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

Lori Balmer — “Four Faces West”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — June 12, 2025

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

1,618) Lori Balmer — “Four Faces West”

An 8 (or maybe 12) year old Australian girl sings a song written for her by Barry Gibb. The song is incredible, and so is she. “Normally I am not a fan of kids singing pop songs, but there is something haunting and oddly contemporary”. (marcoschoir, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/lori-balmer/treacle-brown-four-faces-west/) “[B]y and large I can’t stand kids on pop records. . . . But every rule has its exceptions, and [this] is just brilliant. Ethereal, wistful and just a bit creepy but also mesmerising.” (mikec2137, https://www.45cat.com/record/56293) “Such powerful, succinct storytelling: The mom (not the dad!) abandons her family… Every night they stand on a wind-swept cliff waiting for her to come back. Very cinematic.” (vince_caprizzi, https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/with-the-sun-in-my-eyes-brothers-gibb-bee-gees-andy-gibb-song-by-song-thread.1188605/page-228)

Andrew Davies and Jordie Kilby tell us about Lori:

In 1966, aged just seven and using only her first name, she cut her first record, “Banjo Boy”. She danced, played tenor uke, worked the Sydney club circuit, appeared on television and was the face of the Infanteen clothing range. . . . The small and close-knit entertainment industry in Sydney gave her a solid schooling and Ms Balmer benefitted from working with many of the best performers of her day, including appearing on Johnny O’Keefe’s TV show Sing Sing Sing. “I sang ‘My Boy Lollipop’. You had to pre-record it in those days[.] When I went in to record the vocals they couldn’t get the mic down low enough. So they had to stack a whole lot of telephone books . . . . “ The Gibb family were close to the Balmers and Lori collaborated with the Bee Gees on a couple of early singles. The first, “Who’s Been Writing on the Wall” and the B-side “In Your World”, was recorded just before they left for the UK and stardom. “The Gibbs had their going away party at our place and then off they went . . . in 1967. Andy [Gibb] kept writing to me telling me first of all that they were to be signed to Brian Epstein, but of course he passed away that same year and Robert [Stigwood] continued and took on the personal management as well as the business management. And through a series of events they said ‘come over’.” Balmer boarded a ship herself not long after and was soon recording a second single, “Treacle Brown”, and its B-Side, “Four Faces West”,* in London. “Barry [Gibb] had written [‘Four Faces West’] for me at the time. We were working in the studio, just working out doing the vocals. Most of these things were done in a couple of takes. Then Robin [Gibb] came in and said, ‘I’ve just written a song, just try it out.’ So he played it through a couple of times, which was ‘Treacle Brown’, and I learned it on the spot and two takes later that was down.” In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s Balmer toured the UK and Europe singing with a broad range of acts . . . . In 1974 her family moved back to Australia and Balmer began recording for Festival Records. She released a handful of singles under her full name . . . . Balmer [found] herself in demand as a studio and backing singer. . . . [S]he sang on stage and recorded with names like . . . Jeff St John [see #470, 1,231], INXS, Midnight Oil, [and] The Church . . . . During the 1980s, Balmer split her time between Australia the US, UK and Japan, where she worked under another name as a model, vocalist and dancer. In Australia she was too often remembered as a child star and international work allowed her to start afresh. . . . Balmer became involved in the new romantic, post punk and rock scenes and supported an incredibly diverse range of performers like The Rolling Stones, Johnny Rotten, U2, Lionel Richie, Joe Cocker, Ian Dury, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Van Halen and Tina Turner.

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/radionational/archived/rarecollections/lori-balmer-a-lifetime-in-music/6008242

* Terriannross says that Lori was her sister, and was 12 at the time. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6_amz92gdI)

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The Alan Price Set — “She’s Got Another Pair of Shoes”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — June 11, 2025

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

1,617) The Alan Price Set — “She’s Got Another Pair of Shoes”

While the majority of the songs on the Alan Price Set’s second LP were written by the then unknown Randy Newman (see #174), the album contained priceless Price originals, including “The House that Jack Built” (see #183) (a #4 UK hit) and today’s song, a Georgie Fame (see #103, 169, 634, 695, 721, 1,044)-style R&B delight. No wonder the two would later get together.

Richie Unterberger tells us about Alan Price and the LP — A Price on His Head:

Alan Price’s second album consolidated the change of direction he’d started in early 1967, when his cover of Randy Newman’s “Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear” became a big British hit. Moving away from the jazzy Animals styled R&B-rock that he’d presented on his first album and singles, Price moved into a more original, if less powerful, brand of Newman-influenced vaudevillian pop. The Randy Newman influence isn’t a matter of conjecture; about half of the songs were covers of songs by Newman(who had yet to release his first album at the time . . .), often of tunes that remain obscure even to serious Newman fans. The effect is something like hearing an even jauntier, more lighthearted Georgie Fame, as even Price’s own compositions bore a strong Newman influence in their emphasis on poppy craft and wit. . . .

As the organist in the first Animals lineup, Alan Price was perhaps the most important instrumental contributor to their early run of hits. He left the group in 1965 after only a year or so of international success . . . to work on a solo career. Leading the Alan Price Set, he had a Top Ten British hit in 1966 with a reworking of “I Put a Spell on You,” complete with Animal-ish organ breaks and bluesy vocals. His subsequent run of British hits between 1966 and 1968 — “Hi-Lili-Hi-Lo,” “Simon Smith and His Dancing Bear,” “The House That Jack Built,” and “Don’t Stop the Carnival” — were in a much lighter vein, drawing from British music hall influences. “Simon Smith and His Dancing Bear,” from 1967, was one of the first Randy Newman songs to gain international exposure, though Price’s version — like all his British hits — went virtually unnoticed in the U.S. A versatile entertainer, Price collaborated with Georgie Fame, hosted TV shows, and scored plays in the years following the breakup of the Alan Price Set in 1968. He composed the score to Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man!, where his spare and droll songs served almost as a Greek chorus to the surreal, whimsical film . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/album/a-price-on-his-head-mw0000057904, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/alan-price-mn0000931804#biography

Tony Scherman gives us a rare glimpse of Price:

Price quit [the Animals] ostensibly because of a fear of flying, but the rift between Price and the others was more complex than that. Apart from his interest in jazz and English music-hall fare (he shared his love of the latter with the Kinks’ Ray Davies), Price was, in one writer’s words, “a complex, moody character, prone to prolonged bouts of bleak introversion, who’d always been estranged from his colleagues.” A wide reader, Price had interests he couldn’t share with the others. During downtime, “he could often be found in the tour van reading Kafka, while the rest of the boys were out chatting up the birds.” Or, as Price put it in a 1992 interview, “I’d had terrible difficulties with the Animals. As soon as we’d cracked it, all they wanted was girls, sex, drugs and rock‘n’roll. I couldn’t get them to rehearse and I kept bugging them, which they didn’t like at all.” Although the band, including Price, periodically regrouped for brief nostalgic stints, Price was far happier on his own or in collaborations with his fellow jazz lover Georgie Fame.

https://tonyscherman.substack.com/p/alan-price-geordies-progress

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Turquoise — “Sister Saxophone”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — June 10, 2025

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

1,616) Turquoise — “Sister Saxophone”

Turquoise’s (see #37, 1,480) unique music hall-inspired romp reminds Steve Elliott of a “Monkees/Beatles pop-baroque mash-up.” (https://somethingelsereviews.com/2012/10/20/forgotten-series-an-apple-a-day-more-pop-psych-sounds-from-the-apple-era-2006/) I could see the Monkees having fun with this one!

Stephen Thomas Erlewine tells us about Turquoise:

A quick listen to Turquoise with no knowledge of their background will surely bring two names immediately to mind: the Kinks and the Who. So, it should be no surprise that Turquoise were not only influenced by their British peers but were close associates, friends of Ray and Dave Davies, produced by Dave for their first demos — when the band was still known as “the Brood” — and produced by Keith Moon and John Entwistle for their second round of pre-professional recordings. Turquoise released two singles for Decca in 1968 before disbanding and those two singles, like much British pop-psych, earned them a cult of some size . . . . More than any other band from the late ’60s, Turquoise modeled themselves after mid-period Kinks, circa Something Else and Village Green Preservation Society to the extent that singer/songwriter Jeff Peters (who wrote almost all of the band’s recorded work, usually in collaboration with Ewan Stephens) even penned his own tune called “Village Green.” Like the Kinks, Turquoise were distinctly, defiantly British in subject matter and approach . . . often sounding fey and campy yet managing to stay away from being overtly twee, and even if their melodies could sigh and swirl in psychedelic colors, they never were that trippy: they were grounded by acoustic guitars that jangled like Ray Davies’ on Something Else and they had ragged harmonies and a pop sense reminiscent of the brothers Davies.

https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-further-adventures-of-flossie-fillett-the-complete-recordings-mw0000572891

Steve Leggett adds:

Turquoise was a British pop-psych group who only officially released two singles in their short existence as a band, but the four songs on those two releases became beloved by collectors of the genre . . . . The group, who initially called themselves the Brood, was formed in North London’s Muswell Hill area in 1966 by Jeff Peters, Ewan Stephens, and Vic Jansen (a fourth member, Barry Hart, was added later), who were all friends and neighbors of the Kinks’ Ray and Dave Davies. Dave Davies produced a batch of demos for the Brood in 1966, and a second batch was produced by the Who’s Keith Moon and John Entwistle a year later in 1967. Eventually the Brood was signed to Decca Records, and after a name change to Turquoise, released two wonderful double-sided singles, “’53 Summer Street”/”Tales of Flossie Fillett” and “Woodstock”/”Saynia, [see #37]” but neither release really took off, and the band called it quits in 1969. Peters and Hart went on to form Slowbone, releasing an album, Tales of a Crooked Man, in 1974.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/turquoise-mn0001822755#biography

What about that Moon/Entwistle thing? Jeff “Gus” Peters told Stefan Granados that:

[“]John Mason [car dealer to the stars] wanted to get into the music business so he said he’d manage us.” Mason’s first coup as manager of the Brood [the band’s first name] was to cajole John Entwistle and Keith Moon . . . into producing a demo of the group. Peters’ recollection is that “Polydor had apparently given each member of The Who studio time to go our and find bands to record. From what I understand, Keith Moon came down to Joyhn Mason’s showroom and John did him a deal like ‘do something for my band and I’ll get you a good price on the Bentley,’ which is basically what happened!”

