THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,423) Focus — “Black Beauty”
Gorgeous Dutch B-side and track from the band’s debut LP — In and Out of Focus — very reminiscent of Boudewijn de Groot (see #107, 161, 305, 989, 1,216). “Before giving shape to the peculiar fusion of rock, classical and jazz that would make them famous, the Dutch band Focus were busy writing songs like this one: a distillate of beauty and teenage innocence” (Marina Kanavaki, https://marinakanavaki.com/2020/09/13/focus-black-beauty-in-and-out-of-focus-1970-reblog/), a “splendid collaboration[]”. (Colin H, https://theafterword.co.uk/focus-50-years-anthology-1970-1976/)
Ivan Melgar M writes that:
[The song] keeps alive the 60’s spirit, somehow late Psyche meets early Prog, the vocals in the style of the British invasion combine perfectly with a strong and well elaborate melody. It’s important to notice how Jan [Akkerman] with his guitar and Thijs with a subtle piano manage to take the lead one after the other, two strong personalities and different styles blending their efforts in favor of the music.
The song gets a mixed reaction from progheads — a “silly, folkish tune[] . . . extremely poor” (ZowieZiggy, https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=3449), “simplistic 60’s sounding pop” (EasyLivin, https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=3449), “more like a song of the 60’s. . . sounds a bit dated. . . . [one of the album’s] weaker musical moments” (Viana Prog Head, https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=3449), “a certain smell of 60s pop-rock may be felt”. (Atkingani, https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=3449) Well, maybe that’s because the song is not progressive and actually comes from the 60’s! It is actually based on a ’68 B-side of van Leer’s — “Jij, Witte Nimf”/”You, White Nymph”, revised with new lyrics “by van Leer with drummer Hans Cleuver’s father Eric”. (Colin H, https://theafterword.co.uk/focus-50-years-anthology-1970-1976/)
As to Focus, Jason Ankeny writes:
Best remembered for their bizarre chart smash “Hocus Pocus,” Dutch progressive rock band Focus was formed in Amsterdam in 1969 by vocalist/keyboardist/flutist Thijs van Leer, bassist Martin Dresden, and drummer Hans Cleuver. With the subsequent addition of guitarist Jan Akkerman, the group issued its debut LP, In and Out of Focus, in 1970, earning a European cult following thanks to the single “House of the King[]” [of which “Black Beauty” was the B-side]. Dresden and Cleuver were replaced by bassist Cyril Havermanns and drummer Pierre Van der Linden for the English-language follow-up, Moving Waves; the record generated the hit “Hocus Pocus,” a hallucinatory epic distinguished by Akkerman’s guitar pyrotechnics and van Leer’s demented yodeling. Easily one of the flat-out strangest songs ever to crack the American pop charts, the single peaked at number nine in the spring of 1973, by which time Focus had already exchanged Havermanns for bassist Bert Ruiter and issued their third album, Focus III, which yielded the minor hit “Sylvia.” In the wake of 1974’s Hamburger Concert, the band streamlined the classical aspirations of earlier efforts to pursue a more pop-oriented approach on records like Ship of Memories and Mother Focus; though roster changes regularly plagued Focus throughout the period, none was more pivotal than the 1976 exit of Akkerman, who was replaced by guitarist Philip Catherine for 1978’s Focus con Proby, cut with British pop singer P.J. Proby.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/focus-mn0000195305#biography
Here is Thijs Van Leer’s ’68 B-side:
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