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Some of my fondest memories of The Searchers' early music was the piano, played by Tony Hatch. This arrangement paralleled the recordings of The Beatles wherein George Martin sometimes played piano, McCartney too obviously.

The piano played a big role in 1960s records from Liverpool. One of The Searchers' songs that I really enjoyed was the cover of "Sea Of Heartbreak" with the very simple piano part. For me, it added depth, another layer to the mix if you will.

Whatever became of the piano in The Searchers' recordings? What was your favourtie piano part? Should they bring it back?

Don't Hide it Away was a great track as regards use of Piano. Solitaire of course piano led.

Roy: A further thought about piano, the Beatles made very effective use of it on "Money". I always wished that The Searchers, notwithstanding their own unique touch, had used a piano on their version as well.

The Searchers released their version before The Beatles, Money appeared on Meet the Searchers released in Aug 63 whereas The Beatles version apeared on With the Beatles which was released in October 63

Roy: While this is an interesting observation with regard to recording dates, I suspect that The Searchers had heard The Beatles' live version before they went into the studio in August 1963. This would be a great question for John McNally.

Perhaps a further point with regard to the use of the piano. Tony Hatch was producing for the "Downtown" woman, Petula Clark as well and given the extensive piano work that wold appear a bit later on her recordings it is a wonder that more didn't end up on the Searchers' songs as well.

My favorite piano parts are:"Sea of Heartbreak", "Noone Else Could Love Me", "Where Have You Been", "I Don't Want to go on without You" (30th Anniv. CD alt, take), and "A Tear Fell" and "

Forgot the Sire Cuts: "It's Too Late", "Everything but a Heartbeat"

With regard to Money Peter, point taken but I am sure that a lot of Merseybeat groups had Money in their repetoire. Perhaps the adding of paino to The Beatles version was to differentiate from The Searchers version. Bern Elliott and The Fenmen actually had a hit single with their version released in Nov 63.

I hadn't paid attention to compositions by Chris Curtis that involved piano. That for this John. It would seem that Chris had a thing for the keyboard.