While the Club 60 was used in many of the Searchers' early recordings, perhaps the most famous was "Needles and Pins." This guitar produced the sound that would set the stage for many of the "Jangly" numbers to follow by other artists. The similarity between "Needles and Pins" and other hits such as the Byrds' "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "I Feel A whole Lot Better" is unmistakable. As it turns out, the jangly sound produced by McNally's Hofner Club 60 and Pender's Gibson ES345 was a musical accident. Many fans believed for some time that an electric 12-string was used on this song. In retrospect, this assumption was a reasonable one given the combination of the high pitched treble sound of the Hofner and the bassy quality of the Gibson ES 345. John McNally speaks of this fortuitous event in his most interesting interview in Mike Ober's book "Then Play On."
Needles and Pinza
McNally's comments from Ober's "Then Play On"
"What I found was the killer was that suddenly all these people were going,
'You've got this great sound, this 12-string guitar sound.' Hang on, we didn't
play 12-strings then. It was just two electric guitars with a bit of echo, a
bit of reverb. I played a Hofner Club 60 and Mike played a Gibson 345 Stereo.
One's played very trebly and the other's sort of medium range, which together
sounds like an octave higher and sounds like a 12-string guitar.
"People came to me saying 'you use a 12-string guitar, that's really original,
man.' Ah! Suddenly we had to go out and buy some 12-string guitars. It was
pushed on us really. That came with 'Needles and Pins.' If you listen to
'Sweets for My Sweet' and 'Sugar and Spice,' the guitars are doing the same
thing as 'Needles.' It's only with 'Needles' the riff, and it's the same
guitars doing the same thing and it's same sound but people are now going
'that's a 12-string guitar.' Is it? Oh! So we end up having to buy 12-string
electric guitars. The guitar sound between myself and Mike was an accident."
"Needles and Pins Goes To The Top" Curtis, McNally, Pender and Jackson
What Happened To The Club 60 Model?
When Was The Last Performance for the Hofner?
According to John McNally the last time the Hofner was used during a performance was in the "summer of 1964 - probably round about the time Frank joined the group." Frank Allen joined the Searchers in August 1964 so it was about this time when the Hofner graced the stage for the last time. But McNally would next switch to a Fender Telecaster, shown below, and not a Les Paul. Why move away from a good thing, the instrument upon which a signature rhythm sound and technique was formed?
July 23, 2001 - Revised August 15, 2001
