Jon — “Is It Love”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — May 21, 2026

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,981) Jon — “Is It Love”

A “hypnotic flower-pop offering” (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited), “sublime” (John Reed, liner notes to the CD comp Insane Times: 25 British Psychedelic Artyfacts from the EMI Vaults), a “sublimely lovely little song!” (Jessaka, https://www.45cat.com/record/db8249) Yes, sublime indeed, sounding decades ahead of its time. John Peel played “Love” on the final episode of his Perfumed Garden show on Radio London on August 14, 1967.

Piccadilly Sunshine tells us:

Formed around the keyboard talents of Stuart Cowell [lead guitar], Jon signed to EMI under the supervision of producer Peter Eden. Two highly credible singles failed to afford the band any welcome attention leaving Cowell and drummer Jim Toomey to join Still Life . . . . With psychedelia well and truly burying itself in the background, [Cowell] and Toomey formed progressive underground act, Titus Groan, a band who appeared alongside Comus in the British flick Permissive fearturing [about a] young groupie amongst the seedy undergrowth of the pop world.

liner notes to the CD comp Piccadilly Sunshine: Volumes 11-20: A Compendium of Rare Pop Curios from the British Psychedelic Era

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