Enjoy Celebrity Radio’s The Searchers Tour 2018…
The Searchers are an English beat group, which emerged as part of the 1960s Merseybeat scene along with the Beatles, the Hollies, the Fourmost, the Merseybeats, the Swinging Blue Jeans, and Gerry and the Pacemakers.
They boys are still going strong and touring in 2018.
The band’s hits include a remake of the Drifters’ 1961 hit, “Sweets for My Sweet”; remakes of Jackie DeShannon’s “Needles and Pins” and “When You Walk in the Room”.
With the Swinging Blue Jeans, the Searchers tied for the second group from Liverpool, after the Beatles, to have a hit in the US when their “Needles and Pins” and the Swinging Blue Jeans’ “Hippy Hippy Shake” both reached the Hot 100 on 7 March 1964.
We caught up with Frank Allen who joined the band in 1964. We talk about 60 years in the business…
Enjoy an exclusive interview with Frank and Alex via YouTube:
Founded as a skiffle group in Liverpool in 1959 by John McNally and Mike Pender, the band took their name from the classic 1956 John Ford western The Searchers. Pender claims that the name was his idea, but McNally, their first lead singer, ascribes it to ‘Big Ron’ Woodbridge (born Ronald Woodbridge, 1938, in Liverpool.
Other than the Beatles and The Shadows, the Searchers were one of the few British groups of its era (1963–1967) to have most of their albums issued in stereo.
Most of the big UK bands like The Dave Clark Five, Gerry & the Pacemakers, and Freddie & the Dreamers had few albums issued in the UK and most of them were issued only in mono; however, Gerry’s two albums were issued in stereo.
Interview with Alex Belfield for Celebrity Radio 20th March 2018.
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