THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
885) The Cherry People — “Imagination”
An ethereal sunshine pop gem by a band that would rather have been playing hard rock/prog! Rob Fitzpatrick calls the album “really is the most fantastically up-beat and gloriously happy sounding record. . . . So it’s Beatles, Bubblegum, ba-ba-ba’s and Bacharach brass all the way and it features some wonderfully by-numbers lyrics . . . but, really, it’s bloody great.” (https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jan/15/101-strangest-records-spotify-cherry-people-and-suddenly) Then they went on to record a few songs with Jimi Hendrix. Power to the Cherry People!
Fitzpatrick goes on about the People:
It was all happening for Cherry People in the early summer of 1968. Newly signed to Heritage Records – then part of the mighty MGM group – the band, led by Washington DC-born brothers Chris and Doug Grimes, were lauded at press receptions in New York, Chicago and Los Angeles; while in Hollywood they even shot a promotional video, still a rare and wonderful beast in those days. Soon after, a US-wide discotheque chain called Hullabaloo announced a Cherry People Dance Competition . . . . In record shops across across the country another competition raged, this time to find the best “psychedelic” interpretation of a cherry tree branch. . . . [T]here was one great problem with all this, namely, the actual Cherry People barely appeared on their LP, as the producers drafted in a team of studio musicians to concoct a collection of heartbreakingly-precise baroque/psyche, soft-pop brilliance. The band themselves felt entirely unrepresented by their own LP and that must have really stung . . . .
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/jan/15/101-strangest-records-spotify-cherry-people-and-suddenly
Ray McGinnis adds that:
The Cherry People were a band formed in Washington D.C. in 1967. They consisted of three former bandmates in from the 1966 D.C. group, the English Setters, brothers Doug and Chris Grimes and Punky Meadows. Chris Grimes and Meadows were guitarists, while Doug Grimes played harmonica and percussion. Both Grimes brothers were lead vocalists for the group. Other members of the Cherry People were bass player Jan Zukowski and drummer Rocky Issac. By 1968 they had a contract with Heritage Records. Their producers wanted them to make an album with a bubblegum and psychedelic pop sound. . . . The Cherry People had a much more hard rock sound live in concert. Yet, their first album and single, “And Suddenly”, offered up a sample of flowery sunshine pop. . .. “And Suddenly” peaked at #45 on August 31, 1968, on the Billboard Hot 100. . . . From their debut album, The Cherry People released three more singles in 1969. However, none made a dent in the national pop charts in either America or Canada. Meanwhile, it was clear the band and their record company had different visions. The band were performing mostly progressive to hard rock in concert, with “And Suddenly” and a few other bubblegum tunes from their debut album. But Heritage Records wanted them to sound like and resemble The Monkees.
In April 1969, in search of a new record contract and permission to record the type of music they preferred to perform live, The Cherry People headed to New York City. On April 22 four of the Cherry People’s band members, Jan Zukowski, Rocky Issac, Al Marks and Chris Grimes went to Steve Paul’s nightclub in West 46th Street in New York City called The Scene. It was there that they met Jimi Hendrix. Al Marks had previously met Hendrix at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967. Hendrix, needing a drummer to help record some new tracks for an upcoming album, invited them back to the Record Plant. . . . They all ended up recording “Room Full of Mirrors”, “Crash Landing” and “Stone Free” that night with Hendrix.
https://vancouversignaturesounds.com/hits/and-suddenly-the-cherry-people/
Oh, and guitarist Punky Meadows joined BUX and Angel in the early to mid 70s. (https://alchetron.com/The-Cherry-People)
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