âRAâ is â[e]xcellent in every way . . . [an] absolute cracker! . . . strong, rich and tender! . . .heartfelt vocals . . . hurl out sonic highs and intense lows . . . . A heavy melodic bass line guides the song giving depth and texture as a contrasting jangly loop cuts through and punctuates. A gorgeous track!
As to John Henry, The Listening Post tells us that:
John Henry Fitch Jr was a rânâb singer-songwriter and guitarist active around the late 60âs. He was also a member of Philadelphiaâs rânâb/soul 4-piece, The Show Stoppers with whom he wrote and played guitar â the group were best remembered for their 1968 hit, “Ain’t Nothin’ But a House Party”. In 1968, while the Show Stoppers were in the UK supporting their hit single . . . Fitch was given a contract for a solo single on UKâs Beacon Records . . . .
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,317) The Common People— “Take From You”
Here is an âimpeccable pop song[], delivered in [singer Denny] Robinett’s unique growl and imbued with [a] wistful, suggestive atmosphere”, taken from an album — Of the People, By the People, For the People — that is “a small masterpiece of brooding, late-night psychedelia”. (liner notes to the CD reissue of Of the People, By the People, For the People)
Jeff Penczak tells us:
In 1969, a relatively unknown quintet from Baldwin Park, California came to the attention of Tim Hudson, then-manager of The Seeds [see #116, 446] and Lollipop Shoppe. Hudson liked what he heard and negotiated an album deal with Capitol Records. He then proceeded to line up none other than legendary arranger David Axelrod and the cream of LA session men and headed into the studio to produce the bandâs debut. Sources have suggested that Axelrod arranged the albumâs first three tracks, which have been cited by his enthusiasts as among his very best. However . . . Axelrodâs wife was involved in a car accident, forcing him to withdraw from the sessions before he had a chance to work on any arrangements, so the band (singer/songwriter Joel âDennyâ Robinett, his brother Gerald on drums, keyboardist William Fausto, guitarist John Bartley III and bassist Michael McCarthy) completed the LP without him. Sadly, Capitol apparently decided to sit on the album, which, as far as Denny recalls, âwas never available for sale in any stores,â making it one of the great lost artifacts of the 60s . . . . Another tragic accident took Geraldâs life just after the album was completed, and the remaining band members scattered to the winds and were never heard from again.
The liner notes to the CD reissue of Of the People, By the People, For the People add:
Hudson had the prescience to recognise the uniqueness of Robinett’s moody songwriting, and in 1969 he landed them an album deal with Capitol. With a considerable budget to play with, he hired the legendary David Axelrod to score the material, and set about planning an ambitious fusion of the experimental pop of the Beach Boys, Love and Velvet Underground with modern classical strings. . . . The stage seemed set for a masterpiece — but then disaster struck. With stunning work completed on just three songs, Axelrod’s wife was badly injured in an acciden and he had to pull out, effectively killing the project in the process. . . . Axelrod’s departure gave Capitol cold feet, and they cut off their support, meaning that the remaining songs had to be rushed.
Denny Robinett recalled that “[t]he album was never released and we just kept hoping things would go well for us, but then my brother Gerald died in a boating accident when he was only 22, and for me that was just devastating. With all the setbacks with everything and then this tragedy, we just kind of dissolved.” (http://www.terrascope.co.uk/Features/Common%20People.htm)
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,316) Five by Five — â15 Going on 20â
From Magnolia, Arkansas, comes a sneering ’69 A-side about a 15 year old Lolita that surely would have been banned had it received wider exposure. Was Bill Clinton in this band? “15” is a â[b]rutal heavy psych pummelerâ (happening45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHaxeBxYwjk) in which “venomous fuzz guitar licks . . . engineer the fury being unleashed” (liner notes to the CD comp Electric Sound Show: An Assortment of Antiquities for the Psychedelic Connoisseur), a âgreat fuzz fuelled track with a wicked riff that Tony Iommi must have heard before copying it on Paranoid by Black Sabbathâ. (DJtheFooligan,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PllpvzTPo_8) OK, maybe the DJ is being a little paranoid.
