552. The Searchers

(March 2024) Episode 552 is THE SEARCHERS. A lingering question is whether there was something inherently special about the Merseybeat sound,* of which the Beatles were the biggest and best example, or whether the Beatles’ fame is the thing that brought attention to the other Merseybeat bands. One such band is the Searchers, who emerged from the same town at the same time with a very similar sound. Their most famous track on this side of the pond was “Needles and Pins” (ph: needles and pinsah) (co-written by Sonny Bono!), which introduced the jangle guitar sound soon made famous by the Byrds (note the nearly identical guitar riffs that open “Needles and Pins” and the Byrds “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better”). There are a few catchy pop tunes in a here but they suffer the unavoidable comparison with their Best Ever peers, and their sound was soon made obsolete by the R&B-based London bands and gritty freakbeat groups.

Favourite album: It’s The Searchers

Favourite song: When You Walk In The Room

Compared to expectations: same

Recommendation: A greatest hits disc is more than enough.

* music historians have noted that the fact that Liverpool’s was a port city meant that early rock and roll records from America made it to that city before others in the UK, which supports the first hypothesis