Finally read what Frank Allen rites about
recording Goodbye My Love in his book Me and The Searches:
“Goodbye
My Love was a haunting tune that had been recorded by an American
called
Jimmy Hughes although his preferred title had been Goodbye My Lover, Goodbye
for the us market, the same title that had been used in a previous recording
by one of the song,s trio of composers Robert Mosley. It had first been
played to the band by Big Dee Irwin while in tour in 1964 but we didn't have
the Hughes disc and we didn't know who the publisher was. But luck was with
us. Gene Pitney just happened to be in town and, hearing that we were at
Pye, dropped in to say hello. We were talking about the Hughes record which
it turned out Gene knew very well indeed.' We had booked the Great
Cumberland Place set-up for two days and the next day Pitney had obtained a
demo and had it sent round to us. We got on with it straight away.
It was an
exciting session. We had to make an impact with this one so we went for a
big sound and for the first time double-tracked the drums, something that
might have been second nature to Phil Spector but which was seldom tried by
producers in Britain. (…)
John
McNally devised a captivating 'swishing' sound on his rhythm guitar which
gave an intriguing focal point to the track. We took our time to obtain as
near a perfect result as we could and it was night time before we got round
to overdubbing the vocals.
As was
the norm we double-tracked the voices to get a bigger and more impressive
sound, which would be souped up even more in the final mix by an ethereal
echo, and in the pursuit of a faultless result it was necessary to stop and
'drop in' from time to time.
It was
now gone midnight and a passage immediately preceding the middle eight - or
the bridge - had to be done again. Mike and Chris sang the harmonies and
stopped, happy that they had been in time and in tune. (…)
On the
flip side was a song that has proved to be our most enduring and loved
composition - Till I Met You. I have seen it credited to Curtis and Pender
and I have also seen it marked down as a combined effort from the entire
group. In fact this beautiful song with its simple and moving words was
written byJohn McNally alone for his wife Mary.”
Frank
Allen: The Searchers And Me Castle-upon-Alun 20099, page 1178 - 180 |
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