THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,596)Scrugg — âI Wish I Was Fiveâ
From South Africa by way of London, here is Nuggets II-worthy “nicely melodic psychedelic pop with penetrating organ work not unlike that used by Pink Floyd on their early records” (Richie Unterberger, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/scrugg-mn0000309723#biography), “wistfully melodic” with a “gorgeously layered production [that] adds a thoughtfully understated string section in counterpoint to the dominant organ hook line, while the vocals are put across with the perfect blend of pessimism and pathos”. (Mike Stax, liner notes to the CD comp Nuggets II (Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond 1964-1969))
Mike Stax adds that:
[“Five”] shares a theme common to many U.K. pop-psych songs: a longing for the innocence of childhood and a time when life didn’t carry such a heavy load. “I wish I was five,” they sing, adding more darkly, “sometimes it’s not so good to be alive.”
Yeah, but it’s better than the alternative. Me, I would settle for 55!
Andy Kellman tells us of John Kongos and Scrugg:
Before scoring a handful of minor hits in the U.K. in the late ’60s and early ’70s, John Kongos had been the leader behind Johnny Kongos & the G-Men, a prolific beat group from Johannesburg, South Africa that frequently appeared on that country’s charts during the first half of the ’60s. In 1966, Kongos and a number of his associates relocated to London and cut a 1967 single as Floribunda Rose for Piccadilly. . . . [and] eventually morphed into Scrugg, a psychedelic pop band that released a trio of singles for Pye prior to their 1969 breakup. “I Wish I Was Five,” a 1968 B-side, gained the most attention. Upon Scruggâs split, Kongos went solo and released a handful of records, including th[ree] albums . . . . The 1971 single “He’s Gonna Step on You Again” registered on the charts in the U.K. and the U.S.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,595) Hamilton Camp — âTravelin’ in the DarkâÂ
Hamilton Camp (see #1,432) was the first to record and release Felix Pappalardi’s and Gail Collins’ “Travelin’ in the Dark'”, released by Bo Grumpus a year later and Pappalardi’s own Mountain four years later. Camp’s haunting account is the best version of this song about the forlorn sailors on Nantucket’s whaling ships.
Alexander Baron tells us of the song:
In an interview published in the November 20, 1971 issue of the British music paper Sounds, Felix Pappalardi said of this track “…when I’m out in Nantucket sometimes and the fog rolls in I think to myself that those dudes leaving their wives and families for three years to go around the Cape and not seeing anybody for that time, it’s a long and frightening break and all those references are there.” He was referring specifically to the Nantucket whaling ships; for about forty years, from 1800, the island of Nantucket was the whaling capital of the world. The Brooklyn-born Pappalardi wrote most of the lyrics for this song, which was co-written with Gail Collins, his girlfriend, wife and killer – in that order! (She shot Felix in 1983, killing him at age 41.) They started writing it in 1964, wrote most of it in 1965, and it was recorded in 1967. “Travellin’ In The Dark” is not quite as well known as “Nantucket Sleighride,” a song that was also inspired by the Nantucket whaling industry, and which might be described as a true-life horror story.
I guess Felix might have said towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering Gail.
As to Camp’s LP (Hereâs to You), Richie Unterberger is not particularly complimentary:
Like many veterans of the early-â60s folk revival, Camp eventually moved into arrangements with a rhythm section and full-band accompaniment. Hereâs to You is peculiar, though, in that itâs not so much folk-rock as folk-pop, with over-rich orchestrated arrangements that come close to Los Angeles sunshine pop. Top L.A. session dudes Van Dyke Parks . . . Hal Blaine, Earl Palmer, and Jerry Scheff . . . all played on the LP, with Felix Pappalardi â a veteran of folk-rock session playing and production himself with Fred Neil [see #344], Ian & Sylvia, and the Youngbloods â producing. But though Campâs singing is moving, with a slightly pinched, pained, and earnest quality, the tunes are ordinary folk-rock-pop, made to sound fruitier by the buoyant, sometimes inordinately happy-go-lucky settings. . . . [P]eriod reverb and Bud Shankâs eerie, swirling flute give âLonely Placeâ a whiff of strained psychedelia . . . . Sometimes it sounds like a combination of late-â60s Beau Brummels [see #713] (who were good) with the misbegotten attempts by Glenn Yarbrough to record orchestrated folk-pop in the same era (which were bad).
What can I say, I love the album. A âwhiff of strained psychedeliaâ? Unterberger makes Camp out to be a constipated hippie! Camp out? I crack myself up!
As to Hamilton Camp, Craig Harris writes that:
Whether performing solo or in a duo with Bob Gibson, Hamilton Camp served as one of the links between the Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger folk music of the â40s and the singer/songwriter school of Bob Dylan [see #126, 823, 1,133, 1,162, 1,495], Tom Paxton, and Phil Ochs in the â60s. Campâs tune âPride of Manâ was covered by Quicksilver Messenger Service in 1967, while the Camp/Gibson collaboration âWell, Well, Wellâ was recorded by Simon & Garfunkel on their debut album . . . . In the early â60s, Camp and Gibson played in clubs, coffeehouses, and festivals throughout the United States. Their most influential album, At the Gate of Horn, was recorded in 1961 at the famed Chicago folk club. When the duo separated, Camp continued to perform as a soloist. His debut solo album was a live recording at the same club in 1963 . . . . Campâs musical career was ultimately dwarfed by his success as an actor. First attracting attention for his skills in improvisation as a member of Second City in Chicago and the Committee in San Francisco, Camp played recurring roles in such TV series as He & She in 1967, Too Close for Comfort in 1980, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman in 1993. In addition to appearing in such films as American Hot Wax (1978), Heaven Can Wait (1978), Eating Raoul (1982), and Dick Tracy (1990), his voice was heard in animated movies including The Little Mermaid (1989), Aladdin (1993), Pebble and the Penguin (1995), and All Dogs Go to Heaven (1996).Â
Hamilton’s career in music goes back four and a half decades, to his initial association with Bob Gibson. Brought together by Albert Grossman, a master at identifying musical talent (Bob Dylan, Gordon Lightfoot [see #92, 167, 392], Peter, Paul and Mary [see #1,307], the Canadian duo Ian and Sylvia, as well as Bob Gibson and Bob Camp were in his “stable” at roughly the same time), Hamilton performed with Bob Gibson at the 1960 Newport Folk Festival, and they then went on to many performances together at the Gate Of Horn, a Chicago folk club. Performing then as Bob Camp, he and Bob Gibson recorded one of the most influential folk albums of its time, Bob Gibson and Bob Camp at the Gate of Horn”, recorded in April, 1961. Their song, “You Can Tell The World”, was picked up by Simon and Garfunkel and appears on their first album, Wednesday Morning, 3AM. “Well, Well, Well” was recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary and Ian and Sylvia. Although Gibson and Camp did not stay together long, each going his own separate way in a different part of the country, and in Hamilton’s case concentrating on acting, they got together many times over the next three decades to reprise their early performances. . . . In addition to his groundbreaking work with Bob Gibson, Hamilton cut several solo albums for Elektra and Warner Bros in the 60s and 70s. His debut solo album was Paths of Victory in 1964, an amazing album including no less than seven Dylan covers, some of them very obscure. . . . In 1965, Hamilton returned to the Newport Folk Festival . . . . In 1967, Hamilton released his second solo album, Here’s To You; the title song reached #76 on the Billboard pop charts, and was recorded by Ian & Sylvia for their 1968 album Full Circle. Two years later (1969) he released Welcome To Hamilton Camp, and in 1973 he released an album with a group of friends (Skymonters).
