The summer of 2004 saw the release of a BBC collection by the Searchers on the Castle label

The summer of 2004 saw the release of a BBC collection by the Searchers on the Castle label, catalogue number: CMEDD938.


above: cardboard cover	above: back of cardboard cover

The songs, the sources, the leadsingers and a few comments

CD 1
Show and recording date not listed
1.When you walk in the room	Frank, Mike with Chris
2.Chris Curtis Interview
3.This feeling inside	Mike with Chris
Saturday Club, 30/1/1965
4.What have they done to the rain	Mike, Chris and Frank
5.Interview
6.Something you got	Mike
7.Let the good times roll	Frank, Mike and Chris
Top Gear, 20/2/1965
8.Everything you do	John and Frank
9.Chris Curtis Interview
10.Goodbye my love	Mike and Chris with Frank
Saturday Club, 26/4/1965
11.Chris Curtis Interview
12.Magic potion	Chris with Mike
13.Chris Curtis Interview
14.Bumble bee	Mike
15.Everybody come and clap your hands	Frank
Saturday Swings, 7/5/1965
16.Sweet little sixteen	Chris with Mike	really from 1965? Glad All Over
17.Interview		goes back to March 1964 and
18.Glad all over	Chris with Mike	Sweet Little 16 is similiar
Saturday Club, 9/7/1965
19.Chris Curtis Interview
20.He's got no love	Mike and Chris with Frank
21.Be my baby	Frank	three months prior the lp
CD 2
Saturday Club, 9/10/1965
1.Ready teddy	Mike	is in fact I'm Ready
2.Four strong winds	Mike, Chris and Frank
3.Chris Curtis Interview
4.When I get home	Mike and Chris
5.I'm never coming back	Chris and Mike
Saturday Club, 4/12/1965
6.Too many miles	Mike	no words or vocal from
7.Mike Pender Interview		Chris - very unusal
8.Take me for what I'm worth	Mike
9.It's time	John and Frank
Saturday Club, 14.5.1966
10.Mike Pender Interview
11.Take it or leave it	Mike with Frank	first song with Blunt on drums
12.Blowin' in the wind	Mike and Frank
Saturday Club, 17/9/1966
13.Mike Pender Interview
14.Have you ever loved somebody	Mike and Frank
15.C C rider - Jenny take a ride	Mike and Frank	the version on The Anniversary Collection CD 3 is a different
Saturday Club, 11/2/1967		recording from November 1967
16.Frank Allen Interview		Frank has taken over the conversation and does it much better than Mike
17.Popcorn double feature	Mike and Frank
18.Goodbye, so long	see The Anniversary Collection CD 3
Saturday Club, 25/3/1967
19.I'll be loving you	see The Anniversary Collection CD 3
20.Western Union	see The Anniversary Collection CD 3
21.I don't believe	see The Anniversary Collection CD 3

Expected by every Searchers fan for a long time: The BBC recordings. Due to recording conditions there aren’t hardly any overdubs - so pure Searchers. They played these songs almost every day, so there was enough routine. But they had good and bad days (listen to the vocal opening to Magic Potion). I find these songs very authentic and not so polished as many live recordings appear today. The only that annoys me is the sound quality. The source can’t be best available - compare the sound of Sweet Little Sixteen on the Anniversary Collection CD 3 with the same recording here. Quite a difference.

But these two cds are another treasure for Searchers fans!!!

CD-cover front and back. in America the pictures are switched around. Those from the UK cd are used for the cardboard cover.

this picture above seems also to be in use but nobody knows in which country; can anyone help?

Of special interest of course are the non-Pye songs. From the booklet:

Six of the tracks cut at the Beeb weren't taken from the group's Pye catalogue, however. One of them, Chuck Berry's 'Sweet Little Sixteen', had been in their repertoire for years, and turned up on the live album they cut at the Star-Club in Hamburg before signing to Pye. "That was one of the ones that everyone in Liverpool did," John McNally explains. "We did a lot of that Chuck Berry stuff. He had a tremendous reservoir of material for all the beat groups to draw on."

In the tradition of their hit protest single 'What Have They Done To The Rain', which was taped for the BBC without the string section heard on the finished record, the Searchers performed Bob Dylan's 'Blowin’ In The Wind' during a radio date in May 1966. "We got that from Peter, Paul & Mary, "John recalls. "We did a Palladium show with them, and I also saw them perform at the Philharmonic in Liverpool. Their harmonies were amazing, and we loved the way they did that song, so we borrowed it for the day." Frank Alien recalls that Palladium show as the Searchers' final appearance on TV's Sunday Night At The London Palladium: "Peter Cook and Dudley Moore were topping the bill, and we were one of a number of pop acts who appeared in a segment in the middle of the programme, doing one song each on the carousel. No recording of the show has survived - which is probably just as well, because it must have sounded awful!"

Another borrowed tune from this period was the medley of 'See See Rider' and 'Jenny Take A Ride' popularised by Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels, taped for Saturday Club in both September and December 1966. "We actually shared the bill with Mitch Ryder a couple of years ago In the States, "John says, "and that reminded me that we used to perform this medley sometimes on stager"

Accompanying their 'Popcorn Double Feature' at a Saturday Club recording session in February 1967 was 'Goodbye, So Long', typical of the way that the band approached their R&B covers in the 60s. "My memory is that we learned that from Inez & Charlie Foxx," John says today, "but it may have been Ike & Tina Turner." The second guess turns out to be the right one, as the Turners' version was released by Stateside in 1966.

At their next session, in March 1967, the group repeated 'Popcorn Double Feature', which had steadfastly refused to enter the charts. But the other song taped that day is altogether more mysterious. "I can't remember who wrote ‘I’ll Be Loving You’, "John McNally apologises, "but it was either me or Chris. It's ridiculous, but I really don't know! But I do remember that we started recording it at one of our Pye sessions, but we never actually finished it off." The BBC version thus remaining the only documented record of the song.

Finally, the May 1967 session that provides the last surviving set of BBC recordings by the band threw up not only a sterling version of their excellent non-hit single of that year, 'Western Union', but also the deeply obscure 'I Don't Believe'. The song had originally been written and recorded by a US garage band called the Guiloteens, and was issued here on the Pye International label in late 1965. But that isn't how the Searchers heard the song, as John McNally explains: "What happened is that we appeared on one of those American TV shows - either Shindig or Hullabaloo, / can't remember which - and the Guiloteens were on the same show. They performed the song, and I really liked it, though the rest of the lads weren't so sure. But we learned it, and we dug out when that BBC recording came around. By then, think we'd stopped paying too much attention to what, songs we performed on the radio, as it didn't seem to be making much difference to how well the record sold."