Billy J. Kramer

A Topic Post

“Billy is finished when he gets this song.” – John Lennon¹

Luckily, he didn’t end up recording it. By the time that John and Paul offered Billy J. Kramer “One and One Is Two,” in early 1964, he, along with his band, The Dakotas, had already hit #2 on the UK Singles Charts with “Do You Want to Know a Secret?” and #1 with “Bad to Me.” Oh, and a #4 with “I’ll Keep You Satisfied,” all three songs written by Lennon and McCartney. The B-sides of the first two singles were also Lennon/McCartney songs, “I’ll Be On My Way” and “I Call Your Name.”

Let’s start from the beginning. William Howard Ashton was born on the 19^th of August 1943 in Liverpool. “During the blitz, my family spent its nights in the Anderson air-raid shelter, which was made of corrugated metal…”² He grew up in the Bootle area, north of central Liverpool. “It was a really tough neighborhood, very blue collar. You grew up with a plan…mine was to train for the railroad as an engineer. I did that, but in the end, music won out.”³

Around the age of 16, Ashton started playing music with a number of friends, starting with Ray Dougherty. They eventually called themselves The Phantoms. Ashton began as the group’s rhythm guitarist and only began singing after “the other guys in the band said to me, ‘You’re not progressing very much on the guitar, so we suggest you take up singing.’”⁴ And that called for some name changes. William Ashton became Billy Forde, but that wouldn’t stick. It was to be Billy Kramer. And the group would be known as Billy Kramer and the Coasters.

The Beatles and Brian Epstein

Billy Kramer first saw The Beatles play at the legendary Litherland Town Hall show on the 27^th of December 1960, the show at which The Beatles first showed off to a Liverpool audience how much they had learned to “mach schau” in Hamburg over the previous four months. They met for the first time at the Aintree Institute in early 1961 and played several shows on the same bill beginning at that time (The Beatles, at that time, consisted of John, Paul, George, Stuart Sutcliffe, and Pete Best).

On the 3^rd of September 1962, Billy Kramer and the Coasters and The Beatles (among others) played a show at Queen’s Hall in Widnes, about 15 miles southeast of Liverpool. That day, Brian Epstein, who was already managing The Beatles, saw Kramer play. Over the course of the next few months, Brian decided to expand his scope by signing on more Merseyside artists. Kramer was signed along with Gerry and the Pacemakers and The Big Three. Ted Knibbs, who had been representing Billy Kramer and the Coasters, was offered £50 (about £1400 or $1800 today) to sign over the rights to the group. One hitch: Whereas Billy was happy to take his shot at stardom, The Coasters didn’t want to become professional musicians, so a new band would have to be found.

Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas

The Dakotas were a Manchester band who regularly backed singers who were on tour “in the north,” but they also had their own show. To help convince them to sign on, Brian told them that he would have The Dakotas play their own sets and then back Billy for his sets. They would therefore be called Billy J. Kramer WITH The Dakotas instead of AND so that the distinction was clear. Oh, and about that J. Billy was called into Brian’s Nems office for a meeting. When he arrived, John was there. Brian told Billy that John had a suggestion. “I think you should call yourself Billy J. Kramer. Just Billy Kramer doesn’t have the right ring to it. You need something that people can catch onto quickly.”⁵ Billy happily agreed but asked what the J stood for. John told him, “Julian.”

As may seem completely predictable considering the well-established Liverpool connection at that point, Brian sent the group to spend six weeks at The Star Club in Hamburg. To add to their repertoire, Brian gave them a demo tape that had been recorded by John and told them to work on the included song in Hamburg. It was simply John and an acoustic guitar and it contained a message for Billy: “I’d like to apologize for the quality, but I have recorded this in the quietest room I could find.”⁶ This was followed by the sound of a toilet flushing. Ha! The song, by the way, was “Do You Want to Know a Secret?”

Success

The Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas recording of “Do You Want to Know a Secret?” was released as the group’s first single on the 26^th of April 1963 in the UK and reached #2 on what is now considered the “official UK Singles Chart.” It was kept out of the top spot by, who else, The Beatles, with “From Me to You.” The song did, by the way, reach #1 on the New Musical Express (NME) chart. As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, their 2^nd and 3^rd singles were both major hits, including their first official #1. They would later release one more Lennon/McCartney song as a single, “From a Window,” which reached #10 in August of 1964.