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,594) Sweet Feeling/Rupertâs People — âAll So Long Agoâ
Sweet Feeling, later to become Rupertâs People(see #370), gives us âan absolute gem . . . a faultless piece of pop perfection” that is “very reminiscent of the Paul McCartney showcases on Revolver and in particular the anecdotal observations of ‘Penny Lane’ . . . as much of a north London equivalent to that song as is ‘Waterloo Sunset’ or ‘Autumn Almanac'”. (Nigel Lees, liner notes to the CD comp The Magic World of Rupert’s People)
“All So Long Ago” “drew on [guitarist and songwriter] Rod[ Lynton’s] own childhood experiences but, despite its obvious commerciality and favorable music press, the single bombed, thus depriving the public of not only a wondrous A side but also the marvelous ‘Charles Brown’, one of the most flamboyant exercises in reversed tape trickery in the history of pop psychedelia.” (Nigel Lees again)
Richie Unterberger tells us of the not so-sweet saga of Sweet Feeling and Rupert’s People:
For a band that released just three singles and had no significant commercial success, the story of Rupert’s People is enormously complicated. The band went through three separate lineups, and none of the musicians who were in the iteration that was by far the longest-lasting and most visible played on their most celebrated single. . . . [Their] releases contained some good period late-’60s British psychedelic pop, particularly the one record that psychedelic collectors tend to be familiar with, “Reflections of Charles Brown.” The whole messy saga starts with the even more obscure band Sweet Feeling, who released just one single in 1967, “All So Long Ago”/”Charles Brown.” The A-side . . . . was outshone by its B-side, “Charles Brown,” which was British psychedelia at its most disquieting, telling the story of an average British family man with a most eerie melody and some of the strangest backwards effects to be heard on any circa-1967 rock record. Sweet Feeling’s manager, Howard Conder . . . asked . . . Rod Lynton to rework “Charles Brown” with a different melody and lyrics. The result, now titled “Reflections of Charles Brown,” was quite different than its prototype, with a melody based on Bach’s “Air on a G String” and a far more gentle, uplifting ambience. Conder then recruited a band, Les Fleur de Lys, who had released some respectable mod rock records of their own without a hit [see #32, 122], to record the song in an arrangement reminiscent of early Procol Harum. Les Fleur de Lys also recorded a B-side [with Sharon Tandy (see #371, 441, 442, 741, 1,485)], “Hold On[]” [see #371], but decided not to work with Conder after the tracks were done. The single was released anyway, and has become regarded by collectors as one of the better little-known British psychedelic 45s. Conder’s original idea was to have Sweet Feeling change their name to Rupert’s People so that there was a band to promote the single. Sweet Feeling declined, so a Rupert’s People lineup was formed around singer Chris Andrews . . . who had sung on the “Reflections of Charles Brown” 45. . . . [T]his group . . . lasted only briefly and didn’t record anything that was released. Conder then went back to Sweet Feeling and again proposed that the band change their name to Rupert’s People. This time, they accepted, and the renamed group put out a couple more singles in 1967-1968. . . . [that] contain some fair British pop-mod-psych. . . . Rupert’s People continued playing live until the end of the 1960s, by which time they were handled by future Police manager and record mogul Miles Copeland. At the beginning of the 1970s, they changed their name to Stonefeather, with future Police drummer Stewart Copeland . . . .
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,593) Majic Ship— “Wednesday Morning Dew”
A NYC band trending toward hard rock gives us a beautiful and languid ballad that is âlike a warm summer eveningâ (xiropigado, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmRG-OddRy0), a âfabulous track which shows theres no justice[, s]hould have been huge”. Qrogbrown1965, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15238GvsuI8) But there is an undercurrent of fear here â âIâm not sure that I can make itâ.
Mark Deming tells us of the LP:
While on their early singles Majic Ship was a solid pop band who mostly devoted themselves to imaginative interpretations of covers, by the time they cut their first LP in 1970 they’d shifted gears and become a hard rock act with an undertow of pastoral psychedelia, and their self-titled album . . . is an interesting artifact of its era. Lead guitarist Phil Polimeni embraced a warm but fuzzy sound that suggests the influence of Jimi Hendrix and Pete Townsend without the aggressive histrionics of either artist, and vocalist Mike Garrigan was a more than capable blue-eyed soul singer with an admirable sense of restraint on moodier numbers such as . . . âWednesday Morning Dew.” When the band turns up the volume . . . the results are a bit less immediately impressive, since a number of bands were following a similar path at the time, but Majic Ship still has plenty to offer when they rock out. The performances here sound warm and organic, and sway with an easy but impassioned groove . . . impressive harmonies. . . . It’s probably a mistake to regard Majic Ship as a lost classic from the era when psychedelia was giving way to hard rock, but it’s a solid and enjoyable record from a band who had genuine talent and some fine songs; it’s not hard to imagine these guys could have become major stars if their luck had been a bit better back in the day.
Arising out of adolescent garage band the Primitives, which played primitive covers of British Invasion tunes, the New Primitives came together in New York City in 1966, originally composed of a group of high school friends . . . . They kept a busy performance schedule throughout the next few years when their high school commitments allowed it. In 1968 . . . former ’50s crooner turned manager Johnny Mann saw the band live and promised to get them a recording contract. . . . [T]he New Primitives became Majic Ship. Mann introduced the band to the Tokens, who produced their first single, “Night Time Music.” It became a local hit, even gaining the band some national airplay, as did a second single, “Hummin.” After much touring and a couple more singles, Majic Ship found their way to a studio to record their self-titled debut album in the summer of 1969. They melded hard rock, pop, and psychedelia in a way similar to fellow New Yorkers Vanilla Fudge. The band continued on for the next couple of years with plans to record a second album, but those plans were nixed when the band’s shared house in Staten Island burned to the ground in 1971, taking with it virtually all their recording equipment and instruments. Without any insurance, the bandmembers called it quits.
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Johnny had an extraordinary voice. He was “[r]enowned around his Crescent City home base as ‘the Tan Canary’ for his extraordinary set of soulfully soaring pipes”. (Bill Dahl, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/johnny-adams-mn0000242473) “[His] vocals are an unearthly treasure; muscular, smooth, and endlessly energetic and emphatic, they can transform even a pedestrian soul shuffle into a Midas-laced paean or ballad. . . . containing all the pain and joy of human experience.â (Michael Petitti again)
Bill Dahl tells us of Adams:
[V]eteran R&B vocalist Johnny Adams . . . . was never particularly into the parade-beat grooves that traditionally define the New Orleans R&B sound, preferring to deliver sophisticated soul ballads draped in strings. Adams sang gospel professionally before crossing over to the secular world in 1959. Songwriter Dorothy LaBostrie . . . convinced her neighbor, Adams, to sing her tasty ballad âI Wonât Cry.â* . . . Adams was on his way. He waxed some outstanding follow-ups . . . notably âA Losing Battleâ . . . and âLife Is a Struggle.â After a prolonged dry spell, Adams resurfaced in 1968 with an impassioned R&B revival of Jimmy Heapâs country standard âRelease Meâ . . . that blossomed into a national hit. Even more arresting was Adamsâ magnificent 1969 country-soul classic âReconsider Me,â his lone leap into the R&B Top Ten . . . . Despite several worthy SSS follow-ups (âI Canât Be All Badâ was another sizable seller), Adams never traversed those lofty commercial heights again . . . .
