Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelations😊

The Family — “Scene Through the Eye of a Lens”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 24, 2026

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…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ9b3z65VXs

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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The Chosen Lot — “If You Want To”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 23, 2026

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

1,889) The Chosen Lot — “If You Want To”

Not only should this romantic ’66 garage rock B-side be on a thousand lists of the top thousand garage rock songs, it should have been a nationwide hit, it should have been covered a thousand times and become a standard at thousands of proms around the country. “You don’t have to love me . . . if you don’t want to . . . but . . . I wish you would love me like I love you”.

And how come there is almost nothing about the this song or this Cincinnati band to be found on the Internet??? Thank you, Buckeye Beat, thank you:

The Chosen Lot was formed by Tony Brazis after his parting with the Bandits. A swap of players between three bands had Tony fronting members of the Continentals, including Rick Coghill (guitar) and Denny Bayless (drums). Panny Sarakatsannis, who was a few years older and working as a school teacher, played bass. The band recorded a 45 for a Detroit label, Sidra records, that made the local charts. The band was around for a year or so before Coghill and Bayless rejoined their old band mate Steve Mendell in the Experimental Blues Band.

https://buckeyebeat.com/chosenlot.html

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Barbara Lynn — “Sufferin’ City”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 22, 2026

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

1,888) Barbara Lynn — “Sufferin’ City”

This “[b]rass laden track[] . . . [is] a soulful blast” (David Bowling, https://www.dailyvault.com/toc.php5?review=8450) It is indeed, but the lyrics are more downbeat. A woman done wrong by her man just wants to return to her home town so she asks him “Can you find it in your heart to show a little pity and help me get away from this sufferin’ city?”

Peter Margasak writes that Lynn “was not only a remarkable vocalist with a plush, throaty, and powerful instrument, but one hell of a songwriter and a terrific guitarist (the latter two skills were generally suppressed in female artists during the early 60s, when she first emerged).” (https://chicagoreader.com/blogs/until-then-ill-suffer-classic-late-60s-soul-from-barbara-lynn/) She is “a singer with a raw soulful style that really deserved greater exploration”. (FunkMySoul, https://www.funkmysoul.gr/barbara-lynn-1968-barbara-lynn/) And “[w]hile she may not have attained the commercial success of some of her contemporaries, she has produced a catalogue of music that is equal to the best of her era.” (David Bowling again)

As to Barbara Lynn’s ’68 LP — Here Is Barbara Lynn — FunkMySoul writes:

[It is a] fantastic album of soul . . . an oft-overlooked gem in the crown of Atlantic during their glory soul days in the 60s . . . . The album’s filled with wonderful original tunes, written either by Barbara or arrangers Cliff Thomas, Ed Thomas, and Bob McRee [who collectively penned “Sufferin’ City”] – and there’s an overall style that’s nicely free of some of the more familiar Atlantic Records modes of the time – quite possibly because the set was recorded at the Grits & Gravy Studios in Clinton, Mississippi by Huey P Meux – who mostly did more obscure indie work at the time. Whatever the case, the whole thing is Barbara Lynn’s lasting tribute.

https://www.funkmysoul.gr/barbara-lynn-1968-barbara-lynn/

Steve Huey gives us some history:

Singer/guitarist Barbara Lynn was a rare commodity during her heyday. Not only was she a female instrumentalist (one of the very first to hit the charts), but she also played left-handed — quite well at that — and even wrote some of her own material. Lynn’s music often straddled the line between blues and Southern R&B, and since much of her early work . . . was recorded in New Orleans, it bore the sonic imprint of the Crescent City. Lynn was born Barbara Lynn Ozen in Beaumont, TX . . . [S]he played the piano as a child before switching to guitar, inspired by Elvis Presley. In junior high, Lynn formed her own band, Bobbie Lynn and the Idols . . . . After winning a few talent shows and playing some teen dances, the still-underage Lynn started working the local clubs and juke joints, risking getting kicked out of school . . . . Singer Joe caught her live act and recommended her to his friend, producer/impresario Huey P. Meaux, aka the Crazy Cajun. With her parents’ consent, Meaux brought Lynn to New Orleans to record at the legendary Cosimo’s studio. Lynn cut a few singles for the Jamie label with the understanding that if none hit, she was to attend college instead of pursuing music right off the bat. In 1962, her self-penned ballad “You’ll Lose a Good Thing” became a national hit, reaching the pop Top Ten and climbing all the way to number one on the R&B charts. Her first album . . . was also released that year, featuring ten of her originals . . . . Lynn continued to record for Jamie up through 1965, producing follow-up R&B hits like “You’re Gonna Need Me” and “Oh Baby (We Got a Good Thing Goin’),” the latter of which was recorded by the Rolling Stones . . . . In 1966, Lynn switched over to Meaux’s Tribe label and cut “You Left the Water Running,” which became something of an R&B standard and was covered by the likes of Otis Redding [see #1,333, 1,385]. In 1967, she signed with Atlantic and had another R&B hit with “This Is the Thanks I Get” early the following year; she also issued another album, Here Is Barbara Lynn, in 1968. Lynn scored one last hit for Atlantic in 1972’s “(Until Then) I’ll Suffer,” but by this point, she had several children to worry about raising; dissatisfied with her promotion anyway, she wound up effectively retiring from the music business for most of the ’70s and ’80s . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/barbara-lynn-mn0000149973#biography

FunkMySoul adds:

[A]t elementary school . . . [Barbara] told her mother she wanted to play guitar. “I decided that playing piano was a little bit too common, you know what I mean?” says Lynn in the new liner notes [to Here Is Barbara Lynn]. “You’d always see a lady or a little girl sitting at a piano. I decided I wanted to play something more unexpected, so that’s when I got interested in learning to play the guitar.” . . . Hers was a powerful talent in a petite package, a performer who could stand up against the best–even as a teenager. Spotted while performing, underage, in Louisiana, she was offered the chance to record her own material, songs that filtered the experience of being a black Texan teen with power, feel, and guts.

https://www.funkmysoul.gr/barbara-lynn-1968-barbara-lynn/

And Dave Stephens adds:

In an Aquarium Drunkard interview . . . . [she said that she] “had been playing the keyboard, but I thought it was so very common seeing a young lady sing at the piano. So I thought, ‘I want to play something odd.[‘] Something I felt I could make money at. And I made money at it, too! I really did.” In grade school she started an all female band called Barbara Lynn and Her Idols and commenced playing local dances and entering – and winning – talent competitions. Singer Joe Barry saw her at one of these gigs and was so impressed that he brought her to the attention of producer/manager/label owner/all-round music man, Huey P. Meaux. After asking her parents for permission, the latter took her to Cosimo Matassa’s famous studio in New Orleans, where apparently she knocked out the session musicians with her ability on guitar (and we are told that Mac Rebennack/Dr. John [see #177, 769] was one of them”.

https://www.toppermost.co.uk/lynn-barbara/

Here is Johnny & Lilly:

Here is Johnny Copeland solo:

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Sandy Salisbury — “I Just Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 21, 2026

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

1,887) Sandy Salisbury — “I Just Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye”

From another of the great lost albums of the 60’s, here is a gentle, bittersweet, and “breathtaking harmonica-led” (Stanton Swihart, https://www.allmusic.com/album/sandy-mw0000108193) ode to the end of a relationship written by Sandy Salisbury (see #1,723) and Joey Stec. “[It] is an almost perfect realization of the styles of [the Association (see #1,264), the Beach Boys (see #667) and “the budding country-rock of The Byrds” (see #1,430, 1,605)] though the tune and loose, gentle optimism of Salisbury’s vocal give it a strength to stand on its own.” (Dominique Leone, http://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2017/06/)

“Such a beautiful song. Had this gotten the proper distribution at the time should have been a huge hit”. (willrue, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX78M0tD0n0) It hit me like a punch in the gut when I read Dawn Eden Goldstein’s account of how close the song actually came:

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about this beautiful tune penned by Graham Salisbury . . . and Joey Stec, which nearly made it onto the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack. Although I prefer the version that Curt produced that kicks off Sandy’s solo album, this version by the Groop is evocative and haunting. Here is what Salisbury said about the song when interviewed by Bryan Thomas of NightFlight.com a few years back: “The Four Star Music Company, led then by Dave Burgess, held out for one more point in royalty in order to allow this song to be used in Midnight Cowboy. So the film producers went elsewhere. That one fussy bit of monetary disagreement was VERY short-sighted on Four Star’s part. But that was the way it was done. Money, money, money…. Looking back, it would have been amazing to have had “I Just Don’t Know How to Say Goodbye” as part of the Midnight Cowboy production. No question about that! But I don’t look back with anything but gratitude for all that came my way in the music industry. There are riches far, far greater than a few coins and a bit of fame. Just making music with a bunch of talented good-guys is one of them.”

https://www.facebook.com/groups/curtboettchersunshinetoday/posts/10157632883108859/

Here is Stanton Swihart’s story of (the sadly unreleased at the time album) Sandy:

Sandy Salisbury was the shy romantic of the loose group of musician friends who formed the legendary studio combos Sagittarius and the Millennium [see #397, 506, 586, 662, 810, 1,002]. He was also the one to eschew drugs entirely, a distinction that could not necessarily be made based on the evidence of this previously unreleased solo album, originally recorded for Together Records in 1968 . . . . Like the music his bandmates made both solo and collectively, Sandy Salisbury is a heady, trippy, captivating concoction. In fact, of the first series of sensational albums that Poptones cobbled together or excavated from the Sagittarius/Millennium vaults, it is the finest, most complete work of the lot, nearly on a par with even the classic albums officially released by the collective. The album is a showcase for a talent who could sometimes get submerged in the shuffle of the group. Salisbury wrote or co-composed most of the songs in collaboration with various of his MIllennium cohorts, and drenches them in one of pop music’s most angelic tenors, a voice that is nearly identical in creamy, heavenly grace and elegance to that of Curt Boettcher [see #1,881, 1,886], who co-produced the album along with future Fleetwood Mac engineer Keith Olsen. Musically, the album is luminous, hallucinatory, and full of typically cherubic sweetness. The collective’s signature romantic fervor surfaces throughout . . . . [W]hile the album has all of the familiar Boettcher hallmarks, the production diverges in some minor but intriguing ways. . . . The album is simply joyous and celebratory . . . . Salisbury’s performance is . . . bouyant and accomplished throughout, and if it threatens to burst the album at its seams, it is also what makes this such a satisfyingly unforeseen delight.

