THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,314) Sands — “Mrs. Gillespie’s Refrigerator”
I’ve featured the B-side (see #1,066), here’s the groovy Barry and Robin Gibb-penned A-side, a “great pop/psych gem” (liner notes to We Can Fly: UK Psychedelic Obscurities: 27 Track Collection of British Psyche Rarities 1967-72) with “some Gibb brothers style harmonies, lacing the track with some searing guitars and pop hooks and turning it into one of the genre’s most sought after 45’s”. (William, https://anorakthing.blogspot.com/2017/02/from-brothers-gibb.html?m=1) Peter Gough calls it his “favourite cover of a Bee Gees song, albeit an unreleased one”. (http://biteitdeep.blogspot.com/2013/02/sands-mrs-gillespies-refrigerator-1967.html?m=1)
Joe Marchese tells us that:
[I]mpresario Robert Stigwood played a central role in the Bee Gees’ career. He championed their rapidly-evolving and often whimsical compositions, producing them on a variety of artists. The London group Sands inventively took on the offbeat “Mrs. Gillespie’s Refrigerator” for Stigwood’s Reaction label . . . .
Bruce Eder further explains that:
“Mrs. Gillespie’s Refrigerator” . . . [is] from the demo that the [Bee Gees’] father had sent to NEMS and other recording and publishing organizations in December of 1966, prior to their setting out for England. [It is] very (and very pleasantly) Beatlesque without offering much that is original, which doesn’t mean that [it isn’t] worth hearing — indeed, for any other outfit, [it would’ve] likely made the cut in some form for the group’s first album; we just happen to know that the Bee Gees delivered much better material.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/in-their-own-time-mw0001260425
A song about Mrs. Gillespie “ma[king] me blow my mind with things you tell me” about the refrigerator she is selling on TV — offers nothing original?! Eder must have blown his mind!
Pete Gough adds that while “[t]he label states that [Sands’] single was produced by Bee Gees manager, Robert Stigwood, [Sands’ lead guitarist Pete] Hammerton has since said that Stigwood never attended the recording session and so the band produced it themselves.” (http://biteitdeep.blogspot.com/2013/02/sands-mrs-gillespies-refrigerator-1967.html?m=1)
As to Sands, the Middlesex band was “[o]riginally known as the Tridents . . . [and] first recorded as The Others”. (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited) David Wells tells us that:
[B]y April 1966, [they] were regulars at the Marquee Club, often on a double bill with The Move. After being spotted at the Cromwellian by Brian Epstein, they signed to his NEMS management company, which in turn led to Robert Stigwood taking an avuncular interest in them. . . . Sadly Epstein’s death a week before the release of the single saw it disappear without a trace.
liner notes to the CD comp Let’s Go Down and Blow Our Minds: The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1967
“Sands split after this single with members Rob Freeman and Ian McLintock becoming Sun Dragon”. (twerptwo, https://www.45cat.com/record/591017)
Here are the Bee Gees:
Here are the Bee Gees live on the BBC:
Live on Radio Europe:
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That’s a very interesting piece of Gibb brothers history and a unique song.
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