* Karl Dallas: âIt was when an upstairs neighbour, songwriter Dorothy Labostrie, heard him singing âPrecious Lordâ in the bathtub and persuaded him to record a song of hers, âOh Whyâ . . . that he began to be recognized as a secular singer.” (https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-johnny-adams-1199802.html)
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I think Daverenick5830 would rename the song âSitting by the Styxâ, with a âkind of whirling ominous hurricane of sound between verses that undercuts the happy lyrics, like the couple by the riverside is just a happy flimsy little daydream layered over an awful nightmare, like those vaudevillian tunes penned during the nightmare depression”. (daverenick5830, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80o__1OkB8M)
Wikipedia relates that:
Ray Davies was inspired to compose “Sitting by the Riverside” after reminiscing about childhood fishing expeditions with his father. The song’s narrator expresses his pleasure at sitting and drinking wine with his partner by the riverside . . . . Johnny Rogan considers the song one of several by Davies about “the beauty of a quiet life”, suggesting its mood of “lazy resignation” is reminiscent of “Sunny Afternoon” . . . . Rob Jovanovic . . . [says it] convey[s] imagery of simple village life. . . . The narrator closing his eyes results in a rush of overwhelming memories and fear, accompanying which is a swelling cacophony. A section of rising dissonance between verses serves to briefly undermine the idyllic mood, before cutting back to the pleasant feeling of the verse. . . . The recording features honky-tonk piano and a Mellotron . . . which duplicates the sound of an accordion. The dissonant section between verses features rising piano strings. Its wordless chorus and orchestral crescendo are reminiscent of “A Day in the Life” . . . . While the studio version of the song was recorded in July 1968, Davies did not include it on the twelve-track edition of The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society, planned for release in September 1968. After he delayed the album’s release by two months to expand its track listing to fifteen, it was among the songs he added.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine tells us of the immortal LP:
Ray Davies’ sentimental, nostalgic streak emerged on Something Else, but it developed into a manifesto on The Village Green Preservation Society, a concept album lamenting the passing of old-fashioned English traditions. As the opening title song says, the Kinks — meaning Ray himself, in this case — were for preserving “draught beer and virginity,” and throughout the rest of the album, he creates a series of stories, sketches, and characters about a picturesque England that never really was. It’s a lovely, gentle album, evoking a small British country town, and drawing the listener into its lazy rhythms and sensibilities. Although there is an undercurrent of regret running throughout the album, Davies’ fondness for the past is warm, making the album feel like a sweet, hazy dream. And considering the subdued performances and the detailed instrumentations, it’s not surprising that the record feels more like a Ray Davies solo project than a Kinks album. . . . [T]he album is so calm. But calm doesn’t mean tame or bland — there are endless layers of musical and lyrical innovation . . . and its defiantly British sensibilities became the foundation of generations of British guitar pop.
Scheduled for release on September 27th [1968], th[e] 12 song Village Green album was soon canceled under Rayâs wishes.âHe had asked Pye, their label, to have some additional time to track new songs, and perhaps even expand it into a 20-track double LP.âThe label reluctantly agreed, and so in September, they recorded an additional two songs for the record, them being âBig Skyâ and âLast of the Steam Powered Trainsâ, and started to mix the new double LP.âHowever, Pye werenât that confident in the band back then.âThe failure of their latest single, âWonderboyâ, which barely made the top 30 in England, had left a bad taste in their mouths, and a double LP by them would be a big bet.âThey decided to nix the idea, much to Daviesâ anger and insisted on it being a single album.âAs a compromise, however, they decided to allow the album to feature fifteen tracks, instead of the original twelve.âThat meant two tracks would be removed, them being âDaysâ and âMr. Songbirdâ, and the two newly recorded songs and three outtakes would be added.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,590) Dave Waite & Marianne Segal — âPaper Flowersâ
The dorks at Polydor didn’t release this glittering UK folk rock gem?! They folked themselves. It would have been a hit!
Richard Allen tells us that “[t]hree tracks, âPaper Flowersâ, âItâs Really Quite Alrightâ and âI Canât Love You Moreâ, were produced in 1969 by Jon Miller for a possible single and whilst these employed Phil Dennysâ rich orchestration and the work of top sessions musicians such as Herbie Flowers and Barry Morgan, they were never released.” (excerpt from No Sense of Time, https://mariannesegal-jade.com/audio/) Marianne Segal recalls:
Dave said he’d written a song. We tried it and it worked, so we recorded it! The first version is a recording . . . produced by Jon Miller and arranged by Phil Dennis for a possible single in 1969 on Polydor. The second version is a demo.
liner notes to the CD comp Dave Waite & Marianne Segal: Paper Flowers
Forced Exposure tells us more:
Before the legendary ’70s UK folk rock band Jade, there was a folk duo — Dave Waite and Marianne Segal. Well known on the live circuit of the mid- to late ’60s, Dave and Marianne slung guitars in the boot of their Triumph and travelled the university and folk clubs of England at a time when folk was groovy and Carnaby Street was still swinging. Their music was a fusion of English and American contemporary folk artists such as John Renbourne, Bert Jansch, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, The Mamas and The Papas and Peter Paul and Mary but it also contained a spark of ever-so-English vocal purity that gave the duo a sound more suited to the label ‘folk-pop.’ . . . [Paper Flowers, the CD collection of their unreleased songs from this era is] one of the great lost UK folk albums of the 1960s. In part comparable to Sandy Denny and The Strawbs and with the folk-pop sensibilities of US West Coast contemporaries such as The Mamas and Papas, [it] is a rare acoustic snapshot of an era known more for its volume and wild theatrics than for its gentle rustic melodies. Paper Flowers is the sound of summer days in Hampstead, beautiful people, beautiful clothes, incense, innocence and mythic ’60s mystery. Marianne and Dave weave magical harmonies on original and contemporary ’60s folk material . . . .
The duo, and the two years we had with it, was the sweetest of times, however the “groovy” element was, as now, a media myth. If you had cash or a “thing” then you could “groove” but for most people life went on as usual in its post World-War Two shades of concrete grey. Yet, for Marianne and I, the world was wide open and we were able to work in the places we wanted to go, and do exactly what we wanted, when we wanted. Despite the subsequent canonisation of the ’60’s I suppose we really did have a groovy time and in retrospect what could be better than that?
liner notes to the CD comp Dave Waite & Marianne Segal: Paper Flowers
Richie Unterberger tells us more, more:
Both Dave Waite and Marian Segal are most known for their work as two-thirds of the obscure early-’70s folk-rock group Jade, who released an album highly similar in approach to the first two albums Fairport Convention [see #1,199] made with Sandy Denny as singer in the late ’60s. Prior to forming Jade, however, Waite and Segal worked as a folk duo, playing material that trod on similar territory as Denny did in her pre-folk-rock days, though it was more influenced by the pop-folk of acts such as the Seekers (and, in the latter part of the Waite-Segal partnership, Joni Mitchell).
Dave Waite . . . grew up in the South London suburbs in a very musical family. By the mid-1950s, he was â in his own words â âa dedicated guitar freakâ . . . . By the late 1950s, [he] was in and out of various trios and duos until 1960 when he became part of The Countrymen who . . . traded a clean cut, middle of the road folk-pop sound that was very popular with BBC variety audiences. They issued recordings on Pye and had both a TV and radio series. . . . By 1967, The Countrymen had fallen apart after management wrangles so Dave was looking for something new . . . . Playing solo at universities and folk clubs he honed his style . . . . A chance meeting in 1967 cemented the musical union that was to give birth to Jade. Dave spotted Marian performing . . . . âI was looking for something and so was she. We wanted to play the same material and best of all what I saw and heard that night with her oh-so English voice, counterpoised against a transatlantic guitar style, told me she was the other part of what I wanted to be doingâ. From that moment on, Dave Waite and Marian Segal became a well-known duo on the UK folk scene . . . . Marian progressed to writing her own songs but she did not feel confident with them in a live environment until Dave began to encourage her. Six months into 1968, Marian finally felt confident enough to include her songs in the duoâs set list . . . . Dave recalls: âThey loved Marianâs songs and the places she took them to, in just one line. I stood and saw how she made the connection between herself and the audience.â By this time, the duo had attracted the attention of famed folk agent Sandy Glennon, who took them under his wing . . . . Eventually, and after much hard work, Dave and Marian established themselves on the circuit which enabled them to work at clubs all over the UK . . . . [and] regular radio spots . . . and appearances on regional television shows . . . . In 1969, Sandy Glennon introduced them to record producer Jon Miller. Jon . . . . hooked up with Dick James to form a publishing company, Jamil, that aimed to sign up new British acts. He invited Dave and Marian to record some demos and as a result, the duo signed to DJM for both publishing and recording. . . . Realising that times were changing and that the â60s pop folk sound had become dated . . . Miller decided that [they] should move away from the lightweight American style folk sound and travel in a heavier, more progressive direction. He introduced Rod Edwards, one half of The Piccadilly Line (later Edwards Hand) [see #151, 663, 806, 813, 911] and came up with the name Jade whilst also offering to manage the group.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,589) Doug Ashdown — âSomething Strangeâ
Here is one of the firsts songs written by Australia’s folk giant Doug Ashdown (see #1,375). Brilliant.