According to Tony Bramwell, Paul once irritatingly said to John, “You want everyone to bloody record anything you’ve bloody well written.” John’s response, “And what’s wrong with that?”⁷ That may all be well and good, but despite the fact that Billy enjoyed a lot of success with songs written by John and Paul, he did not just automatically record anything they presented to him. As mentioned above, he did not record “One and One is Two,” written by Paul, and had even asked if they had something better than “Do You Want to Know a Secret?” Billy heard an early demo of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and asked John if he could have it. John replied, “No, we’re going to do that ourselves.”⁸ Ha!

One particularly momentous occasion was the day in early 1965 when Billy asked Paul directly if he had a song that he could have for himself and The Dakotas. Paul played him a song on an acoustic guitar. Billy’s initial thought was that “it was slow, ponderous, and a bit boring.”⁹ He said, “Paul, all my records have been nicey-nicey. I want a real headbanger.”¹⁰ The song was “Yesterday.”

Later Days

Billy turning down Lennon/McCartney songs had an effect on his relationship with Brian Epstein. Brian reportedly thought it was insulting to turn down the greatest songwriters in the world. Billy said that Brian “thought I was ungrateful, that I’d had lots of success through his management but didn’t appreciate it.”¹¹ I have seen comments from people that suggested that Billy’s career ended because of these types of bad decisions, but I would point out that while his hit-making days were numbered, they were not over quite yet. Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas had an additional #1 song in March of 1964 with “Little Children,” written by J. Leslie McFarland and Mort Schuman. Their last charting single was “Trains and Boats and Planes,” written by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, which reached #12 in June of 1965.

By the middle of 1967, Billy had parted ways with The Dakotas, but was still busy playing on the nightclub, ballroom, and theatre circuit. He worked as a presenter on the television programs Discotheque and Lift Off. He also went into pantomime, playing the Prince in Sleeping Beauty. To this day, Billy continues to play shows both in theatres and on cruises and he has released several albums over the years. His opinion on his career after his commercial success? “Lots of people turn bitter when their records stop selling. I’m very grateful because I’ve been to places that I would never otherwise have gone.”¹²

His attitude hasn’t changed. I was fortunate to have spent an afternoon with Billy J. Kramer (and Eric “King Mixer” Howell) last month and I asked him what he wanted people to know that didn’t make it into the books. He simply told me that he’d like people to know that he is not just the hit songs of the mid-sixties. He has had a long, fulfilling career and there is so much more out there that people can listen to if they want to get to know him.

And the story isn’t over. I am excited to say that in the coming weeks and months I’ll be posting much more of the Billy J. Kramer story. And added bonus. The posts will be coming straight from the man himself. So be on the lookout for those and I’ll let you know when they’re coming.

As always, thanks for being here and reading. I really do appreciate it. Please leave comments to let me know what you think and to add any relevant information to the discussion. Please follow or subscribe to

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Next up: Really Big Shoes…I mean Shows... Looking forward to that!

- Adamson

Photo: Billy J. Kramer, 4^th of April 2025, by Eric Howell.

Quotes:

1) Love Me Do! The Beatles’ Progress, by Michael Braun (Graymalkin, Los Angeles, 1964), p. 83.

2) Do You Want to Know a Secret?, by Billy J. Kramer with Alyn Shipton (Equinox, Sheffield UK, 2016), p. 1.

3) When They Were Boys, by Larry Kane (Running Press, London, 2013), p. 27.

4) Kramer and Shipton, p. 19.

5) Ibid., p. 33.

6) Ibid., p. 45.

7) Magical Mystery Tours; My Life With The Beatles, by Tony Bramwell and Rosemary Kingsland (Robson, London, 2005), p. 146.

8) The Beatles: The Biography, by Bob Spitz (Little, Brown, and Co., New York, 2005), p. 424.

9) Kramer and Shipton, p. 51.

10) Twist and Shout!, by Spencer Leigh (Nirvana, Liverpool, 2004), p. 138.

11) The Man Who Made The Beatles, by Ray Coleman (McGraw Hill, New York, 1989), p. 163.

12) Leigh, p. 178.