THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,403)The Rolling Stones — “Downtown Suzie”
Written by the Rolling Stones’ (see #382, 398, 537, 579, 1,098) bassist Bill Wyman (see #1,348) and recorded during the sessions for Beggar’s Banquet and Let It Bleed, this “good-time boogie with a portion of acoustic blues and open tuned slide guitar by Ry Cooder” (Martin Elliott, http://www.stonessessions.com/martin-elliott.html) is a rollicking good time — “The guitars are gorgeous and I like Jagger’s cheeky I’m-rolling-my-eyes-as-I-sing-this vocal . . . . a great song”. (dkmonroe, https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/rolling-stones-downtown-suzie.172484/) Marcelo Sonaglioni notes that the lyrics were supposedly written impromptu while the musicians were working on Let It Bleed. (https://rollingstonesdata.com/canciones/downtown-suzie-1968/) The song was finally released on ’75’s intended bootleg killer Metamorphosis.
Martin Elliott writes that Wyman admitted that “Downtown Suzie” “did not warrant inclusion on Let it Bleed or earlier on Beggars Banquet.” (http://www.stonessessions.com/extracts/0427.html) Bill, I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it. “Suzie” would have made a great Beggars Banquet‘s amuse-bouche!
Richie Unterberger dismissively writes that:
Prior to Metamorphosis, Bill Wyman had landed just one of his compositions on a Rolling Stones album (“In Another Land,” from Their Satanic Majesties Request) although he’d been writing songs almost as early as the team of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had. . . . It was originally recorded in 1968 during the Beggars Banquet session, but didn’t make it aboard the album. As to whether it should have made the cut, it’s a tough call. It’s near the same level of the filler of that album, but not nearly as good as the best of the record’s songs (or nearly as good as “In Another Land,” for that matter). It’s a rather average, if unembarrassing, blues-rocker with a good-natured, slightly racy, romping bent. The lyrical premise of the song isn’t exactly sharply drawn, but the narrator takes the role of some guy nursing a hangover; the “Sweet Lucy” character might be his woman. It’s implied that she’s not the cleanest of characters, either, with the line about her kicking him in the hole (probably not a golf hole), and talking about getting a dose from Lucy — of VD or drugs, it’s uncertain. Probably the best parts of the record are when Jagger plaintively moan-sings the lines during the verse, to be met after each phrase by almost mock-chiding low vocals chanting “yeah, yeah.” The song speeds up to an almost singalong jazzy kind of blues for the choruses, kind of like drunks singing together in a group as they head out of the pub and into the street. Not bad at all, with some good blues slide guitar work in the quieter sections, it’s nevertheless not compelling . . . .
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,402)The Deviants — “You’ve Got to Hold On”
From deep in the London underground comes the Deviants’ (see #564) “forgotten gem brought to the surface!” (EdwinJack64, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3Oe_LIZ3gQ), a “ramshackle . . . a harp-wailing, speed-freak update of the mid-Sixties garage R&B sound” (David Wells, liner notes to Real Life Permanent Dreams: a Cornucopia of British Psychedelia 1965-1970), an “outstanding uptempo, driving, searing garage psych played by fine acid guitar work throughout . . . harmonica, bass and drums fronted by a wild, frantic vocal by Mick Farren”. (bayard, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/the-deviants/youve-got-to-hold-on-lets-loot-the-supermarket-1.p/)
Mick Farren and the Deviants rose out of the London underground to blaze the trail for ’70’s punk rock. Ptooff!, their first album, is hailed as an accidental masterpiece. “You’ve Got to Hold On” is not from that album. Farren described Disposable, their second album (’68), as “truly awful”. “Hold On” is from that album. And it was the band’s only A-side!
Julian Cope examines the song:
The first and only single that The Deviants cut in the sixties, this pairing was taken off their highly uneven, amusing and at times terrifying album, Disposable. And it acts as a succinct overview of that album: the A‑side featuring lead vocalist Mick Farren bellowing, braying and screaming his lyrics of twisted drug revelations while an equally screaming and blistering fuzz guitar gets turned in by Sid Bishop. The guitar solo is by far one of his most unbridled: a churning, splintery mass of sharpened noise, and it’s every bit as good as his racket making on their debut album, PTOOFF! Since that point, personnel had shifted as several roadies joined on vocals as well as a three-man rhythm section: Russell Hunter on drums with Sandy Sanderson and Mac McDonnell on bass — sometimes simultaneously. From the moment Hunter’s drums bursts in to drive the thing down all the way to the end as awesomely-bad-for-the-f*ck-of-it harmonica wailing flies overhead, a head-creasing, sideways/backwards/every-which-way near constant guitar sprays with over-sustaining, over-fuzzed out ferocious power. It screams and screams along as Farren is straining at the leash of his sanity, which is soon fraying into the slightest of threads as his lyrics are, at best, discernable with ever other line. More by its reckless display of bottled anger uncorked than anything approaching musicianship, [it] is an explosive punk track and its undyingly recklessness and incorrigible extremities were (and still are) astonishingly ahead of their time.
In the late ’60s, the Deviants were something like the British equivalent to the Fugs, with touches of the Mothers of Invention . . . and . . . British R&B-based rock . . . . Their roots were . . . in . . . the psychedelic underground that began to take shape in London in 1966-1967. Not much more than amateurs when they began playing, they squeezed every last ounce of skill and imagination out of their limited instrumental and compositional resources on their debut, Ptooff!, which combined savage social commentary, overheated sexual lust, psychedelic jamming, blues riffs, and pretty acoustic ballads . . . . Their subsequent ’60s albums had plenty of outrage, but not nearly as strong material . . . .
The Deviants may have been aligned with the hippie/underground movement. Yet if this was flower-power and free love, it was delivered with a sneer that had no patience for mindless flight from reality, with an anarchic energy that looked forward a full decade to punk. The Deviants went on to release a couple of more conventional, far less impressive albums . . . .
Plenty of psychedelic groups of the late ’60s embraced a sunny outlook of peace, flowers, and consciousness expansion, but some took a harder line on upending the straight society they sought to replace, and like their spiritual brethren the MC5, the Deviants . . . saw their music as a vehicle for a Total Assault On The Culture. . . . [A]nd while they created a sonic approximation of the rage and defiance behind the Freak Culture on their debut album . . . . their second LP, Disposable, lacks focus or direction and sounds like the work of addled would-be revolutionaries who aren’t sure just what they’re fighting against this morning. Farren has claimed that he and his bandmates were flying on speed during most of the recording of Disposable, but there isn’t much energy (artificial or otherwise) in these performances, and many of the tunes collapse into meandering jams performed by musicians who lack the chops . . . . There are a few exceptions . . . that manages to actually find a groove . . . . Disposable is fascinating as a document of the U.K.’s anarchist hippie scene and where it went both right and wrong, but as entertainment, you’re a lot better off listening to Ptooff! Or looting a supermarket [a song on Ptooff!].
Mick Farren was one of the great London personalities, of the ’60’s and beyond. Richard Williams writes that:
Throughout his life as a writer, musician . . . and provocateur, Farren did his best to incarnate the qualities he saw as vital ingredients of the rock’n’roll spirit. . . . In the words of his friend, the publisher Felix Dennis, he was a “doorman, editor, journalist, rock star, rabble rouser, critic and commentator, charlatan, jester, impresario, gunslinging cross-dresser, icon, author, songwriter, poet”. With his gigantic white-boy Afro, his studded belt, his leather jacket and his aviator shades, Farren certainly looked like the man who had led the White Panthers UK, a branch of the organisation which had been set up in Chicago . . . as a brothers-in-arms counterpart to the Black Panthers. The only impact made by the UK offshoot, during its brief and ill-defined existence, came as part of the unholy alliance of Hell’s Angels, Young Liberals and student radicals from France, Germany and Holland who tore down the 9ft corrugated iron walls surrounding the 1970 Isle of Wight festival. . . . [H]e joined the staff of the International Times, the [revered London] underground weekly . . . . To the coterie of former beatniks, proto-hippies, literary avant-gardists, anarchists and revolutionaries who formed its staff, he brought something different. “For him, the underground was a logical extension of the original rock’n’roll rebellion,” wrote Barry Miles, one of IT’s founders. “He cared passionately about Elvis Presley, Gene Vincent and all the original rockers . . . . He saw the Hell’s Angels and mods and rockers as part of the same energetic thrust to change society as the Beat generation or Che Guevara.”
