THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,880) The Consortium — “All the Love in the World”
On Valentine’s Day, what could top this over-the-top “glowing piece of sunshine pop” (Bruce Eder, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/west-coast-consortium-mn0000207892#biography), a “highly-strung, vaguely Honeybus [see #6, 52, 207, 434, 562, 605, 764, 1,100, 1,439, 1,582, 1,715, 1,833]-sounding ballad with an exquisite arrangement” (David Wells, liner notes to the CD comp West Coast Consortium: Looking Back: The Pye Anthology) that reached #22 in the UK? It literally packs all the love in the world into less than three minutes.
“Psychedelic pop doesn’t get much better than [the UK’s] West Coast Consortium [/Consortium (see #1,742), 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). Sendra elaborates:
They magically combined Beach Boys [see #667, 1,825]/Four Seasons [see #1,454]-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 . . . . [that was] 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 . . . . Fate then took a hand in a very unexpected way. The group suddenly found a new fan in the form of the head of Pye Records, the legendary producer/ bandleader Cyril Stapleton. A revered figure on the British music scene, he chanced to attend a performance by the band and was so taken with them that he decided to give them his personal attention on their next record. At the time, they’d cut a version of Simpson’s “All the Love in the World” that wasn’t coming out right with Dorsey, and, astonishingly, the label chief violated all corporate protocol by agreeing. Dorsey was taken off production and the existing recording was junked. The band started over with Stapleton producing; they also shortened their name to the simpler and more mysterious Consortium. . . . The effort paid off and “All the Love in the World” was their first real hit, reaching number 22 on the U.K. charts in the course of a nine-week run.. . . . [This all got] the group a fresh round of music press coverage, along with better gigs . . . . [But] they were unable to build on their previous chart success. . . . [I]n 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
Here is some nice video:
Here is the demo. As Geoff Simpson relates:
This is the easily most important demo for me … a total scene changer. It gave us faith that you don’t need an expensive studio to promote your ideas. It’s a recording from a Revox A77 reel to reel tape recorder owned by our bassist John Barker, we recorded this track in early 1968 . . . . We’d then take the recorder to . . . our manager Ken’s brother Cliff[‘s] . . . mellotron in a room above his paper factory . . . . fond memories.
En français, here are Dominique et les Fléchettes — “Tout l’Amour du Monde”:
In italiano, here is Nomadi — “Vai Via, Cosa Vuoi”:
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