THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,771) The Scene — “Scenes (from Another World)”
From Canada (sorry about that World Series thing!), here is “a delightfully dreamy slab of popsike” that is “criminally overlooked” (Michael Panontin, https://canuckistanmusic.com/index.php?maid=736), “a catchy slice of psychedelia with soaring harmonies and brass [that] sounds . . . like a throwback from the Summer of ’67” (Monocled Alchemist, https://monocledalchemist.com/2024/05/20/obscure-60s-garage-and-psychedelic-singles/) Wait one Montreal minute! I know musical trends changed quickly in the 60s, but let’s not chide a September (in the U.S.) and October (in Canada) ’67 single as a “throwback” to the summer of ’67!!!
Michael Panontin:
[“Scenes”] is one of the few Canadian productions of songwriter/producer/arranger Neil Sheppard. Born Neil Ship, the precocious Montrealer started playing at Lou Black’s Living Room just as he had entered his teens. He changed his name to Sheppard, mostly to get out from under the shadow of his father, a notorious club owner and “local legend” around town, and then made his way to New York City. By the age of fourteen, Sheppard had found work as a staff writer with Gil-Pincus Music . . . . [I]n 1963 he sang on his first record . . . . [H]e was a prolific writer, and the long list of artists who recorded his songs includes the Everly Brothers, Gene Pitney [see #382] Tony Orlando, the Cowsills, Tim Hardin [see #457] and Long John Baldry, to name a few. He even gave one to his brother, Michael Ship, who was playing keyboards in a little-known group back home called the Scene. The group, which also included guitarist Barry Albert, bassist Danny Zimmerman and drummer Marty Simon, had yet to release a single, so Sheppard had them record a song of his called “Scenes (from Another World)”. . . . It was issued on the Tokens’ [see #66, 923, 1,046] B.T. Puppy label in three countries: Canada, the US and Australia. . . . [It reached] #14 on RPM’s Canadian Hits chart. . . . Sheppard . . . was under contract with Polydor and had returned to Montreal with the intention of putting together a band to record his songs. . . . [H]e rechristened the [Scene as] Life (though Albert was later replaced on guitar by Jean-Pierre Lauzon). . . . [and] supplied them with a song he had written . . . “Hands on the Clock”, [and] the five watched it shoot to an impressive #9 slot on Montreal’s CFOX chart in the early summer of 1969. Life issued an entire album the following year (with Albert bailing halfway through the recording) and even did some touring. But when Lauzon and Simon were asked to join gospel rocker Mylon Lefevre for his Felix Pappalardi-produced Holy Smoke LP, it was an offer too good to refuse and Life broke up soon after.
For a while, it was a very mysterious Scene. The liner notes to the CD comp Hen’s Teeth Vol. 3: Catherine on the Wheel say that “They were Australian judging by the disc . . . . The joke could be on us — they might be American”!
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