THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,742) Consortium — “The Day the Train Never Came”
“Psychedelic pop doesn’t get much better than [the UK’s] West Coast Consortium[/Consortium] . . . . [who] were responsible for some of the finest light psychedelic pop of the late ’60s.” (Tim Sendra, https://www.allmusic.com/album/all-the-love-in-the-world-collected-recordings-1964-1972-mw0004138712)
Today, they give us this “outstanding slice of British psych-pop” (Technicolour Web of Sound: Sixties Psychedelic Internet Radio, https://techwebsound.com/artist/?artist=138&getletter=c), a “gem” with “[a] psychedelic masterpiece moment at 1:04″. (kevin.dresser, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZgsV36WO7E) “[T]hat haunting beat drive, the wah wah pedal sounds, the fantastic guitar riffs, the great chorus lines, only the sixties could bring us masterpieces like this”. (vogelmandrie, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZgsV36WO7E) “[T]hey had quite a few goodies hidden away, like . . . th[is] pounding” number”. (Tim Sendra, https://www.allmusic.com/album/looking-back-the-pye-anthology-mw0000327800)
Tim Sendra writes of the WCC/C:
They magically combined Beach Boys/Four Seasons-style vocal harmonies with lush, string-filled backing to create a sound that was as smooth as paisley velvet and also criminally overlooked. Apart from one medium-sized hit, 1969’s “All the Love in the World,” the band’s singles weren’t hits and they never managed to release an album. Not officially anyway. While they were struggling to hit the charts, they were simultaneously making home demos that stripped away the ornate glow of their singles and replaced it with an intimate, rough-hewn, and fascinating take on psychedelic pop. . . . The[ir] singles are a high-level course in MOR psych, built around the group’s slick harmonies, with arrangements chock-full of strings, keyboards, and polish, and featuring songs that were pitched somewhere between the merrily twee approach of the Ivy League and the rambling glee of the Move. Consortium prove to be pleasing balladeers on tracks like “All the Love,” but they also get pretty weird on the phased psych nugget “Colour Sergeant Lillywhite” and delve into bubblegum sweetness on later songs, especially the insistent “Cynthia Serenity.” All A+ work that when stretched end to end rates right near the top of what was coming out of the U.K. during the era.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/all-the-love-in-the-world-collected-recordings-1964-1972-mw0004138712
Bruce Eder adds:
West Coast Consortium . . . was a British pop/rock group with a harmony-rich, gently psychedelic sound . . . . [T]hey grew into a lush, harmonically rich band, especially after their 1969 hit, “All the Love in the World,” allowed them more studio time and a bigger budget. While they were batting for hit singles, they recorded three albums’ worth of home demos that presented the band in a charmingly intimate fashion. Regardless of the setting, they are one of the great under-rated groups of the era. The band initially coalesced under the name Group 66, featuring lead vocalist Robbie Fair, guitarists Geoff Simpson and Brian Bronson, bassist John Barker, and drummer John Podbury. . . . [O]ne day, they were working on a rendition of the Four Seasons’ “Rag Doll” and discovered that they could harmonize better than they could play. A similarly successful attempt at performing the Beach Boys’ “I Get Around” proved to the quintet that vocals were their strong point and could set them apart from most of their rivals. By 1967, Simpson had started writing songs . . . . They were signed by Pye Records . . . . [I]n the interest of emphasizing an American cultural connection, they arrived at [the name] West Coast Consortium. The group’s original sound was rooted in high harmonies and midtempo songs, similar in style to Ivy League. Their first two singles failed to chart, as did a 45 released under the name Robbie[] . . . . The band generated one poppish freakbeat single, “Colour Sergeant Lilywhite[]” . . . [that] didn’t chart, but . . . bec[a]me a minor classic of British psychedelia. . . . [T]he group was given the chance to record an entire LP, despite not having had a hit. They rehearsed and self-recorded an album’s worth of demos, but ultimately decided to focus their efforts on playing live. . . . [I]n late 1968 recorded another album’s worth of demos . . . . The group suddenly found a new fan in the form of the head of Pye Records, the legendary producer/bandleader Cyril Stapleton. . . . [T]hey’d cut a version of Simpson’s “All the Love in the World” that wasn’t coming out right with [producer Jack] Dorsey [who] was taken off production . . . . The band started over with Stapleton producing; they also shortened their name to . . . Consortium. . . . [“All the Love”] reach[ed] number 22 . . . . [This all got] the group a fresh round of music press coverage, along with better gigs . . . . It also afforded them more time and money for their sessions, the result of which was a series of singles that became the harmony-rich psychedelic pop songs . . . [But] they were unable to build on their previous chart success. The band . . . [recorded] a third album’s worth of home demos . . . in 1969 . . . . [T]hey moved to a label, Trend . . . . [that] didn’t help their sales, and in 1970 the original group’s history effectively ended as Simpson quit, unwilling to leave his wife or their recently born twins for a six-week tour of Italy.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/west-coast-consortium-mn0000207892#biography
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