beginning at 22:31
THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
2,105) The Affection Collection — “The Collector”
Sonny Curtis of Buddy Holly and the Crickets wrote “The Collector” for the Everly Brothers, but my affections lie with the Affection Collection’s version. The Collection propels this “slow-paced, slightly psychedelic waltz” (Matthew Greenwald, https://www.allmusic.com/song/the-collector-mt0008548266) with some slinky roller-rink organ (or Mellotron) and a general air of mystery. The band was from Idaho Falls, Idaho, and went to New Mexico to work with producer Norman Petty.
Matthew Greenwald writes of the song’s history:
One of the more interesting Everly songs of the period, “The Collector” has its origins from the novel of the same name, written by John Fowles. It’s a slightly demented take on a young man who kidnaps a young woman and takes her to the English countryside to add her to his “collection.” After reading the book, Don handed it to Sonny Curtis, who accurately wrote his version of it into song. A slow-paced, slightly psychedelic waltz, it would have been perfect as a title song for the film, had it been used as such.
The AG’s ’69 LP is “well recorded, well sung, has a few very nice pop hooks, a dash of rock here and there along with plenty of youthful energy. . . . [I]f you enjoy Association [see #1,264]- Harpers Bizzare type pop then you’ll be pleasantly surprised.” (Goody9299, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/the-affection-collection/the-affection-collection/) Richie Unterberger, though, is dismissive:
An obscure five-piece group that recorded with producer Norman Petty at the famous Petty Sound Studios in Clovis, New Mexico, the Affection Collection put out . . . a self-titled LP on the Evolution label. . . . Their sound was very much generic American white pop/rock circa 1967-1968, rather like the albums Petty was doing with the Fireballs [see #1,152] around the same time. Sometimes it sounds like pop/rock acts such as Tommy James; at others it’s a little like the Five Americans; and at others, of course, it sounds a little like makeshift Buddy Holly, a sound Norman Petty never stopped trying to emulate, even past the mid-’60s. The Fireballs comparison is particularly begged since the[ir] guitarist, George Tomsco, helped write much of the material, and some of the tracks feature staccato Tex-Mex-rockabilly picking that sounds a hell of a lot like Tomsco himself. Not only that, several cuts also feature the eerie yet cheesy Mellotron-ish sound (which might be the Solovox, the primitive synthesizer) that Petty frequently employed with Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-affection-collection-mn0001367229
Eerie yet cheesy Mellotron-ish sound? That’s “The Collector”!
Here are the Everly Brothers:
Here is Sonny Curtis:
Here is the #1:
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