The album cover, with it’s eye-searing blue-on-red pattern of a repeated image of the group, is a lesson in bad design, but the vinyl platter inside was a masterclass on making music to appeal across divisions. This best of Coasters’ album from my mother’s collection is one of the small group of things that reside in the overlap of the Venn diagram representing me, my mother and my father. And it’s one of those rare things that can make my notoriously cranky father act a little goofy, as he dances through the house, singing along and pointing his fingers in the air.
“Yakety Yak”, probably the Coasters’ best-known song, was always my least favorite due to over-saturation, having heard it on the local oldies station (WMJI, Majic 105.7… back when it still played oldies. Remember those days, Cleveland kids?) a million times and seen it depicted in several cartoons of the time. But one of my favorites on that best of album was “Searchin'”, with it’s sliding rhythm. A great song to do the Stroll to.
Written by the legendary songwriting team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the song was released on Atco Records in 1957.
The Coasters had a knack for recording songs with catchy, instantly-likeable rhythms. (Though the song was slowed down in their live performance of it on censorship-loving Steve Allen’s show.)
Fun fact: The Beatles covered “Searchin'” in their audition for Decca Records in 1962. Their cover was pretty terrible. They should have taken a cue from Bill Lee Riley, who covered the song in ’57 for Sun Records.
There was also a creditable rendition by the Hollies in 1963.
In 1965, the Spencer Davis Group laid down a surprisingly soulful version of “Searchin'” with a little more hipsway in the mix.
In the mid-’90s, Man of a Thousand Bands, Mick Collins, covered “Searchin'” with his band Blacktop, adding his signature loud, fuzzed-out, chainsaw guitar sound. (Collins also covered the Coasters “The Idol with the Golden Head” with the Gories, making me like him even more than I already did.)
(Note: I have no idea where the visuals are from in this video. It’s just what was available.)
