Frank Allen

Frank Allen may not be quite as well-known as Liverpool's two most famous rock bassists, Paul McCartney and John Gustafson, but he's in class by himself for sheer longevity, in a field in which success is usually defined by youth -- as a member of the Searchers, he's in his fifth decade as a rock & roll musician, fronting one of the longest-lived bands on the original 1960s Merseybeat scene (and he wasn't even there for the founding of the band). Born in 1943 in London, Allen reached his teens just as skiffle music was sweeping England and rock & roll was making its first seri...