Beryl Marsden was one of the undeservedly neglected singers to come out of the Liverpool beat boom. A powerful vocalist with a fine sense of style, she was a precocious talent similar to Lulu in that she could bring her own style and stamp to American R&B and soul standards from her mid-teens onward. Born Beryl Hogg (and no relation to Gerry Marsden of Gerry & the Pacemakers) in Liverpool, she began her professional career backed by a band called the Crew and was signed to Decca Records in 1963. She released a pair of singles on the label that somehow failed to click, the first (I Know) rather inexplicably and the second, a cover of When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes, when the Supremes' version eclipsed it. Beryl had the distinction of being one of the earliest performers to be managed by Tony Stratton-Smith, a sports journalist turned music maven who later founded Charisma Records and managed such acts as the Nice, Genesis, and Lindisfarne. Beryl jumped to EMI's Columbia label in 1965 and lasted there for two singles, of which Break-A-Way -- arranged and conducted by Ivor Raymonde, outdoing his work with Dusty Springfield -- was a British pop-soul jewel. After the failure of her single What's She Got in 1966, Beryl changed her approach to music. Her solo career having failed to ignite sales, Beryl joined Rod Stewart in Shotgun Express and after that moved on to a stint with an all-girl band called She Trinity before linking up with Paddy Chambers (of Paddy,...