Tony Jackson (bass player)

Tony Jackson (July 16 1940 – August 18 2003) was an English bass player and singer who was a member of The Searchers.

Related Topics:
July 16 - 1940 - August 18 - 2003 - English - The Searchers

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Anthony Paul Jackson was born July 16 1940, in Liverpool. {{inote|Daily Telegraph|Telegraph}}After leaving school he went to Walton Technical College to train as an electrician. {{inote|Daily Telegraph|Telegraph}}Jackson was inspired by the skiffle sound of Lonnie Donegan, and then by Buddy Holly and other U.S. rock and roll. {{inote|AP|AP}}He founded the skiffle group the Martinis. {{inote|Eder|Eder}}

Related Topics:
July 16 - 1940 - Liverpool - Skiffle - Lonnie Donegan - Buddy Holly

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Nicknamed Black Jake{{inote|Allen|Allen}}, he joined the guitar duo The Searchers, which had been formed by John McNally and Mike Pender in 1959.{{inote|Eder|Eder}} The band soon expanded further to a quartet with the addition of the drummer Chris Curtis. Jackson built and learned to play a customized bass guitar. Learning his new job on the four-stringed instrument proved too difficult to permit him to continue singing lead so he made way for a new singer, Johnny Sandon in 1960.{{inote|Eder|Eder}} They played in Liverpool's nightclubs and the beer bars of Hamburg, Germany. Brian Epstein considered signing them but he lost interest after seeing a drunken Jackson fall off the stage at the Cavern Club. Sandon moved on in February 1962 and the band were signed by Pye Records in mid-1963 {{inote|Eder|Eder}}when The Beatles' success created great demand for Liverpudlian acts. {{inote|AP|AP}}

Related Topics:
John McNally - Mike Pender - 1959 - Chris Curtis - Hamburg - Germany - Cavern Club - 1962 - Pye Records - 1963 - The Beatles

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Jackson was lead singer and played bass on the band's first two United Kingdom hits, Sweets for My Sweet and Sugar and Spice, but was not the vocalist on the band's biggest hit Needles and Pins and Don't Throw Your Love Away. {{inote|AP|AP}}

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In 1964 the band toured the United States, including an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. Jackson was unhappy with the bands' move away from rock and roll to a softer, more melodic sound{{inote|Beat Boom|BeatBoom}} and felt that he was not getting appropriate attention. {{inote|AP|AP}}He left the group in July 1964 in some acrimony {{inote|Allen|Allen}}and immediately moved to London and put together a new band, the Vibrations, which had an organ-based sound instead of the Searchers' twelve-string guitars.

Related Topics:
1964 - The Ed Sullivan Show - The Vibrations

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After leaving the Searchers Jackson spent £200 on cosmetic surgery on his nose. He said at the time that he had had a lifelong complex about his nose to the extent that he could not mix socially. The surgery had followed psychiatric treatment. {{inote|Daily Telegraph|Telegraph}}That same year he revealed that his 1960 marriage to Margaret Parry had been effectively over for two years. {{inote|Daily Telegraph|Telegraph}}

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The Vibrations toured the UK with the Hollies, Marianne Faithfull and other acts. They released four singles on the Pye Records label but only the first had any success. In 1965 they changed their name to The Tony Jackson Group but the fourth single also failed and Pye dropped them. The band then signed to CBS without improvement and they found that there were few bookings in the UK{{inote|Beat Boom|BeatBoom}} so they toured southern Europe until even that withered. {{inote|Daily Telegraph|Telegraph}}Disillusioned and out of options, Jackson left the music business. {{inote|AP|AP}}

Related Topics:
The Hollies - Marianne Faithfull - CBS

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Jackson took a variety of jobs including Spanish night club manager, {{inote|Daily Telegraph|Telegraph}}entertainments representative, furniture salesman, disc jockey, and golf club manager. {{inote|Allen|Allen}}In the 1980s he tried to establish a Searchers revival band, but was unable to compete effectively with the other two that already existed. {{inote|AP|AP}}

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In 1991, Tony Jackson and the Vibrations reformed and an album of Jackson's material after the Searchers was released. The resuscitation of his career was shortlived, however, although he did appear four times with Mike Pender's Searchers between 1992 and 1995. {{inote|Daily Telegraph|Telegraph}} That ended in 1996 when he was convicted of threatening a woman with an air pistol after an argument over a phone booth, and sentenced to 18 months imprisonment. {{inote|Daily Telegraph|Telegraph}}

Related Topics:
1991 - 1992 - 1995

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The arthritis in his hands became so bad that he had to abandon even recreational guitar playing. {{inote|Daily Telegraph|Telegraph}}In 2002 he said, "The spirit's willing, but the body's knackered." {{inote|Daily Telegraph|Telegraph}}

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Towards the end of his life he suffered from diabetes, heart disease, and cirrhosis of the liver from a lifetime of heavy alcohol consumption. Jackson died August 18 2003 in a Nottingham hospital. {{inote|AP|AP}}

Related Topics:
August 18 - 2003 - Nottingham

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