THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
867) The Original Caste — “Highway”
This ‘70 B-side to the Original Caste’s Canadian hit “Mr. Monday” (see #659) is pure pop pleasure that gives the listener a portal into the Fifth Dimension. Band founder Bruce Innis says “I wrote it for Dixie [Lee Stone] to sing, so it was probably a girl’s perspective of being on the road and wishing she was home[.]” (liner notes to the One Tin Soldier CD reissue)
Of the Caste, Betty Nygaard King writes:
The five-member band grew out of the Calgary folk trio The North Country Singers, formed in 1966 by songwriter and guitarist Bruce Innes . . . . They moved to Vancouver and added the singer Dixie Lee Stone . . , who married Innes. After playing western Canadian and US coffeehouses and resorts, in 1969 they signed with Bell Records, adopted a pop sound, and changed their name to The Original Caste.* Their first release with Bell was the 1969 pop LP The Original Caste . . , from which the moralistic tale “One Tin Soldier” (written by US producers Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter [who produced Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy”]) became a No. 1 gold record in Canada and Japan, was No. 1 in several US cities, and reached No. 34 on the US Billboard charts in 1970.** Also from this album, “Mr Monday” hit No. 3 on the CHUM charts in May 1970, was No. 1 in Japan, and sold over 2 million copies. At their peak, the band was based in Los Angeles. They toured North America and Japan, performed with Glen Campbell and B.B. King, and made television appearances . . . . After the band’s dissolution in 1972, Bruce and Dixie Lee Innes continued to perform as The Original Caste, releasing the country-influenced album Back Home [in 1974] . . . .
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-original-caste-emc
* Bruce Innes: “Someone at Dot records . . . presented us with three or four different names. It’s hard to imagine that it seemed the least stupid now, but that did seem the least stupid at the time.” (liner notes to the One Tin Soldier CD reissue)
** Bill Dahl notes that the Caste “saw an inferior cover inserted into the soundtrack of the ’71 movie smash Billy Jack. . . . [Bruce Innes recalls that “w]e were pretty good friends with Tom Laughlin . . . . [W]hen he was cutting Billy Jack together, he’d just play our album. But somehow our management team and he couldn’t get it figured out, so he ended up just hiring another producer and getting that band Coven . . . and recut it.” (liner notes to the One Tin Soldier CD reissue)
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