Monocled Alchemist

“Some Day We’re Gonna Love Again” / “No One Else Could Love You” (Pye 7N.15670) July 1964

Up-tempo mood for Searchers | Switch time for The Searchers – moving from the pattern of recent successes into an up-tempo mood. This lifting pace should carry them high again with the American number “Some Day We’re Gonna Love Again.”

There’s a crispness to the attack on this half and the tune’s easier to hold than a piece of toffee. The harmonies are pleasant throughout and the whole performance has the infectiousness of folk enjoying themselves.

Pace slows for the Chris Curtis composition “No One Else Could Love You”. Chris shares the vocal on this side with Mike Pender, and there’s a simple little gimmick in the use of finger cymbals. (Disc, 04/07/64)

The Searchers session was their fastest

The Searchers were supposed to have made their new disc immediately on arrival back from the States. As Mike Ledgerwood said in last week’s DISC, when the boys reported to the Pye studios they were obviously flaked out. So bushed, in fact, that after Mike left it was decided that it would be useless to continue with thoughts of recording.

Instead the boys were flown down from Blackpool last Tuesday to tape their two new sides. The session was the quickest they have ever done! Now they were bright-eyed and raring to go . . . and they wizzed through the numbers with a speed and correctness that left A&R man Tony Hatch breathless.

Tony wrote the vocal arrangements for the group and also sat in on the session as pianist to add a different colour.

“Some Day We’re Gonna Love Again” was originally a Barbara Lewis B-side. Chris Curtis was the one who heard it first, but the others weren’t a minute behind him in agreeing that this was for them.

If it does as well as “Don’t Throw Your Love Away,” that other well-known B-side, then The Searchers will be laughing. (Disc, 04/07/64)

A Guinness bottle flew through the smoke-laden air and crashed behind the sideburned singer, clad in leather, who had launched into “Jailhouse Rock.” In one movement, the waiter was off the stage and thumping into the attacker.

The young man with a new Anglo-Roman hairstyle (see picture) stopped in his tracks and took a pair of manicure scissors from a little girl. He cut off a small piece of his hair, then handed it and the scissors back to the young admirer, then went on his way.

Those incidents occurred within two years of one another, but they both concerned the same person. In 1962, he was more frequently referred to as “Black Jake,” but now he is universally known as Tony Jackson. Tony and I stood chatting in a pub not far from London’s Embankment. He was drinking vodka and lime. In the days of “‘Black Jake ” it was more often pints of bitter.

“I used to go to a pub in Liverpool with a couple of me mates,” he said in his heavy Mersey accent. “I had all-leather gear and sideburns and I used to sing Elvis numbers. There were so many fights there that in the end the publican had his music licence taken away.”

Every time we went on stage, someone’d chuck something and a fight would break out. Everyone would start punching and kicking everyone else. Then the police would arrive and stop the fun.

The rough side of life played a major part in Tony’s younger life. He passed his 11-plus but didn’t go to grammar school because he didn’t want to work that hard. Instead, he went to Walton Technical College where he could spend more time at sport. He captained the school cricket and football teams and got into Cheshire Youth F.C.

“I was going for a trial with Everton, but my ankle went and I couldn’t play football for two years,” Tony explained as he demolished a pie. So I took up tennis instead.

But not being able to play football didn’t stop him from watching the game every Saturday afternoon. Clock watching was one of the hardest jobs he and his mates did—when they weren’t playing cards in a pub.

“When I got out of school, I became an apprentice electrician and I qualified, but I hated work anyway,” he smiled. “I got a job on a big new town in Liverpool, miles from anywhere. None of us had cars and I often used to take days off—I was a bit of a layabout.”

He laughed at himself, then went on: “Whenever the boss wasn’t looking, we’d go off into the pub and play cards until the pub shut. On Saturday, we used to go on to the top of this great big building on the site. When we saw the bus coming, we’d dash down, get on it and go to watch Everton.

“When the game was over, we’d catch the bus home, wash and change, then wait for the pub to open so that we could play.”

Whether the building project was ever finished with the unwilling labour, Tony didn’t say. But the group with which Tony sang soon did end.

