THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,583) The Alan Bown! — “Magic Handkerchief”
This A-side by the Alan Bown! (see #1,213, 1,414) is a “REAL gem” (MonkeyHanger, https://www.45cat.com/record/cub1). Dave Thompson calls it a “[b]lissed out mini-classic[ . . . that is] as delightful as only second-division British psych can be”. (https://www.allmusic.com/album/outward-bown-mw0000039618) MonkeyHanger says that “Jess Rhoden’s soulful vocals would have graced ANY 60’s band and on this track they are just incredible. Nice dual-tempo arrangement with loads of Bown’s trumpet and just a hint of phasing…Beautiful.”(https://www.45cat.com/record/cub1)
Of the album, Andrew Darlington says it is “a charming artefact of Brit-psych . . . . Although there’s none of the unsettling darkness of a Syd Barrett [see #13, 87, 315, 922], or the hard Freak-beat edge of Creation [see #129, 165, 1,502], the twelve tracks present stronger songs than many of their high-charting contemporaries.” (http://andrewdarlington.blogspot.com/2016/07/from-mod-to-brit-psych-alan-bown.html?m=1). Dave Thompson tells us:
Everybody who’s followed the convoluted career of Jess Roden, Britain’s best-kept blue-eyed soul-shaped secret for more than 30 years, should close their ears right now. The man who turned “I Can’t Get Next to You” into one of the most dramatically passionate rock workouts of the ’70s is completely up a bubblegum tree [on Outward Bown], running through an album of light-psych whimsy that has as much to do with his future as…name your poison: Peter Frampton and the Herd, Status Quo and “Matchstick Men,” Traffic and its debut album. It’s great pop, of course — as great as any of those and many more. . . . a collection of semi-detached suburban Ray Davies observations full of vaguely Edwardian lifestyle concerns, peopled by pretty girls who wash the dishes, toys that talk, and love that flies from the rooftops with the clouds. Signs of the band’s (and band members’) brilliance are all over the place. . . . And it’s all so impossibly sweet, so implausibly twee, and so utterly a child of its times that you can’t help but wonder just how humanity survived the ’60s. Let alone Roden himself!
David Wells tells us about the Alan Bown!:
Club band The Alan Bown Set were one of many acts to find that the emergence of psychedelia had rendered the fingerpoppoin’, footstompin’, handclappin’ soul revue mentality uncool almost overnight. Undaunted, they soaked up the new sounds, invested in kaftans and wrote a batch of songs inspired by the arrival of the Aquarian Age — or, at the very least, the arrival of The Bee Gees.
liner notes to the CD comp Let’s Go Down and Blow Our Minds: The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1967
As to trumpeter Alan Bown, Bruce Eder writes:
Any musical aspirations that he harbored were invisible until he completed a stint in the Royal Air Force at the outset of the 1960s. He found a music scene that was booming throughout England with an important extension to Germany, and which encompassed not only rock & roll but also blues, R&B, and jazz. The latter two areas were where Bown’s interest lay, and he was soon a member of a group called the Embers that was booked into the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, working on the same bills as such Liverpool-based artists as . . . the Beatles . . . . He returned to England after the extended engagement and joined the John Barry Seven, led by the trumpeter/arranger John Barry. . . . When Barry disbanded the group in 1964, Bown picked up the pieces and formed an outfit of his own . . . the Alan Bown Set . . . . The sextet was an immediate success as a live act . . . . Oddly enough, Bown and company never even thought about a recording contract, intending the band as a vehicle for steady work for themselves, doing what they enjoyed. It wasn’t until a couple of years into their history that . . . an A&R man for Pye Records, spotted [them] and got them under contract, which resulted in a string of 45s and half of an LP called London Swings that included part of their live show . . . . The Pye contract ended in late 1967, and the group was then signed to the British division of MGM Records, to an imprint called Music Factory. By this time, they’d modified their image and sound — the interest in R&B and soul was fading somewhat in the London clubs, even as psychedelic music was starting to become all the rage. And so, for its MGM/Music Factory releases, a somewhat longer-haired and more flamboyant version of Bown’s band was seen, and . . . simply known as the Alan Bown! . . . . They cut a song called “We Can Help You,” which had originated with the British band Nirvana [see #287, 391, 475, 1,238, 1,525] — and the Alan Bown version started to make a splash in England in terms of exposure. But on the week of the record’s actual release . . . . [a] strike at the plant where the record was pressed and due to ship from prevented its release, at precisely the moment when it had to be in stores. And MGM Records chose to abandon the Music Factory label — though the Alan Bown! would remain with the company on the MGM label proper, this also meant that the company abandoned all promotional and distribution efforts involving the Music Factory releases. “We Can Help You,” despite a string of promotional appearances by the band on its behalf (including . . . [on] Top of the Pops), was left to die . . . and . . . Outward Bown[] was ignored. A pair of singles that followed, . . . both failed to chart. . . . A contract with Deram Records, the progressive rock imprint of English Decca, followed, along with a pair of singles and a self-titled LP, and there was also a lineup shift that, for a time, brought Robert Palmer into the group as its lead singer. But . . . the group’s moment had clearly passed . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/alan-bown-mn0000626566#biography
Here they are live:
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