The Applejacks

A minor act among the British Invasion outfits, the Applejacks placed three singles on the U.K. charts without ever registering in America. They owe nearly all of their lasting recognition to a John Lennon-Paul McCartney number the Beatles themselves left unreleased during the 1960s, “Like Dreamers Do.” Their bright, lightweight pop/rock frequently passed for Merseybeat, yet the sextet actually came from Solihull outside Birmingham. Attention also came their way because bassist Megan Davies was the only woman in the lineup. Most of their recordings remained agreeable but unremarkable or simply dull, and after 1965 they managed only a single further release.

The musicians first assembled in 1961 as the skiffle trio the Crestas before adding members, switching to electric instruments, and adopting the Applejacks name the next year. Decca put out their debut single, “Tell Me When,” early in 1964; although it ranked among the less distinctive British beat hits of the period, the track climbed to number seven at home. The group obtained “Like Dreamers Do” after encountering Lennon and McCartney during a television rehearsal. The Beatles had cut the song in January 1962 at their failed Decca audition, a performance later included on Anthology 1; like many of their early cast-offs, it leaned toward a lighter style than the Lennon-McCartney material the band eventually issued. The Applejacks’ take, complete with the rinky-dink piano that appeared on numerous of their tracks, proved weaker than the Beatles’ original demo yet still reached number twenty in Britain. Surprisingly, amid America’s appetite for almost any Lennon-McCartney composition in mid-1964, the single made no impression stateside.

The Applejacks composed little of their own output, relying instead on songs from British writers such as Geoff Stephens and Peter Dello, who later joined Honeybus, along with routine covers of American 1950s rock standards. Although their records displayed lively harmonies, the overall body of work ranked among the feebler entries in the British Invasion, marked by a lack of memorable melodies. Their last British Top 30 single arrived late in 1964 with “Three Little Words (I Love You).” Following a scarce 1964 album and seven 1964–1965 singles, one of which was the earliest recording of the Ray Davies composition “I Go to Sleep” that the Kinks had not yet released, the group issued just one more track, a 1967 single on CBS.