The Searchers — “Umbrella Man”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — July 21, 2024

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,278) The Searchers — “Umbrella Man”

Hand-clappin’ heaven, one of the Searchers’ (see #352, 394, 636) great singles from the latter half of the 60’s. “Umbrella Man” was written by Kenny Young, who wrote “Under the Boardwalk” with Art Resnick (who later recorded yesterday’s “Invisible Man” as part of the Third Rail). “If a storm is threatening you, just hold my hand I’ll be your umbrella man”

The Searchers’ chart successes dwindled in the latter half of the ‘60’s, but they still released exquisite singles, ones that deserved to be hits. As Bruce Eder says, “By the beginning of 1966, the group’s string of chart hits seemed to have run out . . . . The[y] continued working, however, playing clubs and cabarets in England and Europe.” (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-searchers-mn0000898828/biography)

Andrew Darlington adds:

As hair grew longer and riffs got wilder elsewhere in Pop, as other first-generation Beat Boom names were falling by the wayside, the Searchers were graduating into mild string-laden protest . . . . [u]ntil eventually the[y] slide out of the Top Forty with a row of goodish 1966 forty-fives [including] one called “Popcorn Double Feature” [see #352].

http://andrewdarlington.blogspot.com/2011/03/searchers-live-in-ossett.html

Blue Yogurt:

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