Ashdown tells us of Ashdown:
After playing lead guitar in a Shadows/Beatles cover band, I descended into the subterranean world of the folk clubs where I became a Dylan impersonator supreme. My first real break came when I recorded my debut album for CBS. I think it garnered me a tin record for 25 sales! My album Source released in 1968 featured one of my first compositions “Something Strange”. I got busy writing my own songs and began to write with Jim Stewart. Jim and I co-wrote an album called the Age Of Mouse. Featuring the band Fraternity, it was the first double album of original material released in Australia. I then travelled to Nashville where I lived and worked for three years. While there I met many great writers and singers, ate and drank lots of âcountry breakfastsâ and co-wrote many songs. One of these, âJust Thank Meâ, became a number one country hit for the late David Rogers. Another unforgettable experience while in Nashville was co-producing a single for, and touring with, the great Broadway star Carol Channing. During my stay in America I also performed at Gerdes Folk City in New York, at the Exit Inn in Nashville and on the Mike Douglas TV show in Philadelphia. Upon returning to Australia I fronted the country rock band, The Sleeping Dogs.
The definitive Milesago: Australasian Music & Popular Culture 1964-1975 tells us:
Adelaide-born Doug Ashdown . . . . had travelled to England [by age 17], where he played in a rock band, returning to Adelaide the following year and working as lead guitarist in The Bowmen with Bobby Bright . . . . Dougâs first major break came when he signed with CBS. . . . [O]ver the next three years he recorded three albums for them . . . This Is Doug Ashdown in 1965. . . . The Real Thing (1966) . . . . [and] Source (1968) . . . . [B]y decadeâs end, he was an accomplished performer, songwriter and recording artist, and a leading light on the Australian folk scene. After his CBS contract expired Doug . . . [i]n 1969 . . . joined forces with expatriate Irish singer, songwriter and producer Jimmy Stewart who had recently formed the Sweet Peach label. . . . Dougâs fourth album, his first for Sweet Peach, was The Age Of Mouse which earned him a place in the history books as the first double album of original material ever released in Australia . . . . The songs were co-written with Jimmy Stewart . . . . Sweet Peach lifted three Singles . . . [t]he first two . . . local chart successes, and the album gained considerable critical acclaim. As a result, it was picked up by MCA for overseas release in fifty countries. . . . [and] had generated enough interest in the USA to prompt Doug and Jimmy to move there. . . . Doug was unable to crack the US market, so Jimmy and Doug returned to Australia where they set up a new label . . . . Stewart produced Dougâs next album entitled Leave Love Enough Alone (1974). . . . [T]he albumâs evocative title track, co-written by Doug and Jimmy Stewart during a bitter winter in Nashville. . . . was released in September 1974 and received some airplay, but . . . [didnât] ma[k]e the charts . . . . [It] proved to be a classic âsleeperâ and the breakthrough finally came more than a year later when it was retitled and reissued as âWinter In Americaâ. . . . bec[oming] a major hit through late 1976 and early 1977, reaching #14 in Melbourne and #30 in Sydney. . . . [and] remains one of the most popular and enduring Australian songs of the â70s . . . .
[Ashdown] formed his own skiffle band, The Sapphires, in 1958. When his father transplanted the family back to England for nine months in 1960-1, the youthful Ashdown played electric guitar with an ensemble called Rommel and the Desert Rats. On return to Adelaide, he spent time (1961-4) as one of The Beaumen along with Bobby Bright . . . . âI discovered Dylan and that was itâ. . . . Ashdown debuted as a folksinger at Adelaideâs Purple Cow, late in 1964, and he had his first big break when Tina Lawton asked him to substitute for her at a Town Hall concert. [He] . . . brought the house down. . . . . [H]e quickly became a fixture on the coffee lounge circuit. . . . Saturday nights frequently found him performing five gigs . . . . It was as the Folk Hutâs chief drawcard that Ashdown came to the attention of CBSâs Sven Libaek, then in Adelaide scouting for new talent. He was offered a recording contract . . . . Almost from the beginning, Ashdown objected to being categorised, insisting that he never thought of himself as a folksinger, and that he found the whole folk thing too restrictive. . . . Unsurprisingly, this lack of commitment to the folk scene earned Ashdown the disdain of the folk establishment â as did the commercial success and orientation of his recordings, or his willingness to record Lennon-McCartneyâs âHide Your Love Awayâ . . . . On one occasion, a number of audience members walked out of a folk concert in Sydney when he attempted to perform an electrified version of Dylanâs âI Shall Be Releasedâ. Ashdown, in turn, once confessed to interviewer Greg Quill that his third album, the ground-breaking 1968 LP Source reflected his dissatisfaction with both the folk and mainstream music scenes. Intensely critical of the pop sceneâs preoccupation with drugs, doom and destruction, he teamed up with Jimmy Stewart in 1968, creating a solid body of self-composed material about âreal thingsâ â small portraits and studies of individual lonelinesses and the patterns of particular loves, recounted (he maintained) without either judgment or world-shattering conclusions. The material was preserved on . . . The Age of Mouse . . . .
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,588) Click — âGirl with a Mindâ
â. . . is not easy to findâ. Um, that might be a bit touchy today. Anyway, this entrancing and âoffbeatâ (Billboard (Feb. 3, 1968), Davie Gordon, https://www.45cat.com/record/lr3419) A-side clicks with me, âsomething between The Cowsills and an America version of Donovanâs slightly lysergic take on folk rockâ. (RDTEN1, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/click/click/)
Billboard predicted (Feb 3, 1968):
Intriguing material, smooth performance and Joey Scott arrangement must be heard and it could really prove a top chart item. Off-beat number with much sales potential
You couldn’t be blamed for thinking Click was a band. I certainly did. And as is so often is the case, I was wrong. Click was in fact singer/songwriter Click Horning. Raised in New Hampshire, at seventeen Horning left school, joining two older sisters living in New York City. Through his sisters he scored a job as a music publisher staff writer, followed by a recording deal with Robert and Gene Schwart’s Laurie Records. Horning made his recording debut in 1967 with a pairs of obscure singles for Laurie. To my ears the 45s recalled something between The Cowsills and an America version of Donovan’s slightly lysergic take on folk rock. Nice enough, but not exactly the most original sides you’ve ever heard. . . . It’s interesting how many obscure acts ABC signed during the late ’60s and early ’70. On the list was the young Mr. Horning. 1969’s Click teamed Horning with producer Tom Wilson and was mildly interesting for several reasons including the fact Horning was allowed to record a collection of all original material – quite rare for a newly signed act. Judging by the eleven selections, while Horning wasn’t the most impressive singer you’ve ever encountered, he had a decent enough voice and was quite versatile. The same was true for his songwriting which spanned the spectrum from top-40ish pop . . . to heavy psych . . . with side trips into jazz . . . jazz-rock fusion . . . Donovan-styled folk-rock . . . and singer/songwriter territory . . . . Dropped by ABC, Horning stayed active on the New York music scene, forming the band Moonshine, followed by Henry J and the Rollers. He played in a series of local bands including the Cosmic Hasbeens and The Too Old To Practice Band. In the late-’70s he returned to New Hampshire and splitting his time between a solo career and the band Night Kitchen.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,587) Glass Family — âIâm Losing Itâ
This killer fuzz-drenched garage/psych stomper wasn’t issued as a single or on the Glass Family’s ’69 LP Electric Band (see #309, 338). Rather, it found its way onto possibly the first 60’s punk/garage rock compilation album, ’67’s Freakout U.S.A. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=jFyzFqUXnJ0) –an “[a]mazing psych comp made of groups (except the Glass Family) that never had an album, essential stuff for you fuzz frenetics out there.” (higdon4, https://www.discogs.com/master/569206-Various-Freakout-USA)
Jenell Kesler tells us about the Family:
The Glass Family . . . began their career on a lark, as a way of making money for beer and surfboard wax, often playing the same venue and parties under a different name, mere days apart . . . . It was an ideal time to young and idealistic in L.A. back in 1967, where they experimented with instrumentation, fuzzed out guitars, and vocal arrangements emphasizing the softer side of psychedelic rock. And though they were never a hit, and received nearly no radio airplay, this assemblage of talent set the pace for many bands to follow, and anyone who saw them live stumbled home with hallucinogenic musical imagery dancing in their heads . . . .
