THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,374) Petticoat and Vine — “Riding a Carousel”
’70 UK A-side is a delightful, “wonderful sunshine pop gem!” (David Arrigotti, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY_14r2XOOU) Spice Girls style . . . or at least Mel C’s mother’s style!
The band’s website tells us:
At the end of 1969 following the break up of their band, the Pattern People, Norman [Smeddles] and Val [Smeddles] went into a small studio in Liverpool and recorded eight songs which Norman had written. [They] travelled to London . . . and pitched the songs . . . . [W]ith the aim of creating an English version of the Mamas and the Papas, they recruited Colin [“Syd” Maddocks] and Joan [O’Neil — whose daughter is Mel C of the Spice Girls (WesternKing, https://www.45cat.com/record/6006051)]. The band played live all over Merseyside . . . . In the subsequent weeks offers came in from a number of companies. The band signed contracts with Feldmans . . . to write and record. In the autumn of 1970 the band’s first single, “Riding a Carousel” was released . . . . The record racked up a huge amount of radio plays although sales didn’t quite lift the record into the top 20. . . . The band also landed their first TV show, the prestigious Harry Secombe Show on the BBC and were immediately booked for the ITV’s The Jimmy Tarbuck Show and The Jimmy Tarbuck Christmas Show . . . . The BBC booked the band for countless radio shows . . . and ITV booked the band numerous times for their weekly pop chart show Lift Off. Another highly prestigious TV show followed when they were booked for The Benny Hill Show, where they performed solo and also taking part in sketches with Benny Hill. Following one of their live appearances . . . they were approached by John Gorman and Mike McCartney [see #68] to appear with The Scaffold, who were riding high in the charts with “Lily the Pink” and “Thank You Very Much” . It was the beginning of a long relationship with the Scaffold which took Petticoat and Vine all over the country as part of the Scaffold’s hilarious revue show and included . . . a Command Performance at The Liverpool Empire in front of HM The Queen. Roger McGough [see #68], of The Scaffold, introduced the band to the playwright John McGrath with a view to the band providing the music for a play commissioned by the Liverpool Everyman Theatre. The result was Soft Or A Girl the most successful musical that the Everyman has staged, with Petticoat and Vine writing and performing all the music onstage each night . . . . The success led to another John McGrath musical the following year The Fish in the Sea . . . . More work with The Scaffold followed . . . . By 1974, following numerous personnel changes, Val and Norman formed a new and very different band called Champagne which went on to be very successful in it’s own right.
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So I thought for a second of the Hollies song but then singing it in my head (cause we don’t want to let that out in the world) I realized that’s “On a Carousel”. I am not too crazy about the song here but they had the sound.
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