Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Roy Clough has kindly found a very nice photo of the Undertakers that reveals their British Invasion attire and captures the group in what would seem to be 1963-64. I will let Chris Huston fill us in on the details. As the Undertakers were peers of The Searchers there is much to be learned about one group from studying the other. Your comments would be most welcomed Chris.

Chris is a regular contributor to Peter's excellent site and for those interested, Chris is the "Blonde" one on the right. This photo classes them as "The Takers", Tony Hatch thought their name was too morbid, even though they released a number of singles as "The Undertakers" and they changed it to "The Takers", although according to band member Geoff Nugent, the band were against it, for the release of what some consider their best release "If You Don't Come Back"

No doubt our friend Chris will expand

I always thought the Undertakers wore long leather coats as their publicity thing...Hmmmaybe it was the Kinks...

John

TheUndertakers at one time wore Long coats and top hats, I refer to this photo billing them as The Takers

The Undertakers has a number of different "looks" during the 1960s. Here they are at the Iron Door in 1963, as The Undertakers.

Where do I start?

Well, as far as the Long coats and black cowboy hats - that was our attire for quite a while. We adopted the ‘Western Undertaker’ look soon after we got named The Undertakers, due to a mix-up on the advertising page of the Liverpool Echo. We used to take our coats off during our 15-20 minute version of "Shout", twirl them above our heads and then toss them to the back or side of the stage. I managed to get my coat nicked by a fan once. I never got it back, either.

The first photograph, at the top of the page, looks like an out-take from a photo shoot that we did circa 1964. This was when we did the name change, from the Undertakers to the Takers, to appease PYE Records. Our relationship with PYE was not a good one. From the first time that we walked into the studio and were greeted by engineers and their assistants, wearing knee-length lab coats, things didn't go well. They proceeded to tell us where to stand and set the tone and volume on our amplifiers. In about 30 minutes flat, they had removed everything from our music that we had been signed for! It wasn't a secret, we were a hard-kicking Rock'n'Roll band. It was sad really, PYE and Tony Hatch, our Producer, had no idea what we were about and proved extremely dense when it came to picking our singles, even though we told them which songs were the most popular and getting all the attention in our stage shows.

For instance, we were the first English group to record a version of Barrett Strong's 1960 Anna Records hit, "Money" (which never really made it to England as a legitimate release) and wanted to put it out as a single. No...it was destined to be a 'B' side. Before that, the same thing had happened with our first release: we wanted "(Do The) Mashed Potatoes" - which we were really famous for - instead PYE released "Everybody Loves A Lover", consigning "(Do The) Mashed Potatoes" to the flip side where it got no publicity or airplay, which, in England, was sparse to begin with.

In retrospect, we would have been much more suited to Oriole Records, especially as John Schroeder had shown a lot of interest in us, and we got on really well with him.

Oh yes, we also turned down Brian Epstein when he wanted to manage us! Oh well, it’s too late to worry about it now, I suppose…

I will be most happy to answer any questions that anyone has about The Undertakers or any other Merseybeat subject...

A couple of things on the Undertakers..

I saw the band at a Christmas event at Rivington Barn near Bolton some years ago (good venue, done Christmas gig runs there myself). At that point, how many of the original band would have been left?

One of the group that I spoke to seemed unaware of Slade's cover of 'Just a little bit' on their 'Old New Borrowed and Blue' album (available on Polydor CD), which was a bit surprising!

Are the band still active in 2005 and is there a website?

Here is a set list from ian's Bnad which he does not mention but is The Kerbcrawlers, only disappointing bit- NO SEARCHERS SONGS IAN.

I always thought bass guitars only had 4 strings


Caroline Status Quo
Sharp dressed man ZZ Top
Surfing with the alien Joe Satriani
Comfortably numb Pink Floyd
Proud Mary CCR
Walking by myself Gary Moore
Still got the blues Gary Moore
Learn to fly Foo Fighters
Don't believe a word Thin Lizzy
Rosalie Thin Lizzy
The boys are back in town Thin Lizzy
Still in love with you Thin Lizzy
Race with the devil Gun
I knew the bride Dave Edmunds
Can't get enough Bad Company
The last time The Rolling Stones
No more Mr nice guy Alice Cooper
School's Out Alice Cooper
Teenage kicks The Undertones
Get over it The Eagles
Behind blue eyes The Who
Need your love so bad Fleetwood Mac
Summer of '69 Bryan Adams
Natural born boogie Humble Pie
Bad Love Eric Clapton
Black magic woman Santana
I want you to want me Cheap Trick
Sabre dance Love Sculpture
Alright now Free
Roadhouse blues Doors / Status Quo
Brown eyed girl Van Morrison / Them
I don't wanna talk about it Rod Stewart
Something The Beatles
All my loving The Beatles
I wanna hold your hand The Beatles
A Hard day's night The Beatles
I saw her standing there The Beatles
Back in the USSR The Beatles
Can't buy me love The Beatles
Hi ho silver lining Jeff Beck / Slade
Wishing well Free
Milk and alcohol Doctor Feelgood

Hmm... i've seen bass guitars with 5 and 6 strings, and if i'm not mistaken, a guy from the band called the Presidents of the United States of America played some sort of a bass guitar with 2 or 3 strings only... sorry for an off-topic...
Interesting compilation, indeed...

Hi, when I did a week or so at Rivington Barn, I was in a band called Oh Boy, led by Kevin Clarkson from Leyland, near Preston, Lancs.

He is very chummy with Mike Pender and his band. We played a couple of shows on the bill with them.

Oh Boy did a Searchers tribute a couple of times.

Regular songs in our normal Oh Boy set included:
Needles and Pins, Walk in the room, Hearts in her eyes, Have you ever loved somebody (my personal favourite) and Love Potion #9 - which is still in The Kerbcrawlers setlist now.

The 12 string bass I use can be seen at http://www.crazeeworld.plus.com/pages/kerbcrawlers/12zone.htm I also play an 8 string and 3 4003's!

Aha. You missed out the third column of songs on our setlist page - which reads as follows:

Apache The Shadows
FBI The Shadows
Great balls of fire Jerry Lee Lewis
Imagine John Lennon
Love potion #9 Searchers
Make me smile Cockney Rebel
Bad bad Leroy Brown Jim Croce
Cocaine Eric Clapton
Mustang Sally Commitments
All along the watchtower Hendrix / Dylan
Sultans of swing Dire Straits
Money for nothing Dire Straits
Albatross Fleetwood Mac
Still rock and roll to me Billy Joel
Merry Xmas everybody Slade
Born to be wild Steppenwolf / Slade

This band does NOT play 'Freebird'.

does anyone know a robert wright from the undertakers i believe he may have been a drummer when the band was first formed

Welcome Fiona. An interesting question. My readings have led me to believe that it was Bugs Pemberton on the drums from the beginning. How did you hear of Robert Wright? Time to dig up some more history of The Undertakers. In fact, I am going to move this thread over to Clough's Classics just to see what Roy Clough has to say about this.

Yes welcome Fiona, love your favourite saying by the way. Bob Evans was original drummer as band emerge from Bob Evans and The Five Shillings, then became Vegas Five and Bob's Undertakers.

Bugs Pemberton became the Drummer when name changed to takers. Over the years been a number of different drummers but I can find no reference to a Robert Wright. Les Maquire played tenor sax in the band before joining Gerry and The Pacemakers on keyboards.

Chris Houston who as they say "was there" sometimes contributes so he may be able to answer question.

Wow! More lady punkers here! Cool! Welcome, Fiona!
(oops... sorry for an offtopic, guys - couldn't resist...)