Stefan Granados, liner notes to the CD comp Turquoise: The Further Adventures of Flossie Fillett: The Collected Recordings 1966-1969

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The WordD — “You’re Gonna Make Me”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — June 9, 2025

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

1,615) The WordD — “You’re Gonna Make Me”

This garage rock gem from Dallas is so good, they’re gonna make me listen to it over and over and over. Word. I’m not sure whether it was the band’s only A-side or only B-side. But when two of the band members joined the Penthouse 5, it was rerecorded and definitely issued as an A-side and called the Penthouse 5’s “masterpiece”, “captur[ing] all the best elements of the era, from folk-rock to Yardbirds’-inspired fuzz freak out”. (liner notes to the CD comp Garage Beat ’66: Vol. 7: That’s How It Will Be) The WordD’s original version is even better — rawer and shorter! Bruce Eder opines that “[a]lthough the Penthouse 5 is the best of them, each of the [predecessor] bands [including the WordD] was amazingly accomplished in both singing and playing Beatlesque songs with an edge (think of the Monkees as a real garage band), and their songwriting . . . was formidable when it wasn’t too pretentious.” (https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-wordd-is-love%21-mw0000031150)

Billlooney6992 (the same Bill Looney who was the WordD’s bassist?) tells us that:

When this record was aired on [American Bandstand] ’68 [actually, ’66], The WordD had already broken up. And two members, John Williams (vocals) and Richard “Lurch” Keathley (guitar) had joined the Penthouse 5, comprised also of Steve Wood . . . Bill Looney (bass) and Mike Echart (drums). A psychedelic version of this song was (re)recorded by the Penthouse 5 circa ’69 [actually, ’67]. BTW: This [American Bandstand] “Rate a record” received an 87 rating mark… a record that stood for years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UomIt5m0Cqo

As to the Penthouse 5, Bruce Eder writes:

The Penthouse 5 were one of dozens of unsung bands floating around Texas in the mid-’60s. Based on the recorded evidence, however, they were also one of the great ones . . . translat[ing] the Beatles (and, to some extent, the Byrds) influence into garage rock terms about as well as any of them. The mix of Beatles-like harmonies, crunchy guitars, and pumping, grinding Farfisa organ is compelling and always surprising in its details and nuances. Justin Brown (lead guitar), Rob Graham (vocals), Mark Porter (drums), Steve Wood (guitar, vocals, keyboards), and Bill Looney (bass) came out of Oak Cliff, [Texas]. They were part of an orbit of Beatles- and folk-rock-influenced musicians in the area that included . . . Jon Williams, who had been . . . with the WordD. By 1967, internal conflicts had driven Brown, Graham, and Porter out of the Penthouse 5’s lineup, and they were succeeded by Jon Williams (vocals, keyboards, harmonica), Richard “Lurch” Keathley (lead guitar, vocals) — who had both come from the Dallas-based the WordD — and Mike Echart (drums). The new band, renamed the Penthouse, made another half-dozen records with producer Edward Greines; the Beatles influence was still discernable on songs like “You’re Gonna Make Me,” but the reconstituted Penthouse was more self-consciously heavy and serious, and cut singles for the Solar and Hawk labels. By the end of 1967, however, the band had split up . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-penthouse-5-mn0000483978#biography

60’s Garage Bands asked Bill Looney how familiar he was with the WordD before Jon Williams and Richard Keathley joined the Penthouse 5. Looney said: “We had heard some of their acetates and were impressed with the creativity and musicianship, and we were having internal problems with a few members, so when producer Tom (Darryl) Brown introduced them to us, we knew we had our next group incarnation.” (https://web.archive.org/web/20151119124155/http://www.60sgaragebands.com/interviews/penthouse5.html)

Here are the Penthouse 5:

Here is American Bandstand:

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The Boss Five — “You Cheat Too Much”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — June 8, 2025

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

1,614) The Boss Five — “You Cheat Too Much”

‘65 garage gold is the B-side of the band’s only single. I believe the message is that she cheats too much.

I could find out absolutely nothing, say it again, about the band until I came across this YouTube comment by foozie8865:

My name is Marvin Anchin, and this was my band, called “the Saints” but they thought the name was too religious and changed it to the “boss five”, even though we really did not like that name. We recorded under Boss Five with impact records and Dickie Goodman who produced both sides. The band consisted of Marvin Anchin, rhythm, guitar and lead; Mike Roth, vocals and lead guitar; Rickey Dolorio, keyboards, and vocals, Rickey Berkowitz, drums. We were a great band . . . .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDfdl1zEUCM

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Orange Colored Sky — “L.A. (Los Angeles)”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — June 7, 2025

“L.A. (Los Angeles)” starts at 21:46

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

1,613) Orange Colored Sky — “L.A. (Los Angeles)”

They love L.A. No, they really love L.A. This sunshine pop supernova is a “[p]ersonal favorite”: “[T]he glistening homage to their adopted hometown . . . [is] a breezy, slightly lysergic sunshine pop love letter . . . . A great slice of sunshine pop, it’s the track I would have tapped as the single.” (Bad Cat Records, http://badcatrecords.com/ORANGEcoloredSKY.htm)

Of the rest of the LP, Bad Cat Records opines:

[Their album] bore more than a passing resemblance to harmony groups such as The Association [see #1,264] and Gordian Knot [see #517] . . . . full of sparkling harmony rich and heavily orchestrated, radio-friendly pop. It was certainly commercial in an AM radio fashion, but was also horribly middle-of-the-road. . . . Depending on how you felt about the genre, it was either mildly entertaining, or thoroughly nauseating.

http://badcatrecords.com/ORANGEcoloredSKY.htm

Of the band’s early history, Bad Cat Records tells us:

Formed in 1962, The Fabulous Epics featured the talents of singer Vinny Frazzini, Vince Hopkins, guitarist Neil Myers, bassist Larry Parker, keyboard player Walt Slivinski, and singer Paul Yoculan. The band started to attract attention on the small Erie club scene and in 1963 relocated to New York City where they scored a contract as house band at New York’s famed Peppermint Lounge. Their three year stint as club house band led to a recording contract with Warner Brothers, though none of their work seems to have been released.

http://badcatrecords.com/ORANGEcoloredSKY.htm

Erie[ Pennsylvania]’s History and Memorabilia takes it from there:

When one of the most successful bands from Erie, during the 1960s, broke up, three of the former members of the Fabulous Epics: Walt Slivinski, with Neil Myers and Larry Parker, went on to create their own band. [Fellow Epics] Paul Yoculan, Vinnie Frazini and Vince Hopkins . . . regrouped and formed the Younger Brothers Band, at the suggestion of Warner Brothers, who had signed the Epics to a recording contract while they were playing at the Peppermint Lounge in the early 60s. . . . Slivinski . . . Myers and . . . Parker, around 1967, moved to San Francisco looking for an opportunity to capitalize on the success of the former Epics, and to attract a broader audience. . . . [T]hey formed the band, Larry Younger and The Epics, hoping that the success the Fabulous Epics enjoyed at the Peppermint Lounge would follow. They worked out of a club in the San Francisco’s Mission District called “The Rock Garden” as an opening act for bands like Country Joe And The Fish, and Buffalo Springfield. . . . [T]hey soon would discover that San Francisco wasn’t their niche. Larry Parker, disappointed in their lack of progress, left the band. . . . [I]n 1968, when the band opted to relocate to Southern California, hitting the Los Angeles club circuit, they quickly attracted the attention of Universal Studios. It was at Universal’s insistence that they adopted the name, Orange Colored Sky. Universal signed them to a recording contract, along with a brief cameo in the Don Knotts film, The Love God. They also appeared in TV commercials with Petula Clark, as well as The Steve Allen Show. Teaming the band with producer Norman Ratner, fronted by singer Tony Barry and keyboardist Walter Slivinski, who is credited with penning all 11 tracks, the band produced their first and only album[ w]ith three lead singers in Tony Barry, Jack Skinner and Harold Little . . . . In the early 1970s producer Don Costa brought Orange Colored Sky to MGM records, under the direction of future California Lieutenant Governor Mike Curb. At MGM, Sky recorded “Simon Zealotes” from the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar . . . released to U.S. radio stations three months prior to the appearance of the Superstar national cast album. Bassist/vocalist Larry Parker joined Orange Colored Sky in 1974. Undergoing a string of personnel changes throughout the years the band found a home on the Las Vegas and Tahoe casino circuit, opening in the for such acts as Burt Bacharach and Frank Sinatra. By the 1980s many showrooms had been replaced by discotheques and Sky slowly disbanded.

https://eriehistory.blogspot.com/2016/02/orange-colored-sky.html

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Become Aware! Special Edition: Roger Earl Okin/Helen Shapiro — “Stop and You Will Become Aware”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — June 6, 2025

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

1,611) Roger Earl Okin — “Stop and You Will Become Aware”

After playing a selection from Fading Yellow Volume 1, here is one from the latest in the superlative series — Volume 21 — which came out late last year. Roger Earl Okin gives us “his own superb orchestrated pop version” of “the northern soul dancer” (liner notes to the CD comp Fading Yellow Volume 21: Dreamy Day: Another Selection of Magical Pop-Sike Gems from Around the World) that he wrote and Helen Shapiro released two years earlier. His later version is a “shining radiant dance pop gem with very catchy woodwind riffs”. happening45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdAl-QXnUuE

Susan Benn tells us of Okin:

[Roger Earl Okin is] an eccentric English performer . . . who has an incredible history of working with the greats. He performed on stage with Paul McCartney’s band Wings and Van Morrison, wrote songs for Cilla Black and Bing Crosby and was producer and arranger of the Ella Fitzgerald’s Songbook series. Okin is also one of the finest performers outside of Brazil of the bossa nova beat, a style of samba developed in the late 50s and early 60s in Rio de Janeiro. . . . During his performances with guitar and keyboard, Okin is renowned for extraordinary “vocal trumpet” solos. In creating the sound of a trumpet by simply by moving his lips, you would swear he was playing an actual instrument when you shut your eyes to listen to these uncanny sounds he makes. Deaf in one ear due to meningitis as a child, Okin was a school master in 1979 when McCartney discovered his talents. Ever since he has kept his 50s car, still wears 50s and 60s attire, always with pristine white spats. . . . Earl Okin is truly one of a kind…an eccentric genius!

