July 1969: The last Liberty single was issued which went nowhere. Their contact ran out

and things didn’t go too well. But the Searchers didn’t give up, they still had a name,

they still had work although they didn’t earn very much, especially in their home country.

Already in  the end of 1968 John Blunt was gone - Billy Adamson had taken his place.

Then he looked rather cool with his hair style - and he was a good drummer, one whose

style fitted better than Blunt’s.

Since 1968 RCA had a British division and they was looking for artists (just like Liberty

had)  “with international cachet. The Searchers seemed just the ticket. The contract with

‘RCA’ came about when the group was recruited to perform a demo of a song called

Desdemona’.

The producer of the demo session, incidentally, was David Paramor, a nephew of Cliff

Richard’s producer, Norrie Paramor. Richard Swainson at RCA heard the demo and signed

both the Searchers and the song.” (from booklet The Complete RCA/UK recordings)

26th of February 1971: The new single was out. UK: RCA 2057 Germany: RCA  74-16084 see  left US: RCA 74-0484 Japan: RCA SS -            2134 New Zealand:           RCA 60542 Both sides were sung by Mike Pender, backup vocals by John & Frank

Things started quite good, at least they had some airplay in the USA, Germany and

Sweden - and brought the boys back into the charts: in Sweden it went to no. 15 for one

week on  August 21^st. It also  entered the Amercian Top 100, reached no. 94 and stayed

for three weeks.

Not a big success, but better than nothing - perhaps further singles could do better.

Above left: American promo Above right: German record A- Side Left: German B-Side The flip side was a self penned songs, credited to Allen - McNally and Pender but actually written by Mike alone-

 

The hair was longer than ever - typical 70s style. John even with a moustache and a beard.

Below: two more labels. Left: UK promo record (RCA 2057). Right: New Zealand release

(60542)