And Maplewood Records, which issued the first official release of Electric Band since the sixties, informs us that:
The origins of The Glass Family start in West Los Angeles. Jim Callon formed a band to play surf music and covers at frat parties to make some money. They went by a few different monikers at that point; the Carpet Baggers and the Soul Survivors amongst them. A few years later when the band members were at Cal State LA for grad school, they changed the band name to The Glass Family. They played all over Los Angeles, gigging at notable venues like The Troubadour, The Topanga Corral and The Whiskey A Go-Go, sharing bills with The Doors, Vanilla Fudge, and Love. By 1967, they’d secured a record deal with Warner Bros. Records, who released their record in 1968. Although it never became the hit that they’d hoped for, the more important result was that the Glass Family were a piece of the puzzle of the times: playing gigs with Gram Parsons and The Flying Burrito Bros, Canned Heat, Big Brother and The Holding Company with Janis Joplin, and The Grateful Dead.
Los Angeles at that time was a wonderful place to be . . . . It was people expanding their minds with LSD and marijuana. People just wanted to try new things and change the way that they were expected to live their lives.
When I was going to UCLA and then later Cal State LA, there were only three or four other guys with long hair. Those were my friends. Straight people didnât like us. They looked at us and treated us as if we were terrorists. But the girls liked us!â
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As to Mario Migliardi, Violangelo Teatro/Violangelo Theater tells us (courtesy of Google Translate):
One of the most original musicians of the second half of the 20th century. He was one of the founding members of the Terzo Millennio Association. From Piedmont, he combined his university studies at the faculty of chemistry with his studies in music. After moving to Rome, he collaborated with RAI [Radiotelevisione italiana] and was soon called by Maestro Razzi to the newly founded Studio di Fonologia in Milan, where he became the animator with Luciano Berio and Bruno Maderna. He deepened his studies on the decomposition of sound and on âMusique Concreteâ and his experiments â in addition to making him a prestigious exponent of electronic music â influenced his production as a composer also in the field of light music. For the latter he collaborated again with RAI in Rome, as a composer, pianist, organist, arranger and conductor, also participating in popular entertainment programs, such as âCanzonissimaâ. We are at the end of the 60s and Migliardi â already artistic consultant of RCA Italiana â is called to the artistic direction of FONIT-CETRA, Roman headquarters, where he will remain until the 70s. He then resumes his musical experiments and orchestral direction, which sees him on the podium of both the Orchestra di Musica Leggera della RAI in Rome, and the Orchestra Sinfonica di Torino, for radio and television programs with national and international artists, including Milly, Sandie Show, Milva. He then wrote the incidental music for Violetta Chiarini’s theatrical texts and the songs for the musical shows of the actress-singer and author, among which “E’ arrivato il tempo di essere” – from which the audiobook by Mondadori “FemminilitĂ e femminismo”, directed by Gino Negri – “Io e me”, also a theatrical piece, broadcast in installments by RADIO-Due, “Vecchia Europa sotto la luna”, of which he curated the recording edition. He has recorded numerous electronic music, concrete music and light music, some of which appeared under the pseudonym of “Vidulescu”. For over seventeen years he was a teacher of composition and electronic sound recording at the Conservatory of Santa Cecilia in Rome.
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Etta James was in the heartbreak business. Other singers sold sweet dreams of love, romance, and sex, but Etta James sold pain and she had an endless supply. . . . She never knew who her father was. When she was born, her mother who was fourteen, abandoned her, leaving her with a childless older couple. The woman, called âMama Luâ by Etta, became her surrogate mother . . . . But . . . . [p]eriodically, her birth mother, Dorothy, who loved the night life, would appear and take the child away. . . . They would live in squalor . . . and then, bored and frustrated with parenthood, Dorothy would return Etta . . . . The pattern continued until Etta was twelve when Mama Lu died. Dorothy . . . took her to San Francisco. . . . [and] . . . left Etta with [Dorothyâs brother] and walked away. . . . Etta was shuttled between her aunt and uncle and her mother . . . . [She] began running with gangs and at fourteen was put in juvenile detention for thirty days. . . . Etta . . . had been gifted with extraordinary musical ability . . . . She was a radio Gospel star at the age of seven. She . . . was discovered by Johnny Otis and at sixteen recorded her song âRoll With Me Henryâ, which became one of the biggest R&B hits of 1955. She became a star, went on the road with the Johnny Otis Show, and had more hits. . . . [But] she got ripped off by everyone; the record company didnât pay royalties, Otis put his wifeâs name on âRoll With Me Henryâ and a white woman, Georgia Gibbs, covered it as âDance With Me Henry[â and it reached] #1 Pop and sold over a million copies. Etta was singing for $10 a night when she watched Gibbs sing âDance With Me Henryâ on The Ed Sullivan Show. By 1960, the hits had stopped coming . . . . Leonard Chess . . . was looking for black artists who could âcrossoverâ and sell to the pop audience. He gave Etta a chance and soon she was again one of the biggest stars in Black Music and selling records to white people too. . . . [But s]he began shooting heroin[, t]he records started to sell less well . . . [, s]he started doing crimes for drug money[,] was in and out of jail[ and] in a . . . physically abusive relationship . . . . Leonard Chess [however,] never lost faith in her. . . .
West Coast rhythm and blues titan Johnny Otis discovered James in 1954. “We were up in San Francisco,” Otis recalled in Rolling Stone, “for a date at the Fillmore. That was when it was black. ⌠I was asleep in my hotel room when ⌠my manager phoned. He was in a restaurant and a little girl was bugging him: she wanted to sing for me. I told him to have her come around to the Fillmore that night. But she grabbed the phone from him and shouted that she wanted to sing for me NOW. I told her that I was in bedâand she said she was coming over anyway. Well, she showed up with two other little girls. And when I heard her, I jumped out of bed and began getting dressed. We went looking for her mother since she was a minor. I brought her to L.A., where she lived in my home like a daughter.” . . . Otis took the Creolettes to Los Angelesâwith the forged permission of the underage Jamesetta’s motherâand put them into his revue. He renamed the group The Peaches, and reversed Jamesetta’s name, creating what has remained her stage name ever since: Etta James.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,584) Maurice Gibb — âSomethingâs Blowingâ
An incredible and joyous song from Maurice Gibbâs (see #353, 354, 466, 861, 1,336) lost solo album recorded during the Bee Gee’s split — with a little nick from “Good Morning Starshine” at the end!
