Well before The Beatles, Billy Fury was the biggest recording star hailing from Liverpool. He had as many hit records as the Fab Four: 24 during the 1960s. Born Ronald Wycherley in 1940, in the late 1950s he went to meet pop manager and impresario Larry Parnes at the Essoldo Theatre in Birkenhead, hoping to interest one of Parnes' protégés, well-known singer Marty Wilde, in some of the songs he had written. Instead, in an episode that has become pop music legend, Parnes pushed young Wycherley up on stage right away.He was such an immediate success that Parnes signed him, added him to the tour, and renamed him Billy Fury. The Sound Of Fury, released in 1960 was Billy Fury’s debut album. Originally a 10” LP it was build up of original songs (many credited to Wilbur Wilberforce, one of Fury’s pseudonyms) and remains one of the very best UK Rock’n’Roll LPs, it stands well comparisons with the debuts American greats of the genre like those of Eddie Cochran’s or Gene Vincent’s, and is a good sample of Fury’s early years when his sexual and provocative stage act shocked the country. In October 1959 the UK music magazine NME commented that Fury's stage antics had been drawing much press criticism and thus he’d be later forced to tone down.