THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,782) The Marmalade — “Station on 3rd Avenue”
The Poets (see #47, 86, 223, 489, 1,311) and the Marmalade (see #101, 897) were Scotland’s greatest bands of the 1960’s. Here, from the Marmalade’s first LP, ’68’s There’s a Lot of It About, is a super-fun ebullient Easybeats (see #201, 1,310, 1,359, 1,415, 1,683, 1,777) song (about a bird that’s flown!), which the ‘Beats had recorded in ’67 for their aborted 2nd UK LP, and which wasn’t released until ’77. It even nicks the Batman theme. “Get me to the station on Third Avenue” — no the song’s not from My Fair Lady, but it would have been cool had it been!
The definitive Milesago: Australasian Music & Popular Culture 1964-1975, tells us about those ill-fated ’67 Easybeats sessions:
This should have been the breakthrough they needed and the sessions produced some of their best material to date. But although an entire album was recorded, sequenced, mastered and titled (Good Times) and a cover prepared, it was never released. The band had become involved in a complicated contractual wrangle, with five companies claiming rights over their work. The immediate result was that Albert Productions, who had been footing most of the bills, now closed their chequebook. With both Johns and Olympic still unpaid, the record stayed in the can, and only two cuts — the magnificent title track, “Good Times”, and the psychedelic gem “Land Of Make Believe” managed to emerge, many months later. The remaining tracks languished for another decade, until Raven Records released them on the 1977 LP The Shame Just Drained.
As to Marmalade, Bruce Eder writes:
[I]n early 1964, Dean Ford & the Gaylords were signed to EMI-Columbia. . . . By the end of the year . . . [they] had made themselves the top band in Scotland . . . . [T]here was . . . no easy way to get heard in England [and] the group finally took up residence . . . just outside of London . . . . [A] fourth single . . . failed to chart and marked the end of their EMI contract. The Gaylords . . . were at something of a loss as to how to continue. [T]he Tremeloes . . . came to their rescue. . . . admir[ing their] sound . . . they suggested the band sign with their manager Peter Walsh. He was impressed . . . . Walsh[ changed their] name . . . to Marmalade. . . . got them . . . bookings, most notably at London’s Marquee Club . . . . [and] got [them] signed to CBS Records . . . . “I See the Rain,” an original (see #101) . . . become their third CBS single, described by Jimi Hendrix as the best British single of 1967. Somehow it never charted in England but did well in Holland . . . . [I]n early 1968, Marmalade decided to go for the most commercial sound they could live with and cut a pop/rock number called “Lovin’ Things[]”. . . . [that reached] the U.K. Top Ten . . . . Having gone the commercial route, they now found the record company insisting that they stick with it. Songs that they didn’t care for were foisted on them for follow-up singles . . . . [T]heir late-1968 single version of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.” . . . [was] offered [to] them . . . ahead of . . . The White Album[]. . . . [and] became a number one hit in England and sold millions of copies around the world . . . . [But] it wasn’t really what the group was about. Marmalade was much more influenced by American soul, folk-rock, and progressive rock, but they had become locked into an image as a soft, bubblegum-type pop/rock band. . . . Their contract was up and . . . . English Decca . . . outbid CBS both in monetary terms and an offer of artistic freedom. The group re-emerged . . . with “Reflections of My Life,” a daring original . . . [which] topped the English charts . . . and became a Top Ten American single as well. They followed this up with the equally appealing . . . “Rainbow[]”. These twin hits were followed by the LP Reflections of the Marmalade, which proved to be something less than a success . . . . The LP never found an audience in England, but did in America . . . . By 1970, the band was beginning to show the first real signs of serious internal stress since their founding. . . . [Their] sound [changed] from a progressive pop/rock outfit to a much harder, more straight-ahead rock & roll band. . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/marmalade-mn0000334054/biography
Here are the Easybeats:
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