Crossbeats Music

CB 1 - Early Recordings

The coloured backround to the table below indicates the date of the line-up of the group for the particular recording.

1963

1966

1968

1975

Before the "Seekers" came to the UK from Australia, this recording (tracks 1-28) was made of the "Seekers" gospel group from Liverpool, later to be called the crossBeaTs. The group had been going for just about a year. The recording was made on a Ferrograph tape recorder by the amateur recording club of Plessey Communications in their studio just off Edge Lane in Liverpool, with Plessey employees as the engineers. Along with other peripherals, the studio consisted essentially of a mixing desk and a Ferrograph. Fred Crane was the main instigator of this session. Fred was an employee at Plessey and a member of their employee's audio club. He was also a Boy Scout leader at Wellington Road Mission Church, Liverpool, where he had come into contact with the group. All out-takes have been included on this CD, as well as multiple versions of the same song (taken during balancing). The date was 18 February 1964. The last track (29) was a home recording in November 1966 - when thinking about putting the "Old Rugged Cross" on to an LP. This song had been learnt because, when going to play to the prisoners in Walton Prison, it had been requested. The prisoners were particularly fond of it.

Songs in green itlaics were NOT written by the group - which at this stage means most of them. An MP3 download is available for each song. The words of all the songs on this CD are available on this web site, and there is also a page of the chords used.

Left click a DOWNLOAD button, when it appears, to play the file on your chosen player. If you want to save the file, right-click the button, and choose "Save Target As ...." or "Save Link As....", depending on your browser. Two versions of each song are offered here: the low quality (highly compressed file) will download more quickly, whilst the higher quality file will be larger and take longer to download.

CB 1			Tony Mathias (vocals), Eddie Boyes (rhythm and vocals), John Boyes (lead), Eric Knowles (drums), John Millington (bass) - first line-up
Track #	Song Title	MP3 Small File or Large File	Comment
1 - 5	Love	or or or or or	Repeating same song - setting balances when we first got into the studio (sliders are going up and down, there are stops and starts). This particular song had recently just been written by the group, so it was a good excuse to practice it while 'balancing' (written Jan 1964). We did it gain later in the session (below).
6 - 7	Thank You	or or	Translation from the german by Angela Mockford (our church minister's wife)
8	My yielded heart	or	From Western Style Songs
9	Go tell it on the mountain	or	From Western Style Songs
10	Softly and tenderly (Jesus is calling)	or	This was a hymn which we used as a closing song for a year or so. It was very much a committment song.
11	My Jesus	or	The group had written this tune - the words being from Doris Frostick, a parishioner at St Leonard's church Bootle.
12 - 13	The plan	or or	This song had not long been written by the group
14	Have you walked with the Lord today?	or	From Western Style Songs
15 - 16	Think	or or	This song had not long been written by some of the group
17	Jesu lover of my soul	or	Arrangement by Tom Cooper of a "20th Century" Hymn tune
18	Someone to tell my troubles to	or	From Western Style Songs
19	Old rugged cross	or	The standard hymn - but with some lovely chord sequences from Tom Cooper.
20 - 21	Love	or or	This song had recently just been written by the group (Jan 1964, see above)
22	The Answer Man	or	From Western Style Songs
23	Above all else (the world needs Jesus)	or	From Western Style Songs
24	My God is real	or	From Western Style Songs
25	Heaven is my home	or	The group had written a new tune to this old hymn
26	Have you walked with the Lord today	or	From Western Style Songs
27 - 28	Thank You	or or	See above

29	Old rugged cross (parts)	or	Much later home recording sitting around a tape recorder - doing parts (Tony & Eddie), 25/11/66. This was when we were considering this song for an LP - with a company called Emblem (which didn't happen). We were under some pressure from 'older' folk to include this song.

If you want any further information, please get in touch.