THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,890) The Family — “Scene Through the Eye of a Lens”
“Someone coined the word groovy after hearing this” (john022560, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ9b3z65VXs) “[t]ranscendent . . . just brilliant” (happening45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVLbBJ_j_90) “masterpiece” (Focus B, https://www.45cat.com/record/lbf15031), “a thrilling Eastern-tinged epic that introduced [a] unique combination of violin, sax and Roger Chapman’s tremulous warble” (David Wells, Record Collector: 100 Greatest Psychedelic Records: High Times and Strange Tales from Rock’s Most Mind-Blowing Era), a “superb slice of British pop-psychedelia which goes from an evocation of a poetic, pastoral idyll in the first part, suggestive of an enchanted forest into a fully fledged [instrumental] faerie storm in the second part”, “quite wonderful . . . probably just too esoteric to make the charts”. (Lejink, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/family/scene-through-the-eye-of-a-lens-gypsy-woman/)
John Lennon enthused that it “Scene” “ha[s] got a fantastic blend of sound, the best I have heard for a long time”. (David Wells, Record Collector: 100 Greatest Psychedelic Records: High Times and Strange Tales from Rock’s Most Mind-Blowing Era) However, “few of [Family’s] fans had any inking of this one-off 1967 single on Liberty, a longtime favorite of ours with its druggy Eastern vibe and trippy effects. Alas, they never did anything else in this vein.” (liner notes to the CD comp Electric Sugar Cube Flashbacks)
Family (then billed as the Family) had some heavy backing on this song from Gustav Holst (“like Sand’s ‘Listen To the Sky’ (see #1,066) [it] makes good use of ‘Mars Bringer Of Wars’ from Gustav Holst’s ‘Planets'” (wilthomer, https://www.45cat.com/record/lbf15031)) to Steve Winwood and Traffic. Berkin Altinok tells us that:
[Producer] Jimmy Miller required a little help from Traffic for the recording of Family’s debut single . . . . An incredible collaboration between the 2 bands, with. . . Winwood . . . unleashing on the Mellotron . . . . [T]his . . . single was released 2 months prior to the release of “Mr. Fantasy”… which means, this is the very FIRST TIME, we get to hear the LEGENDARY Mellotron… The rest of Traffic were on “Assorted Percussions” which really CATAPULTS this “SHOULD HAVE BEEN a JAMES BOND THEME” to new heights… I am INSISTENT that Master Wood is 100% on the Triangle🔺, which is super prominent towards the end…
Chris Goes Rock notes that:
Family made their London debut at the Royal Albert Hall in July 1968, supporting Tim Hardin [see #457]. Alongside Pink Floyd [see #13, 38, 260] , Soft Machine, The Move and The Nice, Family quickly became one of the premier attractions on the burgeoning UK psychedelic/progressive “underground” scene. Their lifestyle and exploits during this period provided some of the inspiration for the 1969 novel, Groupie, by Jenny Fabian (who lived in the group’s Chelsea house for some time) and Johnny Byrne. Family featured in the book under the pseudonym, ‘Relation’.
https://dariuschrisgoes.blogspot.com/2014/12/family-music-in-dolls-house-1st-album.html
John Dougan gives us some more Family history:
A blues-based band with art rock inclinations, Family were one of the more interesting groups of hippie-era Britain. Fronted by the deft and frequently excellent guitar playing of John “Charlie” Whitney and the raspy, whiskey-and-cigarette voice of Roger Chapman, Family were much loved in England and Europe but barely achieved cult status in America. . . . Although the band’s first official release was Music in a Doll’s House in 1968, the roots of the band went back as far as the early ’60s, when Whitney started a rhythm & blues/soul band called the Farinas while at college. In 1966, Whitney met Roger Chapman, a prematurely balding singer who had a voice so powerful that, to quote Robert Christgau, “It could kill small game at a hundred yards,” and the two began a creative partnership that would last through two bands and into the early ’80s. . . . Family became whole with the addition of bassist Ric Grech, saxophonist Jim King, and drummer Rob Townsend. Within a year they were hyped as the next big thing, and under that pressure and intense British pop press scrutiny delivered their debut record in 1968, Music in a Doll’s House. . . . Chapman’s voice is rooted in the blues and R&B, but the record is loaded with strings, Mellotrons, acoustic guitars, and horns — essentially all the trappings of post-psychedelia and early art rock. Almost completely ignored in the States, Doll’s House was a hit in Britain and Family began a string of . . . albums that ended . . . in 1973. After Family’s demise, Whitney and Chapman formed the blues-rock Streetwalkers; other Family members . . . such as John Wetton (King Crimson, Asia) and Jim Cregan (Rod Stewart) went off to find fame and fortune elsewhere. . . . [I]t was Ric Grech who was the first to leave Family in 1969 to become the least well-known member of supergroup Blind Faith. . . . Charlie Whitney went on to play in an extremely low-key country/blues/bluegrass band called Los Rackateeros, and Roger Chapman moved to Germany, where his solo career flourished.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/family-mn0000171133#biography
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