“I met Mike and John and we got the job that the band left, but after the landlord lost his music licence because of all the fights we started playing at the rock clubs in the district, and some of them we just as rough,” he recalled.

As if they wanted to re-create the old days, a group of teenage girls burst through the doors of the pub and cautiously approached Tony. But before they could reach him, the publican spotted them and ordered them out.

But one girl, determined to make contact with her idol, came up on the pretext of changing half a crown. She was unlucky. Then she, too, was dispatched by the guv’nor.

Tony took up his narrative again. “I didn’t bother playing with Mike and John. I just used to sing. Then Johnny Sandoz joined us as singer, so I got a bass ,guitar and joined the backing group.”

Times with Johnny were good and the money was fair.

Fiver great

“Sometimes we’d get a fiver or more for a job and thought it was great,” Tony exclaimed. We went all over the place. But when Johnny left us, we couldn’t get any bookings without him. Gradually, though, we got some work and things started up again.”

Stints at the Cavern, the Iron Door and the famed but now redundant Star Club, led to the big time. Tony, Mike and John had been joined by Chris and the four of them got a Pye recording contract.

The comfort of their Knightsbridge flat is a direct contrast to the building sites of Liverpool, but the sudden transition from Elvis imitator to individual stylist hasn’t changed Tony that much.

“I still like to see my old mates when I’m in Liverpool and we go and have a drink together,” he said. “Things have changed now, there aren’t all the rough houses there were. People can go into a pub without having their heads smashed in with a bottle.

“I don’t mind the way it is now, but I used to enjoy the Satutday night punch-ups!” (NME, 17/07/64)

It was a dark night and those fans that had turned up couldn’t see all that much of the performers. Four boys were playing and singing for all they were worth when there was a terrific crash and a giant wave swamped them.

“That’s about the limit! I’ve had enough!” they cried in unison. But they continued playing, though by this time they were soaked to the skin.

These days The Searchers are used to appearing in theatres where everything is just so. Not for them the cramped hustle and bustle of a minute dressing room and a postage stamp stage.

The incident just described occurred when they were booked for an evening concert on the promenade at Hartlepool. They took the engagement with eager hands—after all, money was money—and didn’t worry too much about where they would be performing.

“When we got there, these waves kept coming over the wall and drenching everyone. It was terrible,” laughed John McNally.

Though he is almost 23, John could pass for a teenager. His impish grin which is almost a permanent fixture helps create the illusion. John went to school at Liverpool’s Major Street School—”right by where Cilla Black lives in the Scotty Road area,” he pointed out—but didn’t pay too much attention to his studies. His main thoughts lay in going to sea.

The sack

“I went on a boat for about three months, doing short hauls up and down the coast,” he told me, sprawled in a chair in his dressing room. “I wanted to go round the world, but I had to make do with Hull and places like that!”

John got the sack and before he had the chance to do anything else he became ill and was out of action for two years.

“Then I got a job in a factory as a skilled fitter, but that wasn’t much good,” John continued. “Mike lived down the road from me, and he had a guitar so I thought I’d get one. I bought a guitar and an amplifier.”

Like so many young people in Liverpool and other major cities, John teamed up with a couple of his mates and toured round local pubs picking up a few pounds here and there playing on Saturday nights.

“After a while, we wanted a bass player, so we got hold of Tony who used to sing with us. At least, he thought it was singing,” John joked.
“We had Johnny Sandon with us and we all did well. We thought we were really in the big time. There were fights every Saturday night, it was great.”

The type of booking the fivesome got was not exactly enough to keep them wealthy. Sometimes, they finished up with ten bob apiece after a night’s hard work.

“We got a job one time at a dance hall for £3 10s.,” he said. “That’s a lot between five of you!”

Muffed

Before going on stage at most places, the Searchers—Johnny had left by this time—usually had a few drinks. But just when they got a big chance at the Cavern, they muffed it.

Explained John: “There were three spots you could do. The first for a couple of hours, then the next set, then the last two hours. The bloke told us we could do the middle one which was the best.

“So we took all our gear down there, and when we arrived he said we were going on last. We thought that was a washout, so we went out to a pub. When we came back, we went on stage, but we couldn’t do anything right and kept falling about. We were told to get out. And that was that!”