Bruce Eder explains:
In contrast to Barry and Robin, who have shared and alternated the spotlight as lead vocalists, Maurice . . . [was] almost exclusively a backing vocalist for his four-decade career, providing a key part of the harmony singing for his brothers. In less overtly visible ways, however, he [was] essential to the group’s sound from the beginning of their recording career — in addition to sharing arranging chores with his brothers and playing bass . . . he . . . also played guitar, piano, organ, and Mellotron on their recordings, and even occasionally the drums on their demos. . . . Gibb’s voice is the least familiar to the public, concentrated as it usually is on backup and harmony singing. The major exception arose during the 1969 split between Robin Gibb and his two brothers, when Barry and Maurice carried on as a two-man version of the Bee Gees. Cucumber Castle, the one album that they completed together before the two of them, in turn, parted company, included a delightful African-flavored number entitled “I.O.I.O. []” [see #594,] which featured Maurice intoning the title throughout, as far forward in the mix as Barry Gibb’s lead. Maurice Gibb did begin work on a solo LP, and released a single, “Railroad[]” [see #861,] co-authored by Billy Lawrie, a songwriter and singer, and also the brother of the British pop/rock legend Lulu [see #960], who became Maurice’s wife in 1969. Gibb handled all of the vocals on the single . . . . [H]e did begin work on a solo LP to have been called “The Loner.” He worked for three months with Billy Lawrie playing and singing, and with guitarist Les Harvey of Stone the Crows, drummer Geoff Bridgeford, and John Coleman and Gerry Shurry, the latter three members of the Australian band Tin Tin [see #355, 1,121] — whose 1970 debut album Maurice Gibb had produced — filling out what instruments Gibb didn’t wish to play himself. . . . [T]he sessions . . . only yielded one released song, “The Loner[]” [see #353] . . . . credited to “The Bloomfields” and appeared on the soundtrack of the movie Bloomfield . . . . Like the other solo albums begun by his brothers in 1970, Maurice Gibb’s LP was never released officially, though large parts of it have appeared on bootlegs over the years. Later in the same year, he and his brothers were able to patch up their differences and resume working together, and there’s been little serious talk of “The Loner” ever being issued since then.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,583) The Alan Bown! — âMagic Handkerchiefâ
This A-side by the Alan Bown! (see #1,213, 1,414) is a “REAL gem” (MonkeyHanger, https://www.45cat.com/record/cub1). Dave Thompson calls it a “[b]lissed out mini-classic[ . . . that is] as delightful as only second-division British psych can be”. (https://www.allmusic.com/album/outward-bown-mw0000039618) MonkeyHanger says that “Jess Rhoden’s soulful vocals would have graced ANY 60’s band and on this track they are just incredible. Nice dual-tempo arrangement with loads of Bown’s trumpet and just a hint of phasing…Beautiful.”(https://www.45cat.com/record/cub1)
Of the album, Andrew Darlington says it is âa charming artefact of Brit-psych . . . . Although thereâs none of the unsettling darkness of a Syd Barrett [see #13, 87, 315, 922], or the hard Freak-beat edge of Creation [see #129, 165, 1,502], the twelve tracks present stronger songs than many of their high-charting contemporaries.â (http://andrewdarlington.blogspot.com/2016/07/from-mod-to-brit-psych-alan-bown.html?m=1). Dave Thompson tells us:
Everybody whoâs followed the convoluted career of Jess Roden, Britainâs best-kept blue-eyed soul-shaped secret for more than 30 years, should close their ears right now. The man who turned âI Canât Get Next to Youâ into one of the most dramatically passionate rock workouts of the â70s is completely up a bubblegum tree [on Outward Bown], running through an album of light-psych whimsy that has as much to do with his future asâŚname your poison: Peter Frampton and the Herd, Status Quo and âMatchstick Men,â Traffic and its debut album. Itâs great pop, of course â as great as any of those and many more. . . . a collection of semi-detached suburban Ray Davies observations full of vaguely Edwardian lifestyle concerns, peopled by pretty girls who wash the dishes, toys that talk, and love that flies from the rooftops with the clouds. Signs of the bandâs (and band membersâ) brilliance are all over the place. . . . And itâs all so impossibly sweet, so implausibly twee, and so utterly a child of its times that you canât help but wonder just how humanity survived the â60s. Let alone Roden himself!
Club band The Alan Bown Set were one of many acts to find that the emergence of psychedelia had rendered the fingerpoppoinâ, footstompinâ, handclappinâ soul revue mentality uncool almost overnight. Undaunted, they soaked up the new sounds, invested in kaftans and wrote a batch of songs inspired by the arrival of the Aquarian Age â or, at the very least, the arrival of The Bee Gees.
liner notes to the CD comp Letâs Go Down and Blow Our Minds: The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1967
As to trumpeter Alan Bown, Bruce Eder writes:
Any musical aspirations that he harbored were invisible until he completed a stint in the Royal Air Force at the outset of the 1960s. He found a music scene that was booming throughout England with an important extension to Germany, and which encompassed not only rock & roll but also blues, R&B, and jazz. The latter two areas were where Bown’s interest lay, and he was soon a member of a group called the Embers that was booked into the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, working on the same bills as such Liverpool-based artists as . . . the Beatles . . . . He returned to England after the extended engagement and joined the John Barry Seven, led by the trumpeter/arranger John Barry. . . . When Barry disbanded the group in 1964, Bown picked up the pieces and formed an outfit of his own . . . the Alan Bown Set . . . . The sextet was an immediate success as a live act . . . . Oddly enough, Bown and company never even thought about a recording contract, intending the band as a vehicle for steady work for themselves, doing what they enjoyed. It wasn’t until a couple of years into their history that . . . an A&R man for Pye Records, spotted [them] and got them under contract, which resulted in a string of 45s and half of an LP called London Swings that included part of their live show . . . . The Pye contract ended in late 1967, and the group was then signed to the British division of MGM Records, to an imprint called Music Factory. By this time, they’d modified their image and sound — the interest in R&B and soul was fading somewhat in the London clubs, even as psychedelic music was starting to become all the rage. And so, for its MGM/Music Factory releases, a somewhat longer-haired and more flamboyant version of Bown’s band was seen, and . . . simply known as the Alan Bown! . . . . They cut a song called “We Can Help You,” which had originated with the British band Nirvana [see #287, 391, 475, 1,238, 1,525] — and the Alan Bown version started to make a splash in England in terms of exposure. But on the week of the record’s actual release . . . . [a] strike at the plant where the record was pressed and due to ship from prevented its release, at precisely the moment when it had to be in stores. And MGM Records chose to abandon the Music Factory label — though the Alan Bown! would remain with the company on the MGM label proper, this also meant that the company abandoned all promotional and distribution efforts involving the Music Factory releases. “We Can Help You,” despite a string of promotional appearances by the band on its behalf (including . . . [on] Top of the Pops), was left to die . . . and . . . Outward Bown[] was ignored. A pair of singles that followed, . . . both failed to chart. . . . A contract with Deram Records, the progressive rock imprint of English Decca, followed, along with a pair of singles and a self-titled LP, and there was also a lineup shift that, for a time, brought Robert Palmer into the group as its lead singer. But . . . the group’s moment had clearly passed . . . .
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,583) The Honeybus — âGirl of Independent Meansâ
From Honeybus (see #6, 52, 207, 434, 562, 605, 764, 1,100, 1,439) 2.0, here is a ’68 A-side “which certainly deserved to do well” (Roger Dopson, liner notes to the CD comp Honeybus at Their Best): “quite catchy” (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited), a “great upbeat single featuring brass and an insistent hook” (Story: The Honeybus Story, https://www.angelfire.com/pop2/honeybus/story.htm), an “excellent, quirky, commercial beat number”. (Roger Dopson again)
Honeybus is one of my favorite bands, with the honey being especially bittersweet given what should have been, what could have been. Jittery White Guy puts it perfectly:
Honeybus had the pop touchstones of the Beatles and the Hollies, while balancing the more sunshiny, twee aspects of the early Bee Gees with some mild touches of post-Sgt. Pepper psychedelia. . . . Their songs were unusually tuneful, some lovely little hooks paired with sweet harmonies, and itâs almost shocking to hear these songs today and realize the band had pretty much zero commercial success (at least here in the US).
Bruce Eder beautifully ponders what made the band so special and what âhappenedâ:
Considering that most have never heard of them, itâs amazing to ponder that they came very close, in the eyes of the critics, to being Decca Recordsâ answer to the Rubber Soul-era Beatles. The harmonies were there, along with some catchy, hook-laden songs . . . . The pop sensibilities of Honeybusâ main resident composers, Peter Dello and Ray Cane were astonishingly close in quality and content to those of Paul McCartney and the softer sides of John Lennon of that same era. Whatâs more, the critics loved their records. Yet, somehow, Honeybus never got it right; they never had the right single out at the proper time, and only once in their history did they connect with the public for a major hit, in early 1968. . . .
