Eternity’s Children — “Gypsy Minstrel Man”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — July 29, 2024

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

1,286) Eternity’s Children — “Gypsy Minstrel Man”

Eternity’s Children’s (see #706, 1,131) “finest moments rank alongside anything in the soft pop canon. . . . (Jason Ankeny, https://www.allmusic.com/album/eternitys-children-mw0000221884). Here is one of them, a plaintive tale of a gypsy minstrel man ever searching for the woman who left him on their wedding day.

As to the Children, they came up with the Biloxi Beat! Dawn Eden (now a noted Catholic theologian and canon scholar*) tells us that:

They were from Mississippi, yet they excelled in West Coast soft pop.  They were co-produced by the legendary Curt Boettcher, yet they made some of their best music without him.  They were intelligent and college-educated, yet they signed their lives away to a pair of entrepreneurs whose previous management experience extended only to a chain of health clubs. . . .  [They were] the best West Coast soft pop group ever to come out of Biloxi.

liner notes to the CD reissue of Eternity’s Children

Jason Ankeny tells us:

Eternity’s Children were formed in Cleveland, MS, in 1965 by . . . Bruce Blackman and drummer Roy Whittaker, fellow students at Delta College. With the addition of lead guitarist Johnny Walker, rhythm guitarist Jerry Bounds, and bassist Charlie Ross, the group (originally dubbed the Phantoms) began developing the complex, overlapping vocal harmonies that remained the hallmark of their sound throughout their career. . . . [I]n 1966 the[y] relocated to Biloxi . . . . With the addition of local folksinger Linda Lawley, the fledgling band adopted the more contemporary moniker Eternity’s Children, and after Baton Rouge health club magnate Ray Roy caught one of their live appearances, he convinced [his] business partner . . . to form a management company . . . which soon signed the group . . . . [They] quickly recorded a demo that made its way to A&M . . . and in the spring of 1967 recorded their lone effort for the label, the . . . single “Wait and See.” . . . The record went nowhere, and . . . [they] were quickly dropped by A&M. . . . [but Roy] soon landed the[m] a deal with Capitol’s tax-shelter subsidiary, Tower . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/eternitys-children-mn0000205385#biography

Let’s have Eden pick up the story:

Once the group signed to Tower, it was decided to again hire Keith Olsen as their producer. That meant of necessity hiring Curt Boettcher too, since he and Olsen by then came as a package. . . . Curt Boettcher was on top of the world, a hotshot Columbia staff producer involved with . . . Gary Usher’s Studio group Sagittarius and his own . . . “supergroup,” the Millennium [see #397, 506, 586, 662, 810, 1,002]. . . . Although Boettcher gave special attention to some of the cuts . . . he and Olsen did not fully utilize the group’s talents. It may have been because they were already sinking all their creative juices into the Millennium and Sagittarius, both of which featured Boettcher as an artist. Moreover, Eternity’s Children came with a solid sound of their own making, and it was clear that they were not ripe for being moulded.

liner notes to the CD reissue of Eternity’s Children

Let’s return to Ankeny:

During production of the album, relations between the [band] members . . . and their management became increasingly strained, and prior to the LP’s mid-1968 release, Blackman, Walker, and Bounds all exited. . . . An appearance on American Bandstand spurred “Mrs. Bluebird” up the pop charts, but Tower did little to promote the single or the band, and after three weeks at number 69 on Billboard, both quickly plummeted out of the Hot 100. Eternity’s Children nevertheless reconvened to begin work on their second album, Timeless, this time recruiting Boettcher’s longtime engineer, Gary Paxton, to helm the sessions. . . . The album . . . wrapped in late 1968, and promo copies of the first single, “Till I Hear It from You,” were soon dispatched to radio. But when [the song] caused little excitement among radio programmers, Tower abruptly scuttled Timeless‘ U.S. release; the album did appear on Capitol’s Canadian branch (“Mrs. Bluebird” was a sizable hit north of the border). . . .

Blackman and Walker finally achieved massive chart success in the mid-’70s as members of Starbuck, which scored the Top Five smash “Moonlight Feels Right.”

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/eternitys-children-mn0000205385#biography

* Of course, Dawn Eden is also a long-time scholar of another canon, that is what would be the rock and roll canon in an alternate and more just universe. She is also a songwriter.

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