An offer to play in Hamburg, Germany, came along and the Searchers accepted. Then there was the problem of getting off work.

Filthy

“The first time we went, I fiddled the time off by saying I was sick,” John said, smiling as he remembered the tricks he used to pull, “and the second time, I just never went back to the factory.”

“When we got to Hamburg, we stayed at some flats. They were a bit dirty. In fact, they were filthy! But we didn’t mind that much. We used to play for hours at the club and the audience would go mad. If a fight started there, that was something!”

Mike shouted across to John something about one experience they had in Hamburg and the two of them rolled up with laughter.

When he had sufficiently recovered, John went on: “They asked us back after the first time, for some reason, and by then our money had gone up so we stayed at a hotel. It was great out there. We used to see loads of stars from America.”

The Searchers returned to Liverpool and the Iron Door Club and from there things snowballed. When he’s not working, John listens to Roy Orbison and Brenda Lee records. He knows what he likes, but he’s not too fond of over-critical people.

Horror

“One artist shouldn’t say another’s work is bad,” he opined. “They could just say it was not too good, not that it was lousy. It’s not their pot of tea, is it?

He likes watching horror films and is happy when Christopher Lee stalks a victim across the stage. The rest of the Searchers hope that one day, John will be scared into breaking his guitar so that he can replace the battered old thing he insists on using now.

“I didn’t think of playing the guitar until I saw ‘Oh Boy’ on TV,” he explained. “I had a skiffle group like everyone else, then I played lead guitar with a rock group in one pub while Mike played in the one on the opposite corner. Up to now, though, I’ve never got around to changing my guitar.” (NME, 24/07/64)

“This is tony . . . Mike . . . John, and he is our new bass pianist Richard.” The Fleet Street reporter shook hands with us all, no doubt wondering where on earth the Searchers’ bass pianist had come from. He took things seriously while everyone else smiled knowingly.

The poor man was being had on by Chris Curtis, who, as spokesman for the Searchers, is often liable to pull a trick like that on an unsuspecting visitor. I was created a temporary Searcher for the benefit of the reporter in the group’s Knightsbridge flat a few months ago and have been able to sample more of Chris’ off-beat humour since then.

When the Searchers perform a fast number on stage, Chris has a habit of waving a drumstick in the air to egg on the audience. It never fails to work and the girls scream as though a thousand mice had invaded the place. On more than one occasion, Chris has been known to throw his sticks into the audience at the end.

“They think I am being a comedian, but I can’t just sit there doing nothing,” Chris explained. “I like to always be doing something.”

As a member of one of the most successful groups in show business, Chris is in his element. From the days when he was old enough to have any ambition, it was always in his mind to get into the entertainment world somehow.

Unlike Tony, Mike and John, Chris was born in Oldham, but his parents are Liverpudlians. It was only a short matter of time, though, before he was living in the Mersey town.

“The family was evacuated during the war and I was born in Oldham, but we moved back to Liverpool when I was four,” Chris pointed out. “I went to St. Mary’s School and learned to speak the scouse language!”

French and Latin were the two subjects Chris studied most. But even then his thoughts were not on a scholastic degree or a linguist’s job. The glittering world of show business was too strong for that.

“I didn’t want to do anything else in particular,” he admitted. “I worked for six years as a clerk in a shop, but I didn’t take any notice of what I was supposed to do because people I knew kept ‘phoning me.”

He went on: “The shop also sold record players and I used to take my records in and listen to them all day. They were mostly rock and roll songs and I made a lot of noise.”

While Chris was at school, he had struck up a friendship with Mike Pender and a chance meeting with his old mate later in life proved a turning point in his career. Chris leaned across to the record player, turned the volume down, and told me: “A fellow that lived round the corner from me wanted a guitarist, but I got drums instead and played with him in his group for six months. Then I met Mike one day in town and he asked me to play with his lot.

“They didn’t have a drummer and as they had progressed to dance halls, they were stuck. I went in with them and on the first job, they had black and white coats and I just had long hair! It was horrible, but I stayed with them.”

Chris recalled one date, just as the Searchers and Johnny Sandon were getting really organised, when things didn’t exactly go to plan.