Richie Unterberger’s 1997 sit-down with Mick Farren is probably the greatest, most hilarious rock interview I have ever read. Let me relay a bit of it as is relevant to today’s song, but you owe it to yourself to read the whole thing:
You know, we were pretty incompetent at the start. We were pretty incompetent at the end. . . . [W]e made a second album which was truly awful, Disposable. The first album, we didn’t really know enough to be daunted by what we were attempting to do. On the second one, we really, we learned a bit more, which was just enough to make it bad . . . . The musicians started wanting to play. Rather than just kind of tinkling, which we had going on the first album. . . . [where] we really didn’t know what we were doing, so we didn’t care. The second [album], we got into the band business, and ceased to be innovative, and just became another f*cking band. . . . The eventual demise of the Deviants was when me and the guitar player . . . really were at odds about musicianship. I kind of thought it sucked. He had really this idea to be Jimmy Page . . . . The only claim to fame the Deviants had is we managed to persevere and actually get some stuff down onto vinyl. ‘Cause there are other bands, like the Brothers Grimm and the Giant Sun Troll and the whole list of them you see on posters. But they never actually got to record. And back in those days, you didn’t tape the shows, because we didn’t have the technology. So a lot of that stuff was lost. Fortunately, we weren’t. That was an incredibly lucky break, or we would have just been a name on a poster. . . . Sometimes it’d be the hippies who’d get freaked out [at our live shows]. ‘Cause they’d be there with their beads and bells, and really not understand why we were snarling at them and setting fire to our arms and things. . . . [T]hey thought that was all a bit aggressive, man. We were a very angry band. We were pissed off, generally, at the state of the world . . . . But it frequently just came down to being pissed off with each other. You have to remember, we took a lot of speed and we drank a lot, and we also had the most incredible hangovers. . . . It doesn’t make for a harmonious traveling band. That’s why we didn’t turn into the Grateful Dead, I guess. Plus, we didn’t know that many guitar riffs.
Oh, and Farren clears up how the band got its name . . . first the Social Deviants and then the Deviants:
It actually comes from the fact that we all had a house in the East End of London. And we picked up the paper one day, and it said that Tower Hamlet, which was one of the new constructed boroughs in East London, had the highest percentage of social deviance in the country. “Right, that’s us.” But saying it became really a drag. “What band are you in?” “The Social Deviants!” “Wot?” “Okay, the Deviants.”
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,401) The Standells — “Medication”
The lead-off track from the NOT FROM BOSTON Standells’s first LP in ‘66 is garage gold, a “great” song (Larry Tamblyn (the Standells), liner notes to the CD reissue of Dirty Water) that is “definitely the[ir] masterpiece!!!” (Oldschoolhero2006, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EWYyDOLfi7U&pp=ygUYVGhlIHN0YW5kZWxscyBtZWRpY2F0aW9u) “She does to me what other girls don’t do”
Richie Unterberger tells us that:
The Standells made number 11 in 1966 with “Dirty Water,” an archetypal garage rock hit . . . . While they never again reached the Top 40, they cut a number of strong, similar tunes in the 1966-1967 era that have belatedly been recognized as ’60s punk classics. . . . The Los Angeles band was actually hardly typical of the young suburban outfits across America who took their raw garage sound onto obscure singles recorded in small studios. They’d been playing L.A. clubs since the early ’60s, with a repertoire that mostly consisted of covers of pre-Beatles rock hits. Drummer (and eventual lead singer) Dick Doss had been a Mouseketeer on television, organist Larry Tamblyn was the brother of noted film actor Russ Tamblyn, and Tony Valentino was a recent immigrant from Italy. Gary Leeds [see #x] (later to join the Walker Brothers) was an early member (though he was replaced by Dodd). . . . [T]he group didn’t really hit their stride until teaming up with producer Ed Cobb . . . . who wrote “Dirty Water,” which marked quite a change of direction from their previous clean-cut image. In fact, the group didn’t even like the song, which took about six months to break into a hit. Considerably toughening their image, the group churned out four albums in 1966 and 1967, as well as appearing in (and contributing the theme song to) the psychedelic exploitation movie Riot on Sunset Strip. Cobb . . . also penned their other most enduring singles, including “Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White,” “Why Pick on Me,” and “Try It” (the last of which was widely banned for its suggestive delivery). The group did write some decent material of their own, such as the tense “Riot on Sunset Strip” [see #162] and the psychedelic “All Fall Down[.]” . . . Dick Dodd went solo in 1968, the year they released their last single.
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The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify — now over 900 songs. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
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Martyn (born Iain David McGeachy) didn’t know the song was about Drake, or even who Drake was, but they actually met a year later and became good friends. Years later, Martyn wrote “Solid Air” about Drake.
[It] is an understated gem in the folk music canon, where his raw talent is laid bare in its purest form. Released in 1967, the album captures the nascent brilliance of an artist who would later fuse folk, jazz, and blues with experimental virtuosity. Here, however, the charm lies in its simplicity, a sparse, acoustic landscape where Martyn’s deft guitar work and introspective vocals shine unadorned. His songs exude a quiet intimacy, revealing both lyrical depth and emotional resonance. This debut stands as a “must have” for connoisseurs of folk music, not only for its historical significance but for the profound sincerity it conveys. It invites the listener into a world of quiet reflection, where each note and phrase is meticulously crafted. . . .
London Conversation, whose material (written primarily by Martyn) reflects the era and his age (18 years old), comes across as a young, although soon to be important artist looking for a voice. . . .
[It] only hinted at what was to come in Martyn’s career. Although it contained touches of blues along with Martyn’s rhythmic playing and distinctive voice, it was for the most part a fairly straightforward British folk record.
With his characteristic backslap acoustic guitar playing, his effects-driven experimental journeys, and his catalog of excellent songs as well as his jazz-inflected singing style, John Martyn is an important and influential figure in both British folk and rock. Martyn started out as a folk artist with jazzy leanings that were highly unusual for the mid-’60s. He made a couple of albums with then-wife Beverley that were very much of their time before embarking on a musical journey that combined folk, blues, jazz, and rock, with a tendency towards electronic and atmospheric experimentation. His early-’70s albums . . . are as distinctive and striking as anything in the singer/songwriter canon. Alcohol problems and commercial concerns found him adopting a slicker, more pop-oriented sound as he moved toward the ’80s, but Martyn came out on top again both personally and artistically with his ’90s releases and performances. . . . He began his innovative and expansive career at the age of 17 with a style influenced by American blues artists such as Robert Johnson and Skip James, the traditional music of his homeland, and the eclectic folk of Davey Graham . . . . With the aid of his mentor, traditional singer Hamish Imlach, Martyn began to make a name for himself and eventually moved to London, where he became a fixture at Cousins, the center for the local folk scene . . . . Soon after, he caught the attention of Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, who made him the first white solo act to join the roster of his reggae-based label. . . . [Following London Conversation] . . . . [h]is voice . . . started to take on a jazzier quality as he began to experiment musically. While on the road, Martyn continued to experiment with his sound, adding various effects to his electrified acoustic. One such effect, the Echoplex, allowed him to play off of the tape loops of his own guitar, enveloping himself in his own playing while continuing to play leads over the swelling sound. This would become an integral part of his recordings and stage performances in the coming years. He also met Beverley Kutner . . . who later became his wife and musical partner. The duo released two records in 1970 . . . . The next couple of years saw Martyn continuing to expand on his unique blend of folk music, drawing on folk, blues, rock, and jazz as well as music from the Middle East, South America, and Jamaica. His voice continued to transform with each album while his playing became more aggressive, yet without losing its gentler side. . . .
