https://www.allmusic.com/album/chariot-rising-mw0000378044
THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
727) Dantalian’s Chariot — “Sun Came Bursting Through My Cloud”
After featuring Zoot Money (see #726), I had to play his glorious nine-month ’67 psychedelic world detour with Dantalian’s Chariot. Here comes the beautiful “Sun Came Bursting Through My Cloud”! What, you thought I’d play “Madman Running”?! Richie Unterberger says that “[t]he wistfully ebullient “Sun Came Bursting Through My Clouds” (yes, the B-side of “Madman”) is probably their best . . . effort [not named “Madman Running Through the Fields”]”. (https://www.allmusic.com/album/chariot-rising-mw0000378044) David Wells calls it “a genuinely classy Tony Colton/Ray Smith song that boasted a deliciously lugubrious vocal from Zoot, but musically it occupied . . . post-R&B/pre-psych transitory territory”. (liner notes to the Dantalian’s Chariot: Chariot Rising CD comp)
How did this all come about? Well, it was the Summer of Love. David Wells explains:
Zoot and Andy [Summers] were becoming increasingly immersed in the psychedelic experience, regularly attending . . . various subterranean love-ins and happenings . . . . Increasingly weary of being promoted by EMI as the white James Brown, Zoot announced in late July 1967 that the Big Roll Band were not more. “We had been working very hard for a long time and felt we were getting stale”, Zoot told reporters.
liner notes to Dantalian’s Chariot
Zoot notes “We just wanted to do something new. It was a chance to be more creative, to move on to writing our own material and try out new things.” (Record Collector: 100 Greatest Psychedelic Records: High Times and Strange Tales from Rock’s Most Mind-Blowing Era)
Richie Unterberger adds:
[“Madman”/”Sun”] was the debut single by a group of veteran musicians who, just a few months earlier, had been playing jazz/R&B fusion as Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band. . . . Such was the impact of psychedelic music in 1967, however, that by the middle of the year, Money had decided to totally revamp his sound. R&B/jazz/soul had become passe; now it was important to write your own material, and reflect the mind-expanding experience. With [Andy] Summers still in tow, [the band] became Dantalian’s Chariot. The music, written primarily by Money and Summers, changed as radically as the name, with airy melodies, spacy lyrics, and guitar/organ-driven arrangements. The band hit the London underground circuit inhabited by such acts as Pink Floyd and Soft Machine, and made their debut recording as Dantalian’s Chariot . . . in the summer of 1967. The single, innovative as it was, didn’t make any commercial waves. Although they were a respected live act, their new direction wasn’t supported by EMI, which dropped the band. A psychedelic-minded LP was worked on, but not released. Some of the material appeared on an early 1968 record, which the Direction label assembled from various tunes cut over the past year. . . . Dantalian’s Chariot came to an end in the spring of 1968, with Summers joining the Soft Machine (and subsequently Eric Burdon’s Animals); Money would also join Eric Burdon’s Animals around the same time.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/dantalians-chariot-mn0000679042
But what a trip it was. David Wells notes that DC became “the darlings of the London underground set” and “one of the most fondly remembered British Psychedelic groups”. (liner notes to Dantalian’s Chariot) Vernon Joynson says that:
[They] performed frequently at London’s Middle Earth and UFO clubs. . . . Their live appearances were amazing. They took to the stage in white robes and had what was generally regarded as the best light show in town. The only problem was this ensured they made heavy financial losses with every appearance.
(The Tapestry of Delights Revisited)
https://www.allmusic.com/album/chariot-rising-mw0000378044
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