Dello and Cane . . . were the prime movers behind Honeybus. In 1966, they formed the Yum Yum Band . . . . A collapsed lung put Dello out of action in early 1966, and it was during his recuperation that he began rethinking what the band and his music were about. He developed the notion of a new band that would become a canvas for him to work on as a songwriter â they would avoid the clubs, working almost exclusively in the studio, recreating the sounds that he was hearing in his head. . . . It was a novel strategy, paralleling the approach to music-making by the Beatles in their post-concert period, and all the more daring for the fact that they were a new group . . . . The group was one of the best studio bands of the period, reveling in the perfection that could be achieved . . . .
They were duly signed to Englandâs Decca Records and assigned to the companyâs newly organized Deram label . . . . The critics were quick to praise the band . . . [but their first two singles were commercially] unsuccessful. Then . . . their third release, âI Canât Let Maggie Go,â [see #6] . . . . . . peaked at number eight. . . . [It] should have made the group, but instead it shattered them. Peter Dello resigned during the singleâs chart run. He had been willing to play live on radio appearances and the occasional television or special concert showcase . . . but he couldnât accept the physical or emotional stresses of performing live on a regular basis, or the idea of touring America . . . . Dello left . . . . [and] Jim Kelly came in on guitar and vocals, while Ray Cane . . . took over most of the songwriting, and Honeybus proceeded to play regular concerts. The group never recovered the momentum theyâd lost over âMaggie,â however, despite a string of fine singles . . . . [that] never charted . . . . [T]he group had pretty well decided to call it quits once they finished the[ir] LP . . . . The Honeybus Story . . . was released in late 1969, but without an active group to promote it, the record sank without a trace. . . . [I]t was a beautiful album, with the kind of ornate production and rich melodies that had become increasingly rare with the passing of the psychedelic era . . . .
As to the situation surrounding âGirlâ, Story: The Honeybus Story tells us:
“I Can’t Let Maggie Go” . . . . hit number 8 in the UK and became a huge hit in dozens of territories but the resulting merry-go-round of gigs, press and TV conflicted with Dello’s vision. He saw Honeybus as essentially a studio project and had had enough of life on the road during the early 60’s. With a record in the top ten, the record company screaming for a follow-up and album and widespread adulation, Pete Dello quit his own group. Such a blow would have signalled the end for most bands but the remaining members of Honeybus were more resourceful than that. First, they recruited Jim Kelly on vocals and guitar, then set about recording a follow-up to “Maggie”. Before Dello’s departure, both “I’m A Gambler” and live favourite “Francoise” had been mooted, but his compositions were now unavailable. It was six months until Cane’s “Girl Of Independent Means” . . . was released. . . . “Girl” . . . failed to sustain the group’s success. The song was probably too far removed from it’s predecessor and was released too late to register.
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Actually, the song was a joke! The Specters’ drummer, Paul Odgren (who later earned a PhD at the UMass Medical School) tells us about how the song came to be and its fate:
It was originally supposed to be called “A Place for Sin,” but the producer was worried that it sounded like an invitation to a whorehouse. So [lead guitarist] Jack [Pezanelli], in a sardonic mood, instead re-wrote it into a brooding teen downer piece. “Depression” was exactly the same song, even many of the lyrics, as “A Place for Sin.” It’s a little amusing now to see how people take the song as a glimpse into the dark soul of alienated teens when really, it was a bit tongue-in-cheek. I guess it sounded too sincere… The Melbourne label was based in Manchester, N.H., and the producer [James N. Parks] had produced Paul Anka’s first big hit, “Diana.” To our young eyes, it looked impressive to see the gold record on his wall, but really it was kind of a scam. We paid for the recording and for the pressing out of pocket and there was no effort by the “label” to market it whatsoever. Its airplay was largely limited to Worcester’s rock ‘n roll AM station, WORC.
“A Place for Sin” was a favorite original tune, played live, which was a Kingsmen-inspired pounder about a local whorehouse. When one of the parents overheard the song being rehearsed, they demanded the guys to do a different song. . . . The lead guitarist decided to write a tune that was nothing like the sound they’d established, exaggerating the mood and lyrics as a complete joke.
Odgren tells us about the Specters:
The Specters (Ron Hadley, organ; Jack Pezanelli . . . Dave Galli, rhythm guitar, bass; Paul Odgren, drums) were born in Worcester in 1966 after re-organization of the Dischords. . . . The Dischords played regularly at . . . local spots . . . . The Specters did the same in 1966 and â67. . . . Hadley went to Dartmouth College in the fall of ’66 and the band played a number of gigs there, too. For the summer of â67, the band moved to Wiers Beach on Lake Winnipesaukee in NH, mainly because Hadleyâs girlfriend spent summers there. That summer was a mix of feast or famine, with the band occasionally resorting to shoplifting to avoid starvation. They opened for Teddy and the Pandas (âGroovy Kind of Loveâ) at the Big Venue in the area, Irwinâs Winnipesaukee Gardens. At that time, there was a pretty popular band in the area of southern NH and Massachusettsâ north shore called the Spectras. To avoid confusion, the Specters changed their name again, this time to The Wednesday Review. . . . The Wednesday Review for a part of that summer rented a small hall in Sunapee, NH, named it âThe Tumbling Sun,â and played some concerts/dances there. The kindly owners of the Langley Cove Cottages where the band was staying, knowing that money was often in very short supply, waived the rent in exchange for some outdoor concerts. Local newspapers picked up on them, and the locale picked up some free publicity. There were late-night rides home from venues around New Hampshire, sometimes running out of gas in the middle of nowhere and having to hitchhike to the only 24-hour gas station in the state in Concord. . . . In late â67 and into â68, the band added female lead vocalist, Marion âYuyeâ Fernandes, from Marion, MA. They also got connected with an agent in Boston just out of Ivy League business school named Watson James. Watson booked the band in some memorable gigs, including opening a concert at the old Boston Arena for UMass, Boston, that featured some big name acts â The Chambers Brothers, Strawberry Alarm Clock, and the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. . . . Fernandes decided to go to Northeastern U. full-time, and Renatha Saunders who hailed from northern NJ via Gddard College in VT joined as lead vocalist for a short time. The bandâs demise came about when a rehearsal hall in Boston was broken into and thieves left with Hadleyâs brand new Fender Rhodes electric piano, two new high-end Fender amps, and other pieces of equipment, all uninsured . . . .
I contacted J[ack] back in the early 1990s when he still lived in Worcester and was teaching at Berklee School of Music. He was amazed that anyone cared about the 45. He managed to uncover 4 or 5 copies which I bought from him; he used the money toward repairing the transmission on his car.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,580) Condello — âThe Other Side of Youâ
A haunting, spacey pop psych number sounding a decade ahead of its time, sounding like Peter Gabriel wrote and performed it. In fact, I’m thinking that the Progfather did write and record it. The timing’s right! The song comes from a “fascinating album [Phase 1 that] moves from sparkling pop to near heavy metal, almost like a compilation album by one man” (Aaron Milenski, The Acid Archives, 2nd ed.), a “psychedelic masterwork . . . [that] flows and trickles through your mind with more saturation than Lucy and her diamonds in the sky-picking up a few nuggets, boulders, and pebbles in the emergent violet haze.” (Marios, http://rockasteria.blogspot.com/2014/04/condello-phase-i-1968-us-smart.html?m=1)
Oregano Rathbone is more equivocal:
Condelloâs Phase 1 album, originally issued by Scepter in 1968 . . . enjoys a weighty rep as a road-less-travelled psych-pop conversation piece. But curious crate-diggers should tread with caution. If you were only to hear “It Donât Matter” or “All You Need”, you might file the album alongside Moby Grapeâs debut: melodious, goodtimey acid rock, topped and tailed with libertarian, Fillmore-friendly lead guitar (provided herein by the future Tube, Bill Spooner). However, pound for pound, it might be more apposite to posit Phase 1 as a heraldic totem of country-rock.
To a generation of Arizonaâs baby-boomers, the late Mike Condello was synonymous with The Wallace And Ladmo Show, for which he acted as a prolific and wildly inspired musical director. Then again, psych supplicants and gungho garagistes revere the man for “Soggy Cereal”, an inimitably unlikely polka included on the third Pebbles compilation.
