The Searchers’ US and UK hits in stereo!

The Searchers had seven U.S. Top 40 singles, highlighted by their covers of Jackie DeShannon’s “Needles and Pins,” the Orlons’ “Don’t Throw Your Love Away,” and the Clovers’ “Love Potion #9.” The band had even greater success in their native England, where they topped the singles chart three times, landed a dozen singles in the Top 40 and waxed more than a dozen albums. Their original recordings for Pye have been extensively anthologized [1 2], but for those seeking a hits-focused single disc, Varese’s gathered together all of the group’s UK and US chart entries (except for an early cover of Brenda Lee’s “Sweet Nothin’s”), and sprinkled in a few album cuts. The collection utilizes stereo mixes that were most likely produced by UK Pye for the American Kapp label (at the demand of label head Dave Kapp). These are genuine stereo mixes made from the original 3-track masters, and they’re surprisingly well balanced. That said, they aren’t the mono singles listeners originally heard on AM radio, which themselves can be found on the longer Pye collections. Listeners unaccustomed to mono will enjoy the stereo mixes, but Searchers fans should really own both, as they’re equally authentic artifacts. [©2016 Hyperbolium]

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