RYE News a national treasure

Wikipedia adds:

[Okin] is an English singer-songwriter, musician and comedian. . . . He holds a degree in philosophy from the University of Kent at Canterbury (1968) and worked as a schoolmaster for 11 years before being invited on a 1979 tour with Paul McCartney & Wings. . . . Some of his songs were covered during the 1960s by Cilla Black, Georgie Fame and Helen Shapiro . . . . During the 1970s, Okin started to perform as a support act in large venues. . . . However, it was the tour with Wings which prompted him to pursue his musical career full-time. . . . [H]is second career [was] on the “alternative comedy” circuit . . . . However, his act continues to be primarily musical. . . . In 1983, he began to perform at the Edinburgh Fringe where he performed over 500 shows. . . . Okin continues to work as a songwriter and jazz singer/musician, with a particular interest in Bossa Nova. He gives concerts in Brazil from time to time, as well as touring his one-man show, a mixture of music and comedy, worldwide.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Okin

1,612) Helen Shapiro — “Stop and You Will Become Aware”

Helen Shapiro’s “barnstorming” (Joe Marchese, https://theseconddisc.com/2020/11/04/ace-round-up-part-one-helen-shapiros-face-the-music-collects-rare-1967-1984-singles/) “psych-soul classic” version (Rob Chapman, https://www.rob-chapman.com/cake-out-in-the-rain) “with a big Swingin’ London arrangement by Zack Laurence” (Marc Myers, https://www.jazzwax.com/2024/12/rob-ronnie-and-helen.html) became a “Monster Northern Soul record back in the late 70’s”. (ivanward5615, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIqeG1tTUgk)

I do agree with londonbear8506: “i prefer the original by Earl Okin, its more mid tempo and blissful” and will2741: “agree, this is good but Earl wins it for me, fantastic sixties pop single”. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtRuFs4Wtmw)

Bruce Eder writes of Shapiro:

Helen Shapiro is remembered today . . . as the slightly awkward actress/singer in Richard Lester’s 1962 debut feature film, It’s Trad, Dad. From 1961 until 1963, however, Shapiro was England’s teenage pop music queen, at one point selling 40,000 copies daily of her biggest single, “Walking Back to Happiness[]” . . . . A deceptively young 14 when she was discovered, Shapiro had a rich, expressive voice properly sounding like the property of someone twice as old . . . . She grew up in London’s East End and was performing with a ukulele at age nine as part of a school group . . . . She subsequently sang with her brother[‘s] . . . trad jazz turned skiffle outfit at local clubs before enrolling in classes at Maurice Burman’s music school in London. Burman was so taken with Helen Shapiro’s voice that he waived the tuition to keep her as a student. He later brought her to the attention of Norrie Paramor, then one of EMI’s top pop producers . . . . She cut her first single, “Please Don’t Treat Me Like a Child,” a few weeks later and broke onto the British charts in 1961. . . . Shapiro’s voice showed the maturity and sensibilities of someone far beyond their teen years; her depth of emotion, coupled with the richness of her singing, made her an extraordinary new phenomenon on the British pop scene. . . . [H]er second single, a slow ballad called “You Don’t Know,” . . . managed to appeal to listeners across several age groups and hit number one in England. This was followed by the greatest recording of her career, “Walking Back to Happiness[]” . . . . Her next record, “Tell Me What He Said” . . . was held out of the top spot by the Shadows’ “Wonderful Land.” In April of 1962, Shapiro made her movie debut in . . . It’s Trad, Dad, but her single of “Let’s Talk About Love” (featured in the movie) never broke the Top 20. . . . [H]er last Top Ten record [was] “Little Miss Lonely.” She made the charts once more with “Keep Away From Other Girls,” the first song by Burt Bacharach to make the British Top 40. . . . Shapiro was . . . a female pop/rock crooner . . . with a style all her own, and should have been able to cut a path for herself well into the ’60s in the music marketplace. . . . [but she] faded from the charts . . . . She still headlined tours in the United Kingdom and in early 1963, she made the acquaintance of . . . the Beatles. She headlined the Beatles’ first national tour of England and Shapiro and the group enjoyed each other’s company. . . . [T]hey . . . wrote “Misery” for her[, but a]stonishingly, EMI . . . declined to give Shapiro the chance to record [it], costing her the chance to become the first artist to cover a Lennon-McCartney song . . . . [L]later in 1963 . . . . she cut the very first recording of “It’s My Party.” And again, EMI failed to get behind the single, sitting on its release until a virtual unknown named Lesley Gore got her rendition out first on Mercury and topped the U.S. charts. Shapiro’s career at EMI ended in 1963 and her periodic attempts to resume recording . . . over the next decade failed to generate any chart action. Shapiro has busied herself over the years very successfully as an actress . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/helen-shapiro-mn0000571112#biography

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Mike Batt — “Fading Yellow”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — June 5, 2025

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

1,610) Mike Batt — “Fading Yellow”

From Volume 1 of Jörgen Johansson’s “legendary pop-sike compilation series” (The Strange Brew, https://thestrangebrew.co.uk/fading-yellow/), here is, appropriately enough, “Fading Yellow” by Mike Batt. The song is “a beautiful, melancholy ballad, with atmospheric instrumentation” (Martin Crookall, https://mbc1955.wordpress.com/2025/02/24/the-infinite-jukebox-mike-batts-fading-yellow/) including a “plangent guitar line” (Bob Stanley, liner notes to the CD comp Tea & Symphony: The English Baroque Sound 1968-1974), a “mournful, sweeping ballad . . . the perfect summation of what’s on offer [on Fading Yellow Volume 1] and . . . certainly worthy of having an entire compilation named after it. . . . sumptuous”. (Jon “Mojo” Mills, https://rockasteria.blogspot.com/2012/06/various-artists-fading-yellow-vol1.html) The song “Fading Yellow” and the comp series Fading Yellow “named [their] own genre of ’60s styled sunshine psych pop”. (Marios, https://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2024/01/various-artists-fading-yellow-vol17.html)

As to the song, Martin Crookall writes:

[“Fading Yellow”] has become representative of the whole pop-sike era, in its gentle wistfulness, it’s measured melody, it’s sense of a slight otherness not entirely grounded in everyday life. . . . [It] concerns a girl who is lost, isolated in a world that spins round her whilst she stands there, deprived of connections, everything she could have been going to waste because she has no means of expressing it. It’s sad, it’s sympathetic. She’s dressed all in yellow, a colour that is both ironically bright and eye-catching, and which calls to mind the lack of courage she embodies in not taking part. It’s a song that starts on the edge of falling into darkness, and ends in the night, with her still wearing yellow, but now it’s fading. In contrast to the nihilism of the situation, the music is almost ethereal, yearning but lamenting the inevitable all at once.

https://mbc1955.wordpress.com/2025/02/24/the-infinite-jukebox-mike-batts-fading-yellow/

As to the Fading Yellow series, Crookall notes:

[The] series of compilation CDs . . . containing numerous hidden gems and obscurities . . . suggest[s] a better musical world was there for the asking if people had but heard of it at the time. The compilations cover British and American music, and continental singers and bands who chose to adhere to the more poppy aspects of psychedelia rather than its hallucinogenic exploration.

https://mbc1955.wordpress.com/2025/02/24/the-infinite-jukebox-mike-batts-fading-yellow/

Despite some serious competition, Fading Yellow remains my favorite comp series of all time.

