Audio CD review:
Searchers - 1963-67-Pye Anthology

Searchers - 1963-67-Pye Anthology

Band: Searchers Title: 1963-67-Pye Anthology Rating: Release Date: 2000-07-18 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Sweets For My Sweet 2: It's Al Been A Dream 3: Ain't Gonna Kiss Ya 4: Alright 5: Farmer John 6: Love Potion No. 9 7: Where Have All The Flowers Gone 8: Since You Broke My Heart 9: Sugar And Spice 10: Saints & Searchers 11: Don't You Know 12: Listen To Me 13: Hungry For Love 14: All My Sorrows 15: Needles And Pins 16: Saturday Night Out 17: Don't Throw Your Love Away 18: I Pretend I'm With You 19: This Empty Place 20: I Count The Tears 21: Sho' Know A Lot About Love 22: Can't Help Forgiving You 23: Where Have You Been 24: Someday We're Gonna Love Again 25: No One Else Could Love Me 26: The System 27: When You Walk In The Room 28: (I'll Be) Missing You 29: What Have They Done To The Rain 30: This Feeling Inside 31: Goodbye My Love 32: Till I Met You 33: Everybody Come And Clap Your Hands 34: If I Could Find Someone 35: Magic Potion 36: I Don't Want To Go On Without You 37: Till You Say You'll Be Mine 38: Goodnight Baby 39: Bumble Bee 40: He's Got No Love 41: So Far Away 42: When I Get Home 43: I'm Never Coming Back 44: Take Me For What I'm Worth 45: Too Many Miles 46: Don't You Know Why 47: Each Time 48: Be My Baby 49: Does She Really Care For Me 50: I'm Your Loving Man 51: Take It Or Leave It 52: Don't Hide It Away 53: Have You Ever Loved Somebody 54: It's Just The Way 55: Popcorn Double Feature 56: Lovers 57: Western Union 58: I'll Cry Tomorrow 59: Second Hand Dealer 60: Crazy Dreams

Second greatest Liverpool band ever! Buy it for the string of classic singles but stay for the album and EP tracks. Of the many, many searchers compilations on the market, this is the one to get. The Searchers didn't have strong writers so the vast majority are covers - but what a choice of material! The fact that there's so many actually makes this a very varied and entertaining album - a superb catalogue of early 60's pop writing, alll beautifully executed, well produced and remastered. Years ahead of its time, as all the other reviewers have said, and very, very influential - ask Roger McGuinn! A one-band jukebox, it sounds as fresh and joyful as it did 40 years ago. Highly recommended instead of the many inferior compilations on the market, all of which omit some, sometimes lots, of key tracks. Fine folk-rock - a full year before the Byrds and Dylan [Only the Beatles, the Dave Clark 5, and the Swingin' Bluejeans beat them out of the gate. Taking their name from the epic John Wayne western of the same title, the Searchers were the fourth of the British Invasion bands to chart in America, with the Sonny Bono/Jack Nitschke song "Needles and Pins", which went to #13 after first hitting in March of '64. ] They have a sort of soft singing style, with gorgeous twanging guitars, and a lot of minor scale work in their melodies/harmonies. Their melodies are some of the most subtle in the history of pop music, often with a decidedly mournful edge; they sang and harmonized them beautifully, and with feeling. Their songs also have a very fine rhythmic sense to them. I have heard more rock artists cite them as major influences than practically anyone else, though I can only specifically recall Tom Petty and Alanis Morissette. I believe it was Petty who [at the beginning of the 80's] produced an album for the recently re-formed group. You'll find some of the best guitar riffs of all time used as introductions to these songs. Not only is their melody/rhythm impeccable, but the tone settings they use on their guitars are mostly, well, mouth-watering [not to mention ground-breaking]. And it doesn't matter if a particular song went high on the charts: they are all stellar efforts, and always great to listen to, especially lined up, one after the other. Among the singles, be sure to also check out "Don't Throw Your Love Away", "Someday We're Going to Love Again, "Love Potion #9", "When You Walk in the Room", "What Have They Done to the Rain", "Bumblebee", "Take Me For What I'm Worth", "He's Got No Love", and "Goodbye My Love". There are many songs here that I have never heard (them not being singles). So this is the way to really traverse all the dimensions of the Searchers. Don't miss the opportunity. Brilliant Liverpool group All the essential hits can be contained on a single CD, and there have been many such compilations. The Searchers, like everybody else of their era, were overshadowed by the Beatles, but they made some great music of their own. The trouble with such a collection is that all the songs sound much the same - upbeat, typical sixties chart songs - great stuff, but this double-CD set shows that they were capable of more. Of course, the big hits are all here - their only American top ten hit (Love potion No. 9), plus all their big British hits, several of which were covers of American songs - which, of course, is why they didn't have much success in America. Their chart career begin in Britain with Sweets for my sweet (Drifters) and was followed by Sugar and spice, a song written by Tony Hatch, who is best remembered for Downtown and the other songs he wrote for Petula. For their third single, they covered Needles and pins, which was first recorded by Jackie DeShannon but was actually written by Sonny Bono and Jack Nitzsche. The group Smokie revived it in the seventies. Although Jackie DeShannon didn't write Needles and pins, the Searchers recorded several songs that Jackie did write, most famously When you walk in the room - interestingly, this song was revived by Pam Tillis, who had a number two American country hit in the early nineties with the song. Don't throw your love away and Goodbye my love were also huge British hits. What have they done to the rain? was a top 20 hit and was one of the first ecological songs to hit the British charts. Of the other songs featured here, there are covers of Where have all the flowers gone (Pete Seeger), Listen to me (Buddy Holly), I count the tears (Drifters) and more Jackie DeShannon songs, together with songs they wrote themselves and others by such as Bacharach/David and Barry/Greenwich among others. This is a wonderful collection of mid-sixties pop, though I've met people who think one CD of Searchers music is sufficient. I prefer this double-CD, but you must make up your own mind. Baby Boomer's Paradise But the doubletracking of the Searchers waS their trademark, and it has a dreamy sounds that made them stand out from the very start from the other British Invasion groups. Yeah, if you aren't a baby boomer, you might not catch the sound. Needles and Pins was an emotional ballad with the double track rock sound that gave so much feeling - still does. As a child growing up with the group, I bought every album, and I was delighted when I started building my CD library to find this one, for it has nearly ALL their super works. The searchers gave you great albums, not just one or two songs but whole albums of dreamy, easy listening. From their first big hit Needles and Pins to love Potion #9 Searcher fans will be thrilled, but this contains 60 of their wonderful works, such as I Count the Tears, What Have they Done to the Rain,Take Me For What I'm Worth, Don't Throw You're Love Award. . . just missing A Tear Fell. . . . One great collection!!. A trip down memory lane I was somewhat apprehensive in purchasing this because it was mono but frankly it is quite good, much preferable to synth stereo. All their hits in remastered mono as all Pye recordings back then were recorded in mono. This 2 cd set is full of pop favourites and will find a place in everyones changer if you are into 60's Brit Invasion artists. It is easy to see why this group had a big influence on the Byrds and is credited with the beginnings of folk rock. Highly recommend. You can see a complete list of all Searchers discography, or go back to the Searchers tabs