The Searchers and how how did Kapp get all those stereo mixes?

American fans of The Searchers know that unlike any other British Invasion group, the LP's released by Kapp Records in the 1960's by the band are 99.999% true stereo. Only one fake stereo track in the whole LP discography! ("What Have They Done To The Rain" being that lone reprocessed stereo selection)

What is even more unique is that America seems to be the only place these stereo mixes were released during their original issue. All of the LP's as originally released by The Searchers "home " label, Pye Records, in England never had a stereo release. Tracks popped up on the odd compilation here and there after the 1960's (The Golden Hour Of The Searchers Vol. 2 released in the 1970's being a "watershed" for Europe of many first time released stereo mixes.) It took the early 1980's reissues of the original LP's for England and the rest of Europe to get many of these stereo mixes in something other than a compilation album and even then it was very haphazard and not consistent.

Even more odd is that a few of the mixes on the American LP's are unique, and don't match the stereo mixes that have been released over the years in England and Europe.

So the question is, where did the American stereo mixes come from, why weren't they issued worldwide at the time, and why did they seem to sink into a black hole after the Kapp albums went out of print?

There are theories and rumors, with one of the wildest and most implausible being that Pye sent Kapp the multi-tracks so Kapp could create the stereo mixes. Others say Kapp requested them because they didn't want to release phoney stereo versions. (the most probable reason) But a definitive answer has never been stated.

So where DID those mixes come from, and where did they go...?

Let's discuss!

 

I think a few of us give a crap. LOL

If Pye kept the original stereo mix-downs, it makes me wonder how they were filed in their vaults. The 1980's reissue of the LP's are hit and miss stereo wise, with the first LP still totally mono, and the rest an odd mix of both stereo and mono. Only the Take Me For What I'm Worth LP is 100% stereo. And then during the CD era, they seemed to not use the stereo mixes at all, aside from a handful of tunes.

Did Pye go four-track in 1965? The stereo mixes for the Take Me... album sound much more sophisticated and layered compared to the previous albums.

 

That's right, it was Volume One that had all the stereo mixes! Volume Two had a ton of reprocessed stereo tracks for some bizarre reason.

Would you know if they using the AME EQ? (For those that don't know, this was an EQ curve Ampex developed that helped cut tape hiss and noise, but was notorious for sounding horrendous when overloaded even a little.)

 

Interesting stuff. Searchers are one of my all time favorite bands. I really love the British Invasion era.

 

Great band with super vocals. I always thought they would have had more success.

 

I love the mono mixes of the Searchers, but those old PYE stereo mixes hold their own. The Audio Fidelity SACD with your mastering is one of the best sounding discs of stereo 1960's rock music in my collection. Great stuff.

 

The SACD of The Searchers is incredible sounding. It is almost a 3D presentation.

 

Sadly, the Audio Fidelity SACD bypassed my radar when it was released. I wanted to kick myself when I found out and it was too late to get a copy at a price that wasn't eye-widening,

 

I wonder, would you know who did Kapp's lacquer mastering from the '50's until about 1969 - was it in-house, or did Beltone do so? Methinks I detected a sound betraying use of Grampian feedback cutterheads on their monos . . .

 

RCA was pressing for Kapp during the early 60's, as I have a handful of Roger Williams LP's all pressed at RCA's Indianapolis facility. There are no distinguishing marks to determine where they were mastered besides a "Q7" along with the matrix etched in my copy of Roger Williams Greatest Hits (Kapp KS-3260, blue label).

 

Another plant handling Kapp for years was Allentown Record Co. 45's, of course, were pressed by Columbia.

 

Thanks for this post. I give a crap.

 

I like that funky sound. Take Me For What I'm Worth and I'll Be Doggone sound pretty sweet on that LP. Your Searchers AF CD was one of the first I bought after joining here.

 

Great thread, very informative.

My only gripe about their stereo tracks is that "Ain't Gonna Kiss Ya" is an alternate take.

 

I would be delighted to get to the bottom of this and learn more about it. (Yes, I do give a crap. I think it's fascinating.) In fairness to Andrew Sandoval, the conversation we had about this was at least twelve years ago and, as I recall, we began by talking about "This Is Us," the second US Kapp album, so it'as possible that he was referring just to it, though at the time I thought it was to the entire catalog.

Aside from the released-in-US-only stereo mixes, another unusual aspect of The Searchers' catalog is that there were also some stereo mixes that were issued in Britain only and never here ("What Have They Done To the Rain," & "This Feeling Inside," for example), thus making the collection of a stereo Searchers catalog even more daunting.

And, for some unknown reason, Castle or Sequel, or whoever owns that catalog this year, has never issued a number of these stereo mixes on CD, ever. So the only way to hear these tracks in their stereo mixes is to get those increasingly hard to find old Kapp LPs. It's all very curious, especially to those of us remaining Searchers fans.

 

Heh.

 

Utterly fascinating. Nowhere else can we get detailed backstory info like this! That's what keeps me returning to this forum!

The main thing that held back the Searchers was they had no songwriters in the band, which (thanks to Lennon & McCartney's example) was increasingly necessary for maintaining credibility in the '60s. They also never really evolved as a band, although they did improve as time went on. I have some unreleased 1968 BBC sessions by the Searchers, and they were still using a 12-string Rickenbacker and doing jangly pop music like it was 1965, completely out of step with the rest of the pop world at that time. I'm not saying that it wasn't good, but it does explain why they ended up playing the cabaret circuit instead of headlining at the Isle of Wight Festival or whatever.

 

For those playing at home, "This Feeling Inside" was a rare non-LP B-side here in the States, and never on an album released by Kapp, which is why no stereo mix was ever released in the US. (And of course, the two or three singles released after 1965 by Kapp never saw an American album release, so they remained mono in the USA as well.)

I don't fully agree with this. They wrote more than a few B-sides and album tracks, Chris Curtis especially, with Mike Pender and John McNally contributing as well. "He's Got No Love" is an outstanding song and proof they could write a catchy, good tune. The band themselves have said over the years they didn't have, and weren't given, the confidence to explore that avenue. They seemed to like playing it safe, and with no one seemingly around to push them a bit when it mattered, they didn't reach the potential that (I believe anyway) was there as songwriters.

They needed an Andrew Loog Oldham to keep locking them in a room and threatening to not let them out until they became comfortable as songwriters.