Jon “Mojo” Mills tells us about FY Volume 1:

Running the gamut from jolly mid-60s beat-pop through to heavily orchestrated affairs from ’69, Fading Yellow’s overall concept of “pop-sike” and more so “other delights” is fully realised. . . . [T]he psych/pop compilation is clearly becoming far poppier with the passing of time, and such a fine example as Fading Yellow sits perfectly on the cusp of the Rubble series most commercial selections . . . . It’s practically a gem after gem ride too. . . . It really is a solid set, and possibly the greatest pop-psych comp to come out in years. Rather than focus on fifth-division acetate pressings of “four Lancashire lads trying to be Syd Barret” everything included here is well performed pop saturated in that certain late ’60s over-the-top production that so regularly gets classified as psychedelia. And there are plenty of obscure choice cuts to satisfy even the most hardened psych-head. . . . If only more compilations were as good as this.

https://rockasteria.blogspot.com/2012/06/various-artists-fading-yellow-vol1.html

As to Mike Batt, Mike Collar writes:

British singer/songwriter, producer, and composer Mike Batt is a journeyman artist with a long track record of successful productions that cross from film and television to musical theater and pop music. . . . Batt was signed to Liberty/United Artists Records at age 18 and left after two years to form his own publishing company. Beginning in 1974, Batt began writing and recording music for the children’s television show and bubblegum pop group the Wombles, and ultimately scored eight hit singles with the group. He then went on to write successfully for a bevy of artists, including . . . Art Garfunkel, with whom he won his second Ivor Novello Award for 1979’s “Bright Eyes” from the animated film Watership Down. Batt continued as a solo artist in the ’70s . . . . However, it was as a writer that he found his niche, and in 1983 he scored several Top Ten hits for Cliff Richard, David Essex, and Alvin Stardust. A year later, Batt made his debut as a conductor . . . with the London Symphony Orchestra. . . . [and] embarked on the first of his musical theater-inspired endeavors with the album Snark . . . . [a]n all-star cast recording based on the nonsensical poetry of Lewis Carroll . . . . [and] he would return . . . with a live stage version in 1991. During the ’90s, Batt continued his work in both the classical and pop worlds . . . . Batt continued to hone his niche as a man behind the scenes, developing and guiding the careers of several acts including the classical-crossover groups Bond and the Planets . . . . Batt also helped guide and launch the career of vocalist, Katie Melua . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mike-batt-mn0000642263#biography

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I Shall Be Released: The Attack — “Magic in the Air”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — June 4, 2025

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

1,609) The Attack — “Magic in the Air”

One of Swinging London’s greatest psych/freakbeat A-sides . . . was never released by Decca “on the grounds of it being too heavy”! (Jon “JoJo” Mills, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-attack-mn0000759243) Well, it was definitely way too “[t]remendously insane…cool!” (robertcubinelli4961, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jadYKsmDXfg&list=PLwEkbVL-vNmmJqq0CCizfM1lq-yS0SBOh&index=1)“Wow its a Ramones song in 1967!” (ScaryStoriesNYC, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jadYKsmDXfg&list=PLwEkbVL-vNmmJqq0CCizfM1lq-yS0SBOh&index=1)

Vernon Joynson says the Attack (see #926) “played a form of guitar-driven mod-rock [and] were one of the finest examples of what is now termed freakbeat.” (The Tapestry of Delights Revisited) Jon “JoJo” Mills says their “unique brand of guitar-heavy, mod-rock qualifies them as one of the finest examples of . . . freakbeat”. (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-attack-mn0000759243)

Mike Stax writes in Ugly Things Magazine that:

[S]omewhere between the Creation and the Small Faces, the Attack languished in comparative obscurity back in their day, only to be recognized decades later as one of the most exciting bands of the era. That none of the band’s four singles for Decca cracked the charts was more down to bad luck and record company incompetence than any shortcomings on the band’s part. Their first effort, in January 1967, was a sharp version of the Ohio Express/Standells nugget “Try It[]” . . . . [that] failed to click with the record buying public[. T]he band felt they were onto a sure thing with their next release, “Hi Ho Silver Lining,” but they were beaten to the bunch by Jeff Beck who romped into the charts . . . after the Attack’s record was delayed at the pressing plant. . . . Totally disillusioned by the failure of “Hi Ho Silver Lining,” this lineup folded shortly afterwards, with [lead guitarist ] O’List going on to the Nice. However, [singer Richard] Shirman rallied the group with new members and a third single appeared a few months later, again pairing a commercial A-side by an outside writer with a harder-edged band-created flip. “Created By Clive” was a clever piece of social satire aimed at Swinging London’s fashion world, but any hope of a hit was doomed by the simultaneous release of a competing version by the Syn—ironically on Deram, a subsidiary of the very same record company. . . . The Attack’s fourth single, “Neville Thumbcatch,” was also their strangest, the sad tale of a solitary man dedicated to the simple joys of gardening . . . . According to some reports, the wonderful “Magic in the Air,” written by new guitarist John Cann, (aka John DuCann), was originally pegged to be the single’s A-side . . . . By the beginning of 1968 . . . . DuCann [was] their songwriter-in-chief. . . . [and the band recorded] half a dozen largely excellent tracks, said to be for a planned album tentatively titled Roman God of War. . . . The band would break up later that year with some members regrouping as Andromeda (DuCann would later form Atomic Rooster).

https://ugly-things.com/the-attack-an-interview-with-richard-shirman/

Jon “JoJo” Mills adds:

F]ounders Richard Shirman . . . and Gerry Henderson were originally in . . . the Soul System . . . . [I]n early 1966, the remnants of the crumbling group [bolstered their ranks and] soon came to the attention of entrepreneur (gangster?) Don Arden, who then signed them to Decca and changed their name to the Attack. Their debut single released in January 1967 was an extremely anglicized cover of “Try It[]”. . . . Shortly after the single was released, Davy O’List was handpicked by Andrew Loog Oldham to join the Nice . . . . Shirman . . . had been keeping a watchful eye on a young guitarist he had seen jamming with Jimmy Page. Shortly thereafter John DuCann . . . was introduced into the group. . . . A final single, released in early 1968, was “Neville Thumbcatch,” a fruity mod-pop tune with spoken narration . . . . Decca’s deal with the Attack expired after that single, with a projected fifth 45 . . . remaining unreleased. . . . Decca . . . parted with the group over the continued heavy nature of their newer material . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-attack-mn0000759243

And, finally, John Du Cann recalls that “[t]he Attack was very much a ‘Carnaby Street’ band. We were always in and out of the so-called ‘fabbest’ shops and boutiques, dressed in the wildest clobber we could lay our hands on (or afford).” (liner notes to the CD comp The Five Day Week Straw People)

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Somebody’s Always Trying Special Edition: Ted Taylor — “Somebody’s Always Trying”, King Size Taylor — “Somebody’s Always Trying”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — June 3, 2025

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

Oklahoma’s Ted Taylor gave us a stunning ’64 R&B A-side romp, and then the UK’s Ted “King Size” Taylor gave us an equally stunning cover the same year. They were not related — this was just meant to be!

1,607) Ted Taylor — “Somebody’s Always Trying”

“Where has this little belter been all my life?” (thedivinemrm5852, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z9A4DbWlA0) It is “a magnificent uptempo dance floor filler with a pounding rhythm, powerful drums, rocking horns and a great frantic, exasperated vocal from Taylor as he anxiously frets about all the men trying to get off with his fine woman. Thrills to the max.” (Bayard, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/ted-taylor/somebodys-always-trying-top-of-the-world/)

Of TT, Folk Arts Rare Records writes that:

[T]he greatest Soul singer you’ve never heard of[,] Ted Taylor was chronically unappreciated throughout his career. He had a fairly large hit with the amazing track “Be Ever Wonderful” and found success amongst Southern Black audiences. Ted Taylor grew up in Oklahoma, where he mostly listened to Country & Gospel music. The amazing R.H. Harris, the original lead vocalist of the Soul Stirrers, was a particularly strong influence. And the Country influence somehow makes sense. Taylor’s vocal delivery is always tense, with frequent vibrato and extreme ups & downs. Emotions always running wild. This combined with his extreme, one of a kind falsetto, makes for a damn fine recipe of Southern Soul. Taylor’s career traversed many different eras: childhood Gospel, teenage Doo-Wop, the golden age of Soul, 70’s Funk, Disco and the 1980’s Blues revival circuit. Ted did it all. He moved to L.A. in his teens and joined the Santa Monica Soul Seekers. This band soon became the well known Doo-Wop group The Cadets (a.k.a. The Jacks), who put out some killer sides on the Modern & RPM labels. Ted was with them from 1955-1957, where they had pretty big hits with “Why Don’t You Write Me” & “Stranded In The Jungle”. By 1958 Taylor decided to embark on his solo career. Makes a whole lot of sense considering his remarkable talent. It’s a shame that Ted Taylor is so unknown. But he was definitely a staple on the jukebox in the Jukes & Lounges of the South. . . . The guy could rock the house like none other, and he also had a voice that could make you cry. If you’re ever looking for some sensational slow dance music, this is it. Deep Soul mixed with this falsetto, yes please.

https://www.folkartsrarerecords.com/record-of-the-day/ted-taylor-somebodys-always-trying/#more-225

Bill Dahl adds:

Soul-blues singer Ted Taylor unleashed his stratospheric, falsetto-driven voice on a wide variety of material during the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s, his gospel heritage never far from the surface. Taylor first entered the studio as a member of the Cadets and Jacks, a Los Angeles R&B vocal group with two names that recorded for Modern. By the late ’50s, Taylor was signed to Ebb, and a myriad of other imprints soon followed (notably Duke, where he waxed his first version of the sugary ballad “Be Ever Wonderful”), Okeh (his sides for the Columbia subsidiary were done in Chicago and Nashville), and Ronn, where he spent nearly a decade.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ted-taylor-mn0000029156#biography

1,608) King Size Taylor — “Somebody’s Always Trying”

Bayard:

[This is KST and the Dominoes] finest moment . . . a top-notch cover of Ted Taylor’s marvellous original. . . . The King Size Taylor rendition is outstanding, uptempo stonking*, intense British rhythm & blues, led by guitar and thumping drums, with King Size’s marvellous, powerful vocal really demonstrating his reputation was fully deserved, as he bemoans the fact that other men are always chasing his girl and trying to tempt her away from him.

