Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

The following email was received by "Needles and Pins"Quote:I have read somewhere that keyboardist Bob Jackson (formerly with Indian Summer, Ross, Badfinger, The Dodgers, The Byron Band and currently with The Fortunes) was once a member of
The Searchers. Is there any comfirmation on this information and if so, when was he a member and did he appear on any of their albums.

Thank you for your time.

Peace

Ron Saunders
The Best of British Rock

Ron: The "Rockfield Studio Recordings", in contract with SIRE records produced 25 songs released over two years. Bob Jackson was a keyboardist on some of these tracks but he never performed with The Searchers outside of the studio. The recordings were made in 1970 and 1980.

The specific tracks Bob Jackson appeared on, or should I perhaps say officially credited with, were Lost In Your Eyes and Coming From The Heart.
Both tracks were featured on SEARCHERS the first Sire Album released in November 79, for these interested in trivia, Coming From The Heart was dropped from the reissued album THE SEARCHERS in April 80, but on the sleeve notes he is credited with both tracks, although only Lost In Your Eyes appears.

Bob Jackson was at one time a member of Badfinger though not in their "Fame" days, however one of the features of the Fortunes stage act is his version of Without You, which Badfinger originally did on a album but Nilsson made famous, I don't count Mariah Carey's version

You are correct in saying that Bob Jackson wasn't in Badfinger's "fame" days. He did join Badfinger in the summer/fall of '74 as a replacement for founding member Pete Ham as Ham had quit at that time for a few weeks. Ham rejoined Badfinger which made the group a five piece. This five piece line-up toured parts of the U.K. as an opening act for Man, until guitarist Joey Molland quit. With Badfinger now (at that time) consisting of Ham, Jackson and the other two original members (bassist/vocalist Tom Evans and drummer Mike Gibbins), they recorded tracks in late '74 early '75 for an album that was eventually aborted by Warner Brothers. That album was finally released just last year (2000) as Head First. Bob Jackson would join The Dodgers with Badfinger's Tom Evans in '76/'77. In '80/'81 he joined The Byron Band which included former Uriah Heep vocalist David Byron and then later would be a member of Tommy Evan's Badfinger in '82/'83.

Thanks for the interesting history Ron. Do you have any photos of Bob Jackson from the Badfinger days?

Unfortunantly, I don't have any photos of Bob Jackson with the '74/'75 version of Badfinger. I do have a few photo's of Jackson with Tommy Evans' Badfinger taken in '82 and '83 as well as a photo of Jackson with Indian Summer (circa 1971). If you go to my "Rock Roots" page on The Iveys/Badfinger, I have a timeline/family tree of sorts which includes those photos. The address is http://members.tripod.com/rant58/id262.htm

I received a very nice email from Bob Jackson who could not recall which songs he performed on in the studio. So I guess we will go with the sleeve credits for now.