“We had a load of brand new equipment and we all wore suits,” he began. “We thought we were the tops, but there were fifteen hard nuts in the audience who didn’t reckon us at all.

“When we left, this mob jumped on us and started fighting. One of our blokes got knocked down and while the others waded in to the bundle, I picked up my drums and ran away. They didn’t think too highly of me for that! But I wasn’t having my drums kicked in.”

Now all things are great and for the Searchers life is fun. Hard work has its rewards for them and the future looks as though it holds a lot for them. Strange, then, that Chris should say: “If it all finished tomorrow, I wouldn’t worry. I’d go into something else that made a lot of money. I just want to be rich.”

Probably he was just joking again. You never can tell with Chris. (NME, 31/07/64)

Jackson leaving Searchers after Sunday concert

A Sunday concert at Great Yarmouth Aquarium this weekend will be Tony Jackson‘s final date with the Searchers. On Monday, when the group begins a headlining week at the Coventry Theatre, he will be replaced by Frank Allen who was formally with Cliff Bennett’s Rebel Rousers.

Allen is a friend of another Searcher, Chris Curtis. This week Tony apologised to NME readers for his denial of a rumour that he was leaving the Searchers, reported last week.

“I just couldn’t say anything. Nothing had definitely been decided then although I was very unhappy. We had disagreements within the group about the kind of songs we should sing and who was to sing them.”

Last weekend Tony moved out of the Knightsbridge flat he was sharing with his fellow Searchers and into one nearby at Kensington. (NME, 31/07/64)

The TRUTH about my leaving the Searchers – by Tony Jackson

The biggest story to break over the pop world since Beatlemania became one of Great Britain’s Institutions exploded last Thursday. The Record Mirror’s front page story of last week had been confirmed. Tony Jackson, bass guitarist with The Searchers, IS leaving the group, despite all the denials of those closely connected with them. In the office of Pat Pretty, Press Officer at Pye Records, RM’s Barry May asked “Black Jake” the reasons why . . .

“The rift between me and Chris, Mike, and John, opened up last January when I stopped doing lead vocals on our dates and records. It’s not really an argument, don’t think that. It’s just a split between Chris and I. We both know what sound we want and they’re two different things.

I don’t want to be a star, just want to be a quarter of the group, which I’m not now. I want to be a good equal quarter.” So said Tony Jackson after news of his departure had leaked out. A little disappointed that his career with The Searchers had come to such an unhappy end, Tony explained how It all started.

They used to call me ‘Black Jake’ when I sang in black leather gear around the Liverpool pubs and clubs four years ago. The first number I ever did with The Searchers was the old Presley rocker, ‘Jailhouse Rock’, in the Cross Keys pub in Liverpool. We created such a riot that I think the landlord lost his music licence afterwards. I was just singing then, although I had played rhythm guitar before that.

LEADS

“After about three months with The Searchers, I took up bass guitar to make up the rhythm section. I did all the lead singing then, and it was me on the lead on our first disc, ‘Sweets For My Sweet’ and the follow-up, ‘Sugar And Spice’, I also did our first LP. ‘Sugar And Spice’.

“But when we recorded ‘Needles and Pins’ in January I couldn’t do the vocals because I had laryngitis. After that, Chris said he didn’t want me to do vocals any more, and that was no good to me. I started in this business for the love of it. I’m a singer first and bass guitar is second to me.

“If I had sung at that session I might not have wanted to leave today. I’ve not been happy over the past few months so we had a big talk with our agent, Tito Burns, a couple of weeks ago to sort things out, and this is the result.

“The decision to leave was a fifty-fifty one, They’ve more or less asked me to change my style or leave, and I didn’t want to stay as things were. We decided that there was a clash of styles and that a break would be for the best.”

POSTPONED

The Searchers should have recorded a new EP and LP two weeks ago but the session was postponed pending an announcement about the change in line-up, Chris. Mike and John will now go into the studios at the end of August with the new Searcher, Frank Alan, presently with Cliff Bennett’s Rebel Rousers.

Why Frank among the hundreds of bass guitarists in the business? “He’s a great friend of Chris, they’ve been buddies for a long time,” said Tony.