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/king-size-taylor/somebodys-always-trying-looking-for-my-baby/

Bayard tells us of King Size:

The Dominoes (of which King Size Taylor subsequently became frontman) were a very early Liverpool group who had a big influence on all the subsequent Liverpool groups, including The Beatles. The band originally formed in north Liverpool, England in 1957, evolving out of a school skiffle group called the Sinners. . . . In 1958 local butcher by trade Ted “Kingsize” [6’ 5’’] Taylor . . . joined the band as lead vocalist and guitarist. . . . The group acquired a strong local following and Taylor developed a reputation as one of the best rock and roll singers in the Liverpool area and for his flamboyant character . . . . King Size Taylor & The Dominoes first performed at the Cavern Club in January 1961, when they featured 17 year old singer Cilla White, who was mistakenly renamed Cilla Black later that year by Bill Harry in an article in his magazine Mersey Beat. . . . Cilla Black sang regularly with The Dominoes until 1962. In the summer of 1962, the band . . . went to Hamburg, where they appeared regularly at the Star-Club. . . . King Size Taylor & The Dominoes secured a record contract with Decca in Germany in 1963 . . . . The band issued a number of 45s between 1963 and 1965 . . . . The Dominoes disbanded in late 1964. In 1967 Taylor quit the music business and returned to his former trade of a butcher in Liverpool.

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/king-size-taylor/somebodys-always-trying-looking-for-my-baby/

Bruce Eder adds:

Guitarist-singer Edward “Ted” Taylor started out in music while still at school in 1956 . . . as [a] member[] of the James Boys Skiffle Group . . . . Meanwhile, the Dominoes were formed in the summer of 1957 out of the remnants of a Liverpool skiffle band called the Sinners, who gave up skiffle and switched to rock & roll after they saw the movie Rock Around the Clock . . . [T]hey evolved into the Bobby Bell Rockers, arguably the first rock & roll band in Liverpool . . . . In the summer of 1957, James Boys played a gig with the Dominies and thereafter decided to give up skiffle music. In the end, Ted Taylor . . . joined the Dominoes . . . . with his name tacked onto its front end in 1960. They made their debut at the Cavern Club in January of 1961 backing Cilla Black, who became an unofficial fifth member of the group at numerous gigs over the next year. . . . [T]he Dominoes were a farm team for numerous other Liverpool bands . . . . In 1961, the band was voted the sixth most popular group in Liverpool . . . . During the summer of 1962, Kingsize Taylor & the Dominoes went to Hamburg for the first time, where they quickly established a serious audience. They spent a three-month residency at the Star Club . . . . [and] were signed to the Philips label and started cutting records that year . . . The group also worked under the pseudonym the Shakers for Polydor . . . . By 1964, they were able to record for the Star-Club imprint on Ariola, where they cut a very solid body of two dozen rock & roll numbers. By this time, however, the extensive time they’d spent in Hamburg had taken its toll. Although no one quite recognized it at the time, with the signing of the Beatles to Parlophone in the summer of 1962, a sudden shift took place in the focus of music in Liverpool. . . . [which] was now acting like fly paper to dozens of record producers and hundreds of ambitious talent managers. The Dominoes, for all of their reputation and the quality of their music, weren’t there to be discovered by the producers . . . . [T]he nature of what constituted the Liverpool sound had been established and solidified for the public. And it didn’t include one, much less two saxophones, which is exactly what Kingsize Taylor & the Dominoes had in their lineup and their sound. . . . Taylor kept working in Hamburg . . . before he organized a new band, called the New Dominoes . . . . They endured into 1965 playing engagements in Germany, but by 1966 Kingsize Taylor was cutting records for English Decca and Polydor as a solo artist. Taylor finally left the music business in 1967 . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/kingsize-taylor-the-dominoes-mn0001810037#biography

* “Stonking”?! No, Bayard didn’t mean to write “stinking”. “Stonking” is British slang. “The OED says . . . that it’s either an adjective meaning ‘tremendous’ or ‘great’ or an intensifying adverb . . . and that it derives from the British WW II military slang ‘stonk,’ meaning a concentrated artillery bombardment.” (Ben Yagoda, https://notoneoffbritishisms.com/2022/10/06/stonking/)

Samantha Fish ’17:

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Sheridan/Price — “Tracy Smith”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — June 2, 2025

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

1,606) Sheridan/Price — “Tracy Smith”

Two Brumbeat Move-rs and shakers (see #1,299) take us on a “baroque pop ride” (Garwood Pickjon, https://popdiggers.com/rick-price-mike-sheridan-this-is-to-certify/) to very ratified heights.

The song is from the LP This Is To Certify. Bruce Eder writes:

[The album is] an astonishingly good collection of the post-Move recordings of Rick Price, both solo and in his collaboration with Birmingham rock singer Mike Sheridan, originally . . . released circa 1970. The music is an often appealing mix of psychedelia, pop/rock, and art rock, rather McCartneyesque at times but in the best possible way”.

https://www.allmusic.com/album/this-is-to-certify-gemini-anthology-mw0000378704

Garwood Pickjon tells us:

[T]he pair created some of the most beautiful music of the era . . . chockfull of timeless chamber pop. . . . [A] ‘honeybus’ baroque pop ride . . . was the main one they were taking on the . . . album, best represented through [songs including] “Tracy Smith”, which also recalls The Hollies’ late ’60s balladry.

https://popdiggers.com/rick-price-mike-sheridan-this-is-to-certify/

David Wells adds:

[The album is] a 24 carat classic of the late 60s British baroque-pop genre, chock-full of winsome melodies, gossamer-light harmonies and exquisite string arrangements . . . that exists comfortably alongside the best works of Honeybus, or perhaps even the Move of ‘Beautiful Daughter’ and ‘The Girl Outside.’”

liner notes to the CD comp Rick Price & Mike Sheridan: This Is to Certify: The Gemini Anthology

As to Rick Price, Bruce Eder writes:

Rick Price was probably the least-known member of the Move, if only because he never really established a well-defined musical (or personal) identity of his own . . . . Price was born in Birmingham .. . . . His earliest band of any note was the Cimarrons, who sounded a lot like the Shadows (or tried to). . . . [H]e moved on to the Sombreros, who changed their name to Sight & Sound a little later. Their original focus was harmony vocals, their influences the Four Seasons and the Beach Boys, but by 1967 they’d started doing songs in keeping with the psychedelic boom. And by that time, Price had started a songwriting partnership with Mike Sheridan, the former leader of Mike Sheridan & the Nightriders. The group recorded three singles, “Ebenezer,” “Little Jackie Monday,” and “Alley Alley,” all co-written by the duo and none successful. The group eventually deteriorated into more of a musical comedy outfit. One day in early 1969, after a performance in front of a club audience that included Roy Wood, the leader/principal composer of the Move . . . offered him a spot in the group. He joined just as “Blackberry Way” was making its way up the U.K. charts to number one. He was with them through the brief period of cabaret performances, plus their first (and only) tour of the United States, and lasted two years with the group. Price even recorded most of the original bass parts to the first Electric Light Orchestra album, although the latter were re-recorded by Wood . . . . From there, Price moved into an ultimately unhappy contractual relationship with Gemini Records, recording This Is to Certify . . . . Then he was . . . in an outfit called Light Fantastic, who showed a lot of promise but could never get it together in terms of recording. This was followed by a stint in the progressive rock band Mongrel . . . . From there it was on to Wizzard, Roy Wood’s new band . . . . last[ing] through 1975, then Price moved on to the Wizzo Band, playing pedal steel guitar, no less.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/rick-price-mn0000357165#biography

As to Mike Sheridan, 45cat.com writes:

[A]t age 19 Mike began to play piano in the Maypole pub on Saturday nights. One night a Teddy Boy approached Mike and said he was entering a competition in which the aim was to find the ‘Elvis of the Midlands’ and asked Mike to back him on piano. The ‘Elvis’ got through to the final round . . . but didn’t show up. Mike was asked if he’d like to continue and won the competition as a singing pianist. While working a regular Friday night playing piano . . . Cyril Viles asked Mike if he would like to join . . . The Chequers. Mike . . . joined . . . adopting the stage name of Mike Sheridan. . . . The group played a few gigs and members changed frequently . . . . [and] the group became Mike Sheridan and The Night Riders . . . . [A]n EMI producer for Columbia records, came up to Birmingham for a two day audition of local beat groups . . . . Mike Sheridan and The Night Riders were one of the five groups to pass the audition . . . . The five groups . . . were signed . . . to the Columbia label. [They] were sent the test recording of “Tell Me What’Cha Gonna Do” to rehearse. . . . [T]he single was a flop. . . . “Please Mr. Postman” . . . . failed to chart [but] sold well locally and gained the band a favourable reputation. . . . Roy [Wood] joined . . . after answering an ad in the Birmingham Post & Mail. . . . [and led] them into harmonies and introduced comedy into the act on stage by doing impersonations of Donovan and Dusty Springfield while wearing a suitable wig. The first single to be recorded with Roy Wood on guitar and backing vocals was a cover of The Shirelles’ “What a Sweet Thing that Was” . . . released in June 1964. This was followed by recording a version of The Rip Chords’ “Here I Stand[.]” In early 1965, the group went to Germany to undertake a series of bookings. Upon their return . . . the group name was changed to Mike Sheridan’s Lot. . . . Their final single released at the beginning of January 1966, was “Don’t Turn Your Back on Me” . . . . [T]he band had almost played throughout the entire country, acting as support for the likes of The Beatles, The Who, Small Faces, Them . . . and many others. Roy Wood left . . . to become a founding member of . . . The Move . . . . Mike Sheridan carried on . . . for a short while before he also left . . . . [A] young guitarist named Jeff Lynne . . . answered an advertisement in the local paper, bec[ame a] new member. . . . The Nightriders became The Idle Race. Mike Sheridan would later become a member of Sight and Sound that also included Rick Price, followed by recording as Sheridan and finally hooking up with Rick Price to record as Sheridan and Price. Mike Sheridan would also record an album of material with the members of Wizzard sans Roy Wood as Elmer Goodbody Jnr but only one single was released.

https://www.45cat.com/biography/mike-sheridan-and-the-night-riders

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The Byrds — “I Knew I’d Want You”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — June 1, 2025

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

1,605) The Byrds — “I Knew I’d Want You”

This ineffable B-side to ‘65’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” “gave many listeners their first taste of Gene Clark’s [see #655] songwriting talent. A classic in [his] early canon, the mid-tempo folk-rocker is a great example of Clark’s ability to convey the feelings of both love and alienation”. (Matthew Greenwald, https://www.allmusic.com/song/i-knew-id-want-you-mt0006201358) Some say the Moody Blues ripped off the song for “Nights in White Satin”, but I think it just inspired them.

