Your first sweet kiss thrilled me so

Continuing my trip back through the 1963 album charts.

08/12/63 : Meet The Searchers - The Searchers


This is our second visit with The Searchers and I know I know some of their stuff, but can't recall any of it off the top of my head - let's see if I recognise any of this...

Oh yes, I obviously recognise "Sweets For My Sweet" and "Love Potion No 9" as Searchers tracks, although I later learned that they're both cover versions - as is every other track on the album! Some of which I recognised including the somewhat peculiar selection of "Twist And Shout" (our fourth visit with this track, and our second this month after The Beatles), "Money (That's What I Want)" (also recorded by The Beatles), "Stand By Me", "Da Doo Ron Ron" and "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?". I don't know if it's just the tracks shared with The Beatles or an overall vibe, but this felt more forward looking than Gerry's recent offering, so I think I enjoyed it a bit more - but it's still not one I'm going to be revisiting often.

We're at #4 in the charts this week on their nineteenth week of a 21 week run, with it having peaked at #2 for nine weeks - it also came back for a 23 week run in '64, so it really did well. The rest of the top five this week were The Beatles, The Beatles, Gerry & The Pacemakers and Frank Ifield, with there being no new entries in the chart again - it will be interesting to see if we run out of albums again this year.

Wikipedia tells us that, for a change, we have a debut album from a Liverpool-based band - this one wasn't produced by George Martin though. Tony Hatch was the man behind the decks here - he's best known amongst those of us of certain age as the composer of the Neighbours theme tune (obviously his finest work!). There's nothing else of interest on the album but their entry tells us that they played their last ever set at Glastonbury last year with John McNally, their guitarist being an ever present member for 66 years - Frank Allen, their vocalist, only managed 61 years. Critically, the only information we have is a five star review from New Record Mirror and commercially, half the tracks from this and their second album were combined in '64 for an album for the US market which got to #22. 

discogs.com tells us you can pick up a copy of the original LP for three quid but a mint version will set you back £44. This is another album which must hold great memories for many (although that number is probably decreasing) - I didn't mind it, although the fact that it's all cover versions does feel a bit odd these days.

15/12/17 - Another Liverpool-based band

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