For those unaware, The Swinging Blue Jeans had a residency at Liverpool’s legendary Cavern Club where The Beatles once appeared as their guests and, like the Fab Four, they cut their teeth playing Hamburg’s The Star-Club.

The huge success of their 1963 single ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’ made The Swinging Blue Jeans stars in the UK, Canada, Scandinavia, Germany, Australia and the USA.

Terry Sylvester from The Escorts joined The Swinging Blue Jeans in early 1966, appearing on singles, ‘Sandy’, ‘Rumours, Gossip, Words Untrue’ and ‘What Have They Done To Hazel’ and the Canadian album, ‘Don’t Make Me Over’, before leaving to replace Graham Nash in The Hollies in 1968. Singers Madeline Bell and Kiki Dee guest on the 1967 single ‘Tremblin’’.

Feelin’ Better: Anthology 1963-1969 is a brand new 3CD set containing every song recorded by Merseybeat group, The Swinging Blue Jeans between 1963 and 1969.

Including the classic hit singles ‘Hippy Hippy Shake’ (UK #2), ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’ (UK #11), ‘You’re No Good’ (UK #3), ‘Don’t Make Me Over’ (UK #31) and ‘It’s Too Late Now’ (UK #30). Also featured is their 1965 single ‘Ready Teddy’ coupled with ‘Lovey Dovey’ that was originally only issued in Finland and Norway.

Plus their sole UK album ‘Blue Jeans A’ Swinging’ (1964) in full in both mono and stereo versions and all of the tracks from their rare 1966 Canadian only LP ‘Don’t Make Me Over’, believed to have been withdrawn soon after release.

These tracks include versions of The Beatles’ ‘This Boy’, The Lovin’ Spoonful’s ‘Do You Believe In Magic’ and soul man Rufus Thomas’ ‘Jump Back’.

Containing a literal wealth of incredible The Swinging Blue Jeans songs - 103 tracks, to be exact, all be a few of them the same song, but perhaps in German, or commercial tests or stereo versions, of course - containing every song recorded by the Merseybeat group from 1963-1969, this is the most expansive collection ever put together for this band; of that have no doubt!

Although they are only remembered today for their 1964 hit Hippy Hippy Shake, which charted on both sides of the Atlantic, The Swinging Blue Jeans were actually one of the strongest of the Liverpool bands from the ’60s British Invasion; and, indeed, the Blue Jeans’ earliest incarnation goes back about as far as the roots of the Beatles as the Quarry Men.

Hippy Hippy Shake - a cover of an obscure ’50s rocker that was actually done much better by the Beatles on tapes of their BBC performances - was their only Top 30 entry in the U.S., but the band enjoyed some other major and minor hits in the U.K., including a top-notch Merseyization of Betty Everett’s (and later Linda Ronstadt’s) You’re No Good, which they took into the British Top Five in 1964.

Indeed, and making this as all-encompassing a review as I can for you, the reader, the group’s origins go back to 1957, when singer/guitarist Ray Ennis decided to form a band. The result was a skiffle sextet called the Bluegenes - the latter a misspelling of blue jeans that remained unchanged for a couple of years.

Surprisingly, Ennis had already played rock & roll, but, and in a manner the opposite of many other young musicians of the time, he regarded skiffle as an advancement. Equally surprisingly, given their later work, the Bluegenes were heavily jazz influenced, and stayed away from trying to cover songs associated with Elvis Presley and other American rock & rollers, preferring instead to try and emulate the horn and sax parts that they heard on their guitars.

The skiffle group lineup also included Bruce McCaskill on guitar and vocals, Tommy Hughes on banjo, Norman Kuhlke on washboard, and Spud Ward on oil drum bass. Ralph Ellis later joined on guitar, and Ward subsequently moved over to Rory Storm’s band, and eventually Les Braid took over the bassist spot. Hughes and McCaskill later left, the former for the army and the latter over personal disagreements, replaced by Johnny Carter and Paul Moss, respectively.

By 1962, they were working full-time and playing the same venues in Liverpool as rival bands such as the Beatles, Gerry & the Pacemakers et al, and also performed for the first time at the Star Club in Hamburg late in the year. But amazingly, they were still playing jazz-based skiffle, and had even done some unsuccessful record company auditions working in that musical genre.

They saw no reason to change until the German audiences, not as tolerant of skiffle music as Merseyside listeners at the Cavern had been, booed them off the stage. At that point, seemingly in the blink of an eye, they switched to rock & roll, trading in their acoustic instruments for their electric equivalents.

And in that guise - and a name change to the Swinging Blue Jeans - they not only won over German audiences but earned a coveted recording contract with EMI’s HMV imprint, under producer Walter J. Ridley (who handled such diverse talents, and not too well, by some accounts, as Johnny Kidd & the Pirates and Alma Cogan).

With the departure of banjo player Paul Moss soon after, they were left as a quartet comprised of Ray Ennis (rhythm guitar, vocals), Les Braid (bass, keyboards), Ralph Ellis (lead guitar), and Norman Kuhlke (drums). They made their recording debut (still as a quintet) with a Ray Ennis original, It’s Too Late Now, which made the British Top 30.

Their second single, Do You Know, released in the fall of 1963, failed to sell, but in December of that year they broke through to stardom in with their rendition of Hippy Hippy Shake. They rode that record’s success all the way to the number two chart spot in England, right behind the Dave Clark Five’s Glad All Over, and earned a place on the first-ever broadcast of Top of the Pops in the bargain.

