B.B. Blunder (The Blossom Toes) — “Black Crow’s Nest”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 17, 2024

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,115) B.B. Blunder* (The Blossom Toes) — “Black Crow’s Nest”

The former UK psychmeisters give us a joyous rock singalong with a country feel. Man, the times were a changin’! Bill Whitten and James Beaudreau write that the song is from Workers’ Playtime, “essentially the third Blossom Toes record”. (http://www.newyorknighttrain.com/zine/features/200609/intro.html)  They go on that:

[Playtime is] the gem of the bunch – a lost classic that manages to dip equally into post-White Album hard rock, cosmic prog, tongue in cheek Stonesy-swagger, and anthems worthy of Spiritualized – all with the tossed-off nonchalance that marks some of the best music of the time. And the band does it without taking itself too seriously for even one second. And that’s not to mention the guitar work, some of the best, song-for-song, of the era.

http://www.newyorknighttrain.com/zine/features/200609/intro.html

Guitarist Brian Godding recalls that:

Workers Playtime was, to start with, a studio project (loosely based on a film score which eventually never happened) and gave us the opportunity to “get people in to contribute,” which was a pretty popular thing to do at the beginning of the 70’s. I personally have good memories of making that album because (unlike Ever so Clean) we had total control of what ended up on tape — for better or worse! The album was not received well by the music business at the time. It was like all the drugs had begun to wear off from the previous 4-5 years and the true nature of the beast was re-emerging: nothing left to do but ridicule, dismiss, and put two fingers up to anything new. . . . [It] never deserved to be written off with such disdain and venom. . . . [T]he sound was our naive but genuine attempt at ‘orchestrating’ the three-piece rock setup. (Sort of!) . . . . Who knows why some things go and some things don’t. . . . [T]he cover was rated as far too good for the music within. Remarks like “Workers’ Playtime? Don’t give up your day jobs!” being among the rare humorous and less offensive slag offs!

http://www.newyorknighttrain.com/zine/features/200609/interview.html

Richie Unterberger tells us of B.B. Blunder’s short history:

B.B. Blunder’s story is a most confusing one for such a short-lived and little-known band. The group was essentially an offshoot of the Blossom Toes [see #709], one of the best underground British rock acts of the ’60s, noted for both their droll psychedelic pop and a heavier, dual-lead guitar-oriented sound. When the Blossom Toes broke up at the end of the ’60s, guitarist Brian Godding and bassist Brian Belshaw continued to play together, sometimes in association with singer (and Godding’s sister-in-law) Julie Driscoll [see #1,032-33]. Eventually, Kevin Westlake, who had drummed on the Blossom Toes’ first LP, joined them, and the trio recorded an album, with Driscoll helping out on vocals.  Although the group could have just as well been called Blossom Toes as B.B. Blunder, their sound was in fact significantly different than what they’d played on the Toes’ albums. The songwriting was, well, loose, and unfocused. The record’s principal attractions are the multi-layered guitars, which have a certain just-post-Abbey Road charm, with lengthy electric-acoustic passages bordering on jams. After it was issued as Workers Playtime in 1971, Reg King (formerly of mid-’60s cult mod band the Action [see #393, 429, 966]) joined the group for live work. The enterprise was basically a non-starter, though. Westlake soon quit, new members joined (including Reg King’s brother and fellow Action veteran Bam King), and the group fell apart by the end of 1971.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bb-blunder-mn0002152020#biography

Fred Thomas goes under the Toe:

Under the guidance of rock impresario Giorgio Gomelsky (early mentor of the Stones and manager of the Yardbirds and Soft Machine among others) the band created their colorful and mind-warping 1967 debut We Are Ever So Clean and managed one more record before disbanding at the end of the ’60s. . . . Blossom Toes formed in London in the mid-’60s, initially starting out as an R&B/beat band called the Ingoes. . . . They changed their name to Blossom Toes in 1966 upon signing to Gomelsky’s Marmalade Records. Their sound shifted dramatically with their name change as well, moving from stompy rock and roll standards to a highly orchestral take [on] . . . psychedeli[a]. . . . Their 1967 debut . . . didn’t meet much commercial success . . . . [It] embrace[d] Baroque instrumentation and vivid, cheery psychedelia . . . . [r]eleased just four months after . . . . Sgt. Pepper’s . . . . The bright, curious melodies . . . filled out with an overabundance of brass, strings, and theatrical orchestral elements. . . . Blossom Toes’ song structures are unconventional . . . . There’s barely a trace of darkness or anxiety in these wide-ranging songs, putting the album in a rare class of well-adjusted psychedelia, a good trip with no painful comedown.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blossom-toes-mn0000056563/biography; https://www.allmusic.com/album/we-are-ever-so-clean-mw0000408294

* “The name came along well into the recording when . . . sound engineer Chris Kimsey, after a particularly fruitless session, scribbled on a tape-box: “B.B. (i.e. Brian & Brian) Blunder (i.e. screw-up)”. After they had dropped him off at A&E, they thought: “B.B. Blunder? That’ll do nicely!” (http://brunoceriotti.weebly.com/blossom-toes–bb-blunder.html)

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