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,399)Jeremy Dormouse — “Just to Hear the Bells”
Why hasn’t this gorgeous folk song from Canada been covered a million times? “Don Tapscott’s sublime” song is “a highpoint” of an “[o]bscure folk LP with a transition sound from 1960s coffee house into ’70s downer-loner zones”. (Patrick Lundborg, The Acid Archives, 2nd Ed.)
“In the springtime Just to hear the bells chime Bringing thoughts of you”
Of the LP, rockmyworldcanada3006 says:
One of the hardest to find album collectibles there is. This recording . . . features a very young Lynda Squires (Reign Ghost) and many other Canadian folk notables of the day. Jeremy Dormouse (aka Cris Cuddy) had previously been with a late sixties folk outfit, The Rejects, who also put out an ultra-rare privately-pressed album.
Opinions on the LP as a whole aren’t necessarily complimentary. Patrick Lundborg writes that “[a] lost-in-time atmosphere and idiosyncratic singing and playing makes for a trip with a clear identity, yet the connection between the arrangements, vocal mannerisms and underlying tunes seems random and for the hell of it, rather than conscious explorations. (The Acid Archives, 2nd Ed.)
Richie Unterberger writes that:
There were numerous albums in the mid- to late ’60s . . . in which the singers were tentatively bridging the folk and folk-rock sound. There aren’t, however, many locally pressed LPs from the era that try to emulate that sound with a much lower budget. Jeremy Dormouse’s Toad, released in Ontario, Canada, in 1968, is one of them. But even if you’re a big fan of the singer/songwriters mentioned in the first sentence of this review, it’s unlikely you’ll take a great shine to this. It really is bare-bones — sort of more like a demo presenting songs for . . . artists to consider covering . . . . [T[he songs — largely originals . . . aren’t on the same level as the work of the songwriters who are the obvious inspirations. And most gallingly, the singing ranges from adequate to poor, culminating in an album that straddles the line between the amateur and the professional, with one foot in the troubadour folk era and the other in an almost frightened, “dip the toe in the water” glance at early folk-rock. Actually, some of the songs, like “Just to Hear the Bells[]” . . . aren’t bad, and you could just about imagine some of them being sung by the likes of [Tim] Buckley, [Gordon] Lightfoot, or [Eric] Andersen. Those mild pluses, however, are outweighed by the overall mediocrity of the majority of the tracks, as well as the somewhat annoying lugubrious downbeat feel to some of the vocals and tunes.
It was my good fortune while at university to meet some exciting musicians including poetic composer-singer Marcus Waddington and his friends guitarist-arranger Peter Cragg and guitarist-singer Don Tapscott . . . . At that same time I was part of a trio called The Purity Complex . . . at school, and back home was friends with guitarist Richard Gullison, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Dennis Delorme (aka Rev. Orval Rutabaga), his wife vocalist Carol Delorme and his partner fiddler-vocalist David Mazurek (aka Zeke Zilch). At the Green Door Coffee House in Oshawa and the Bushel Basket Coffee House in Whitby I became acquainted with other musicians who also participated in the Toad recordings, notably Terry “TR” Glecoff, John Gurney and Kathy Reid. . . . While playing with Gullison, vocalist Lynda Squires and bassists David McKay and Nick Corneal, the concept of the Jeremy Dormouse LP rose and led to the living room sessions with Mike Clancy engineering while the Waddington/Cragg/Tapscott songs were recorded at the university language lab by Peter Northrop. The cover was silk-screened by Barry Gray on blank covers bought at a failed pressing plant’s auction . . . .
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“This song is amazing!! I was listening to it stoned when i first heard it and could not believe how amazing this band was. Now that im sober it sounds even better!!” (eektherigo, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlhBkM0zNV4) You can’t get a higher endorsement than that!
NZ History (Adapted from an article by Redmer Yska in North and South, June 1995) tells us that:
In 2001, to celebrate 75 years of its existence, the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) invited its members and an academy to vote for what they believed to be New Zealand’s top songs of all time. The clear winner from 900 entries was “Nature” by [the Fourmyula’s] Wayne Mason. It reached number one on the charts in January 1970 and became a hit again in 1992 when it was recorded by New Zealand band the Mutton Birds. . . . Mason’s band, the Fourmyula, which was from Upper Hutt, had already established itself as the most creative and energetic local band of its day. The band recorded a string of original compositions that changed the face of local pop. . . . In November 1969 they recorded a new album, Creation, which included [“Nature”]. For the song, the band chose autoharp and soft percussive effects rather than a full drum kit. “We decided to use a wooden organ lid as the kick drum, the sole of a leather shoe as the hi-hat and a full box of matches for the snare drum. People were laughing deliriously in the control room as we took off our shoes and beat them with a stick, trying to find the right sound,” Mason recalled. Producer Peter Dawkins played back the track and knew it would be the band’s next single. Mason was shocked. He didn’t think it was a commercial number at all. Dawkins was adamant, even though Mason believed the single would flop. A month later, while touring England, the Fourmyula learned that the song had reached number one on the New Zealand charts, with sales of around 17,000. “Nature” earned Mason the APRA Silver Scroll in 1970 . . . . Somewhat ironically the Fourmyula never played ‘Nature’ live. Mason argued that local audiences weren’t ready for local bands performing original material, but the amplification equipment also made it nearly impossible for live bands to use acoustic instruments on stage. . . . Mason’s song echoed the psychedelic, pastoral imagery of the times . . . but the Fourmyula never identified with the so-called counter-culture. “We were just a bunch of well-adjusted teenagers in love. I wrote ‘Nature’ in an hour on the front porch of my mum’s house, looking out on a beautiful day with trees and stuff. Bees were buzzing and my heart was fluttering,” Mason recalled. It was “a nice, happy song which I wrote as a 19-year-old. I do sort of cringe a bit at the words.[“]
The success of Fourmyula marked a major turning point in the development of New Zealand rock: to an industry long dependent on cover versions of international hits, this Hutt Valley-based quintet offered proof positive that native talent could reach the national charts on the strength of their own original material. Fourmyula evolved in early 1967 from the ranks of the Insect, a fixture of area high school dances and other social gatherings . . . . [T]heir popularity soared after they took home top honors in a “National Battle of the Sounds” competition, although the consensus was that they needed a stronger lead vocalist. Toward that aim, singer Carl Evensen was recruited . . . with [Martin] Hope now focusing solely on guitar duties. After buying an instructional book on songwriting, Mason and [Ali] Richardson penned Fourmyula’s first original composition, “Come with Me” [see #977] . . . . [O]vernight, Fourmyula became superstars, and Mason and Richardson quickly wrote a dozen new songs for release as their self-titled 1968 LP debut. Demand for the group was so high that HMV even issued two new singles, “Alice Is There” and “I Know Why,” simultaneously; both rocketed into the Top Ten, and after quickly recording a sophomore album, Green B. Holiday, the band toured Britain . . . . Fourmyula spent four months overseas, catching live appearances from groups including Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Spooky Tooth; acknowledging that their mod aesthetic was out of touch with emerging trends, they grew their hair out and adopted a heavier, louder sound which they intended to introduce upon returning home. New Zealand audiences were baffled . . . however, and after just one disastrous gig, they returned to their trademark four-part harmonies and softly psychedelic pop. Their third LP, Creation, appeared in late 1969, followed by the chart-topping single “Nature”; Mason was now the group’s sole songwriter, and as the band returned to Europe to tour, his material again adopted a heavier approach. To avoid conflict with a similarly named group, Fourmyula rechristened themselves Pipp; after scoring a minor hit with the 1970 single “Otaki,” their fortunes dwindled, and by the following year, they were no more.
