Many moons ago when I was a teenager, there was a really nice guy who I had to sit in front of when I moved floors in my job at the “Tax Office”.
Colleagues in work said “Oh you two will get on like a house on fire, you love the Beatles and he knew them”.
They also said he had been in a 60s band himself called “The Searchers”, although he doesn’t really talk about those days. This was in late 70’s. The guy’s name was Chris Curtis.
Not being up to speed on how big “The Searchers” had been and being young, naïve and probably very stupid I’d endlessly engage him in conversations about what John Lennon was like, he’d tell me stories of Stuart Sutcliffe and as I started writing songs at home I’d bring each song I’d written in on a cassette for his advice.
“Didn’t you write songs Chris?” I’d ask and he’d mention a few titles which when I finally did to hear made me very humble.
I’d go to his house and we’d play each other songs we had written. He had a letter on his wall framed from Elvis Presley’s manager Tom Parker saying “yes Elvis would love to do your song Chris” but it never happened as Elvis died shortly afterwards. Chris also explained how he got the musicians together to form a band called “Roundabout”, to be their singer only to have to leave and they became “Deep Purple”.
I digress; there are a lot of Chris Curtis stories.
One day in work he gave me a lyric on a bit of scrap of paper – “Put some music to this” he said. I unfortunately didn’t at the time but kept the lyric and many moons later after Chris passed away I was at a Cornmarket Acoustic event towards the end of 2016 and Steve Nelson, who also knew Chris, was telling everyone how wonderful he was. We had a chat about Chris and I told him my story and I remembered the lyric and thought “I’m going to do this now” and I that week I wrote the song.
The song is part of the sessions I’ve been recording for my next album called “Window Shopping” and features:
Scott Poley – Guitars
Scott Whitley –Bass
Chris Howard – Keyboards
Justin Johnson – Drums
It was recorded in 1 take, a guitar and keyboard overdub and my vocals.
I hope you enjoy it. It’s a favourite of mine for obvious reasons. So proud to have a Chris Curtis/John Jenkins composition in my repertoire.

Lyrics

I Was Looking For You (Chris Curtis/John Jenkins)

Staring at the moon
Turning over loss change in my pocket
I wondered what would happen if I fell in
And what you would do coz

Chorus
I was Looking for You (x 3)
Where you looking for me too?

I passed by one street lamp
Started losing count
Turning my collar up against the cold wind

CHORUS
A Harbour mist started swirling
I was losing my way
I recognised no passing faces
And was glad someone said “hey”
I turned – somebody I knew?