https://www.allmusic.com/album/sandy-mw0000108193

“[T]he question of why [Salisbury] isn’t a household name becomes inevitable as [his] great sunshiney songs fill your head with melodies a surgeon would have a hard time removing. Just sublime bubble-gummy pop.” (Scott Homewood, https://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2017/07/sandy-salisbury-do-unto-others-1969-us.html) As to Salisbury’s solo songs, most unreleased at the time, “The sense of hook, the clean, gorgeous vocals, the sappy melodies, and the Baroque stylings . . . make them all ready for pop heaven. . . . This is magical, beautiful, and yes, sappy pop music. It’s lush, textured, and overly sentimental, as innocent as it gets, and as pretty as it gets.” (Thom Jurek, https://www.allmusic.com/album/falling-to-pieces-mw0000663715)

Tim Sendra tells us of Salisbury:

Sandy Salisbury is a singer and songwriter whose main claim to fame is being one of the integral members of sunshine pop guru Curt Boettcher’s cast of singers and players, appearing on records by the Ballroom [see #707] and the Millennium in the late-60s. He also recorded solo during that time, though most of his work . . . remained unreleased until they were discovered and issued decades later. Salisbury was born and raised in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii, but moved to Santa Barbara, California to pursue his musical dreams. After playing with a group called the Chances for a year, touring the state and cutting an album that was never released, he moved to Los Angeles. Once there, he met . . . Boettcher, who was riding high off his work on the Association’s “Along Comes Mary.” The two found that their musical sensibilities and high, angelic voices were a good match and decided to pair up in a new group Boettcher was starting called the Ballroom. The group blended vocal harmonies and baroque melodies to come up with a singular sound, but their existence proved shortlived and soon Salisbury and Boettcher formed the very similar-sounding Millennium. Salisbury wrote songs as well as sang, and . . . did work on Sagitarrius’s classic 1967 album Present Tense as well as other Boettcher projects. The Millennium released only one album before the members went their separate ways. Salisbury went solo and tracked a record for producer Gary Usher’s Tomorrow label that featured most of the members of the Millennium . . . . to be called Sandy, but it was never released due to problems at the label. Also consigned to the vault were numerous songs written and performed by Salisbury over the years. He thought that Boettcher was sharing them with his music publisher, or that he might be able to record them himself, but instead the songs were kept under wraps to be used on future Boettcher-helmed projects. These imagined projects never happened, mainly because the producer lost favor with the music business and pretty much disappeared as the decade ended. Salisbury, too, put his musical career on the back burner. After reverting to his given name of Graham, he began writing well-received children’s and young adult books. . . .

[Boettcher] worked with a core group of musicians, and none of them were more talented than Sandy Salisbury. His pure-as-a-Hawaiian-beach singing was a key part of the Boettcher sound, and . . . the producer used him on a variety of sessions for artists like Tommy Roe and Paul Revere & the Raiders [see #109]. Salisbury was also a strong and prolific songwriter, and the duo worked on writing and demoing tracks at a furious pace for a few years in the late ’60s. Almost none of the songs were released . . . . and Salisbury quit the music business thinking that his songs weren’t good enough. . . . Both Boettcher and Salisbury possess high and clear voices that sound untouched by care or wear.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/sandy-salisbury-mn0000833169#biography , https://www.allmusic.com/album/try-for-the-sun-mw0004043481

Thom Jurek adds in dismay:

[Salisbury] wrote dozens of songs and recorded them demo – style on a sound – on – sound tape recorder in his California beach house before turning them over to his publisher, who did absolutely nothing with them because he was instructed by the band’s producer and arranger, Curt Boettcher, to shelve them for further band productions. What Boettcher essentially accomplished was keeping under wraps pop songs that would have . . . landed Salisbury near the top of the pop heap.

https://www.allmusic.com/album/falling-to-pieces-mw0000663715

Talk about bittersweet.

Here is a longer version, with Sandy accompanied by a chorus of voices:

Here is the Groop:

Here is the Millennium:

Here is Johnny Chester (’74):

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Curt Boettcher and Lee Mallory — “You Know I’ve Found a Way”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 20, 2026

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

1,886) Curt Boettcher and Lee Mallory — “You Know I’ve Found a Way”

Here is a gorgeous song written by Curt Boettcher [see #1,881] and Lee Mallory [see #18, 1,693, 1,885], “pure baroque pop of the highest caliber, and overall a very pretty love song.” (DoYouLikeVeggies (talking of Sagittarius’ orchestrated version), https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/sagittarius/you-know-ive-found-a-way-the-truth-is-not-real.p/) I actually prefer the stripped down demo version by Curt and Lee, so here it is. Did I make a mistake including a clip from a track on Eternity’s Children’s debut LP? No way. I love me my Eternity’s Children (see #706, 1,131, 1,286), whose “finest moments rank alongside anything in the soft pop canon”. (Jason Ankeny, https://www.allmusic.com/album/eternitys-children-mw0000221884). However, Dawn Eden Goldstein has let us know that “[t]he Children are completely absent from” the song. According to Dawn, “[t]he recording is in fact Curt Boettcher and Lee Mallory’s publishing demo of the song best known in it’s more elaborate incarnation on Sagittarius’ Present Tense. [Eternity’s Children’s co-founder] Bruce Blackman suspects that [managers Ray Roy and Guy Belello] solicited the readymade track[] to save money.” (liner notes to the CD reissue of Eternity’s Children)

As to the Children, they came up with the Biloxi Beat! Dawn tells us that:

They were from Mississippi, yet they excelled in West Coast soft pop. They were co-produced by the legendary Curt Boettcher, yet they made some of their best music without him. They were intelligent and college-educated, yet they signed their lives away to a pair of entrepreneurs whose previous management experience extended only to a chain of health clubs. . . . [They were] the best West Coast soft pop group ever to come out of Biloxi. . . . Once the group signed to Tower, it was decided to . . . hire Keith Olsen as their producer. That meant of necessity hiring Curt Boettcher too, since he and Olsen by then came as a package. . . . Curt Boettcher was on top of the world, a hotshot Columbia staff producer involved with . . . Gary Usher’s Studio group Sagittarius and his own . . . “supergroup,” the Millennium [see #397, 506, 586, 662, 810, 1,002]. . . . On Eternity’s Children, as well as the Millennium and Sagittarius albums, they used highly innovative reverb effects that turned background vocals into thick, foam-padded walls os sound . . . . The result was something more felt than heard, fulfilling Boettcher’s desire to create music that would affect people on a sub-conscious level.

liner notes to the CD reissue of Eternity’s Children

Here is Sagittarius:

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I Shall Be Released: Lee Mallory — “Come On In (Ode to the Be-In)”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 19, 2026

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

1,885) Lee Mallory — “Come On In (Ode to the Be-In)”

This ingratiating love song is a demo written by Lee (see #18, 1,693) and produced by him along with Curt Boettcher. It contains some of the sweetest and most affecting lyrics I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. “If I were a little boy, I’d get you with my smile, and if I were a city man, then I’d win you with my style . . . If I were a millionaire, I’d take you all around the world . . . But all that I am is me, and this is all I can ever hope to be.” How it wasn’t released for decades . . . (ah, but that is a familiar story on my blog).

Richie Unterberger writes of Mallory:

Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Lee Mallory might be best known as a member of the Millennium [see #397, 506, 586, 662, 810, 1,002], the late-’60s sunshine pop group . . . . Mallory wrote or co-wrote some of the material for the elaborately produced band, which crossed the sound of the 1966-1967 Beach Boys with more pop-oriented Southern California harmony pop. On the Millennium’s Begin album, Mallory was the sole writer of the tracks “I’m with You,” “Sing to Me,” and “Some Sunny Day,” co-authoring some of the other tunes as well. Mallory also did a couple of singles under his own name for Valiant Records in 1966-1967. The most successful of these, “That’s the Way It’s Gonna Be,” [see #18] reached number 86 and was a big hit in Seattle. It was also the most notable of his recording efforts, with a buoyant yet complex production heavy on producer Curt Boettcher’s trademark high vocal-harmony arrangements. Surprisingly, [it] was a cover of a song written by Phil Ochs and folk musician Bob Gibson . . . though its folk roots were pretty unrecognizable by the time Mallory and Boettcher had made it over into a densely produced pop/rock single. Mallory had in fact been a folk musician in the early and mid-’60s, though he went in a very pop direction after hooking up with Boettcher. Mallory also contributed to various other Boettcher-associated groups, including the Ballroom [see #707], Summer’s Children, and Sagittarius. Mallory did quite a bit of recording in the 1960s that was never issued at the time.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/lee-mallory-mn0000189312#biography

Jason Penick chimes in:

An introspective folkie with an innate desire to rock . . . Lee Mallory is one of the great troubadours of his era. Born to cab driver parents . . . Lee was raised in Berkeley, California. He first picked up the guitar at the age of sixteen, and by nineteen he had begun playing local venues . . . in . . . San Francisco. In 1965 Lee journeyed to Greenwich Village in order to sing and play alongside folk musicians like the Lovin’ Spoonful (whom he opened for at their first gig at the Cafe Bizarre). After spending time in New York, Chicago and Boothbay Harbor, Maine, Lee ventured back to California later that year. It was at Claudia Ford’s . . . home that Lee would first meet the man who would help guide his early career, Ford’s boyfriend Curt Boettcher. Lee and Curt’s first evening together was apparently a prolific one, as the duo penned four songs that night including the gorgeous “Forever”. When Lee explained to the young producer that he was in town looking to get something started musically, Curt suggested that Lee accompany him back to Hollywood, and the rest is music history. . . . Lee was already a prolific writer by the time he met up with Curt. Some early Lee Mallory compositions include “Better Times”, which was recorded by The Association [see #1,264] for their Boettcher-produced debut album. Though The Association would ultimately pass on “Better Times”, the song was picked up by another band named The Brothers Cain . . . . Another one of Lee’s early songs, “Sing to Me”, was given to the popular vocal group The Clinger Sisters for an unreleased, Curt Boettcher-produced single in 1966. In between penning songs, Lee was building up his chops by jamming with the Our Productions House Band and was starting to lay down some of his own tunes in the studio. Lee’s early recordings had a style all their own; a sparkling brand of modern folk music, infused with a groovin’ rock backbeat and topped off with a dollop of majestic, Boettcher arranged vocal harmonies.

http://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2017/07/lee-mallory-many-are-times-1966-69-us.html?m=1

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Gordon Alexander — “Windy Wednesday”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 18, 2026

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

1,884) Gordon Alexander — “Windy Wednesday”