Their follow-up single, Good Golly Miss Molly, released in March of that year, charted in England at number 11. And You’re No Good followed two months later, and soared to number three in the U.K. That string of successes led to a good debut album called Blue Jeans A’ Swinging, issued in July of 1964. They were only to enjoy one more charting single, a rendition of the Burt Bacharach/Hal David-authored Don’t Make Me Over, which only reached number 31 in 1965.

Ralph Ellis, who, with Ray Ennis was one of the two songwriters in the group, left early in the following year, and was succeeded by Terry Sylvester, who had previously played with the Escorts. The band carried on for a couple of more years, but, like most early-’60s Liverpool outfits, the Blue Jeans’ career rapidly lost momentum as the ’60s progressed.

As with most other Liverpool bands of the period, they were masters of that particular brand of rhythm-heavy rock & roll known as Merseybeat, but like most of their compatriots - and the Beatles were the notable exception - they were unable or unwilling to let their music evolve into new forms and directions.

By 1965 their string of hits was over, though their chart success in America (and elsewhere) with Hippy Hippy Shake did give them a higher international profile than all but a handful of Merseybeat bands. Ennis and Ellis had written some catchy and energetic, if slightly sappy, originals in the purest Merseybeat style.

And while it doesn’t add up to an enduring legacy, there’s a lot to be said for the naive energy of the best of their early tunes, and they did hang on quite effectively until 1968, remaking themselves as more of a harmony group in the process.

Terry Sylvester left that year to join the Hollies, succeeding Graham Nash in the latter group, but the Swinging Blue Jeans soldiered on, right into the early 1970s. Ennis and Braid stayed on in the core of the band, amid myriad personnel changes, and kept them going for years after that.

The group essentially became an oldies act, their playing and recordings mostly consisting of remakes of their ’60s hits. Braid passed away in 2005, but a version of the band featuring Ennis was still playing in the 21st century.

CD 1:
1. Ol’ Man Mose (commercial test version)
2. It’s Too Late Now (commercial test version)
3. Three Little Fishes (commercial test version)
4. It’s Too Late Now
5. Think Of Me
6. Do You Know
7. Angie
8. Hippy Hippy Shake
9. Now I Must Go
10. Dizzy Miss Lizzy
11. Wasting Time
12. Good Golly Miss Molly
13. Shaking Feeling
14. Shakin’ All Over
15. Shake, Rattle and Roll
16. You’re No Good
17. Don’t You Worry About Me
18. Promise You’ll Tell Her
19. Ol’ Man Mose
20. Save The Last Dance For Me
21. That’s The Way It Goes
22. Around and Around
23. It’s All Over Now
24. Long Tall Sally
25. Lawdy Miss Clawdy
26. Some Sweet Day
27. It’s So Right
28. Don’t It Make You Feel Good
29. All I Want Is You
30. Tutti Frutti
31. You Got Love
32. Dizzy Chimes
33. It Isn’t There
34. One Of These Days
35. Get Rid Of Her
36. It’s True

CD 2:
1. Make Me Know You’re Mine
2. I’ve Got A Girl
3. Ready Teddy
4. Lovey Dovey
5. Crazy ’Bout My Baby
6. Good Lovin’
7. Don’t Make Me Over
8. What Can I Do Today
9. I’m Gonna Sit Right Down and Cry Over You
10. Gotta Draw The Line (Sidney)
11. I’m Gonna Have You
12. I Don’t Believe It
13. Nobody But Me
14. You Don’t Love Me
15. I Want Love
16. Jump Back
17. Chug-A-Lug
18. This Boy
19. Do You Believe In Magic?
20. Sandy
21. Now That You’ve Got Me You Don’t Seem To Want Me (Early Version)
22. It’s In Her Kiss
23. You’d Better Stop
24. Our Day Will Come
25. I Wanna Be There
26. Anyway
27. You’re Welcome To My Heart
28. Rumours, Gossip, Words Untrue
29. Now The Summer’s Gone
30. I Made A Mistake
31. Master John (The Preacher’s Son)
32. Gotta Draw The Line (Sidney) (Later Version)
33. It’s Alright

CD 3:
1. Tremblin’
2. Something’s Coming Along
3. Don’t Go Out Into The Rain (You’re Gonna Melt)
4. One Woman Man
5. Painting The Day
6. RAY ENNIS & THE BLUE JEANS What Have They Done To Hazel
7. RAY ENNIS & THE BLUE JEANS Now That You’ve Got Me (You Don’t Seem To Want Me)
8. THE BLUEJEANS Hey Mrs. Housewife
9. THE BLUEJEANS Sandfly
10. Big City
11. Summer Comes Sunday
12. Good Golly Miss Molly (German Version)
13. Das Ist Prima (Shakin’ Feeling German Version)
14. Tutti Frutti (German Version)
15. Das Ist Vorbei (One Of These Days German Version)
16. The Hippy Hippy Shake (Stereo)
17. Ol’ Man Mose (Stereo)
18. Save The Last Dance For Me (Stereo)
19. That’s The Way It Goes (Stereo)
20. Around and Around (Stereo)
21. It’s All Over Now (Stereo)
22. Long Tall Sally (Stereo)
23. Lawdy Miss Clawdy (Stereo)
24. Some Sweet Day (Stereo)
25. It’s So Right (Stereo)
26. Don’t It Make You Feel Good (Stereo)
27. All I Want Is You (Stereo)
28. Tutti Frutti (Stereo)
29. Make Me Know You’re Mine (Stereo)
30. I’ve Got A Girl (Stereo)
31. Ready Teddy (Stereo)
32. Sandy (Stereo)
33. You’re Welcome To My Heart (No Brass – Stereo)
34. Tremblin’ (Stereo)

With notes including a new interview with original vocalist and lead guitarist Ray Ennis.

Official Purchase Link

www.swingingbluejeans.co.uk