Wikipedia tells us:

It was recorded on January 20, 1965, at the same session that produced ‘Mr. Tambourine Man.’ As with that song, 12-string guitarist Roger McGuinn was the only member of the Byrds to play his instrument on the song. The other musicians credited are members of the Wrecking Crew, including Larry Knechtel (bass guitar), Leon Russell (electric piano), Hal Blaine (drums), and Jerry Cole (guitar).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Knew_I%27d_Want_You

As to Clark, No Depression tells us that he “infused the [Byrds] with much of its soul and vision, establishing himself as a pivotal folk-rock innovator . . . . [but o]verwhelmed by demands of fame and tired of clashing with the contentious Crosby, Clark left the band in 1966”. (https://www.nodepression.com/album-reviews/gene-clark-with-the-gosdin-brothers-self-titled/)

And Mark Deming writes that:

[He] will always be best-known for his short stint as lead singer for the Byrds from 1964 to 1966 . . . . [He] helped invent country-rock with 1968’s Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers album, then teamed with Doug Dillard in the late ’60s to make two records that served as a blueprint for Americana. . . . Clark’s clear and true vocals, his poetic turns of phrase, and his skill at weaving melancholy melodies never wavered. . . . [L]ong after his passing in 1991, has remained influential to each new generation of jangle pop artists . . . . Clark . . . [was in] the New Christy Minstrels, a well-scrubbed folk-pop ensemble . . . . However, [he] longed to perform his own songs and didn’t care for life on the road; after hearing the Beatles for the first time, Clark decided he wanted to form a rock band and he quit . . . and moved to Los Angeles. There, he met . . . [Roger] McGuinn . . . . Clark quickly became the Byrds’ dominant songwriter, penning most of their best-known originals . . . . [But] the combination of [his] dislike of traveling (including a fear of flying) and resentment that his songwriting income made him the best-paid member of the group led to tensions . . . and in 1966 Clark opted to leave . . . . [I]n 1967 he released his first solo set, Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers, a pioneering fusion of country and rock.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/gene-clark-mn0000194036

Here is Clark’s ‘67 solo version:

Here is the ’64 acoustic demo:

Here are the Moody Blues:

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Jane Birkin — “Jane B.”: Brace for the Obscure 60s rock)! — May 31, 2025

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

1,604) Jane Birkin — “Jane B.”

“How could Gainsbourg better prove his love for Birkin than by giving her Chopin [fourth prelude from opus. 28 in E minor]? How could he better prove his love for Chopin than by giving him Birkin?” (francoishuglo (courtesy of Google Translate), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNimEUTmQy8) The song “has its charms”, as “Birkin introduces herself by way of describing some of her attributes—‘blue eyes, brown hair, pale complexion, aquiline nose, missing this morning, at four-forty’”. (D.M. Edwards, https://web.archive.org/web/20110629071208/http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/130675-jane-birkin-serge-gainsbourg-jane-birkinserge-gainsbourg/) “Arthur Greenslade deserves major credit for the opulent and moody arrangements” on the LP Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg. (Joe Tangari, https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/14524-jane-birkin-et-serge-gainsbourg/)

Cameron Cook talks about the album:

By the time Serge Gainsbourg met and fell in love with the British actress Jane Birkin in 1968, he had already been the poet laureate of French song for a decade, from his early jazz- and Latin-influenced records through the yé-yé boom of the mid-’60s. In that time, Gainsbourg had positioned himself as a somber playboy, known for duets and collaborations in which his brooding demeanor came crashing up against the sensuality of his female counterparts. After writing massively successful pop singles for France Gall and Brigitte Bardot, Gainsbourg found in Birkin both the youthful innocence of the former and the full-blown sexuality of the latter. Throughout their 12-year relationship, she was able to channel his creative energy into her own unique output. Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg is a love letter read out loud by its recipient: Every note and lyric is meant to highlight a certain aspect of Birkin’s persona though Gainsbourg’s lens, from her breathless delivery of every line to her heavily accented, coquettish French. The culmination of their artistic and carnal union is “Je t’aime… moi non plus,” the slinky disco classic that was deemed so pornographic, it was banned by the BBC. For a man who made a career out of loving women, Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg is his greatest affair ever committed to vinyl.

https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/the-200-best-albums-of-the-1960s/?page=8

D.M. Edwards adds:

Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin can be viewed as everything from lecherous slob and naïve posh tart to the cult couple of the late 20th century. Neither of these extremes should obscure his musical experimentation and her role as muse and collaborator. While Histoire De Melody Nelson is the best album bearing either of their names, Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg is unbridled, sophisticated fun and has deservedly come to be called after its most important song, “Je T’Aime…Mon Non Plus”, a genuine pop classic and one of the best 45s ever released. . . . According to the booklet accompanying this Light in the Attic reissue, the rest of the Jane Birkin/Serge Gainsbourg album was hastily written by Gainsbourg at the request of label bosses who felt they’d as soon be hung for a whole album as for a single. To some extent, this shows, as other tracks are not always at the level of the author of “Bonnie and Clyde” and other classics, and yet this also remains sophisticated, timeless pop music.

https://web.archive.org/web/20110629071208/http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/130675-jane-birkin-serge-gainsbourg-jane-birkinserge-gainsbourg/

As to Jane Birkin, John Bush writes:

Actress, singer, and style icon Jane Birkin had a definitive influence on culture in the ’60s and beyond, starting her career with roles in art house films like Blow-Up and Wonderwall and making a musical mark with her breathy, mysterious vocals on collaborative tracks with Serge Gainsbourg [see #1,366]. Her romantic and creative partnership with Gainsbourg yielded classic lounge pop albums like 1969’s Je T’Aime… Moi Non Plus (the title track of which was banned from radio in several countries for being too sexually explicit, but still managed to top the charts in the U.K.) and 1971’s Histoire de Melody Nelson. Birkin had a long and fruitful life in both music and film well after she and Gainsbourg parted ways in 1980, touring regularly and releasing albums of her own songs . . . . Born in London . . . Birkin followed in her mother’s footsteps and began acting at the Kensington Academy in London. . . . she was offered a part in Passion Flower Hotel, a musical produced by James Bond series composer John Barry, and she married him soon after. Birkin’s first film, The Knack…and How to Get It, followed in 1965, while a role in 1966’s Blow-Up made her semi-famous. Her marriage with Barry soon broke up, however, and on a trip to France she met . . . Gainsbourg. The two eventually became romantically entwined . . . . Birkin spent much of the early ’70s working in films. She appeared in a lot of exploitation fare . . . . With help from Gainsbourg, she recorded 1975’s Lolita Go Home and 1978’s Ex Fan des Sixties, gaining hits in France, if not in England. Birkin and Gainsbourg were never married, but were together for 12 years and had daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg, who would go on to become a singer and actress in her own right. The relationship was turbulent, and completely dissolved in 1980.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jane-birkin-mn0000216846#biography

Here is another video:

Here is Arthur Rubinstein playing Chopin:

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The Soul Survivors — “Can’t Stand to Be in Love with You”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — May 30, 2025

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

1,603) The Soul Survivors — “Can’t Stand to Be in Love with You”

Warning: If you are from Denver, read no further! This song reached #1 on KIMN on November 15th, 1965, and stayed at the top for four straight weeks! (https://kimsloans.wordpress.com/pop-bop-rock-honoree-soul-survivors/) It is “a driving fuzzed out harmony rocker” (Patrick, https://rockasteria.blogspot.com/2012/01/the-poor-poor-1967-us-fine-beat-psych.html), “a remarkably assured debut” (Matt Ryan, http://strangecurrenciesmusic.com/an-introduction-to-mountain-states-garage-rock/), “a good, tough mix of Merseybeat, the Zombies, and American garage” (Richie Unterberger, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-soul-survivors-mn0001412815#biography), “a mating of a Zombies-type tune with U.S. garage raunch”. (Richie again, https://www.allmusic.com/album/tony-the-tyger-presents-fuzz-flaykes-shakes-vol-3-stay-out-of-my-world-mw0000671978#review)

Tasos Epit tells us of the Survivors:

The Soul Survivors were founded in 1963 in Denver, Colorado. Their membership consisted of Allen Kemp on lead guitar, Gene Chalk on rhythm guitar, Bob Raymond on bass, John Day on organ, and Pat Shanahan on drums. The band would practice in garages and backyards, sometimto the dismay of neighbors who complained of the noise. They signed with Dot Records of Los Angeles and released two singles in the mid-1960s. In October 1965 they cut their debut single for Dot, the fuzz-drenched “Can’t Stand to Be in Love With You” . . . . In March 1966 they followed it up with “Hung Up on Loosin’” also on Dot. Group members Allen Kemp, Pat Shanahan and John Day moved to Los Angeles and teamed up with Randy Meisner, previously with the Drivin’ Dynamics, and Randy Naylor to form the Poor. After the demise of the Poor, Kemp and Shanahan went on to play in Rick Nelson’s “Stone Canyon Band” (“Garden Party”) and later in New Riders of the Purple Sage. Day would join the short-lived group Two Guitars, Piano, Drum and Darryl. Meisner would later join popular 1970s rock bands the Eagles and Poco. Raymond would later join the group Sugarloaf….