Just about the same time, Tony will be in the same studios with his own new group, Nobody has been picked yet, but Tony wants a line-up of himself on bass guitar and vocals with a lead guitarist/vocalist; organist/vocalist; and drummer.

“I’ll obviously be influenced by The Searchers, but I’m gonna play stuff that I like. The sort of thing that you hear on records by the Miracles and Shirelles, The stuff we are doing in The Searchers now is not really my sort of style. I want to play something a bit meatier. Something that the kids can jump around to.

“I’ve got some new ideas for presentation that I picked up when we were in America; ideas that I don’t think have been used in this country yet. I want the group to have a full show of girl singers, modern ballet dancers, and all that sort of thing. It’s presentation that the kids want now.”

“NOT LEAVING”

Tito Burns had not planned to announce the change until the end of August. But the Record Mirror’s front page story last week set the trade buzzing. Of the rumour that Jake was leaving, Tito had told the RM: “I can’t confirm that at all. I can only deny it ” And Chris Curtis had said that Jake was “definitely not” leaving.

On Thursday, Patrick Doncaster wrote a story in the Daily Mirror leaving no doubt whatsoever that Jake WAS leaving, whatever his professional associates might say to the contrary.

The news just had to come out. “We couldn’t deny it any longer. Everybody ‘phoned us,” said Pat Pretty, of Pye.

Tony doesn’t know what to call his new group, so he’s asked me to tell RM readers that he’ll be glad to hear of suggestions, Just write to Tony, care of Record Mirror, 118 Shaftesbury Avenue, W.1, or call in with your letter, and if Tony sees one that he likes, the reader will be able to spend a day with Tony and the new group, witnessing the first record session.

MAJOR TOUR

Unformed though it is, the new group already has one major tour booked, It’s with Freddie and the Dreamers in September, The last playing date for Tony with The Searchers is not yet fixed, because of legal and contractual difficulties. But it will be some time in August and any one of the following dates could be the last: August 1, Nelson Imperial; 2 Yarmouth Royal Aquarium; 3-5 Coventry Theatre: 9 Blackpool Queens: 10-15 Southend Odeon; 16 Yarmouth Royal Aquarium; 17-22 Bournemouth Gaumont; 23 Scarborough Futurist.

Searchers Shock

Few screams greeted the Searchers as the spotlights beamed and the curtains withdrew for their variety debut at Coventry Theatre on Monday. As they launched into “Living Loving Wreck,” the shouts were not for Chris Curtis, Mike Pender, John McNally or newcomer Frank Allen —but for the boy no longer there – Tony Jackson.

As Chris introduced “Memphis Tennessee,” his voice was drowned by shouts of “Where’s Tony?” and fans chanting “We Want Tony.”

Clearly nettled, Curtis yelled “Shut up” over and over again into the mike—only to have the same trouble when they had finished the number.

When Chris said: “We’re now going to play a number by one of our favourite artists . . . .,” more and more girls joined the shouting for Tony Jackson. Curtis shouted back.

At that, Tony’s fans shouted and jeered louder than ever as the group strode through “Listen To Me,” followed by “HI Heel Sneakers,” “Where Have All The Flowers Gone,” “Someday We’re Gonna Love Again” and “Don’t Throw Your Love Away.”

As always, Chris whipped up tremendous enthusiasm for “What’d I Say?”—and the Searchers certainly worked for the round of applause they received at the end! (NME, 07/08/64)

Mike Pender – with stringless guitar

“At school I wasn’t interested in anything but singing. I got a guitar to walk round the streets with. It didn’t have any strings on it at all, it was just for show.” Thus Mike Pender describes his first taste of musical life, though at that stage he didn’t have much idea about the performing side of things.

“I used to watch the Shadows a lot and still think Hank Marvin‘s the best.” he said, paying tribute to the Shadow. “I suppose, if anything, I wanted to be a footballer at that stage and was mad on football.”

But it was an office boy that Mike became became because when he left school at Bootle, and of those days he recalled: “It was fun because there was an overhead railway. I used to have this little bag with letters in and I’d ride on the railway.”

Later, though, Mike gave up his job and was out of work for a month because of the unemployment situation.

“I got a job as an apprentice floor layer,” he went on. It was okay in the summer, but in the winter it was no good at all. I was there about two years and I’d go home with tar and Bostick all over me.