Mike Condello did it all in four decades in the music business: serve as music director for two local Phoenix TV shows (Teen Beat and The Wallace & Ladmo Show), lead his own bands like Hub Cap and the Wheels, parody the Beatles with Commodore Condelloâs Salt River Navy Band, and even play with luminaries like Keith Moon, the Tubes, and Jackson Browne. In 1968, he also led his own band – which released [Phase 1] . . . . Sadly, [he] committed suicide in the 90s after suffering from severe depression.
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The playlist includes all the âgreatest songs of the 1960âs that no one has ever heardâ that are available on Spotify — now over 1,000 songs. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,579) The Lords — âIâm a Hog for You Babyâ
Germanyâs Lords (see #335) take the Coastersâ 1959 #38 hit and camp it up as only the Lords can do with their âinimitable double-time Mersey bastardization[]â. (Richie Unterberger, https://www.allmusic.com/album/shakin-all-over-mw0000846529)
Itâs from the Lordsâ second album (â66), but Richie Unterbergerâs comment about their first LP fits well: â[T]he covers are so eccentric, done as they are with heavy German accents and a hopped-up Merseybeat-like rhythm, that itâs a lot better and more interesting than most such cover-dominated albums of the time.â (https://www.allmusic.com/album/in-black-and-white-in-beat-and-sweet-mw0000843617)
As to the Lords, Unterberger tells us that:
Quite popular in their own country, the Lords made no impression in the English-speaking world until a couple of decades later, when reappreciation of ’60s beat and garage music became so intense that collectors began to investigate the strange and wonderful world of Continental ’60s rock. The Lords are one of those groups that have to be heard to be believed. Although they had the requisite moptop haircuts, their repertoire was surprisingly anachronistic at times, drawing heavily from not only German drinking songs, but American folk tunes, . . . skiffle, and . . . pre-Beatle British rock . . . . Whatever they covered . . . they made their own with frantically fast tempos, heavily accented Teutonic vocals (virtually all of their material was in English), and heavy overuse of tremelo guitar lines with mucho reverb, whammy bar, and Lesley organ-like effects. They also wrote some interesting material of their own that drew from the more contemporary influences of Merseybeat and English mod pop. The Lords were not brilliant musicians or composers, but they were fun, and they had the hearts of true rockers . . . .
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The playlist includes all the âgreatest songs of the 1960âs that no one has ever heardâ that are available on Spotify — now over 1,000 songs. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
All new subscribers will receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock magnet. New subscribers who sign up for a year will also receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock t-shirt or baseball cap. See pictures on the Pay to Play page.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,578)Dave Bixby — âDrug Songâ
From Dave Bixby (see #531, 668, 1,189) comes “the saddest song I have ever heard in my entire existence” (karlicato190, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0HzNePL-XM), “as a supremely world-weary, echo-laden guy laments on how he screwed himself up with dope”. (Patrick Lundborg, The Acid Archives, 2nd ed.). Bixby explains that it “[i]s a tragedy, a place of no hope despair and a death of a soul”. (https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2011/11/dave-bixby-interview-about-ode-to.html) Oh, and it became the heart and soul of superstar rapper Travis Scott’s “Parasail”!
Dave [Bixby] played with folk bands in high school before cutting off his hippie hair to join a religious group. . . . Daveâs ⌠Ode to Quetzalcoatl, was recorded following a long period of time [he] spent in what he calls âthe voidâ. A dark, depressive episode after a prolonged period of taking LSD almost daily. Dave came out of the void and turned to God, a journey and transformation Ode to Quetzalcoatl documents. . . . Daveâs lived a vivid and fascinating life, beginning with his leadership within a Michigan-based Christian cult only known as âThe Groupâ. Always a loner and an adventurer, Dave left the group after being sent to various corners of the country to launch new chapters, built a cabin and lived off the land.
For collectors of the downer/loner folk movement of the late â60s . . . the solo debut from Michigan garage rocker-turned-born-again Xian Dave Bixby . . . go[es] for upwards of $2,000 on eBay. . . . Recorded after he spent a year playing solo and experimenting with LSD, Bixby laid down this album in a living room with the bare bones of amenities. . . . Bixby relies on the strength of his deeply faithful lyrics rooted in the Book of Revelations and the artistâs own personal drug-fueled Armageddon to carry his songs through the night.
Winter of 1968 I was not doing so well. Too many acid trips . . . . I quietly freaked out. I was in hell with no way to communicate it to anyone. Some months later my lead guitar buddy Brian MacInness introduced me to Don DeGraff I ended up in a prayer circle. . . . That night I did my own praying, fell asleep and a new spirit was born in me. . . . I saw peopleâs pain and fear, it was just like mine. I knew what to say to give comfort. Songs began to flood in to me, writing them down I sang them everywhere DeGraff had the first Group meeting at his house with about ten to twelve people and the numbers grew every week eventually needing a bigger building; then we out grew that building. I performed songs every Tuesday night at group meetings. These meetings grew to 300 people. I was asked many times to record an album. I selected twelve songs out of thirty I had written. Each song supported the next song in theme. The Quetzalcoatl story of a Christ like man walking the Americaâs captivated my imagination becoming the title for the LP. . . . In the studio it seemed a little lonely. Ode to Quetzalcoatl is a lonely journey so it all worked well. . . . This album is a concept. Each song is a chapter in a book. The theme throughout is one of stepping out in faith and walking through the darkness into the light. . . . Apocalypse. [Asked in what state of mind he was when he recorded it, Bixby said] I felt new, humbled and grateful. When I prayed I got answers and direction. I was moving forward with out doubt. I was going through a metamorphosis with out words to describe my experience. I captured some of it in song.
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Before Jimi Hendrix went to London to become a solo recording star, he had recorded some material with journeyman soul singer Curtis Knight and signed a contract with record executive Ed Chalpin. When Hendrix became an international superstar in 1967, this contract backfired on him badly, as Chalpin leased recordings of the Knight sessions to Capitol Records . . . . Eight of these tracks were issued at the end of 1967 on Get That Feeling, which — despite featuring only a picture of Hendrix, in all his 1967 glory, on the cover — only features him as a guitarist session man, with Knight actually handling the vocals. . . .
If he is known at all, the Harlem-based ’60s soul singer Curtis Knight is remembered for his connection to a pre-fame Jimi Hendrix. Knight met a down-on-his-luck Hendrix living in a New York City hotel. The singer gave the guitarist a spare axe and hired him to play with the Squires, Knight’s band. A native of Kansas, Knight had previously spent time in California . . . before relocating to New York, where he worked the circuit with the Squires, a workaday party R&B band. It’s quite possible Knight saw something in Hendrix. Not long after Jimi joined the Squires, Knight whisked him into the studio to record “How Would You Feel” . . . and soon started writing with Hendrix. . . . Knight helped encouraged Hendrix to sign a deal with record man Ed Chalpin. Jimi later claimed he thought he was signing on to a role as a sideman, but the contract bound him to Chalpinâs PPX Records. This became a big deal once Chas Chandler signed Hendrix to a contract in 1969. Chalpin claimed he owned Jimi, so Chandler owed him money. This legal dispute became protracted, complicated by the fact that Hendrix inexplicably kept returning to the studio to cut sessions with Knight while he was in the thick of proceedings. These early singles and latter-day jams with Hendrix form the bulk of Curtis Knight’s catalog. A bunch were issued under Hendrix’s name on Capitol Records via a licensing agreement with PPX, but over the years they’d show up often, appearing under any number of variations on the names of Knight, the Squires, and Hendrix. . . . [I]t was this association with Hendrix that provided Knight with a career. He moved to London, forming a band called Currtis Knight, Zeus . . . . [H]e published a book named Jimi: An Intimate Biography in 1974. This was the splashiest attempt to ride Hendrixâs coattails Knight would ever attempt, but he kept grinding out a living in the U.K. and Europe, playing gigs and cutting the occasional record. He wound up settling in the Netherlands . . . .
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
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Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelationsđ 