One of the greatest surprises in the history of The Searchers was the departure of Tony Jackson in August 1964 (Allen, 1999) at the zenith of their chart success. He was replaced by Frank Allen, previously with Cliff Bennett and The Rebel Rousers. Why would anyone leave one of the most successful Liverpool groups in the 1960s? There has been much speculation about Jackson's departure. Was he pushed or did he jump from The Searchers looking for greener musical pastures? Tony responded to this question in a straight forward manner although with a tad of reluctance expressed that there was "little point in going over this again as it is in the past." Nonetheless, he began his discussion of the reasons surrounding his leaving by informing me of the interpersonal relationships of the group members.
On the road, Tony roomed with Mike Pender while John McNally and Chris Curtis were room-mates. For this reason, Tony indicated that he and Mike Pender had become close friends and in his view this continues up to the present day. In the beginning, Tony recalled "we were just four guys who played together who were all equal." As time went on, the balance within the group shifted to the point where "Chris Curtis wanted to be the bossman. He used to tell me what to do. He would come to me and point his finger in my chest and tell me what to play on the bass. He would say, don't play this an so on. I told him, look you stick to the drums and I'll worry about the bass. We almost came to blows over this a couple of times." Apparently the conflict continued and this made it difficult for Tony to accept. In referring to Chris he added "He wanted ballads and I wanted Rock and Roll. Eventually Curtis approached Jackson and and said "Tony you don't sing anymore!"
Frequent rows developed between Tony Jackson and Chris Curtis that ultimately had its toll on the group. Tony indicated that it eventually got to the point where "They (The Searchers) didn't want me." He did go on to express, however, that the feeling was mutual and all recognized that it was not possible to continue given the full extent of the personal differences between the two. Ironically, Chris Curtis would eventually leave in March 1966 shortly after experiencing emotional difficulties while the Searchers were on tour in Australia (Allen, 1999). In the end it would seem that Jackson's departure stemmed from differences with Chris Curtis, with the latter determined to choose the songs and record them in particular style. Mike Pender seems to have concurred with this reasoning, at least in retrospect, in an interview with Spencer Leigh. Speaking to the reason underlying the lack of chart success of The Searchers beyond 1965 he offered "It's hard to say when things started to go wrong, but we weren't taking enough care in choosing strong songs. Complacency had set in. We were over the hard times and we had become too satisfied with the good life" (Leigh, 1984).
July 21, 2002