On February 8, 1969, the Fourmyula sailed to England on the Fairsky. Once there, they were soon faced with the realities of international rock’n’roll. With very little work available for them, they spent a lot of time watching some of the major acts that were performing at the time. They did get a few poor-paying gigs, and after a lot of pestering to Decca, they had a recording session at Abbey Road. The result was a cover of Hans Poulsen’s “Lady Scorpio” and it was released in New Zealand in August and reached number 7 on the charts. . . . While they were in England they realised there was new music around and that they were out of touch with current trends. They stayed in England for four months and returned to New Zealand with the best musical equipment available, their hair longer, their music louder and themselves a lot wiser. [At t]heir first gig back in New Zealand . . . the crowd was in for a big surprise. This was a totally different band to the one that left New Zealand six months earlier. Their clothes were different, they looked different, but when they plugged into their massive stack of equipment, heads jerked back as they opened with a version of Led Zeppelin’s “Good Times, Bad Times”. What followed was a set of covers from what they had heard in England and by the time they had finished, the audience just stood in total disbelief and silence. It wasn’t what the audience wanted and bowing to their pressure they had to revert to the style they had become famous for. . . . The Fourmyula spent most of October and November touring the country, trying to earn as much income as they could, so that they could return to England and have a decent go at making it big on the international circuit. They left in December . . . . [I]n the first few weeks of January 1970 [“Nature”] reached number 1 on the national charts. . . . Their third album [Creation] they had recorded before departure was also released. . . . When the boys received the news of the success of their single in New Zealand, they didn’t really care as that part of their life was behind them, as was the style of music that “Nature” represented. They were now free from audience demand and could concentrate their efforts on a more aggressive sound. . . . “Make Me Happy” . . . struggled on the charts, only making it to number 19. . . . Throughout 1970, Fourmyula performed extensively around Britain and Europe . . . . Their sound became heavier, but with Mason’s melodic touches, they could not be branded heavy metal. In mid-1970, Decca took a gamble and allowed the group to record an album. Out of those sessions came a track called “Otaki”. It was released in August 1970 . . . . [T]heir heaviest single[, it] made it to number 15. That was the last time the Fourmyula made it onto the New Zealand charts. Two more singles . . . were released and both failed miserably. . . . [“Otaki”] received no airplay and sold very few copies [in the UK]. Decca’s interest in the band waned and they kept postponing the release of the album, eventually advising the group that it would not be released at all. At that point enthusiasm in the band died. Wayne Mason was the first to leave. . . . The group continued as Pipp for a little while, but without success they slowly disbanded.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,397)Wilson Pickett — “This Old Town”
Look within one of Wilson Pickett’s most underrated and poorly selling LP’s — ‘70’s Right On (only reaching #197)— and you will find one of the era’s great unappreciated songs of racial reconciliation. Pickett wrote it along with William Stevenson and Don Covay.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,396) Billy Nicholls — “Feeling Easy”
Another installment of gorgeous UK pop psych from Billy Nicholls, who gifted us with one of, if not the, greatest “lost” albums of the ’60’s — Would You Believe (see #2, 64, 144, 428, 757, 964, 1,085, 1,205). As David Wells says, “lost classic is a much abused term amongst pop historians, but it’s difficult to know how else to describe Would You Believe.”(Record Collector: 100 Greatest Psychedelic Records: High Times and Strange Tales from Rock’s Most Mind-Blowing Era)
All I know is that 1) I am a charter member of the Billy Nicholls Preservation Society, 2) Billy Nicholls bears an uncanny resemblance to Tom Hulce’s Mozart (in Amadeus), and 3) I will never forgive Andrew Loog Oldham for letting Would You Believe sink (apparently literally) to the bottom of the sea.
When [Andrew Loog] Oldham fell out with the Stones in 1967 he redirected all his resources into making the youthful Nicholls a star of the psychedelic pop scene. The results were the single “Would You Believe”, which hitthe racks in January 1968, and the like-titled album that followed in short order. The single has been described as “the most over-produced record of the sixties”, and with reason; a modest psych-pop love song, it’s swathed in overblown orchestration including baroque strings, harpsichord, banjo (!), tuba (!!), and demented answer-back vocals from Steve Marriott. A trifle late for the high tide of UK psych, it failed to trouble the charts. Unfazed, Oldham and Nicholls pressed on with the album, Nicholls providing a steady stream of similarly well-crafted ditties and a bevy of top-rated London sessionmen providing the backings . . . . The album was ready for pressing just as the revelation of Oldham’s reckless financial overstretch brought about Immediate’s overnight demise, and only about a hundred copies ever made it to wax . . . .
It all come back to Pet Sounds. Oldham himself explains:
Pet Sounds changed my life for the better. It enhanced the drugs I was taking and made life eloquent and bearable during those times I set down in London and realised I was barely on speaking terms with those who lived in my home and understood them even less when they spoke – that’s when Brian Wilson spoke for me. My internal weather had been made better for the costs of two sides of vinyl.
2 Stoned
David Wells explains that:
[Oldham] was desperate to create a British corollary to the American harmony pop sound of the Beach Boys and the Mamas & Papas, and his nurturing of many Immediate acts only makes sense when considered from this perspective. But many of the label’s early signings . . . were merely pale imitations of the American model, copycat acts rather than originators who were further hamstrung by a lack of songwriting talent. And then along comes Billy Nicholls — a superb singer, gifted songwriter and as green as the Mendip hills. Oldham . . . quickly latched onto the manipulative possibilities. [H]e could turn his back on cutting unconvincing facsimiles of Brian Wilson tunes in order to mastermind his own three-minute pocket symphonies. Fired up by this grand conceit, Oldham commandeered the Nicholls sessions, recreating the American harmony pop sound in a resolutely English setting courtesy of a string of virtuosos production techniques, multi-layered harmonies and plenty of Wilsonesque baroque instrumentation. . . . [The album] can be see both as a magnificent achievement and an outrageous folly — how . . . Oldham thought he could recoup the budget that he’d bestown on the album is anyone’s guess.
liner notes to the CD “re”-issue of Would You Believe
Nicholls himself observed that “Andrew had a great belief in the songs I was writing . . . and fortunately we had Andrew’s money to spend fortunes on the orchestration.” (liner notes to the CD reissue of Would You Believe)
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From Spain’s Mamas and the Papas (but funkier), “one of the best Spanish vocal groups of all time” (Angelo C Turetromusic (courtesy of Google Translate), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxatHUP2Zew) comes the B-side of their second single, “a fantastical story that seems to talk about a lysergic trip”. (liner notes to the CD comp Fading Yellow Vol. 14: Spanish Popsike and Other Delights 1967-1973)
The liner notes to volume 14 of the wonderful Fading Yellow series tells us that “This quartet from Madrid had a classic music education and an endless curiosity about everything around them and beyond. Those two factors helped them on their own odyssey, creating a local ingenious popsike style.”
Angelo C Turetromusic tells us more (courtesy of Google Translate):
In the mid-60s, four music students with a solid classical training formed a pop group called Los Unísonos. They recorded two singles and an EP for the Philips label without finding the slightest impact, despite appearing on some television programs at the time. When they had practically thrown in the towel, Columbia became interested in relaunching their career. There is some change in the formation and they are called New Horizons. This renewed quartet is made up of Ana María (voice, piano and organ), Tommy (voice and guitar), Alfonso (voice and drums) and Juan (voice and bass). Their new record company puts them in contact with two girls who study Fine Arts and have composed a couple of songs for films. Their names are Elena Santonja and Gloria van Aersen, a year later they will begin to be known as Vainica Doble. With two songs by this couple of composers they released their first single. They made it into the top 10, appeared on television and produced what yours truly has always considered the highest example of national psychedelia: “El afinador de zithers” . . . . The following year, in 1970, after this success, again with the same authors they put into circulation “My favorite fly”, another remarkable song that did not perform poorly at all in the market [with “Tio Vivo” as the B-side]. Nuevos Horizontes would still put into circulation four more singles without any commercial significance, but with undoubted quality . . . . The strength of Nuevos Horizontes was their voices. They were compared, not without reason, to The Mamas and the Papas or The Beach Boys. Their classical studies allowed them to sing in three and four voices, undertake fugal forms and other vocal beauty available to very few. The contrast between Tommy’s female voice and Tommy’s male voice, almost always singing the verses in several voices, defines the style of this group. In 1973 they published their last single and Ana María, their main reference, left the group. The following year, the three remaining musicians will join José Martín and Manuel Martín, who had just closed the group Solera.