Ethereal pop psych for gentle people from “an L.A. singer songwriter who once got mentioned in the same breath as Harry Nilsson [see #1,168, 1,298, 1,854] and Randy Newman [see #174] . . . [and] now remembered mainly for the fact that . . . Curt Boettcher produced and sang on a couple cuts on his sole LP”, including today’s song. (liner notes to the CD comp Mystic Males: Soft Sounds for Gentle People Presents Tripped-Out Troubadours from 1965-1970) Sonny Knight [see #487] produced the rest of the LP. (RDTEN1, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/gordon-alexander/gordons-buster/)

As to Gordon Alexander’s LP — Gordon’s Buster — Forced Exposure calls it “a lost classic of West Coast psychedelic pop”(https://www.forcedexposure.com/Artists/ALEXANDER.GORDON.html) and Monocled Alchemist calls it “a very diverse collection of freak rock, psych tinged folk with jazzy & blues touches”, with the Boettcher-produced songs displaying his “unmistakable soft psych touches” and “really stand[ing] out from the rest of the album, either with some haunting echo throughout or some tasty psych guitar lines.” “You could say all from Boettcher’s isn’t gold, but here it sounds like he really made a difference, even the singing is better somehow.” (https://monocledalchemist.com/2024/12/28/gordon-alexander-one-real-spins-free-columbia-1968/)

RDTEN1 is dubious:

Columbia may have signed Alexander, but judging by this album they were clueless with what to do with him. That left the guy a no-win situation. . . . “Windy Wednesday” seemed intent on selling watered down pop-psych tunes to middle America that wanted to be culturally relevant, but not too relevant. . . . Alexander wrote all eleven tracks . . . . He was certainly a versatile writer, though his lyrics were dense, stream-of-consciousness affairs that haven’t aged all that well (“Autumn is a Bummer” probably sounded ancient in 1970). It made for one of those albums where you can spend a lot of time playing spot-the-influence. His voice was okay, though I always smile when I see the picture of a young man and then hear his gravelly vocals which sound like they were coming from a much older performer. Alexander’s delivery was also odd displaying a penchant for putting a bizarre echo effect on his voice.

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/gordon-alexander/gordons-buster/

Richie Unterberger is dubiouser:

[Gordon’s Buster] mix[es] slightly trippy lyrical sensibilities with more pop-friendly arrangements . . . [and] fairly lush orchestral horns and strings . . . .

Columbia sure put out a lot of albums in the late 1960s that were too strange to stand much of a chance of being big sellers, yet had a little too much pop (and sounded a little too contrived) to get much of a toehold in the freaky underground. Singer/songwriter Gordon Alexander was one such act, offering songs that reflected the beatific side of the hippie experience on Gordon’s Buster, yet in a mild, faintly sunshine pop-influenced style that steered it well clear of the weirdest things coming out of California at the time. There’s a sense of the playful psych-pop of, say, Sagittarius or Chris Lucey/Bobby Jameson [see #219, 1,255, 1,303, 1,380-81], yet Alexander seems earthier and a little more connected to some genuinely stoned whimsy. . . . Alexander’s not too distinctive a singer or crafter of melodies, however. Too, the production often seems a little half-hearted, except when those easy listening strings and horns are piled on — something to be expected, perhaps, considering the arranger was David Angel, the same guy who’s famous for doing the same thing on Love’s classic Forever Changes album. “I like to fly using my middle eye” and “I went looking for the sun in the darkness of my mind” are typical Alexander lyrical musings, but he’s no Arthur Lee when it comes to putting enigmatic imagery to song and voice. Gratuitous washes of echo and distorted guitar come into the mix at times, yet sometimes it sounds like he’s trying to do a psychedelic take on Glen Campbell. In all it’s an eclectic period curiosity with some interesting Baroque touches, but one that lacks the vision, sincerity, or even the good tunes of the best similarly naive psych-pop from the era.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/gordon-alexander-mn0001420282#biography, https://www.allmusic.com/album/gordons-buster-mw0000851706

As to Alexander, RDTEN1 says “[He] was supposedly part of the duet Peanut Butter ‘n’ Jelly and generated a little attention placing the song ‘Strawberry Tea’ on Tiny Tim’s debut album. If you’ve never heard that LP, I’ll tell you that Alexander’s contribution was easily the album’s most psychedelic number.” (https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/gordon-alexander/gordons-buster/)

Eye Magazine (Dec. 1968) talked to Alexander:

[Gordon Alexander:] “I remember the first time Derek Taylor heard me, he was standing in the other room and I did this medley I had worked out back then – I did a lot of songs with this transition thing worked in between em – and suddenly he goes CRASH!, drops everything, falls against the wall, and then when I finished he comes over and he says, ‘Well, I , oh – what good are words, anyway? I just wanted to say, I really enjoyed your… music.’ And I’m saying ‘Uh, right,’ and the walls are going ka-choonga, you know? One of those mystical experiences.”

Gordon met Clive Davis, the president of Columbia Records, who said something like ‘yeah’, and signed him, and Gordon finally made his album – something he’d waited for a long time, and while making it someone phoned in a bomb threat. “A bomb threat, can you imagine? But we kept on recording. Studio time is scarce at Columbia.” One of the strange things about Gordon is the way he sings: hard to describe, one of those things you have to hear. He sings echo with himself, sends his voice around the corner, through a filter, brings it back again, sings echo with himself. The music at first hearing may sound foreign, jarring, unapproachable – especially the more electronic space songs. Maybe you can’t see it at first, but then later when you find it has all worked out, it is most accessible. The first album Buster, doesn’t have too many really difficult electric space songs. “We thought we’d keep this one pretty basic,” Gordon says. “But I certainly do try to remind people about life and death and those things.”

https://rockasteria.blogspot.com/2012/11/gordon-alexander-gordons-buster-1968-us.html?m=1

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Song — “Like We Were Before”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 17, 2026

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

1,883) Song — “Like We Were Before”

With apologies to the Talking Heads, the name of this band is Song. And I am featuring a Song song that has a “[s]uperb 1970 power pop Beatle-ish vibe . . . and is produced by Curt Boettcher & Keith Olsen.” (Discogs, https://www.discogs.com/release/11525133-Song-Like-We-Were-Before-Sugar-Lady) Jasonbear writes:

[The song] goes after a Rubber Soul-era Beatles vibe and actually winds up succeeding, although perhaps it’s just a little too on the nose for an homage. Again I really can’t say enough about the lead guitarist Clark Garman– he’s not super flashy, but he manages to extract some really cool, down-home counterpoint licks. Guitarists like him really don’t get enough recognition in my book.

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/jasonbear/jasonbears-reviews-you-can-use-60s-and-70s-albums-only/2/

The name of Song’s album is, of course, Album. Jasonbear thinks “Like We Were Before” was the single (yes, it was the A-side), but he “can’t remember and can’t be arsed to sift through a billion Google results for ‘Song Album’.” (https://rateyourmusic.com/list/jasonbear/jasonbears-reviews-you-can-use-60s-and-70s-albums-only/2/) Ha, ha, ha!!! I had this very problem trying to locate the LP on YouTube after jotting down a note to myself that I had to listen to it. As Song’s only LP, I guess you can call it their swan song.

Jasonbear gives us Song’s history:

This is an interesting one-off from an aggregate led by Mickey Rooney, Jr. (yes, the son of elfin actor Mickey Rooney). Apparently deciding to go the scene band route after some minor movie roles and pop singles didn’t result in stardom, Junior formed a band called Song and released this one album and a single on MGM before parting ways with the label and the group. . . . Rooney Jr. . . . surrounded himself with some bona fide musicians. Lead guitarist Clark Garman absolutely shines on his featured parts, while drummer Shelly Silverman is allotted not one but two solos here, and does a great job of holding down the groove. As for the songs themselves, they tend to be quite melodic, especially when compared alongside much of their competition at the time. (Remember that 1970 was the height of the “heavy rock” era, with fuzz-drenched white blues music being all the rage.) [They] have obviously never abandoned their love of the Beatles and Badfinger, and as such we are treated to some actual melodies amidst the requisite chug and boogie. . . . [T]he amount of solo percussion on this album is greatly enhanced by the incredible Sound City studio drum sound as dialed in by co-producer/engineer Keith Olsen. Nobody could record drums like Keith (the timbre of the kick drum alone is worth the price of admission) . . . . [T]he album ALBUM by the band SONG is recommended, by me, to anybody who enjoys crate digging for old rock bands but who also seeks an album with actual songcraft and melodic components instead of yet another bad trip soundtrack by hippie dope experimentalists with a penchant for fuzztone.

https://rateyourmusic.com/list/jasonbear/jasonbears-reviews-you-can-use-60s-and-70s-albums-only/2/

Not that there’s anything wrong with another bad trip soundtrack by hippie dope experimentalists with a penchant for fuzztone! In fact, Jasonbear says that “if it’s bad hippie dopers you seek instead, well, hit me up because I can recommend several of those as well”!

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Bobby Jameson — “Right By My Side”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 16, 2026

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

1,882) Bobby Jameson — “Right By My Side”

Riveting pop rock by Bobby Jameson (see #219, 1,255, 1,303, 1,380-81) produced by Curt Boettcher, who added insanely catchy and effervescent female background vocals that take the song to another level.

