bevy of singles followed, they were unable to repeat their earlier success despite a great version of Bacharach and David's 'Don’t Make Me Over' which only reached Number 31 in 1965.
In early 1966 Ralph Ellis and Norman Kuhlke left the band and quit show business. They were replaced by Terry Sylvester and Kenny Goodlass from 'The Escorts'. Later that year Terry Sylvester left the band to join 'The Hollies' as Graham Nash’s replacement and the band drifted into a 'middle of the road' direction and retired to the cabaret circuit.
As with most of the other Liverpool bands of the period, they were masters of that particular brand of rock 'n' roll known as Merseybeat, but, unlike 'The Beatles', were unable or unwilling to let their music evolve into new forms and directions.However, considering they only had three sizeable hits, the 'Blue Jeans' name seems to epitomise the sixties.

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2016/12/mersey-beat-fourmost.html