Song:What Have They Done To The Rain
Album:The British Are Coming
The Searchers were a very successful British Invasion group. The had quite a run in the mid-60s. Like a lot of Mersey Beat groups, The Searchers roots are in the Skiffle scene of the late 50s. Skiffle was a folk rock hybrid popularized by Lonnie Donegan. The leader of The Searchers was guitarist John McNally (born Aug. 30, 1941 in Liverpool). He formed the group in 1959 with guitarist Mike Pender (born Mike Prendergast Mar. 3, 1942 in Liverpool) & bassist Tony Jackson (born July 16, 1938 in Liverpool). They went through a couple of drummers before settling on Chris Curtis (born Chris Crummey Aug. 26, 1941 in Oldham, England). For a while they decided to bring in lead singer Johnny Sandon but he left in 1962 and they all shared vocals. The Searchers signed with Pye Records in 1963 and their debut single Sweets For My Sweet reached #1 on the British charts. Tony Hatch was their producer. He wrote their next single Sugar And Spice which reached #2 in Britain. They had a couple of false starts in the US but Kapp Records picked them up and Needles And Pins reached #13 on the US charts in 1964. While The Searchers had their biggest US chart success when Love Potion #9 reached #3, Tony Jackson left and was replaced by Frank Allen. What Have They Done To The Rain was the next single. It's a folk rock version of a Malvina Reynolds folk standard. It reached #29 in the US and #13 in Britain. This 4CD box set The British Are Coming has plenty of British Invasion hits. Typically, The Searchers faded by 1967 but the group never split up and recorded regularly into the 80s. John McNally still leads a version of The Searchers and so does Mike Pender. Here's The Searchers performing What Have They Done To The Rain in 1965.
No comments:
Post a Comment