“The classic Boettcher drums, and overall sound that would later appear on Millennium & Sagittarius records.” (popville217, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbzAt491T8g) Bobby recalled: “Michele O’Malley Jim Bell Curt Boettcher and Lee Mallory on vocals…..arranged by Curt….Reversed tape playing…idea taken from The Beatles by me and Curt!” (jamesonbobby4, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbzAt491T8g)

Tosh Berman says of Jameson’s LP — Color Him In — that:

The [LP] is co-produced by Boettcher, as well as Jim Bell and Steve Clark. All three producers part of the Los Angeles music scene along with Bobby. Color Him In conveys a sound of sweetness with Jameson’s soulful voice, but the songs also have slicked backup singing. There is tension between the backup singing and Jameson’s lead. It conveys a lightness but with an undercurrent of dread and anxiety. There are traces of Forever Changes by Love within the songs, and there are intense Arthur Lee-like vocalisms throughout the album. . . . [T]his record refuses to leave, and layers of meaning or sounds come through repeated listening.

https://tosh.substack.com/p/jameson-color-him-in-verve-records

Richie Unterberger adds:

[I]t’s much more a Californian-sounding, faintly psychedelic-speckled pop/rock record than a British Invasion one. Produced by Curt Boettcher, it’s an odd LP . . . [for] its strange juxtaposition of 1966-1967 rock styles. Jameson writes intense songs of soul-searching and questioning, yet the tunes are dressed up in rather normal good-time Southern California pop/rock arrangements, with cheerful female backing vocals that verge on the too-chipper, sometimes to the point of annoyance [not to me!] At times, his sly, mind-rushing-to-keep-pace-with-the-tongue lyrics recall early Arthur Lee . . . . It’s an interesting, but not terribly interesting [yes, terribly interesting!] mildly eccentric pop/rock album with a dash of flower power.

https://www.allmusic.com/album/color-him-in-mw0000989607

“Of all the Curt Boettcher related records, those wonderful productions & arrangements for Sagittarius, Millennium, Tommy Roe, The Association, etc. – this is my favourite.” (bonzoboots, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/jameson/color-him-in/)

Jameson himself recalled:

Color Him In was a psychedelic work of the times. Much of what is on the record was inspired by LSD, Vietnam, and the Peace Movement. The overall context was freedom from the establishment or so we thought. It was basically a concept album, but most of the music’s conceptual arrangements were Curt’s. Songs I wrote like “See Dawn” dealt with duality. “What goes up must come down.” The lyric “See dawn, see dawn the setting sun” attempts to look at things from opposite ends of a single spectrum simultaneously. These pairs of opposites run throughout the work. Curt Boettcher was delighted by this kind of lyric. My words and melodies, according to Curt at the time, were like a playground for his arrangements. He would take the demos I made of me and a guitar, and arrange vocal harmonies and instrumentation around them. He would come up with entire arrangements based on a specific lick or chord progression of mine. . . . Another problem we encountered . . . was that Curt Boettcher was trying to finish up an album with The Association at the same time. The Association wanted to produce themselves and argued with Boettcher all the time about who had the final say. So as you can imagine we were never just concentrating on one thing. We were always arranging time to suit numerous demands made by several different entities. This tended to make Curt crazy and unable to do what he wanted on some of our work. . . . Curt was surrounded by people who all became friends of mine, like Michele O’Malley, Jim Bell, and Lee Mallory. . . . At one point I moved into a house with all of these people and we tried living together but it proved too difficult in the long run. Too many dominant personalities in one place. Working together was one thing, living together was another. Curt and I were very close friends while we worked on Color Him In. We were never anymore or less than friends. Those of you who are familiar with Curt’s personal life can put your questions away. Curt and I were good friends. We liked working together and we inspired each other.

https://bobbyjameson.blogspot.com/2008/04/part-38-curt-boettcher-and-bobby.html

As to Bobby Jameson, Jason Ankeny tells us:

West Coast folk-rocker Bobby Jameson is best known — or, perhaps, not known at all — for Songs of Protest and Anti-Protest [see #219] the sought-after cult LP he recorded under the alias Chris Lucey. . . . Jameson cut his debut single, “I Wanna Love You,” for the Talamo label in early 1964. The record was a regional hit, and even earned him an appearance on American Bandstand. Although the follow-ups . . . went nowhere, Jameson nevertheless captured the attention of Rolling Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham, and in late 1964 he flew to London to record the Decca single “All I Want Is My Baby,” co-written by Oldham and . . . Keith Richards . . . . After a 1965 one-off for the Brit imprint, “I Wanna Know,” Jameson returned to Los Angeles, where he befriended producer Marshall Lieb. . . . [who] was in the midst of helming the debut Surrey Records release by folkie Chris Ducey, but with the album covers already printed and the disc ready to ship, contractual snafus forced the project into limbo. Lieb coerced Jameson into writing and recording a new batch of tunes based on Ducey’s existing song titles, and after some creative tinkering with the cover art, [the album] — now credited to Chris Lucey and, for reasons unknown, featuring a photo of Rolling Stone Brian Jones — finally hit retail. Promoted via what was then the most expensive and lavish Billboard advertising supplement ever printed, the album — a deeply idiosyncratic psych-folk opus . . . proved a commercial flop . . . . Jameson did not resurface until mid-1966, releasing “Gotta Find My Roogalator” — arranged by Frank Zappa . . . . He then signed to Verve, where the Our Productions team of Curt Boettcher, Jim Bell, and Steve Clark helmed his 1967 LP Color Him In. That same year, Jameson also appeared in the infamous American International Pictures documentary Mondo Hollywood . . . . A 1969 album for GRT, Working!, proved Jameson’s swan song. During the ’70s, his frustrations with the music industry manifested themselves in substance abuse and two suicide attempts. . . . After he left the music business in 1985, he lived so quietly with his mother in San Luis Obispo County, California that many thought he was dead. He didn’t resurface until 2003, when he learned that Songs of Protest and Anti-Protest had been reissued unbeknownst to him . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/bobby-jameson-mn0001425046#biography

If you’d like to read Jameson recounting his life, and his overwhelming bitterness, see:

https://bobbyjameson.blogspot.com/?m=1, https://lifeandtimesofbobbyjameson.blogspot.com/

He also left this disturbing video monologue:

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Curt Boettcher — “Sometimes”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 15, 2026

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

1,881) Curt Boettcher — “Sometimes“

This B-side written by Curt Boettcher and Lee Mallory (see #18, 1,693) “honestly might be the best song Curt ever wrote”, the B-side from the “only single from what would have been Curt[‘s] first solo album, if not for Together’s untimely demise”. (DoYouLikeVeggies, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/curt-boettcher/share-with-me-sometimes/)

Magic Pop Blog rhapsodizes (courtesy of Google Translate — I’m sure it would sound even more rhapsodic in the original Italian):

[It is a] pristine combination of rhythm and melody without a single flaw or added embellishment. A pop song in all its splendor, it transforms the solemn into the celestial, while the lead vocals envelop us with a perfect and tender range, interwoven with string arrangements and baroque and psychedelic effects.

https://magicpopblog.wordpress.com/2018/12/17/el-maravilloso-sunshine-pop-de-curt-boettcher-recopilado-en-misty-mirage/

For those of you who know Curt Boettcher’s work, he needs no introduction. But here are excepts from a fairly recent piece by Lucy Harbron in Far Out Magazine:

At first, he started out as part of The GoldeBriars, a folk unit. . . . It was . . . in that band that he started to craft his sound. It was folk at first, but it quickly morphed into something broader, bringing in elements of rock, a hefty dose of pop, but also more left-field elements, even being inspired by his childhood as the son of a navy man and the army songs he’d heard then. His scope was massive, and it was making him well-known, so when that band stopped, he was called on quickly. From there, he started applying all those skills to the work of others. Most notably, he produced for Lee Mallory and became the first person to use the reserve echo, although Jimmy Page [see #110, 589] likes to take credit for that . . . .But as Boettcher produced “That’s the Way It’s Gonna Be” [see #18], the earlier sound of it there gives the medal to him as proof of just how much the producer was ahead of the game. That’s truly the pattern in his career; Boettcher was always a step ahead. In his production work, he inspired bravery in others, pushing the boundaries of genre and studio capabilities, and getting experimental with the kit in a way no one else was. In The GoldeBriars, as early as 1964, he was starting to merge sounds and inspirations in a way that The Beatles [see #422, 1,087, 1,256] wouldn’t date until Rubber Soul, or The Beach Boys [see #667, 1,825] wouldn’t really start to do until 1966 with Pet Sounds—after Brian Wilson had met Boettcher. Boettcher and Wilson met in early 1966, and Gary Usher, who was there at the time, claimed that, Wilson was openly inspired by him, playing a significant role in pushing his production further on Pet Sounds after hearing what Boettcher was doing.* . . . It seems that at every turn, here we have the originator, yet his name is forgotten. . . . “If his life had gone just a bit differently, [he] might have been another Brian Wilson,” [Alexandra Molotkow] theorised [in the New York Times Magazine on August 9, 2013 in an essay about Boettcher and Dawn Eden Goldstein —https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/magazine/she-told-herself-she-couldnt-die-because-she-had-to-write-his-story.html (paywall)]. Clearly with the same musical intuitions, Boettcher seemed just as deserving of the genius status Wilson was awarded, but instead, he was forgotten . . . [As Molotkow] wrote, “As it stands, Boettcher — a pop-music producer whose heyday was the late ’60s — now survives in rock history mostly as a liner-note credit. He could have been, but never was. Yet he enjoys a godlike status among a select group of music fans, for whom obscurity is more enticing than fame.”

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/curt-boettcher-man-who-couldve-been-brian-wilson/

There is no more classic description of being gobsmacked than the story Gary Usher told Dawn Eden Goldstein about the time Usher and Wilson first met Curt (to be found in the liner notes to the CD reissue of Sagittarius’ Present Tense).

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The Consortium — “All the Love in the World”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 14, 2026

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9Z45ZSt9go

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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Hot Butter’s Sound — “Pa Pa Pa”Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 13, 2026

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

1,879) Hot Butter’s Sound — “Pa Pa Pa”

“Pa pa pa” is the new “la la la”! This Peruvian B-side is “garagey psychedelic rock . . . with fuzzy lead guitar and an underground feeling” (roquecolor, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/hot-butters-sound/renacera-pa-pa-pa.p/), “psychafunkadelia (I just made that word up) . . . . [that] really make[s] this [Peruvian underground comp] worth it”. (cancon, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/comp/various-artists/back-to-peru-the-most-complete-compilation-of-peruvian-underground-64-74/) Cancon, just to let you know I might have to steal “psychafunkadelia” from you!

The Listening Post featured this song just weeks ago:

Whoa!! This little scorcher is HOT!! Brace yourself for this burning groove and the coolest vocal accompaniment you could possibly imagine! . . . The groove gets under your skin with its fiery funk and the pulse sets the senses ablaze! . . . It’s sooo good!!

https://thelisteningpostblog.wordpress.com/2026/01/06/song-of-the-day-hot-butters-sound-pa-pa-pa/

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Land of Make Believe Special Edition: The Easybeats/Jennifer’s Friends — “Land of Make Believe”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 12, 2026

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

A psych pop masterpiece by the Easybeats with a version rivaling its brilliance on the only single by an obscure band out of Connecticut. Ah, the 60’s!

1,877) The Easybeats — “Land of Make Believe”

This “psychedelic gem” (http://www.milesago.com/artists/easybeats.htm) by the Easybeats (see # 201, 1,310, 1,359, 1,415, 1,683, 1,777) is “Australian 60s pop at its best” and “Also the world’s 60s pop at its best”! (zBeestBeest, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBeea0r6ioA) Indeed.