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This most talked about of groups, that danced on the edge of really making it for so many years, visited Advision Studios at 1030 pm on St Valentines night to record “I See the Light” and “Mary Colinto”. A one-single deal with MGM, the producer was Tony Cox who had been a member of some ‘duo type’ group and had just finished producing the debut album for Caravan. He had been up to Birmingham prior to that session to see the band live at The Adelphi, West Bromwich and another live gig at Rhodes Hall, just outside of London where The Ugs were supported by Amen Corner (how different things were just a few weeks later with Amen Corner riding high in the charts) – “The Uglys were a very, very tight band and both of the songs to be recorded were delivered with some real force on stage” said Cox. . . . The Uglys were constantly ‘on the road’ like some other bands at that time and had no problem in laying down a good take quickly . . . . The only extra track that was used after that first take was to record a second guitar line – one single note – to harmonise with the opening riff. Because of the luxury of having more recordable tracks to play with than ever before, more use was actually taken in the recording of Mary Colinto and was used to good effect vocally with heavy, punchy harmonies delivered aggressively over a guitar rich background and insistent drumming. This was a band on top of their game. . . .
According to Brumbeat.net, release of the single was cancelled when band members Steve Gibbons and Dave Morgan left the Ugly’s to start a new band with ex-Move guitarist Trevor Burton. (http://www.brumbeat.net/uglys.htm)
As to the Ugly’s, Bruce Eder writes:
The Ugly’s’ history represents one of those hard-luck stories that is all too common in the history of British beat music — a talented band with good songs . . . who, despite a long history and an array of future notables, somehow fails to get past local and regional success. . . . The Ugly’s’ history starts in Birmingham in 1957 . . . with a band called the Dominettes . . . . They were together for three years, with various musicians passing through their ranks . . . . [and] mov[ing] from rock & roll into a more R&B-based sound . . . . By 1963 . . . [the band’s] name and accompanying image seemed extremely dated amid the Merseybeat explosion . . . . [but t]he group’s own sound had advanced considerably, so that they were now reflecting the influence of the Liverpool sound to some extent, and they’d moved far away from the music that they’d initially built their reputation on. The Dominettes moniker was retired, and in its place they chose the Ugly’s. . . . . [T]he group was signed to Pye Records . . . in 1965. Their debut single . . . “Wake Up My Mind” . . . a British Invasion-style protest song . . . . didn’t chart in England, but did manage to do very well in New Zealand . . . . [Their] second single, “It’s Alright,” got the band lots of exposure on the pirate stations Radio Caroline and Radio London. That airplay resulted in a groundswell of popular support . . . . [but] never translated into an actual sales chart position, a situation that may well have been the result of a concurrent strike at the distributors . . . . A third single, “A Good Idea” . . . came out in early 1966 — in later years, the members would lament the choice of sides, recognizing early on that “The Quiet Explosion” was the song to push. It was a tragic error in judgment that cost the band dearly, and not even an appearance on Thank Your Lucky Stars could salvage the record from oblivion. And in the wake of that failure [two members] exited the band . . . . [T]he group’s fourth single, a cover of Ray Davies’ “End of the Season,” . . . . . didn’t sell well enough to keep them signed to Pye. . . . As a recording act, they were struggling, and their one-off single for British CBS, “And the Squire Blew His Horn,” . . . disappeared without a trace. . . . [A]ccording to [band member Will] Hammond, . . . there was some serious talk of [Graham] Nash . . . taking over their management, with major promotion on a national scale, but it fell apart over [his] insistence that they give up the Ugly’s name. . . . [A] one-off single for MGM Records called “I’ve Seen the Light (Goodnight)” [with “Mary Colinto” on the flip side]. . . . died on the vine amid a management/contractual dispute involving their new representative, Tony Secunda and MGM. . . . Secunda, who had lately been sacked by the Move over the catastrophic results of a promotional campaign over their single “Flowers in the Rain,” was going through machinations to get [most of the Ugly’s] folded into a new band in conjunction with Trevoer Burton and/or Carl Wayne, both ex-members of the Move. Hammond found himself the odd man out in this maneuvering, and it all proved disastrous for the group, which had pretty much dissolved by the end of 1969.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,393)Argosy — “Mr. Boyd”
Blind Faith may have been the Supergroup of ’69, but Argosy was the BeforeTheyWereSuperandBeforeTheyWereSupertramp-Supergroup of ’69. Blind Faith had Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Rick Grech and Steve Winwood. Well, Argosy had Roger Hodgson, Elton John (then Reginald Dwight) (see #175), Caleb Quaye (see #175, 807, 1,169), and Nigel Olsson! Blind Faith was over in a flash, only recording one LP. Well, Argosy was over in a nanoflash, only recording one single!
But what a 45 it was, a “melancholy string drenched popsike 45 which goes for a bit of money partly due to the connections with Supertramp and Elton John but probably mainly because it’s very good indeed!” (45TopCat, https://www.45cat.com/record/djs214) Both glorious sides were written by Hodgson, “Mr. Boyd” (the A-side) being “a lovely slice of Baroque Pop”. (Oldrock, https://rateyourmusic.com/release/single/argosy/mr-boyd-imagine-1/)
Here are some excerpts from a Russell Trunk interview with Roger Hodgson:
(Trunk) And knowing you recorded your first single (“Mr. Boyd”) right at the end of your final boarding school year, just who was Mr. Boyd anyway?
(Hodgson) Mr. Boyd was a fictional character.
(Trunk) And being that you had a session band backing you that included pianist Reg Dwight (Elton John), what are your memories of that glorious time?
(Hodgson) When I left school, I really didn’t know how to proceed or how to break into the music industry at all. The only lead I had was the band Traffic, Steve Winwood’s band. They lived a few miles away from me, so I used to go and knock on their door whenever I had enough courage to do that. One of the demo tapes that I made of my songs got into a music publisher’s hands in London. He liked what he heard. He signed me up and put me in a studio in London which was my first time in a recording studio with session musicians, one of whom was a man called Reg Dwight who later became known as Elton John. He had an incredible band with him; some of them were members of the band that he toured with later, Caleb Quaye and Nigel Olsson on drums. They did an awesome job of playing my songs and then I sang on top this music. . . . “Mr. Boyd[]” . . . came very close to becoming a hit in England. It was played a lot on the radio but never actually charted. If it has been successful, my destiny would have been different.
Wow, only one degree of separation between Argosy and Blind Faith!
Paul Pearson waxes philosophical about the Hodgson/Dwight hookup:
This collaboration wasn’t improbable when it happened in 1969. It might have been more improbable a few years later, after the respective participants had established superstar careers of their own, but back in 1969, before either of them had made too much headway in the music scene, it wasn’t improbable at all. Which is not to say it was probable. Come to think of it probability and improbability, relatively speaking, probably don’t have that much to do with this collaboration. If you ask me I would say there’s more an element of randomness to this collaboration. There were no reasons or conditions either favoring or disfavoring this collaboration from happening in the time and place when it did, which was 1969 in England. But perhaps the absence of reasons or conditions tilting the scales in either direction, by merit of its absence, would therefore confer that the collaboration was in fact improbable. This argument, of course, omits the view of many monotheistic faiths that worldly fate is predetermined by forces outside our control or accessibility, a view this blog considers specious. . . .
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Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,392) Peter and the Wolves — “Lantern Light”
Oh man, does John Pantry (see #494, 1,242) kick ass. OK, since he followed his calling and embarked on a notable career in Christian music and broadcasting after the 60’s came to a close, let me just say “Hallelujah” for John Pantry. A singer and songwriter for the ages. Here is a “[f]antastic song” that he wrote and “a lost gem if ever there was one. . . . [b]rilliant” (johnyonge9911, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dq5awLg0Js), a “tuneful psych pop creation[]” (Jason, https://therisingstorm.net/year/1968/page/5/).
