THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
2,108) Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera — “Dreamy”
I’ve played Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera’s (see #375, 688, 1,818) A-side (see #1,818), here’s the B-side — “a tasty slab of pop psych” (Kevin Rathert, https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2022/07/elmer-gantrys-velvet-opera-long-nights-of-summer-the-elmer-gantrys-velvet-opera-anthology-2022.html), “blissed out” (HiFiPig Magazine, https://www.hifipig.com/elmer-gantrys-velvet-opera-elmer-gantrys-velvet-opera/), “folky, druggy and delightful” (John Barlass, https://atthebarrier.com/2022/07/22/elmer-gantrys-velvet-opera-long-nights-of-summer-the-elmer-gantrys-velvet-opera-anthology-boxset-review/), and “show[ing] that the band had more good ideas than could fit on their LP.” (Bill Kopp, https://blog.musoscribe.com/index.php/2025/10/24/album-reviews-two-from-velvet-opera/)
The lyrics are certainly of a certain age: fall asleep and go “To a land where pumpkin is king And a magic panda sings songs of love to the wind”
“Dreamy” is from an LP that was a “minor masterpiece” (Jan Zarebski, https://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/album/elmer-gantrys-velvet-opera), that “combines the harmonies and underlying structure of soul-rooted English beat with the studio effects and whimsy of London’s psychedelic scene.” (https://jazzrocksoul.com/artists/elmer-gantrys-velvet-opera/)
EGVO — it sounds like an olive oil, though I doubt any of them were extra virgin!
Jan Zarebski recounts:
Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera emerged from R&B/soul act The Five Proud Walkers after experiencing a conversion to psych following a support slot beneath Pink Floyd. Well… who wouldn’t? Their upbeat blend of the new scene with the primal beats of their earlier work got them noticed. The urgent, brilliant “Flames”, which they cut as their first single, became a cult hit, and a fledgling Led Zeppelin [see #110, 589, 1,998, 2,004] incorporated the song into their act. Unfortunately, that was as close as EGVO got to the big time, but their debut remains a rather superb slice of British psych-pop. . . . [Their] eclecticism and talent [was] on show, but it’s the group’s more general mastery of melody and rhythm that marks this album out. Rather like The Zombies [see #1,138] and, more obviously, The Beatles [see #28-29, 113, 132, 374, 422-23, 520-22, 545, 669, 779-81, 840, 872, 942, 1,087, 1,256, 1,437, 1,473, 1,910], EGVO found a tune wherever they looked, and the results stand up with much of the period because of that.
https://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/album/elmer-gantrys-velvet-opera
Why didn’t they make it big? Jo-Ann Greene says that:
This popular UK act, which adeptly mixed soul and psychedelic/progressive styles, evolved from Jaymes Fenda And The Vulcans, one of several bands to secure a recording contract following their appearance on the televised contest, Ready Steady Win. Former Vulcans songwriter John Ford . . . joined members of R&B band Five Proud Walkers, which included Dave Terry (vocals/guitar), Colin Forster (guitar) and Richard Hudson ( . . . drums). The new unit was named Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera, in honour of lead singer Terry’s stage garb modelled after the preacher in the 1960 movie Elmer Gantry. Their excellent 1967 debut album included the pulsating “Flames’, which, despite regular appearances on BBC Radio 1″s Top Gear, failed to become a hit. . . . Although labeled a psychedelic band in their day, the Opera never sat comfortably in that strawberry field, partially because of the diversity of their sound, but also due to the simple fact they were just too far ahead of their time even for the psyched-out crowd. In fact, Elmer Gantry’s Velvet Opera continued to sound thoroughly modern for decades, while their myriad musical meanderings took them down wayward byways that later became stylistic highways — at least in their native U.K. . . . Growing disagreements over musical direction led to the departure of Gantry and Forster. The remaining members truncated their name to Velvet Opera, added Paul Brett (guitar) [see #625] and John Joyce ( . . . vocals) to the line-up, and recorded Ride A Hustler’s Dream. The album lacked the purpose of its predecessor, save for the excellent “Anna Dance Square”. The quartet fell apart when Hudson and Ford joined the Strawbs, with whom they remained until 1973. Having written several of the band’s most commercial offerings, the duo then left to pursue their own career as Hudson-Ford. By 1974, Gantry was fronting a band which, until checked by litigation, accepted illicit bookings as “Fleetwood Mac” while the genuine article were off the road. A year later, Gantry emerged once more as singer on Stretch’s solitary UK chart entry, “Why Did You Do It?”, before going on work with the Alan Parsons Project and Cozy Powell. Former member Colin Forster briefly worked with a new line-up of Velvet Opera in the early 70s.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/elmer-gantrys-velvet-opera-mn0000131151/biography, https://www.allmusic.com/album/elmer-gantrys-velvet-opera-mw0000263215
Iván Melgar Morey agrees:
[T]hey were one of the most advanced bands from their era, blended with great respect R&B, Jazz Psychedelia a la early Pink Floyd [see #13, 38, 87, 260, 315, 922, 1,949, 2,086] and a touch of The Nice style, hard to say if they were inspired in Keith Emerson’s sound because they are coetaneous, but you can find many similarities. . . . Despite being a very good and incredibly advanced album for their era, never reached the popularity deserved, because it was too hard and eclectic for the average listener, but still remains as one of the most powerful and elaborate albums from the pre King Crimson Progressive Rock era.
Here is EGVO live on the BBC on John Peel’s Top Gear — recorded on April 22, 1968 and first broadcast on May 19, 1968 (https://peel.fandom.com/wiki/Elmer_Gantry%27s_Velvet_Opera):
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