Kennethosborne6497 writes “This song has always been my fave Easybeats number, even though quite different to any of their other tracks. I met [vocalist] Stevie [Wright] & asked him about this one, he said it was also his favourite, & recalled the piano player [Nicky Hopkins] etc.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBeea0r6ioA)

The definitive MILESAGO: Australasian Music & Popular Culture 1964-1975 states the importance of the Easybeats:

To describe The Easybeats as “Australia’s Beatles” is not to damn them with faint praise. They were without question the best and most important Australian rock band of the 1960s, and their string of classic hit singles set the benchmarks for Australian popular music. They established a unique musical identity, and they became our first homegrown rock superstars, and for quality, inventiveness and originality their work is arguably unmatched by any other Australian band of the period. The Easybeats scored fifteen Top 40 Singles in Australia between 1965 and 1970, including three No.1 hits. Chief among their many achievements, the Easybeats hold the unique honour of being our first bona-fide rock group to have an major overseas hit record – the legendary “Friday On My Mind”. They were also one of the few major Australian bands of their day to perform and record original material almost exclusively.

http://www.milesago.com/artists/easybeats.htm

Milesago gives “Make Believe” some context:

[In the summer of 1967] the Easybeats — plus session drummer Freddie Smith and renowned session keyboardist Nicky Hopkins — went into the famed Olympic Studios in Barnes, London . . . to record their next LP, produced by Shel Talmy’s erstwhile engineer, the now legendary Glyn Johns. This should have been the breakthrough they needed and the sessions produced some of their best material to date. But although an entire album was recorded, sequenced, mastered and titled (Good Times) and a cover prepared, it was never released. The band had become involved in a complicated contractual wrangle, with five companies claiming rights over their work. The immediate result was that Albert Productions, who had been footing most of the bills, now closed their chequebook. With both Johns and Olympic still unpaid, the record stayed in the can, and only two cuts — the magnificent title track, “Good Times”, and the psychedelic gem “Land Of Make Believe” managed to emerge, many months later. The remaining tracks languished for another decade, until Raven Records released them on the 1977 LP The Shame Just Drained. In June, UA released the superlative psychedelic rocker “Heaven & Hell”. It was their last Talmy-produced single, with Nicky Hopkins prominent on harpsichord, and some great bass playing by Dick. It was released in June, with the wonderful “Pretty Girl” relegated to the b-side, and became another Top 20 hit in Australia. By rights, it should have been a double-sided hit for them worldwide. For a while it looked set to restore their chart fortunes, especially in the US, but once again bad luck intervened: just as it entered the charts, the single was banned by various US stations, due to the line “discovering someone else in your bed” and supposed drug references. Inexplicably, it also failed in the UK. Based on the success of “Friday”, Vanda & Young had naturally continued with that winning formula, packing remarkable musical and lyrical innovation into a concise single format (what George later called their “three minute operas”). When they saw one of their best efforts fail, they effectively gave up trying. They began making music primarily to please themselves, and according to George a lot of similar material was shelved. Their fortunes were further hindered by consistently poor timing and choices of material by United Artists, and by lack of direction and support from both label and management. From this point on, according to George “the rot set in”. The outcome was doubly lamentable — abandoning any pretense of ‘commerciality’, the group went on to produce some of their most outstanding material over the next year, but sadly many of the tracks were only ever cut as demos, and the public never got to hear them until years later. . . . In June [1968], a second United Artists LP Vigil was released in the UK. The album . . . . [included] two escapees from the doomed Glyn Johns LP, “Land Of Make Believe” and “Good Times”, which were paired on 45 in Australia in July and reached #22 in August. “Land of Make Believe” was coupled with a (Beatles-inspired) b-side “We All Live Happily” for June release in the UK . . . .

http://www.milesago.com/artists/easybeats.htm

Bruce Eder tells us of the Easybeats:

The Easybeats . . . met in Sydney . . . [but] lead singer Stevie Wright originally came from England . . . and bassist Dick Diamonde hailed from the Netherlands, as did guitarist Harry Vanda, while the others, guitarists George Young and drummer Gordon “Snowy” Fleet, were recent arrivals from Scotland and England . . . . [They were] a piece of authentic Brit-beat right in the heart of Sydney. . . . After honing their sound and building a name locally . . . in late 1964, the group was signed to [Ted] Albert Productions who, in turn, licensed their releases to Australian EMI’s Parlophone label. . . . Working from originals primarily written by Stevie Wright, by himself or in collaboration with George Young, the group’s early records . . . were highly derivative of the Liverpool sound . . . . [but] they were highly animated in the studio and on stage, they looked cool and rebellious, and they sang and played superbly. . . . [T]heir debut single [was] issued in March of 1965 . . . . “She’s So Fine,” their second . . . two months later, shot to number one in Australia and was one of the great records of its era . . . . Their debut album Easy, issued the following September . . . . [Their] attack on their instruments . . . coupled with Wright’s searing, powerful lead vocals, made them one of the best British rock & roll acts of the period and Easy one of the best of all British Invasion albums . . . . In Australia, they were the reigning kings of rock & roll . . . assembling a string of eight Top Ten chart hits in a year and a half . . . . Their second album, It’s 2 Easy, was a match for their first . . . whose only fault . . . was that it seemed a year out-of-date in style when it was released in 1966. . . . [They] could do no wrong by keeping their sound the same . . . . [but] George Young . . . had ideas for more complex and daring music. By mid-1966, the Wright/ Young songwriting team had become history, but in its place Vanda and Young began writing songs together. . . . In the fall of 1966, the Easybeats were ready to make the jump that no Australian rock & roll act had yet done successfully, and headed for England. In November of 1966 . . . the group scored its first U.K. hit with “Friday on My Mind[“, which] embodied all of the fierce kinetic energy of their Australian hits but . . . at a new level of sophistication . . . . It rose to the Top Ten . . . across Europe and much of the rest of the world, and reached the Top 20 in the United States . . . . The group spent seven months in England, writing new, more ambitious songs[, ] performing before new audiences, most notably in Germany . . . . [and] mov[ing] their base of operations to London . . . . Some of the songs were superb, but the[ir] . . . charmed existence . . . seemed to desert them in 1967-1968 — their single “Heaven and Hell” was banned from the radio in England for one suggestive line, and a six-month lag for a follow-up cost them momentum . . . . [But] the songs . . . were as good as anything being written in rock at the time. . . . By mid-1969, the band had receded to a mere shadow of itself, and their music had regressed to a form of good-time singalong music . . . . The band decided to call it quits following a return to Australia for one final tour . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-easybeats-mn0000145086#biography

Here is the 45 version:

1,878) Jennifer’s Friends — “Land of Make Believe”

This “sublime” (Clegg, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcgnw1vtXXI) and “fabulous cover . . . [had] a stellar arrangement . . . [and] should have hit the charts”. (CorporalClegg, https://www.45cat.com/record/bda51) It is from Jennifer’s Friends’ only single, which had “[t]wo killer psychedelic tunes . . . a masterpiece” which “quite frankly . . . one-upped the[ Easybeats] with their own song”. (thomassmith8721, ,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg3m3cMpt68) I could actually be persuaded — the Friends transform the song into glorious technicolor!

Oh, kevinweaver6999 comments “Nostalgia. I don’t think I have a copy of this and I was the drummer!” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnM4CIn0peE)

Despite CorporalClegg despairing that “looking them up nowadays [is] hard as hell thanks to the Friends TV show” (https://www.45cat.com/record/bda51) — ha, ha, ha!!! — RateYourMusic tells us:

Matt Lawton and Ben Mochan had been friends for several years prior to forming this band, and had been performing together as well, primarily folk music. Ben met Mark Lipson, a high school student, and Kevin Weaver, a math teacher, around their mutual home area of southern Connecticut. They formed a band under the original working name of Zyme, but decided to change it when it came time to record. . . . Around this time, Barry Buxbaum quit his existing band (only to be replaced by Michael Bolotin, later Michael Bolton) and joined the group as lead singer. After recording some home-made demos, the band were able to secure a management contract with Schwade-Merenstein . . . . [who] was able to acquire some recording time with Buddha Records. . . . [A] number of tracks were laid down[ but] only one single was ever released, with “Land of Make Believe” hitting the top 40 [in what universe did this occur?]. . . . The band was also offered a song to record that they decided to pass on, titled “The Worst That Could Happen”. This was later recorded by the Brooklyn Bridge, and went to number one on the charts. Jennifer’s Friends had another close call with bigger success when they recorded a song titled “Lay Lady Lay”. Bob Dylan’s version was released a week prior and so the song was eventually cancelled by Buddah. They also wrote and recorded the musical score to the Michael Douglas film Hail, Hero!, but their version was passed over in favor of one recorded by Gordon Lightfoot [see #92, 167, 392]. . . . Mark Lipson became a cantor, then a Rabbi . . . .

https://rateyourmusic.com/artist/jennifers_friends

18 RODAS writes that he wrote an e-mail to guitarist Matt Lawton”, who relayed some band history, which 18 RODAS summarized, including:

The name Jennifer’s Friends came about while . . . [recording]. Jennifer was one of the young women sitting around with the band during practice. We needed a name for our upcoming recording session in New York, and someone suggested Jennifer’s Friends. The stuff of history. . . . Matt Lawton quit the band for personal reasons around 1970. Mark and Ben talked Lou Merenstein into producing an album of original music ultimately released . . . under the band name Smokey John Bull.

https://18rodas.blogspot.com/2014/11/jennifers-friends-land-of-make-believe.html

Here is Bobby Sherman’s questionable version:

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Os Selvagens/The Savages — “Coração de Pedra”/”Heart of Stone”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 11, 2026

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

1,876) Os Selvagens/The Savages — “Coração de Pedra”/”Heart of Stone”

No, this is not the Stones’ “Heart of Stone”! It is the Brazilian group Os Selvagens’ (the Savages) propulsive ’70 rocker. The band featured a young Michael Sullivan, sorry, Ivanilton de Souza Lima, who would later become one of the biggest Brazilian stars ever.