Jason gives us a sense of Pantry’s B.C. history:
John Pantry is one of those artists that deserves to be heard by more people, especially those who value melodic British pop. . . . [He was] a talented studio engineer for IBC Studios (working with Eddie Tre-Vett), producing for the likes of Donovan, The Small Faces, The Bee Gees, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and Cream. He was also a member of Peter & The Wolves [see #983], an accomplished mid 60s pop group from Leigh-on-Sea/Southend and had a major hand with many other IBC studio projects of the time: the Factory, Sounds Around, Wolfe, The Bunch and Norman Conquest [see #612]. . . . Besides being a savvy studio technician, Pantry was a gifted songwriter and vocalist and an accomplished musician (. . . keyboards). . . . [O]ne of Pantry’s first groups, Sounds Around. . . . played straight pop with slight soul and psych influences – they released two singles in 1966-1967. Peter & The Wolves came shortly after Sounds Around’s demise (they were essentially the same group). This is the group with which Pantry is most associated, along with The Factory. . . . [Peter & The Wolves’] most productive period was probably the years of 1967-1969, where they released a string of pop gems [including “Lantern Light”] . . . . It was around this time that John Pantry was asked to write two tracks for The Factory, a legendary psychedelic group who had previously released the classic “Path Through The Forest” 45 [see #5]. Pantry wrote and sang lead on the two Factory standouts, “Try A Little Sunshine” [see #460] and the more folk-like “Red Chalk Hill [see #761].” . . .
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,391)Zakary Thaks* — “Face to Face”
Yesterday, I featured an unreleased garage rock classic by Corpus Christi, Texas’s Liberty Bell, written by singer Chris Gerniottis. Today, I travel back in time to Gerniottis’s earlier band, the Corpus Christi garage rock legends Zakary Thaks, which he joined when he was 15! Here is the band’s biggest selling single — 6,000 or so copies sold! It is “one of the best Texas ’60s rockers” (liner notes to the CD comp Texas Reverberations), “smoking” with “mind-blowing fuzz guitar” (Richie Unterberger, https://www.allmusic.com/album/form-the-habit-mw0000657979, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/zakary-thaks-mn0000594426#biography), “sizzl[ing] insistently with rattlesnake fuzztone guitars” (Beverly Paterson, liner notes to the CD comp Zachary Thaks: Form the Habit), “as intense today as the day it was recorded” (liner notes to the CD comp Garage Beat ’66 Vol. 5: Readin’ Your Will!)
Chris Gerniottis recalls that:
‘Face to Face” was number one for a whole month in Corpus Christi, number one for three weeks in San Antonio and number one for two weeks in Austin. It was definitely our best-selling record, and it sold about 6000 copies. I’d say it was probably our best single. We were all real excited when we wrote that song and we loved playing it live.
liner notes to the CD comp Zachary Thaks: Form the Habit
ZK wins the All Music Guide triple crown, with Richie Unterberger, Mark Deming, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine all ecstatic about the band — and deservedly so!
Unterberger writes:
[T]he songwriting and musicianship [is] at a far higher level than most ’60s garage bands could boast, with just as much insouciant youthful energy. . . .
One of the best garage bands of the ’60s, and one of the best teenage rock groups of all time, Zakary Thaks released a half-dozen regionally distributed singles in 1966 and 1967; some were hits in their hometown of Corpus Christi, TX, but none were heard elsewhere . . . . Heavily indebted (as were so many bands) to R&B-influenced British heavyweights . . . the group added a thick dollop of Texas raunch to their fuzzy, distorted guitars and hell-bent energy. Most importantly, they were first-rate songwriters . . . Their 1967 singles found the group moving into psychedelic territory; some songs betrayed a Moby Grape influence, and some good melodic numbers were diluted by poppy arrangements . . . . Lead singer Chris Gerniottis [was] only 15 when Zakary Thaks began making records . . . .
Texas produced more than its share of great garage rock bands during the mid-’60s, and one of the very best . . . were the Zakary Thaks, a Corpus Christi combo whose instrumental skill, songwriting acumen, and frantic energy belied their age — the five members of the group were all between the ages of 15 and 17 when they cut their blazing debut single, “Bad Girl,” which earned them a short-lived deal with Mercury Records . . . . [T]heir collected body of work is consistently strong and surprisingly eclectic, with the hot-wired garage attack of “Bad Girl” evolving into a sound that encompassed folk-rock, psychedelia, and pop without going stale along the way. . . . [A]a good as regionally released ’60s garage rock gets, with fine songs, strong and imaginative playing, and a passion that extended beyond simple teenage bravado . . . .
[O]ne of the best unheralded American rock & roll outfits of the ’60s[, they] weren’t pioneers as much as fierce synthesizers who channeled every upheaval of the British Invasion into wily, inventive rock & roll. . . . [They had] a similar sense of sonic adventure and jangly melodicism [as the Yardbirds and the Kinks]. . . . develop[ing] quickly during their nearly four years together . . . . adept . . . in navigating the shifting fashions of the late ’60s . . . .This group of rampaging teenage Texans made passionate rock & roll that still sounds invigorating decades later . . . .
* * *Who is Zakary Thaks?! Chris Gerniottis explains that “[s]omeone saw it somewhere in a magazine and it sounded different. And it also sounded English, which was perfect since we were all heavily into the whole British Invasion thing. (liner notes to the CD comp Zachary Thaks: Form the Habit)
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[“Reality” is] a classic psychedelic-punker in every sense of the word. Al Hunt gets this unique sound from his guitar with the aid of an echoplex (kinda like little space ships shooting through your head). . . . Chris Gerniottis belts out some great cosmic lyrics, the kind that you don’t know what they’re about, but they sound incredibly deep anyway. The song ends with the echoplex soaring right into space, a truly inspired performance.
With a few breaks, the Liberty Bell might have been America’s Yardbirds — as it worked out, however, the group suffered the undeserved fate of being a footnote in the history of Corpus Christi rock bands. . . . [O]riginally named the Zulus[, they] played a mix of blues-rock drifting toward psychedelia, driven by some fairly ambitious guitar work by lead axeman Al Hunt. In 1967, they hooked up with Carl Becker, the co-owner of J-Beck Records, which, at the time, was recording the hottest local band, the Zachary Thaks. Becker signed them to his new Cee-Bee Records, and suggested a name change to the Liberty Bell. . . . The group’s . . . first single [was] a cover of the Yardbirds’ “Nazz Are Blue” backed with a cover of Willie Dixon’s “Big Boss Man,” included Ronnie Tanner on lead vocals, Al Hunt on lead guitar, Richard Painter on rhythm guitar, and Wayne Harrison on bass. This record did well enough locally to justify further recording, and these sessions yielded the best songs of the group’s entire history, “Something for Me,” “For What You Lack,” “I Can See [see #1,090],” and “That’s How It Will Be.” Fast-tempo, fuzz-drenched pieces with catchy hooks, these numbers made the group sound like an American version of the Yardbirds with more of an angry punk edge, courtesy of . . . Tanner. But the real star of the group was . . . Hunt, who wrote most of the material in those days and played like Jeff Beck on a good day. . . . Tanner exited the group in early 1968 and was replaced by Chris Gemiottis, formerly of the Zakary Thaks . . . .
After graduating from Ingleside High School across the bay from Corpus Christi, Texas in 1966, I was a member of the rock band ‘The Acoustics’ and we got the opportunity to play . . . . in the ‘Big’ city where such local bands as ‘The Pozo Seco Singers’ [see #34], ‘The Bad Seeds’, and a new group, ‘The Zachary Thaks’ were playing and getting radio air play on the top radio station KEYS. . . . [A]fterward . . . Carl Becker introduced himself to me and asked if I would be willing to come and audition for a band he was going to sign to his ‘CEE BEE’ record label. They were called ‘The Zulu’s’. I was asked to meet the band . . . and the audition went well. I was asked to join the group as lead singer and soon the band’s name was changed to ‘THE LIBERTY BELL’. Things moved quite quickly after that. Recording sessions in McAllen, TX, band photos, songs to write and covers to learn, and lots of appearances. It seems like just yesterday when the rhythm guitarist Richard Painter and I were driving around town and heard our first release, ‘The Nazz Are Blue’, come on the radio. . . . We were all so happy and worked so hard and dreamed of what would be next. . . . [W]e began to branch out to other Texas cities and enjoyed a year of incredible fun and soon other stations were picking up the record. . . . [I]n early 1968, we were being pitched to a major record label in Houston named Back Beat Records. [But] I was of draft age [and got drafted]. Chris Gerniotis, of the Zachary Thaks, was named as my replacement. . . . I remember returning home on leave from Basic training and seeing the band with Chris and I was incredibly proud having been a part of such a great band and great friends. . . . Corpus Christi, Texas was a very cool place to be in 1967 and 1968!
