The Sire Sessions - Rockfield Recordings 1979-80

by

The Searchers

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This is one of those inspired reissues by Raven that does EXACTLY what a music collector wants: it puts together everything from a discrete overlooked period. And was this period ever overlooked!

When the earlier of the two albums included here came out, I snapped it up hoping for something reminiscent of the excellent U.S. version of "Take Me For What I'm Worth." I have no good explanation for the fact that the only tracks that appealed to me at the time were "Hearts in Her Eyes" which I loved (and still do) and "Switchboard Susan" which I liked. My failure to get beyond these first two songs was quite a lapse of taste. In fairness to myself, I never heard the second Sire album "Love's Melody" on which the band really played up its mid-60s hallmarks with a more reverbed, silky recorded sound recalling Tony Hatch's work with them and assembled an even stronger set of songs. A generation later when I bought this CD issue, I was delighted by The Searchers' wonderful update on their own classic sound complete with the jangling twelve string, those familiar voices both singly and in the smooth harmonies, and the inspired choices of top-drawer songs often from the folkie/songwriter scene. Where in the 60s the Searchers covered Ian Tyson, Jackie Deshannon and P.F. Sloan, at the turn of the 1970s and 80s, they covered Tom Petty, John Hiatt, John Fogerty and Alex Chilton. They offered their own superb versions of great songs from Big Star and the Textones. And they offered a pair of their own originals on each album, the best of which is the mournful but beautiful "Changing" which closes out the set. This last song hits the same nerve as "Don't You Know Why" or "Goodbye My Love" from 1966. These albums are not desperate cash-ins by a spent force; they are instead fine demonstrations of the continued relevance of a classic British band with a firmly grounded musical philosophy who had not stopped listening to new music.

Too many people in the States forget the Searchers (and sometimes even the Beatles!), giving all of the credit for the formation of the archetypal 12 string jangly rock sound to the Byrds. I'm sure that many of the later jangle bands from REM forward listened to the Searchers as much as they did the Byrds and I'll bet they listened to these two albums.