Hedson tells us (courtesy of Google Translate):

In the wake of the Jovem Guarda* [Young Guard] movement, many bands emerged meteorically but failed to establish themselves in the musical context of the time. One of these groups was Os Selvagens, which emerged in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1960s, in the post-Jovem Guarda era, on the CBS record label, under the artistic production of Rossini Pinto. Probably, if they had emerged a few years earlier, they would certainly have been more successful and had more market opportunities. Another fact that was mentioned in publications at the time was the record company’s lack of effort in promoting the group, since the music market was already in a new wave, Tropicália**. The initial proposal of the band Os Selvagens aimed to create a fusion of Pop and Soul styles, which did not happen in practice, remaining within the Jovem Guarda pop style of the time.

https://laplayamusic.blogspot.com/2012/08/os-selvagens-1970.html

Grokipedia adds:

Michael Sullivan, born Ivanilton de Souza Lima . . . in Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil, is a renowned Brazilian singer, guitarist, composer, and music producer, celebrated for his prolific songwriting career spanning over five decades. Sullivan’s early career in the mid-1960s involved performing as a guitarist and singer in rock-dance bands such as Os Selvagens and later Renato e Seus Blue Caps [see #1,011, 1,815] before launching his solo career in 1976 . . . . At age 19, around 1969, Sullivan joined Os Selvagens as a singer and guitarist, further immersing himself in Rio’s vibrant music community during the tail end of the 1960s. . . . [T]he group operated in the Jovem Guarda movement, focusing on rock and roll covers with energetic live performances at local venues. . . . Sullivan’s early years were immersed in the local music scenes of Pernambuco, known for traditional rhythms such as frevo and maracatu, which provided a foundational exposure to Brazilian musical heritage amid the challenges of his upbringing . . . . [He] began his professional music career in the mid-1960s, debuting around 1964–1965 at age 14 as a singer in Recife’s nightlife venues. At age 15 in 1965, he participated in talent contests such as Varieté on Rádio Jornal do Commercio, winning first place and earning a professional musician’s card . . . along with a contract with TV Jornal do Commercio. This led to appearances on programs like Você Faz o Show, Noite de Black Tie, and Bossa 2, marking him as a rising talent from Pernambuco. In 1967 . . . [he] moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he adopted the stage name Michael Sullivan, inspired by a name from a telephone directory, reflecting the era’s interest in Anglo-American musical influences. He began performing in live settings focused on dance-oriented rock music popular among youth audiences. . . . Sullivan is recognized as one of the most prolific songwriters in Brazilian music history, with over 1,800 recorded songs to his credit, many emphasizing romantic ballads that delve into the emotional intricacies of love, betrayal, and redemption, alongside social commentary on relationships within patriarchal structures and inspirational anthems promoting hope and unity. . . .

https://grokipedia.com/page/michael_sullivan_singer_songwriter

As to his later career, Grokipedia tells us:

launching his solo career in 1976 with the English-language single “My Life,” which served as the theme for the Globo TV novela O Casarão. His breakthrough came through a 16-year partnership with lyricist Paulo Massadas from 1978 to 1994, during which they co-created hundreds of hits . . . . These compositions, often blending melody composition by Sullivan with Massadas’s lyrics, were recorded by major Brazilian artists . . . contributing significantly to the MPB (Música Popular Brasileira) and pop genres. . . . In the late 1970s and 1980s, Sullivan also performed with groups like The Fevers and released solo albums such as Sou Brasileiro (1978) and Michael Sullivan (1979), initially favoring English-sung repertoire akin to Morris Albert. After a hiatus in the 1990s, during which he relocated to Miami to produce international acts including Ricky Martin and Menudo for Sony Latina, he returned to music in 2003 with the collaborative album Duetos. . . . Over his career, Sullivan has penned more than 1,000 compositions, with around 500 becoming major hits, many serving as themes for TV novelas and children’s programs like Trem da Alegria. . . . His production work has resulted in over 60 million disks sold worldwide, earning 600 gold, 240 platinum, and 60 diamond certifications across Brazil and Latin America.

https://grokipedia.com/page/michael_sullivan_singer_songwriter

Grokipedia’s biography of Sullivan is much more expansive, for those who are interested: https://grokipedia.com/page/michael_sullivan_singer_songwriter.

* Wikipedia says:

Jovem Guarda was primarily a Brazilian musical television show first aired . . . in 1965, although the term soon expanded to designate the entire movement and style surrounding it. The members of the program were singers who had been influenced by the American rock n’ roll of the late 1950s and British Invasion bands of the 1960s, although the music often became softer, more naïve versions with light, romantic lyrics aimed at teenagers.

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jovem_Guarda

* * Wikipedia says:

Tropicália . . . was a Brazilian art movement that arose in the late 1960s. It was characterized by the amalgamation of Brazilian genres—notably the union of the popular and the avant-garde, as well as the melding of Brazilian tradition and foreign traditions and styles. Contemporarily, tropicália became primarily associated with the musical faction of the movement, which merged Brazilian and African rhythms with British and American psychedelia and rock . . . . The movement was begun by a group of musicians from Bahia . . . . Later the group moved to São Paulo . . . . [T]he 1968 album Tropicália ou Panis et Circencis [Latin for “Bread and Circuses”] . . . served as the movement’s manifesto. . . . The tropicália movement came to fruition at a time when Brazil’s military dictatorship and left-wing ideas held distinct but prominent amounts of power simultaneously. The tropicalists’ rejection of both sides’ version of nationalism (the military’s conservative patriotism and the ineffectual bourgeois anti-imperialism) was met with criticism and harassment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropic%C3%A1lia

Here are Os Jovens:

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Appaloosa — “Tulu Rogers”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 10, 2026

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

1,875) Appaloosa — “Tulu Rogers”

This “[u]nbelievably gorgeous” song (whose “strings make my heart ache”) (knitchywa, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9GbOcHxGAE) is off of Appaloosa’s sole album (see #463, 674). It “employs Dylanesque prose to describe the titular character who reads John Locke and listens to Sebastian Bach”. (oldscreamo, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/appaloosa/appaloosa/) RDTEN1 astutely notes that “[w]hile Compton’s lyrics were occasionally on the clunky and fey side, I’m sure college English majors were sent into fits of delirium by the sensitivity and insight reflected in numbers like ‘Tulu Rogers'”. (https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/appaloosa/appaloosa/) Indeed — the song sent me into a fit of delirium with its rhapsodizing about Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach and Lost‘s John Locke! RDTEN1 sums up the LP perfectly — “Admittedly the set’s arty and delicate feel coupled with those touchy-feely lyrics spelled instant obscurity, but what a way to go down in flames.” (https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/appaloosa/appaloosa/) Indeed! Singer, songwriter and guitarist John Parker Compton noted that when he was 16, he wrote the song’s lyrics for poetry homework at boarding school. (https://garagehangover.com/john-compton/)

All Music Guide says the LP “bears the heavy scent of the ’60s coffeehouse scene, with overtones of jazz (there’s some nice saxophone work here) and Renaissance minstrel sounds (a la Steeleye Span) threaded through literate, melancholic singer-songwriter fare.” (https://www.allmusic.com/album/appaloosa-mw0000260326)

As to Appaloosa and “folk-baroque”, Richie Unterberger relates:

Although the term somehow didn’t stick as part of standard rock criticism vocabulary, for a while in the late 1960s, there was a vogue of sorts for music that was described in the press as “folk-baroque[]” . . . . folk-oriented material with classical-influenced orchestration. . . . One of the most talented such acts was Appaloosa, whose self-titled 1969 LP matched . . . Compton’s thoughtful, melodic compositions to sympathetic arrangements . . . . In both its combination of instruments and the absence of a drummer, it was a most unusual instrumental lineup for a rock band, even at a time when boundaries and restrictions were routinely bent. The core quartet were bolstered by top session players (including members of Blood, Sweat & Tears [see #765]) and, above all, producer Al Kooper [see #642, 705, 804, 1,447] , who also added a lot of his own keyboards and guitar to the album.

http://www.richieunterberger.com/appaloosa.html

As to Appaloosa’s history and how the band hooked up with Al Kooper, Joslyn Layne explains that:

Compton co-founded the acoustic band Appaloosa with violinist Robin Batteau in the late ’60s. Both musicians had been heavily influenced by the folk scene in their hometown, Cambridge, MA. . . . [and] began playing the coffeehouse circuit together. [Compton] showed up at producer Al Kooper’s Columbia Records office in late 1968, hoping to show him his songs. Uninterested, Kooper [asked] the kid [then 18] to come back some other time. But a little while later, Kooper came in on Compton and Batteau performing for the office secretaries. Finally won over, [he] recorded their demo,* and within a year the newly signed musicians had released an album . . . . Appaloosa soon gave way to a duo project for Compton & Batteau [see #468]. . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/appaloosa-mn0000496918

* Well, maybe, maybe not. Compton told Richie Unterberger that “[m]eeting Al Kooper was just a fluke. We were playing for some secretaries at Columbia while waiting for an appointment. Al Kooper walked by and instantly asked us if we would like to make a demo tape that night.” (http://www.richieunterberger.com/appaloosa.html)

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The Monitors — “Bring Back the Love”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 9, 2026

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

1,874) The Monitors — “Bring Back the Love”

How was this James Dean/William Weatherspoon/Brian Holland/Jack Goga written “blazing ballad” (RDTEN1, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/the-monitors/greetings-were-the-monitors/) “featuring [future Temptation (see #142) Richard] Street at his best” (Classic Motown, https://classic.motown.com/artist/the-monitors/) not a hit?!

RDTEN1 writes:

Unless you were tone deaf, or simply had no interested in music, even if you didn’t know who The Monitors were, there’s a good chance you’d recognize “Bring Back the Love” as part of the Motown sound. That distinctive production sound was seldom as strong . . . . Moreover, Street seldom sounded as good and the Fagin-Harris backing harmonies were sweet, sweet, sweet.

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/the-monitors/greetings-were-the-monitors/

RDTEN1 turns his exasperation as to the fate of the Monitors up to 10!

I’m routinely amazed to discover just how deep and talented the Motown recording roster was. Anyone listening to 1968’s Greetings! We’re the Monitors [their sole LP] is likely to wonder how these guys were so overlooked. Had they been signed by any other label, it’s hard to imagine them meeting with the same indifference that befell them on Motown.

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/the-monitors/greetings-were-the-monitors/

Well, my exasperation is turned up to 11!