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Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify — now over 900 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
1,389)Rockin’ Horse — “Julian the Hooligan”
I dedicate this endearingly rowdy ’71 album track (from Rockin’ Horse’s Yes It Is) and A-side to all the parents out there with mischievous sons named Julian. It is a “slightlydelic, hard rocking John [Lennonish]” number”. (Garwood Pickjon, https://popdiggers.com/rockin-horse-yes-it-is/) Oh that reminds me, let me exclude Yoko Ono!
Billy Kinsley, the song’s writer and Rockin’ Horse (see #738) co-founder (along with Jimmy Campbell) recalls:
My wife Sandra and I were on holiday in Portugal in June, 1971 and we met another couple there who had a toddler the same age as our little girl, Sarah. They kept calling out to their little boy, “Julian you’re a hooligan.” I thought, hey, that’s a great line. I wrote the lyrics right there and then.
Rockin’ Horse was formed by Kinsley and the great Jimmy Campbell (see #22, 648, 736, 737, 996, 1,096). Bruce Eder says that “[t]he goal of Rockin’ Horse was to revive the classic Liverpool sound — in that regard, Yes It Is is a phenomenal album” (https://www.allmusic.com/album/yes-it-is-mw0000549559) Yes it is!
I’ve written often about Jimmy Campbell. Matty Loughlin-Day aptly states that:
[He is a] songwriter who, for this writer’s money, could go toe-to-toe with any of the more celebrated prodigies from the region, yet who’s name is frequently met with blank faces or a shrug of the shoulders. A writer who, in a sane universe, would be esteemed alongside . . . yes, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Jimmy Campbell is arguably the archetypal lost son of Liverpool. A talent that was never quite reciprocated by the buying public and the victim of some cruel twists of fate, his is a name that is for one reason or another, never quite mentioned when discussing the plethora of musical talent that the city has produced.
But, as “Julian” was written by Billy Kinsley, let me focus on him today. Bruce Eder writes:
Billy Kinsley was the co-founder and bassist/singer with the Merseybeats (see #725). Born in Liverpool . . . he was attracted to rock & roll before he was in his teens, and got an almost premature start in the field when he and his longtime friend singer/guitarist Tony Crane formed the Mavericks. later rechristened the Pacifics, then the Mersey Beats, and finally the Merseybeats. At age 16, he was already living every young English rock & roller’s dream, playing backup to Little Richard as a member of the group, at a show in New Brighton, and between his and Crane’s singing and playing, the band was fluent in a range of styles, from serious R&B shouters to lyrical, harmony-based numbers. At the end of 1963, with one single already charted in England and a second one — “I Think of You” — about to break . . . into the U.K. Top Five. . . Kinsley decided to leave the group, owing to his impending marriage and his desire to stay closer to Liverpool. In the waning days of the year, while playing in Germany, Crane, Kinsley, and their manager approached Johnny Gustafson, bassist and singer, late of Liverpool’s Big Three trio, at a Frankfurt club called the Arcadia and offered him Kinsley’s spot. He was able to accept as soon as he returned from Frankfurt . . . . Crane and Gustafson formed a songwriting team, while Kinsley retreated to Liverpool. He didn’t abandon music, however — he kept his hand in performing locally with a group called the Kinsleys . . . . [B]y December of 1964, Billy Kinsley had returned to the fold, replacing Guatafson who was fired — if Pete Frame’s account is to be believed — for inquiring about the division of earnings within the group. . . . Kinsley’s return helped sustain the Merseybeats across an ensuing 18 months of declining fortunes, at the end of which he and Crane reshaped their sound and image entirely. Abandoning their instruments, they became the Mersey’s and, with Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp (who already managed the Who) managing their business and creative affairs, they enjoyed an immense hit with “Sorrow[.]” They failed to score with their rendition of Pete Townshend’s “So Sad About Us,” however, and several hoped-for creative hookups with the Beatles and their Apple label failed to materialize, and by late 1968 . . . had called it quits. At this point, Kinsley became a session musician, and played with Paul McCartney as well as playing on recording sessions for . . . Jimmy Campbell’s first two albums. Together, Kinsley and Campbell organized Rockin’ Horse . . . . [T]he two later played as part of the backing band for Chuck Berryon his 1972 tour of England. After cutting a pair of singles, “Annabella” and “You Make My Day,” for Epic Records, Kinsley revived Rockin’ Horse in 1975 . . . . They were signed to British Warner Bros. but before the ink was dry, they’d changed their name to Liverpool Express. They released an unsuccessful debut single, but they saw success in 1976 with “You Are My Love,” which just missed the British Top Ten but got them onto Top of the Pops four times during its nine-week chart run. Their next two singles, “Hold Tight” and “Every Man Must Have a Dream,” charted more modestly . . . . Two LPs, Tracks and Dreamin’, were also released in 1976 and 1977, respectively, and the group scored three consecutive South American hits in 1977. Liverpool Express continued right into the 1980s, their credits including a string of chart singles around the world . . . .
After the breakup of Rockin’ Horse in 1972, Billy Kinsley spent a couple of years making his money recording soundalikes for the Top Of The Pops budget compilation albums . . . . He attempted a solo career, releasing two singles on the Epic record label, “Annabella” . . . in 1973 and “You Make My Day” . . . in 1974. Both were outstanding but failed to chart. . . . In 1974, Kinsley started playing five-a-side soccer as a means of keeping fit. It was on the pitch that he met Roger Craig, keyboard player in a local band called Paper Chase along with Tony Coats (guitar) and Derek Cashin (drums). Craig was a fan of the “Annabella” single and asked Kinsley if he would like to join Paper Chase, to which he agreed. Kinsley rechristened his new band Rockin’ Horse, knowing that they would get more gigs with a familiar name. He also hoped that original Rockin’ Horse, Jimmy Campbell would join him, but Campbell returned to his engineering job. Rockin’ Horse Mark II was getting plenty of bookings on the club scene but their crowd pleasing set list comprised of cover versions. After six months of gigging, Kinsley . . . [and Craig] started to write songs together. The band was renamed Liverpool Express by their manager, Hal Carter. . . . Carter . . . landed the band a recording contract with Warner Brothers. . . . “You Are My Love” a McCartney-esque ballad . . . . . . cracked the UK pop charts peaking at number 11 and would go on to be a hit in many countries around the world. An album called Tracks . . . was released in June 1976 . . . . The overall sound of the album is 10cc meets Wings, harmony pop with a very typical 1976 ‘over production’ which might put some people off, but the strength and quality of the songs helps you overcome the cheese factor. Also included on the album is a remake of the old Rockin’ Horse classic, now titled “(I Remember) Julian The Hooligan” where Kinsley sings “Julian, plugging your smokes again, telling dirty jokes again, trouble for his folks again!“.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,388)Titanic — “Love Is Love”
From Norway with “Love Is Love”! This “uptempo gem” from Titanic’s debut LP has an irresistible propulsive groove and “has also blessed a few b-boy events in its time”. (SoulStrut, https://www.soulstrut.com/Archive/titanic-titanic) The album’s “heavy and psychedelic mood goes on with another winner . . . . a very powerful and dynamic song. . . . [a]bsolutely brilliant [and] really kicks ass my prog friends.” (ZowieZiggy, https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=23772)
Eduardo Rivadavia tells us that:
[T]he late ‘60s . . . gave rise to the era of hard rock and heavy metal. . . . [O]nce the . . . holy trinity of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath burst onto the scene, the hard rock virus really spread like a plague across the globe — even into distant, chilly, staid Norway, from whence came the aptly named Titanic, f]ounded in Oslo in 1969 . . . . [I]n a trend soon to be followed by a number of German heavy rock combos . . . Titanic hired a British-born singer and lyricist — one Roy Robinson — in an effort to raise their international prospects. The ploy worked well enough for Titanic to be offered a deal by the French office of Columbia Records, which duly released the band’s eponymous debut later that same year [including “Love Is Love”], and later booked them to perform at the Cannes Film Festival’s gala screening of the Woodstock motion picture. The members of Titanic then decided to switch their base of operations to the south of France, and perhaps it was the change of environment that helped broaden the band’s musical horizons, leading to the incremental classical, jazz, and Latin music influences found on the band’s 1971 sophomore album, Sea Wolf. In fact, its biggest single, “Sultana,” openly referenced Santana and would go on to chart at number five in the U.K. . . . Titanic had failed to repeat their prior chart success . . . . [but] would nevertheless soldier on amidst occasional lineup changes and diminishing success throughout the rest of the decade, releasing a couple more albums . . . on independent labels, but ultimately falling into forgetfulness. Except for dedicated heavy rock fans, of course, who still rate the band’s first efforts among the finest examples of proto-metal and heavy prog to emerge off the mainstream beaten path.
