Caleb Quaye — “A Woman of Distinction”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — April 8, 2024

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

1,169) Caleb Quaye — “A Woman of Distinction”

I played the A-side (see #807) — here’s the B-side, “just as good . . . though certainly not as mind numbingly lysergic!” (AnorakThing, https://anorakthing.blogspot.com/2010/10/second-greatest-british-60s-psychedelic.html?m=1) The songs together make a “magnificent 45” (liner notes to the Chocolate Soup for Diabetics Volumes 1-5 CD comp), in fact the ultimate 60’s Brit psych double A-side, or it would have been had 1) anyone bought it at the time, and 2) the Beatles not prematurely released “Strawberry Fields Forever”/“Penny Lane” as a double A-side when under pressure for “product” while everyone waited for Sgt. Pepper’s. As to the first point, I should note that the original vinyl single has made the list of the 100 most valuable vinyl records, going for $3,000 — leading the compiler to comment that “[c]ompiling this list has made me realise something; old psychedelic rockers have way too much money”! (Andrewtk, https://meemix.com/top-100-most-valuable-vinyl-records/) Well, someof them!

As to the second point, David Wells rhapsodizes:

[W]hat a record it is. If Strawberry Fields Forever/Penny Lane is rightly regarded by the proverbial man in the street as the classic double-sided British studio psych pop record, then Baby Your Phrasing Is Bad/Woman of Distinction is, as far as the cognoscenti are concerned, its nearest subterranean equivalent. Distant disembodied vocals, fried lyrics, lashings of phasing, reverb, distortion and backwards tapes — what’s more, Caleb even remembered to write a couple of pretty good songs as well. Possibly he never issued another solo single because this one was impossible to top; then again, maybe it was just that nobody was interested (with the notable and curious exception of pirate station Radio Scotland, apparently). . . .

Record Collector: 100 Greatest Psychedelic Records: High Times and Strange Tales from Rock’s Most Mind-Blowing Era

Of Caleb, Mojo tells us that:

Born in London, but of Ghanaian descent, Caleb Quaye enjoyed a long and successful career as a backing musician and session player (Nilsson, Lou Reed, The Who, Elton John) for the best part of two decades. . . . [Elton John] is rumoured to have played keyboards [on “Baby”] . . . . He and Quaye . . . in 1969 would together record a (still unreleased) album under the name of The Bread and Beer Band [see #175].

liner notes to Mojo Presents Acid Drops, Spacedust & Flying Saucers: Psychedelic Confectionery from the UK Underground 1965-1969

Wells adds that:

Back in the second half of the 1960s . . . he was employed as resident guitar-prodigy-cum-teenage-studio-whizzkid-producer for Beatles publisher Dick James’s company . . . . Quaye . . . would play on pretty much every recording made by . . . Elton John, from such heavily psychedelic late 60s demos as Regimental Sergeant Zippo to million-selling releases like the 1976 double album Blue Moves. . . . When he found religion in the early 1980s . . . Caleb sold what, according to drummer Roger Pope, was the biggest private record collection in the country to Elton . . . .

Record Collector: 100 Greatest Psychedelic Records: High Times and Strange Tales from Rock’s Most Mind-Blowing Era

“In 1968, Quaye played guitar in Elton’s touring band, a position he occupied on and off for the next decade, as well as forming Hookfoot.” (liner notes to the Chocolate Soup for Diabetics Volumes 1-5 CD comp)

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