Richie Unterberger is not exasperated:

Even many knowledgeable Motown fans haven’t heard of, or have barely heard of, the Monitors, despite the group’s five-year stint with the company. Like some other Motown acts who didn’t have an extensive release schedule and barely dented the charts, however, they managed to record quite a bit of material for the label. . . . The problem the Monitors faced commercially, in common with some other obscure Motown acts, was that they didn’t sound different enough or get a song or two strong enough to serve as a hit that would have launched their career. . . . The result was music that, while pleasing, was rather generic Motown. . . . The biggest of their two modest R&B hits, “Greetings (This Is Uncle Sam),” was something of a novelty given currency by the escalating Vietnam War. . . . But it wasn’t enough to lift the Monitors above second-tier or third-tier Motown status . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/album/say-you!-the-motown-anthology-1963-1968-mw0002145741

Andrew Hamilton tells us about the Monitors:

A short-lived group, the Monitors had only one release on Motown from November 1965 to August 1968. The group consisted of Richard Street, Warren Harris, and Sandra and John Fagin . . . . the Peps, a group including Joe Harris . . . . The Peps, like the Monitors, were exciting live and very visual, but couldn’t translate that to recording success. After Street formed the Monitors with Harris and the Fagins, the group debuted on VIP Records with “Say You,” a coy, sweet ballad that lacked promotion. . . . The next Monitor singles, “Greetings This Is Uncle Sam” and “Since I Lost You Girl,” appeared within several months but did nothing to advance the Monitors’ career. Motown iced them until April 1968 before releasing “Bring Back the Love.” The label then switched the Monitors to its Soul imprint for the group’s final single, “Step by Step,” released in August 1968. Three months later Greetings! We’re the Monitors, originally scheduled for release on VIP, surfaced on the Soul label.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-monitors-mn0000406062#biography

Oh, and “[w]hen Paul Williams was forced to depart The Temptations due to the failing health . . . Richard Street stepped in for him in 1971 and The Monitors’ fate was sealed.” (Doo Wop Heaven, https://doowopheaven.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-monitors-3.html?m=1)

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I Shall Be Released: The Individuals — “She’s Gone Away”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 8, 2026

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

1,873) The Individuals — “She’s Gone Away”

How the West(chester) was won!– with a “tough Farfisa-led garage rocker” (Munster Records, https://munster-records.com/en/producto/the-sky-is-falling-the-best-of-johnny-farfisa/) with surf rock notes. Band leader Andy Cahan — aka Johnny Farfisa — wrote this instrumental rave.

Munster Records gives us the Farfisa story:

[Andy] Cahan and his teenage bandmates produced a remarkable set of R&B/garage/blue-eyed soul tracks of outstanding quality . . . . Growing up in the town of New Rochelle, New York, young Andy Cahan got his kicks making horror films using an 8mm movie camera and a Wollensak tape recorder. But Cahan was also a gifted piano player with a good musical ear. Like thousands of American kids, his life changed forever on . . . the day The Beatles debuted on The Ed Sullivan Show. “I was totally amazed at these four guys who could sing and play perfectly and had awesome haircuts, matching suits and very cool boots,” he says. His first surf band The Jaguars became The Tokays, named after a brand of sweet white Hungarian wine. The group started to play some of Andy’s original material, inspired by The Beatles and other British invaders . . . . “Reno Franze and Richie Struts were the lead singers, Sandy Reiner was on drums, Larry Kramer on guitar, and I played the grand piano and organ. There was no bass.” Soon after, Andy made an important change. “The Beatles all played guitars, so I had to either learn guitar or, since I already was a piano/organ player, emulate Mike Smith of The Dave Clark Five [see #208, 320, 411-12, 565, 716] with his red Vox organ. That’s when I traded my old Thomas organ for the new Farfisa Combo Compact red organ. . . . I purchased Beatle boots, as did my band buddies, and we changed the name to The Individuals.” . . . The Individuals worked hard and soon began making a name for themselves. “We rehearsed every day until we were so good that we won three separate Battle of the Bands contests in New Rochelle and other cities in Westchester County, New York.” The group also found time to go into the studio in 1965 and 1966 to record demos . . . . The Individuals broke up around 1967 when Larry Kramer elected to go to college rather than pursue music full-time. Andy, Sandy and Reno reconfigured as The Boys in Dutch, adding Jerry Delesio on guitar, and gigged across the New York area throughout 1967. After that band ran its course, Andy decided to start a new project, Euphorian Railway, with Reno on lead vocals, Vinny Derminity on guitar and vocals, Ken Lennington on bass and vocals, and Frank McConville on drums. Euphorian Railway went into the studio in March 1968 and in one five-hour session cut an album’s worth of original material. . . . [but t]he band was short-lived. In the summer of 1968 Cahan relocated to Los Angeles, where he quickly made a name for himself as a keyboard player and arranger, working with such people as Graham Bond, Dr John [see #177, 769], Chuck Berry [see #361, 886, 1,340], Little Richard, Harry Nilsson [see #1,168, 1,298, 1,854] and Flo & Eddie of The Turtles. He was also a founding member of Geronimo Black, along with ex-Mothers [see #793] Jimmy Carl Black, Denny Walley and Bunk and Buzz Gardner, and one-time Love member Tjay Contrelli. As for his Johnny Farfisa alias, that originated with David Gibson of Moxie Records, who in 1980 released a seven-inch EP of The Individuals’ mid-60s recordings titled Johnny Farfisa’s Greatest Hits: “He was the one who gave me the name Johnny Farfisa from the idea of combining Johnny Rotten and my Farfisa organ!”

https://munster-records.com/en/producto/the-sky-is-falling-the-best-of-johnny-farfisa/

Here’s an aborted vocal demo:

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Doris — “Don’t”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 7, 2026

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

1,872) Doris — “Don’t”

Today is Doris’ funky Day, with a “monster shaker” (https://www.blaxploitation.com/blax_recommends_5.html), “a dizzying Swedish psych-funk knockout”! (Fav45s, https://www.instagram.com/p/DIoVtFnOCD6/) Fav45s adds that this “left-field groove[] from a singer who deserves way more shine” “hits with deep, funky bass from Doris’ husband Lukas Lindholm, anchored again by Carlsson’s signature drum work. Soulful, strange & somehow still unsampled (for now). Joni Mitchell meets Zeppelin meets crate gold.” (https://www.instagram.com/p/DIoVtFnOCD6/) The moral of the song? Never, never, never love a married man!

“Thanks for the funky tunes that have graced many a swinging DJ set and radio show the world over. Only one album, but that voice! So raw and commanding.” (Left Side Clouded, https://www.facebook.com/groups/anotherangle/posts/5835561666492959/) As to that LP — Did You Give the World Some Love Today, Baby — it was “[p]roduced by Håkan Sterner & arranged by jazz pianist Berndt Egerbladh, . . . was largely ignored on release but reborn through 90s reissues & heavy sampling.” (Fav45s, https://www.instagram.com/p/DIoVtFnOCD6/)

Blaxploitation writes:

Here’s an oddity that caused quite a stir on its discovery a few years back. A Swedish folk-funk album with a loungey feel, this classic dancefloor groover from the late 60s/early 70s . . . . If you like your funk just a little cheesy with plenty of big band brass and chunky drums, this is for you.

https://www.blaxploitation.com/blax_recommends_5.html

The Band opines that: “The ensemble playing is solid and Doris’ young voice is lovely, but they obviously did not have access to sheet music with correct lyrics — Doris and her backing singer do quite a bit of guessing/improvising here.” (https://theband.hiof.no/albums/did_you_give_the_world_some_love_today_baby.html) That must be about the cover of the Band’s “Whispering Pine” or Jan Bradley’s “Mama Didn’t Lie” or the Chiffons’ “One Fine Day”. Why didn’t Doris just ask Siri?!

Finally, Roger Wallis, from the LP reissue’s liner notes:

This LP marks the highlight in the career of a talented Nordic blond vocalist – Doris Svensson from Gothenburg, Sweden. It seems as though she’s finally managed to find and record a set of songs that suit her 100%. Maybe this isn’t surprising when you consider the musical genius that went into writing and scoring the album. Most of the material was written and arranged by TV producer, jazz-pianist, composer, “rarely-out-of-the-news-man-about-town” Berndt Egerbladh. Lyrical assistance was generously provided by . . . Francis Cowan. . . . . Anyway, quite a combination which gave a fantastic result, with a little help from the producer Håkan Sterner. . . . Doris’ album provides 36 minutes of qualified musical joy guaranteed to satisfy all tastes. Discotheques will find that two numbers in particular, “Don’t” and “Beatmaker” are good box office draws. Jazz die-hards might even start visiting discotheques after digesting “I wish I knew” and “I’m pushing you out”. Note too an incredible ballad called “Daisies” and tell me if Sweden hasn’t produced a dangerous competitor for Melanie. Once again, this LP’s got something for everybody, the best of underground, jazz, rock and folk – not mixed up in one gigantic hotch-potch, but all in gentle harmony. Listen to Doris – a good time will be has by all.

https://theband.hiof.no/albums/did_you_give_the_world_some_love_today_baby.html

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Mario Molino and Edda dell’Orso — “T’amo”/”I Love You”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 6, 2026

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

1,871) Mario Molino and Edda dell’Orso– “T’amo”/”I Love You”

From an “[a]bsolute killer [Italian film] score based on groovy beat and psychedelic cuts” (see #1,469), here is a song that will lull you into a glorious trance. It appears multiple times in the movie, with Edda dell’Orso singing in the featured version and providing “splendid wordless vocals” in the others (see https://www.popsike.com/Mario-Molino-Gli-Angeli-Del-2000-RARE-PSYCH-BEAT-OST-CAM-LIBRARY-LP-/280926957249.html)). The whole score by Mario Molino (see #1,469) is “[m]ad retro futuristic library music… top stuff” (gotofritz, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/mario-molino/gli-angeli-del-2_000/), a “fantastic soundtrack by one of the most underrated Italian musicians . . . top class Italian sounds for psych beat club dancers, cocktail easy goers and experimental groovers featuring the fabulous vocal talents of Edda dell’Orso”. (Soundohm, https://www.soundohm.com/product/gli-angeli-del-2000)

I haven’t watched the ‘69 flick Gli Angeli del 2000/The Angels of 2000. As to the the film, Soundohm tells us that it “is a 1969 flick directed by Honil Ranieri that has all the drug, sex and counter culture ingredients of the era but which had very small distribution when first released – it was probably better distributed its photonovel version rather than the film itself! . . . The music is amazing”. (https://www.soundohm.com/product/gli-angeli-del-2000)

Estudiodelsonidoesnob/soundstudiosnob describes the movie thusly (courtesy of Google Translate):

[A]nother . . . of the countless examples in which the music that illustrates the images for which it was conceived is infinitely superior to what is illustrated. . . . [The] story [is] of Marco, a drug dealer and addict obsessed with the memory of Valeria, his girlfriend, who died in front of him in a tragic accident. Marco maintains a kind of idyll with Angela, a student who lives in an apartment building near his flat and with whom he intends to replace the painful memory of Valeria. Disgusted with his life and his circumstances, he reluctantly participates in a gang war that seems to open his eyes and redeem him. Once he has achieved the feat, waiting for Angela and partly overcoming his traumas, while crossing the street to meet her, he is now the one who is run over, dying in front of her and thus preventing her from starting over.

https://estudiodelsonidoesnob.wordpress.com/category/mario-molino/

As to Mario Molino, Forced Exposure says:

Although much about [Italian composer, musician, and guitarist Mario Molino] remains unknown to this day, [he] was a prominent figure in the world [of] library music, celebrated for his genre-spanning versatility. On one hand, he was a virtuoso classical guitarist, while on the other, he had a strong foundation in jazz and contemporary music. This duality, spanning from classical guitar solos to spaced out psychedelic rock with fuzzed guitars, eccentric funk-infused Hammond organ grooves, proto-hip hop, and orchestral compositions, is reflected in his discography.

https://www.forcedexposure.com/Artists/MOLINO.MARIO.html

As to Edda dell’Orso, the King of Fuh writes;

Since the mid-1960s, Edda Dell’Orso has provided haunting wordless vocals to a large number of film scores by Ennio Morricone [see #1,737] and other prominent, mostly Italian composers of those times; Piero Piccioni, Bruno Nicolai, Roberto Pregadio and Luis Bacalov. But her name is synonymous with Morricone and in particular, the soundtracks of the original spaghetti westerns of Sergio Leone, such as A Fistful of Dollars, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and Once Upon A Time In The West, where her dramatic voice was deployed as an instrument for the first time and to revolutionary effect. The singer’s sensuous and often playful vocals help provide tense atmospheres and dreamy moods to these soundtracks, as well as to the scores for Leone’s A Fistful Of Dynamite, composer Piccioni’s lovely music for the film Scacco Alla Regina, and Spanish composer Anton Garcia Abril’s strange but highly effective score for the offbeat 1967 sci-fi drama 4-3-2-1 Morte!, that with Edda’s assistance somehow successfully helps blend an atonal chamber orchestra with a go-go beat and cartoon jazz. In the 1970s, Edda contributed to two films by Italian shock horror director Dario Argento, including L’uccello Dalle Plume di Cristallo (The Bird With Crystal Plumage), and then in 1976 collaborated with the Italian progressive instrumental group Goblin (often used by Argento as well) for Perche Si Uccidono?“(Why Do They Kill Themselves), a film essay about drugs and self-destruction. She continues to perform and lives today in Italy with her husband, conductor and composer Giacomo Dell’Orso. Their last name translates to “of the bear”.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1397767/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm

Wikipedia (courtesy of Google Translate)) adds:

Originally from Genoa, [Edda Sabatini] moved to Rome with her family; she graduated in 1956 in singing and piano at the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome, and began his career as a chorister in Franco Potenza’s choral group. In 1958 she married Giacomo dell’Orso, whom she had met at the Academy in 1952 and with whom she had a son and a daughter; after two years she joined [Alessandro] Alessandroni’s [see #815] “Cantori Moderni”, where she had the opportunity to participate in the recording of many 45s by artists of RCA Italiana. It was during these recordings, where Ennio Morricone was often present as arranger, that the maestro noticed Dell’Orso’s soprano voice, with a range of three octaves, and decided to entrust her with solo parts in the creation of some soundtracks, among which the most famous of this period were The Good, the Bad and the Ugly in 1966 and Once Upon a Time in the West in 1968, both by Sergio Leone. While continuing to sing in . . . Alessandroni’s vocal group , Edda Dell’Orso began a solo career . . . . 1971 is the year of Duck, You Sucker!, and it is the moment when her singing voice . . . enters the history of film music. . . . In 1972, as a soloist, still within the context of . . . I cantori moderni . . . she recorded the soundtrack of the successful drama A come Andromeda, composed and directed by Mario Migliardi. [see #1,586]

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edda_Dell’Orso

Finn Cohen talks about the resurgence of interest in Italian library music:

“[L]ibrary” music — obscure vinyl records containing songs written directly for radio, television or ad placement, in this case the lush, string-laden, funk- and jazz-informed arrangements of classically trained Italian composers. “There was no interest in this stuff when I started,” [says Lorenzo] Fabrizi[, who has] run the reissue label Sonor Music Editions since 2013. “They had pressed 200, 300, 500, 1,000 copies, but they were not destined for shops or distributors. They were only given to internal circles of music supervisors, journalists and people who worked in television.” Sonor is one of several labels in the last few decades that have resurrected Italian classics from the European library genre . . . . From the 1960s well into the 1980s, there was a lot of money to be made in themes: TV and radio producers needed music to accompany opening credits, action or love scenes, game show sequences or advertising. Well-trained composers had access to large ensembles and budgets, and the Italians in particular swung for the fences. . . . “They had a lot more latitude because they weren’t making this music for a particular audience,” [says producer and composer Adrian Younge]. “So if they needed something dramatic, they could just do the craziest [expletive] and wouldn’t have to deal with somebody saying, ‘It’s not pop enough.’” Because it had no commercial life, the output of many talented composers lay hidden for years. But in the late 1990s, labels like Easy Tempo started reissuing soundtracks and compilations of the Italian works. . . . “Unapologetically Black music came into the forefront for cinema in the late ’50s through the early ’70s; European composers, Italian composers took this sound and synthesized it with their classical teachings,” Younge said. “And that created a palette of music that inspired hip-hop producers generations later that were trying to find the coolest samples. It became a treasure trove for many of us.” For the character-based narratives of hip-hop, a genre built on finding loops from records few had heard, these compositions were practically begging to be mined. . . . Once the word got out about the Italians, a collectors’ arms race was on.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/09/arts/music/italian-library-music-sven-wunder.html

You can watch Gli Angeli del 2000 (in Italian) on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLR-HRKIqfI.

Here is a wordless version:

Here is another version:

Here is yet another version:

Here is a cool version with trumpet:

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Eyes of Blue — “Chances”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — February 5, 2026

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

1,870) Eyes of Blue — “Chances”

What are the chances that this “Welsh underground progressive/psychedelic/blues rock crossover band from the late 60s” (Blake Mitchner, https://vinylantiquity.blogspot.com/2015/08/eyes-of-blue-in-fields-of-ardath-and-me.html) would record “a folkish guitar and harmonica based track” (Kevin Rathert, https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2025/02/eyes-of-blue-the-light-we-see-the-recordings-1969-1971-2024.html#google_vignette) “evok[ing] wide-open spaces” (Jean Jacques Perez (courtesy of Google Translate), https://classicrock80.wordpress.com/2025/04/28/eyes-of-blue-in-fields-of-ardath-1969/), a song as gentle, yearning and inexorable as a hymn? In hindsight, 100%.

As to Ol’ Blue Eyes, Bruce Eder writes:

By rights, the Eyes of Blue should have an exalted place in the pantheon of art rock and progressive rock bands. They were around before almost all of them, and doing film work and making music in a jazz-rock fusion idiom before the latter had been understood, and they were signed to two major labels in succession, Deram and Mercury. Instead, except for drummer John Weathers, who later joined Gentle Giant, the Eyes of Blue are scarcely remembered at all. [It] started out as a jazz and rhythm & blues-oriented outfit . . . . They were initially signed to Decca’s progressive rock imprint Deram Records, and cut a series of excellent but neglected singles, and then moved to Mercury, where they concentrated on albums, enjoying their greatest musical if not commercial success. They were taken seriously enough to collaborate with Quincy Jones on the score of the movie Toy Grabbers, and the group actually managed to appear in the movie Connecting Rooms. Their early strength lay in R&B-based material . . . but even on their first album, the Eyes of Blue showed some Eastern influences. Their second album [In Fields of Ardath, from which “Chances” comes] had some tracks from the first film score . . . but is more experimental, with extended instrumental passages and some classical music influences. In late 1968, the Eyes of Blue backed Buzzy Linhart [see #346, 647] on a self-titled album, and they rated a supporting act spot at the Marquee Club in London in 1969, but their days were numbered given their lack of success as a recording outfit. Phil Ryan later played in Man, and John Weathers joined Pete Brown and Piblokto! on the Harvest label, before jumping to Gentle Giant.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/eyes-of-blue-mn0000724876#biography

Blake Mitchner adores the album:

In Fields of Ardath is so good that Quincy Jones wrote the liner notes after none other than Graham Bond had done so for them on the predecessor Crossroads of Time. Unfortunately, too freaky and strange was this band for mainstream success even back in the 60s so they remained a secret pleasure to club goers then . . . . [D]espite being as innovative and bizarre as King Crimson and sounding a bit like early Genesis [see #767] gone into ultra neoclassical moods Mercury Records f*cked this band’s career up just as was and always will be common practice for record companies. . . . Apparently the lyrics on the album all stem from the occult . . . . [It] had roots in African, jazz, classical, rhythm and blues and whilst all but classical and African are American music forms we didn’t have a band nor really was there another band quite as strange as Eyes Of Blue. . . . There are songs on this album . . . that are so crazily uncommercial and inventive . . . . The more you concentrate on the nearly frantic changes of mood, vocal and instrumental acrobatics, and imagery the more into the dark spirit world you journey. . . . [It] is so good . . . . Every track is a masterpiece.

https://vinylantiquity.blogspot.com/2015/08/eyes-of-blue-in-fields-of-ardath-and-me.html

RDTEN1 is more equivocal:

The title track and several of the songs built around the theme of reincarnation.* . . . Featuring a largely original collection of material with writing contributions from all the band members, their sophomore album wasn’t particularly focused. Progressive influences predominated . . . but the band seemed more interested in broadening their musical horizons. This time around there were a host of influences including country-rock . . . English blues . . . pop . . . and even a scratchy tribute to jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt . . . . The combination of Ray Bennett’s lead guitar and Phil Ryan’s Hammond B-3 and keyboards provided the album with a thick and elaborate texture. As lead vocalist Pickford-Hopkins raspy voice remained an acquired taste, though to be perfectly honest, he was occasionally all but drown out by the elaborate arrangements. While nowhere near as much fun as the debut the collection wasn’t a complete wash out. Perhaps not a big surprise, but to my ears they were at their best when sticking with more mainstream rock oriented material . . . . It was all pleasant, but hardly the forgotten classic some dealers would have you believe.

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/eyes-of-blue/in-fields-of-ardath/

* RDTEN1 elaborates:

To quote the liner notes: “The title of the album stems from the interest of Eyes of Blue in the supernatural and the occult. Ardath is the title of a book by Marie Corelli published in 1897. The theme of the novel is based on the story of reincarnation. According to the book the field of Ardath is located near the ruined city of Babylon. Corelli’s characters find evidence for this presumed location in the Book of Esdras.” Admittedly that description left me puzzled. Here’s some additional information I found on Wikipedia: “The Fields of Ardath are a mystical meadow of ancient Babylon, symbolizing unity and diversity. It represents a place where individuals can find their personal experiences while contributing to a unified entity. . . . It also symbolize a place on Earth where one physically journeys to, representing the reincorporation of lost parts of the soul and the healing of karma. It is a healing measure that involves disturbances to create necessary healing and information for soul growth and reintegration.”

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/eyes-of-blue/in-fields-of-ardath/

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