Norway stunned the rock world when it produced one of the hottest new bands of the early Seventies. . . . The five-piece was originally formed in 1969, and included Kjell Asperud (percussion, vocals), Jan Loseth (guitar, vocals), John Lorck (drums) and Kenny Aas (organ and bass guitar). They rehearsed hard, wrote some good tunes, and so ‘TITANIC’ eventually became one of the first Norwegian bands to enjoy hit records in both England and Germany. They also recruited English lead singer, Roy Robinson, who helped give their music an international appeal. Roy wrote most of the lyrics which he sang in English, on a succession of fine albums and singles. . . . ‘TITANIC’ were thrilled when ‘Sultana’, played in the style of Santana, was a hit in England. It shot to Number 5 in the UK singles chart in September 1971. It was also a hit back home in Norway, where their album, Sea Wolf, got to Number 7 in the national charts. ‘TITANIC’ now embarked on a busy schedule of gigs. Their big breakthrough came when they played at the Cannes Film Festival in France. They were invited to play before the gala screening of the 1969 “Woodstock” movie. The group also played at the Aix-en-Provence festival. Such was the wildly enthusiastic response at both these gigs that the band decided to settle down in the South of France. At the same time, ‘TITANIC’s reputation spread to Germany, where they enjoyed a hit with “Santa Fe” which got to Number 36 in the charts. . . . It was a tribute to the band’s musical credibility that they were signed to Columbia, then one of America’s most prestigious record companies. Even though the group did not score any more hit singles, they continued working steadily throughout the Seventies.
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The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify — now over 900 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
1,387)The Nerve — “Piece By Piece”
The Nerve’s (see #418) euphoric mod anthem is “a suitably abrupt slice of mod-like grunge”. (liner notes to the CD comp Piccadilly Sunshine: Volumes 1-10: A Compendium of Rare Pop Curios from the British Psychedelic Era) You can have all of my heart provided that you don’t tear it apart piece by piece!
The Nottingham band was championed by Reg Presley. Acolytes of the Troggs? Trogg-lod-ytes! Discogs tells us:
F[irst] Mark Faine And The Fontains, the[n] . . . The Children . . . . In 1967 they signed to Page One Records. Label owner Larry Page insisted on a name change and liked The Lovin’. Under this name they made their record debut with “Keep on Believin’”. One other record followed before they changed their name again, this time to The Nerve. Three records were released as The Nerve with “Piece By Piece” their best known. The songs were produced by Reg Presley from The Troggs, after seeing them in action in a hotel where the Troggs stayed. He became their manager in 1968. Finally they issued their last single “You Wrecked My Life” as Duffy Taylor Blues, before returning home as virtual unknowns.
[They] being groomed for stardom by none other than legendary independent pop impressariio, Larry Page before being championed and produced by Andover’s Trogladyte, Reg Presley. Presley was so impressed by the band’s energy, look and original songwriting, he himself directed their infamous promo shot for the Fleet Street press!! . . . [The Nerve was] an everyday provincial rock band . . . thrust into the dazzling limelight of London’s pop circus at the height of the British pop phenomena in the 1960s!!
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Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify — now over 900 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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[“Trick or Treat”] was created by the incredible Stax writing team of Isaac Hayes and David Porter . . . and showcases Otis’ perfectly imperfect ad-libbed grunts and stammers, and his lonesome-longing howlin’ growls. Backed . . . by one of the most astoundingly tight, driving, soaring, sexy-sounding bands ever to wage war on boredom. A band that breathed pure soul into every one of the grace-fueled notes and beaten snares that now plunge into your welcoming senses.
A “fabulous” (Notts Music Archive, https://nottsmusicarchive.com/anthony-dares-progress/) song, “and with its spooky Hammer House of Horror like sound effects and the cutting FUZZ guitar riff in the chorus Devil is a classic piece of private U.K. Psych”. (liner notes to the CD comp Incredible Sound Show Stories Vol. 1) “Devil, you got your mark on me!”
Notts Music Archive tells us about ADP:
Originated from Nottingham circa 1962 as the Fourth Dimension. They auditioned for a competition called ‘Are You Good Enough To Make Records’ as Anthony Dares Progress. The competition was governed by Steve Arlon, an American entrepreneur who would arrange a record contract for the winning artist. Unfortunately, although ADP made a strong impression, Arlon disappeared and the ‘deal’ failed to appear. The band then visited Nottingham Sound Studios . . . and recorded two self-penned songs (written by D. Gaunt) that they had performed at the audition. Both songs were recorded for a prospective record release and a number of acetates were produced, but no deal ever appeared. . . . Dave Gaunt (vocs), Barry Hart (lead gtr), Barry Husband (bass gtr), Richard Barratt (drums).
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify — now over 900 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.
When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.
Just click on the first blue block for a month to month subscription or the second blue block for a yearly subscription.
THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,384)The Redwoods — “Tell Me”
“Tell me do you want my love?” This ‘66 A-side, a heartfelt and tender plea for a lover not to leave, is a haunting garage ballad that displays emotions not normally associated with “snotty” and “juvenile” garage rock.
It is a “Rare Private Pressing . . . on Phalanx from Portage, Michigan which features some wild drums, blazing guitar work, and great vocals!” (Popsike.com, https://www.popsike.com/Michigan-GARAGE-Rock-45-THE-REDWOODS-on-PHALANX-Listen/230601139808.html) Oh wait, I think Popsike is referring to the B-side, a cover of “Little Latin Lupe Lu”! Why cannot I find out more about this band?
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify — now over 900 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.
When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.
Just click on the first blue block for a month to month subscription or the second blue block for a yearly subscription.
THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,383) Jon Gunn — “I Just Made Up My Mind”
’67 UK A-side has a “thundering beat” and “startling arrangement comprising beefy brass, dancing strings and fugal [not fungal!] influences”. (Derek Johnson, New Music Express, https://worldradiohistory.com/UK/New-Musical-Express/1967/NME-1967-07-01.pdf) It’s almost anthemic, has a hint of Billy Nicholls [see #2, 64, 144, 428, 757, 964, 1,085, 1,205] and must have been a great dance floor number. William says:
[“Made Up My Mind” is] a perfect slice of archetype ’67 Deram pop/soul from it’s phlanged piano intro to sharp horns, sweeping soulful strings and it’s uptempo danceability . . . and Jon Gunn’s strong vocals that fall somewhere between Frankie Valli and Chris Farlowe [see #473, 1,083, 1,279]. [It] gained some brief popularity on the Northern soul scene no doubt thanks to its uptempo beat and strings.
Jon Gunn (RN John Hodgkinson) had quite a long career using various names. He started out as Johnny Hocky with the Beat Boys, then as Johnny Goode he toured with Larry Parnes (1960 – 61). As Tony Allen he recorded for Philips (61 – 66). Under the same name, he was vocalist for Jimmy Nicol’s Shubdubs (64) and second vocalist with Ronnie Jones’ Blue Jays (65) before becoming Jon Gunn in 67. Finally he reverted to his real name as JW Hodgkinson with IF, Darryl Way’s Wolf and Rogue.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify — now over 900 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.
When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.
Just click on the first blue block for a month to month subscription or the second blue block for a yearly subscription.
Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelations😊 