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

Patrick Shanahan recalls:

Colorado had passed a law allowing the sale of 3.2% alcohol to persons 18 and older. 3.2 night clubs flourished. We were top dogs in the state and set up residence at a 3.2 place in Denver called The Galaxy . . . .We needed original material to make a record and didn’t have any. I decided to try to come up with something and I wrote [“Can’t Stand”]. I wasn’t impressed but the guys went for it. [It] had a unique rhythm change and we used this new toy called a fuzz tone on the guitar like the Stones’ “Satisfaction”.

https://randymeisnerretrospective.com/2023/06/14/an-interview-with-patrick-shanahan/

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New Dawn — “Last Morning”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — May 29, 2025

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

1,602) New Dawn — “Last Morning”

More haunting and hypnotizing psych from the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, there’s a New Dawn (see #986, 1,295), but it’s still raining outside.

Ron Moore writes about the Dawn’s sole album:

Dreamy downer LP with rhythm-centered (monotonous?) drums, organ, and chiming guitar. Moody heartfelt vocals and buzz fuzz breaks fill out the claustrophobic soundscape. Full of despairing lyrics about dissatisfaction with life and feelings of hopelessness without God. . . . Too deep and dark for some, but could be the pinnacle for soul-searching lounge band sorrow.

The Acid Archives (2nd ed.)

Isaac Slusarenko writes about the Dawn:

In 1966, Dan Bazzy . . . ran into bass player Bob Justin and guitarists Larry Davis and Joe Smith, local garage band musicians . . . . Bazzy joined their band and after a brief stint of playng as The Sound Citizens, The New Dawn was formed. By 1967, The New Dawn was essentially a nightclub band, touring throughout the northwest . . . down through California and Nevada, and as far north as Alaska. The band recorded and released their private press album . . . in July of 1970. The songs were composed in the studio and were recorded late at night after gigs. Initially five hundred albums were pressed . . . . [D]istribution was limited since the album was sold mostly at their live shows. Their one chance at the big time came in 1971 when the ABC-Dunhill Records label expressed a serious interest in the demo of three of their new heavier sounding songs. . . . By the end of 1971, the New Dawn faded into the sunset after years of living motel to motel under the disillusionment of their missed opportunity.

liner notes to the CD reissue of There’s a New Dawn

The band’s website adds:

In 1966, Joe Smith and Larry Davis got together and started playing at part[ies]. By the first part of 1967, Bob Justen and Dan Bazzy had joined the group and The New Dawn was born. For the next two years, the band played at part[ies], dances and local bars. In 1969, the group quit their day jobs and signed with a booking agent. They added a fifth member, Bob Green, to front the group and share the lead vocal load with the drummer and lead singer, Dan Bazzy, and went on the road. They played in clubs in Oregon, Washington, Montana, Idaho, Nevada, California, and Alaska. In 1970, Bob Green was replaced by Bill Gartner, and the group recorded and released . . . There’s a New Dawn. By the end of 1971, all the members in the group were married, and a few of the wi[v]es started having babies. Along with the babies came the desire to settle down and start roots. So, the group came off of the road, got “normal” jobs, and settled in to playing in local clubs on weekends. Over the years, most of the original members retired from the group and were replaced by other local musicians.

http://pnwbands.com/newdawn.html

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Eddie Floyd — “I’ve Just Been Feeling Bad”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — May 28, 2025

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

1,601) Eddie Floyd — “I’ve Just Been Feeling Bad”

This ’67 B-side co-written with Steve Cropper is an expression of sincere regret over how a man has treated his love. It is sooooooooo good. “Ohhh My My MY!!!” (CherylJ7501, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWCGZF4QUrk) Indeed!

Steve Huey tells us about Eddie Floyd:

Soul singer/songwriter Eddie Floyd scored one of the defining hits of the Memphis soul sound with “Knock on Wood,” a number one R&B smash that typified the Stax house style at its grittiest. Floyd was born in Montgomery, AL . . . but grew up in Detroit, where his uncle Robert West owned a couple of record labels, including Lupine. In 1955, Floyd co-founded the seminal proto-soul group the Falcons, who eventually scored a major R&B hit with “You’re So Fine” in 1959 . . . . Floyd spent a brief period as the Falcon’s lead singer, until Wilson Pickett joined up. . . . Pickett subsequently went solo, and the Falcons broke up in 1963. Floyd recorded a few solo sides for Lupine, and moved to Washington, D.C., for a time to work with his DJ friend, Al Bell; the two founded a label and production company, Safice, co-writing songs and releasing Floyd’s recordings. When Bell accepted a job as promotions director at Stax, Floyd followed him to Memphis, where he signed on with Stax as a staff writer and producer. He worked chiefly with Carla Thomas [see #432, 1,372] and William Bell [see #443] at first, and often wrote in tandem with house guitarist Steve Cropper. In early 1966, their composition “634-5789 (Soulsville, USA)” became a number one R&B hit for Wilson Pickett; around the same time, Floyd released his first single for Stax, “Things Get Better,” which failed to chart. That summer, Floyd cut “Knock on Wood,” another song he’d written with Cropper; initially intended for Otis Redding, the tune wasn’t big with Stax management because it was strongly based on the chord changes of Wilson Pickett’s “In the Midnight Hour.” However, distributor Atlantic smelled a hit, and released the song nationally; their instincts proved correct, as “Knock on Wood” became Stax’s third number one R&B hit by the end of the year . . . . Floyd followed his instant soul classic with several more Top 40 R&B hits over the next four years . . . . In spite of diminishing commercial returns, Floyd stayed with Stax as a performer and writer right up to the label’s bankruptcy in 1975.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/eddie-floyd-mn0000168958#biography

Here is an excerpt from Bill Kopp’s superb interview with Floyd, talking about his collaboration with Steve Cropper and Booker T. Jones:

“I wrote my first song with the[ Falcons],” Floyd says. “Everybody listened at it and said, ‘Wow!’” Nobody showed him how to write songs; it came naturally, so he just did it. “I’d heard songs, and I knew how an intro would be, how a verse would be, so I came up with my first song,” he says. . . . Working with top-notch co-writers like guitarist/producer Steve Cropper and multi-instrumentalist Booker T. Jones – both of Booker T & the M.G.’s – Floyd came up with superb material that captured and exemplified the zeitgeist of the soul music scene. “We would sit and try to come up with a title first,” Floyd says, explaining his deceptively straightforward songwriting process. “And if you give me a title, I hear a melody in my head immediately. It just all depends on the title: that should be a slow song, that one should be faster.” As he came up with lyrics, the melody would often come right along with the words. “And if I get a title of something and I start singing the song, I can also hear the bass and I can hear the drums; I become the band,” he says. “So I can tell a bass player what I think he should be playing behind a certain thing that I’m doing.” He does this all despite the fact that he never became proficient on any instrument other than his voice. “I know a lot of guys went to school for writing,” he says. “They can write the notes down, but I can hear every instrument. So I basically talk my songs to musicians. . . . When Floyd cut his debut album for Stax – 1967’s Knock on Wood – four of the record’s 12 songs were written by him and Cropper. The same held true for 1968’s I’ve Never Found a Girl, though Floyd had begun to write with Jones as well. 1969’s You’ve Got to Have Eddie LP features Floyd/Jones and Floyd/Cropper songwriting collaborations as well. . . . “Cropper has the rhythm,” Floyd says, setting the scene for the way in which the entire band worked together to develop a tune. “And so we know the tempo. I have the lyrics and the melody, and then we get together with Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn the bass player, Booker T. on the organ, and Al Jackson the drummer.” . . . In fact, the creative give-and-take that characterized Floyd’s work with Cropper, Jones and others was an essential characteristic of most all the music that came out of Memphis, Tennessee-based Stax Records during its heyday. “I guess that was the success of Memphis music,” Floyd says. “You allowed everybody to put themselves into the concept. I don’t know if [other musicians] do that today; I don’t know. But that’s the way we did it, and we were successful.”

http://blog.musoscribe.com/index.php/2021/03/08/things-get-better-soul-man-eddie-floyd-part-1-of-3/, http://blog.musoscribe.com/index.php/2021/03/09/things-get-better-soul-man-eddie-floyd-part-2-of-3/

Here is Floyd with Carla Thomas:

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The Liverpool Five — “She’s (Got Plenty of Love)”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — May 27, 2025

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

1,600) The Liverpool Five — “She’s (Got Plenty of Love)“

These British invaders decided to stay in the States, where they gave us two sterling LPs, a song that reached #98, and this unforgettable and definitive version of a Coventry band’s ’65 B-side.

RDTEN1 tells us of the LP:

1967’s Out of Sight is an overlooked genre classic. Like their debut, it offered up a mixture of covers and group-penned originals. The mixture of material showcased the group’s almost chameleon-like ability to mix different musical genres and US and UK influences ranging from Merseybeat to snotty garage rockers. Propelled by Steve Laine’s first-rate voice, the band exhibited the flexibility and enthusiasm necessary to handle everything from blue-eyed soul . . . Merseybeat . . . and tough-as-nails garage rockers . . . . [T]here was also a tentative step towards psych . . . . While the whole album was worth hearing, the group were at their best on harder rocking numbers . . . . [I]t’s still an album that grows on me more every time I play it.