“By then I was getting good on the old guitar and I had a bit of a group called the Confederates. I was in a group with another guy who was Billy Kramer’s cousin. We used to go down on the beach and play. We were mad on Buddy Holly numbers, they were all we did.”

Street-corner musicians were a common sight in Liverpool and on different corners of St. John’s Road, both Mike and John played.

“It was opposite a place we called the Parson’s House,” said Mike, “and he used to come out and chase us. He chased us a couple of times, then he said he was sorry and he was glad we weren’t just going round stealing!”

John went into hospital for a time and when he came out again, Mike’s guitar playing had improved a great deal.

“We got together and I saved for an electric guitar,” Mike told me in his dressing room. “We had electricity in our house, despite what some people say, and I used to practise at home.

“John and I used to go to the Lousy House and play for the old men and women, you know. People used to tell us we were pretty good and we ought to go to the Cross Keys, which is in the city itself.”

It was in the city pub that Mike and John met Tony. He asked if he could get up and sing. They agreed, and as soon as he began, the chairs and bottles started flying. Whether as a result of that or not, I don’t know, but the group split up.

Big Time

I met Chris in a pub in town and we started up again later,” said Mike, continuing the story. “I went up to Chris’s house and auditioned him—he was better than he is now.”

Chris took a swipe at Mike, missed and nearly fell off his chair. Mike laughed, then told him: “Don’t deny it, you know it’s true.”

Really hitting the big time, the Searchers were sometimes making as much as £2 10s. a week each. In those days, that wasn’t too bad.

“We took all the guitars, drums and amplifiers on buses, though,” Mike said with a smile. “You should have seen us lugging all the gear up and down stairs. We weren’t all that popular with the bus company.”

When times were tough, the boys had quite a few laughs.

“There was the night when we played at a St. Patrick’s Day dance,” Mike revealed. “John didn’t come because he wanted to go to a party, so when we turned up there were only three of us and we were a bit worried about the crowd, we didn’t fancy getting done in.

“We had to play for three hours, but after two hours we ran out of songs. So we just packed up while Chris told the people jokes for an hour!” (NME, 07/08/64)

First week as a Searcher

In five years time, what memories will Frank Allen have of his first week with the Searchers? This was the week he became part of a star act – his first day in the No. 1 dressing room, his first night in the town’s most expensive hotel, and his first session with the famous group.

The Searchers all come from Liverpool, where they keep their roots – Mike Pender is buying a detached house overlooking the sea outside New Brighton, and John McNally has just paid £2,000 for a plot at Corby, where he plans to build a ‘very modern’ detached house.

But Frank has no Merseyside roots. He still lives with his parents at Harlington, Middlesex, where he formed his first group, The Skyways, before joining Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers three years ago.

The Searchers and Bennett first met at the Star Club, Hamburg, in October, 1962. Frank and drummer Chris Curtis have remained close friends ever since. But until the beginning of the month, Frank had never played with the Searchers.

Later, drinking iced orange juice in a local steak house, Curtis – who is chairman of Searchers Ltd., and has to sign all the company’s cheques – told me: “The first person we asked to take Tony’s place was Jackie Lomax, of the Undertakers. But he didn’t want to leave his group. So we asked Frank instead.

“They were both equally obvious choices. We had seen them play, and there was no need for an audition or anything like that. We knew Frank was good, and that was enough for us.”

Frank took up the story: “I just spent a couple of afternoons at home playing over Searchers’ records. No need for us to rehearse.”

I put to them the question which I suspect is uppermost in many fans’ minds: what difference will Tony’s departure make to the group’s sound?

Mike Pender, chipping away at a T-bone steak, added: “We should be able to get a better sound. Tony was a good singer, but he couldn’t harmonise on the high notes. One of the reasons we asked Frank to join us is that he’s got a high voice.”

Chris Curtis added: “We’ll now have three-voice harmony. And we’ll be able to double and treble-track like the Four Seasons, the Beach Boys and several of Phil Spector’s groups to produce an entirely new sound.”

Frank said: “I had a wonderful week at Birmingham—and so did the fans. It’s great to be a Searcher.” (NME, 14/08/64)