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/liverpool-five/out-of-sight/

Nostalgia Central tells us of the Five:

The Liverpool Five (four of them were actually from Fulham[, London]!) left the UK and went travelling throughout Europe. They somehow ended up playing at the Tokyo Olympics before moving to the US and signing a major label deal. In 1966 their recording of Chip Taylor’s “Any Way That You Want Me” marked their only appearance on the national chart, spending one week on the Billboard Hot 100 at #98. Before finally disbanding, they recorded one last single for RCA under the name Common Market.

https://nostalgiacentral.com/music/artists-l-to-z/artists-l/liverpool-five/

Bruce Eder tells us more of the Five:

The Liverpool Five is one 1960s band that is ripe for rediscovery. The fact that they’ve slipped through a few cracks may have to do with their odd history — after starting out in England, the quintet spent most of a year in Germany and touring the Far East and effectively became an American group just as their recording history began in a serious way. Formed in Liverpool, England . . . . [t]hey cut one single, “Lum D’ Lum D’ High” . . . for the Pye Records budget Piccadilly label that was released in England, but their main base of activity in 1964 and 1965 appears to have been Germany and Asia, where their German-based manager kept them touring. They managed to release a single of their own on German CBS in 1964 under the name of the 5 Liverpools, but otherwise were largely invisible as a recording act. After an extended tour of Asia, the group made their way to Los Angeles in 1965 and eventually ended up in Spokane, Washington. Ironically, it was [there] that they were finally signed to a major label in 1965 and got a contract with RCA-Victor Records. The Liverpool Five released a half-a-dozen singles over the next two years and a pair of LPs, all of which displayed an extraordinary degree of musical dexterity — they could sound as American as the Remains or the Standells in their approach to playing — a solid garage punk sound with some unusual melodic touches — and then turn around and cut cockney novelties like “What a Crazy World (We’re Living In)” or romantic rock ballads like their version of Curtis Mayfield’s “That’s What Love Will Do,” . . . and follow that with a shouter like “Just a Little Bit.” . . . The band charted nationally only once, with a version of Chip Taylor’s “Any Way That You Want Me,” and left behind some other superb white soul sides that managed to embrace both American punk and British beat elements, before they finally called it a day in 1970. The Liverpool Five Arrive is one of the best garage punk albums of 1966, with a startlingly honest and vivid, soulful edge . . . amid the fuzztone guitars and pounding, roaring rhythm section. Its follow-up, Out of Sight, is even better, with harder playing and better singing, laced with some unexpected lyricism.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/liverpool-five-mn0000824962#biography

Here are the Peeps:

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Bob Dylan — “John Brown”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — May 26, 2025

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

1,599) Bob Dylan — “John Brown”

Bob Dylan’s greatest anti-war song never to appear on a Dylan studio album, released under the name Blind Boy Grunt on a Folkways Compilation LP. The “hair-raising” song’s “novelistic depiction of a mother’s misguided patriotism and her disillusioned son’s appalling fate” (Chris Morris, https://variety.com/lists/bob-dylan-80-best-greatest-cover-songs/the-byrds-mr-tambourine-man-best-bob-dylan-covers/) is simply devastating. “You are left with horror and empathy for both the shattered title character and his war-loving mother who faces the hard truth of war that outweighs any medals of honor.” (Michael Kantu (R.A.M.), https://medium.com/@rwmusic77/the-dignity-of-john-brown-47592d3f7db0) “In the Vancouver Sun in 1970, the critic Al Rudis referred to [it] as ‘one of the best yet least known Dylan protest songs’, calling the Broadside Ballads version ‘chilling’, and comparing it to the screenwriter Dalton Trumbo’s 1939 novel Johnny Got His Gun; both works give a severely-injured soldier’s perspective.” (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(song))

Wikipedia tells us that “In response to an open invitation from the folk music Broadside magazine for recordings, Dylan recorded a version of “John Brown” in February 1963 that was released on the compilation album Broadside Ballads, Vol. 1 . . . Dylan used a pseudonym, “Blind Boy Grunt”, due to contractual issues; he was signed to Columbia Records but Broadside Ballads, Vol. 1 was released by Folkways Records”. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(song))

Bob Dylan Plagiarisms tells us that:

The idea for the melody is borrowed from the “Reuben’s Train/Nine Hundred Miles” [see #823-25] family of songs . . . . “Train 45″ by Grayson & Whitter (1927 . . . ) was the first recording. But Dylan surely was familiar with Woody Guthrie’s “Nine Hundred Miles” (1944 . . . ).”

https://bobdylanplagiarisms.yolasite.com/john-brown.php

Broadside Ballads:

Live ’62:

Live ’63:

Unplugged ’94:

Here are the Staple Singers:

Grayson & Whitter:

Woody Guthrie:

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I Shall Be Released: Elton John — “Turn to Me”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — May 25, 2025

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

1,598) Elton John — “Turn to Me”

Before Reginald Dwight (see #175) was Elton John, he was Regimental Sgt. Zippo. Here is his unreleased Sgt. Pepper-inspired ‘68 album’s “lost gem, a truly lovely tune which finds [him] offering his heart to a lonely soul, as [Bernie] Taupin edges into the now familiar storytelling imagery”. (Dave Simpson, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jun/11/elton-john-regimental-sgt-zippo-review-long-lost-trippy-album) The song was released at the time by Plastic Penny, with Elton John’s future drummer Nigel Olsson, and by Guy Darrell.

John F. Higgins tells us of the album that wasn’t:

The earliest known activity for a song on Regimental Sgt. Zippo was the recording of the demo for “Nina” on November 3, 1967, a mere month after the release of Bluesology’s third and final single . . . and a full week before Elton and Bernie signed their first publishing deal with Dick James. On the 15th of that month . . . Elton, producer/guitarist Caleb Quaye [see #807, 1,169], and the musicians . . . picked up their instruments and fired up the four-track tape machine to cut the full-band version of “Nina”. . . . Regimental Sgt. Zippo was put together as an album, it wasn’t just a pile of demos”, says [graphic designer David] Larkham . . . . [I]n March and April of 1968, he recorded the bulk of RSZ as well as a handful of other new songs, released “I’ve Been Loving You”, and played his first club performance under his own name on April 30 at the Marquee Club in London. 20 days later, the album’s title track, evoking not only the Beatles’ mind-blowing Sgt. Pepper album but also Elton’s birth name, “Reg”, and the fact that his father was a regimented military man, was tracked and the sessions were complete. And that is where the story ended… [u]ntil now.

https://www.eltonjohn.com/stories/regimental-sgt.-zippo-in-detail

Stephen Thomas Erlewin adds:

Originally slated for release in 1968, Elton John scrapped Regimental Sgt. Zippo in favor of Empty Sky, the LP that became his official debut in 1969. Looking back, it was certainly the right move. Empty Sky touches upon the lush, arty balladry that would become one of John’s signatures in the 1970s, whereas Regimental Sgt. Zippo is very much looking backwards — at the psychedelic vistas opened up by the Beatles in particular. The very title signals the album’s debt to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” — a song Elton would later cover — is a particular touchstone. Melodies swirl through the ornate production, the lyrics are aggressively whimsical, and the recordings are intent on opening up your mind so you can float downstream. As a whole, Regimental Sgt. Zippo is a heavier affair than Pepper — there are fuzz guitars and washes of organ straight out of Procol Harum — and it can also get quite Baroque . . . . All of this is interesting and makes for a rather interesting artifact, but there’s little question it would’ve gotten Elton John’s career off to an unsteady start back in 1968.

https://www.allmusic.com/album/regimental-sgt-zippo-mw0003543430

Here is Plastic Penny:

Here is Guy Darrell:

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The Sorrows — “Let Me In”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — May 24, 2025

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

1,597) The Sorrows — “Let Me In”

This “[k]iller” “monster garage punk tune (last_heard, https://www.45cat.com/record/7n35336) is “boisterous” UK freakbeat, “perhaps the[ Sorrows’ (see #407, 567)] finest recorded moment” (N.E. Fulcanwright, liner notes to the CD comp Freakbeat Freakout), a “Pretty Things-inspired” “gem[] from the pen of Miki Dallon”. (David Wells, liner notes to the CD comp The Sorrows: Take a Heart) Oh, and its “the story of a deranged stalker who will not be deterred”. (N.E. Fulcanwright again)

The Coventry Music Museum explains:

[E]ntrepreneur Larry Page[‘s] bid to see the “Coventry Sound” rival Liverpool’s Mersey Beat . . . was sadly a non-starter. It was looking a tad unlikely that a band from Coventry would chart in the sixties [until] The Sorrows became the first . . . Cov’s fave freakbeat band were formed in the early 60’s. . . . They tended to dress in black and played the blues like they meant it, with [Don] Maughn’s raw vocals setting the local audiences alight. . . . They were eventually . . . signed [by the Piccadilly label] and were allowed to release their self penned song “I Don’t Want To Be Free” . . . . They played Ready Steady Go, but the single failed to make a dent in the charts. . . . The second single “Baby” went the way of the first, there were talks of splitting then up came single number three “Take A Heart” [see #407]. Originally written by Miki Dallon . . . for a band called The Boys Blue . . . . An appearance on TV’s Ready Steady Go saw the single rise to number 21 in the UK charts. It was also proved a smash as they say in mainland Europe, especially Italy and Germany where foreign language version were recorded . . . . After various attempts to match “Take A Heart” failed . . . Don Maughn (now reverting to his real name [Don] Fardon), left for a successful solo career.

http://www.covmm.co.uk/2016/2020/07/07/the-sorrows/

Yes, that Don Fardon, the “Indian Reservation” Don Fardon. The CMM offers this tidbit: one of the Sorrows’ mothers called them “a sorrowful lot when practising – hence the name “Sorrows”.”

Mark Deming provides some more band history:

The Sorrows started out playing tough, moody rock & roll with an R&B accent, and like many bands of the Beat era, elements of freakbeat and psychedelia would find their way into their music as the decade wore on . . . . After making a name on the local club circuit, in time-honored fashion [they] honed their skills playing a month-long engagement in Germany, where the punishing schedule of playing as long as ten hours a night made them an estimable live act. . . . “Take a Heart” . . . became a chart hit, in large part thanks to extensive pirate radio airplay . . . . The success of “Take a Heart” led to Piccadilly releasing an album . . . . [which] stiffed on the charts, and after another two singles came and went without notice, bassist Philip Packham resigned, and vocalist Don Fardon soon followed. The rest of the group soldiered on . . . .

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-sorrows-mn0000429259/biography

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