Electric Sound Show: An Assortment of Antiquities for the Psychedelic Connoisseur writes that Five by Five “started out as a successful club act performing solid covers of R&B and soul” and had a “customized soul-fuzz crossover sound”, and even “managed to produce a #52 hit record with their own fiery version of the Hendrix classic, ‘Fire’ in 1968”. Discogs adds that “Five By Five was from Magnolia, Arkansas. The band consisted of Ronnie Plants (vocals), Bill Merritt (lead guitar), Tim Milam (organ), Larry Andrew (bass) and Doug Green (drums). They released one full length album entitled Next Exit and 8 singles, with some killer non-lp sides.” (https://www.discogs.com/artist/142221-Five-By-Five)
Oh, and johnhelgason7838 adds that:
Back in the late 60s – early 70s, I was a teenager playing in my first rock band. The these guys were like gods to us. I was living in north Louisiana and they were from nearby Arkansas. They were on the radio constantly. Most of them were still teenagers, but they were already excellent musicians. It’s a shame they never achieved the degree of success they deserved.
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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. 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
1,315) Winstonâs Fumbs — âSnow Whiteâ
Iâve featured the A-side (see #582), hereâs the B-side â from ex-Small Faces keyboardist Jimmy Winstonâs groupâs classic one-off psych 45. âAside from kicking ass the vibe of both tracks is more like wizards pulling off dark magic than four dudes in a recording studio, incredible.â (Joe M’Geek, https://www.45cat.com/record/rca1612) This is not your mother’s Snow White! âSnow White is a âsomewhat odd number that starts kinda slow, then ignites in the mid section into a blazing dose of psychedelic soul.” (Dave Furgess, https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/review/1739/) Richie Unterberger says that as compared to the A-side, “Snow White” is âmore psychedelic and more impressive, with the melodic story-song verses giving way to manic-tempoed, jazzy breaks, with frenzied organ.” (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/winstons-fumbs-mn0000670445/biography) David Wells explains that â[w]hile many psych-era bands wrote songs about storybook characters from their childhoods, Winston’s song cleverly reframed the fairytale princess into modern parlance as the ultimate, fairest-of-them-all, mini-skirted dolly-bird.â (liner notes to the CD comp Real Life Permanent Dreams: A Cornucopia of British Psychedelia 1965-1970)
Rumor has it that original Small Faces keyboardist Jimmy Winston was booted out of that group because he was too tall (in comparison to the other 3 pint-size Small Faces) and that his prescence made press photos look awkward. That may very well be true, as in the mid 60âs having the right look was sometimes more important than the music, look what happened to The Rolling Stones keyboardist Ian Stewart.
Whatever the reason for Winston leaving the Small Faces, he wasted no time starting his own group Jimmy Winston & The Reflections who issued the âSorry Sheâs Mineâ . . . 45 for Decca in 1966. However when [it] failed to set the world on fire, Winston decided a name change was in order and his next group effort was dubbed the more exotic Winstonâs Fumbs. Remember this was 1967 in the UK where dozens of other unsuccessful Tamla/Motown flavored groups changed names overnight when the psychedelic craze hit. . . . Winston switched to guitar leaving the keyboard slot open for future Yes organist Tony Kaye (who really shines on both sides of this 45.) . . .
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Iâve featured the B-side (see #1,066), hereâs the groovy Barry and Robin Gibb-penned A-side, a âgreat pop/psych gem” (liner notes to We Can Fly: UK Psychedelic Obscurities: 27 Track Collection of British Psyche Rarities 1967-72) with “some Gibb brothers style harmonies, lacing the track with some searing guitars and pop hooks and turning it into one of the genre’s most sought after 45’s”. (William, https://anorakthing.blogspot.com/2017/02/from-brothers-gibb.html?m=1) Peter Gough calls it his âfavourite cover of a Bee Gees song, albeit an unreleased one”. (http://biteitdeep.blogspot.com/2013/02/sands-mrs-gillespies-refrigerator-1967.html?m=1)
Joe Marchese tells us that:
[I]mpresario Robert Stigwood played a central role in the Bee Gees’ career. He championed their rapidly-evolving and often whimsical compositions, producing them on a variety of artists. The London group Sands inventively took on the offbeat “Mrs. Gillespie’s Refrigerator” for Stigwood’s Reaction label . . . .
âMrs. Gillespie’s Refrigerator” . . . [is] from the demo that the [Bee Geesâ] father had sent to NEMS and other recording and publishing organizations in December of 1966, prior to their setting out for England. [It is] very (and very pleasantly) Beatlesque without offering much that is original, which doesn’t mean that [it isnât] worth hearing — indeed, for any other outfit, [it wouldâve] likely made the cut in some form for the group’s first album; we just happen to know that the Bee Gees delivered much better material.
A song about Mrs. Gillespie “ma[king] me blow my mind with things you tell me” about the refrigerator she is selling on TV — offers nothing original?! Eder must have blown his mind!
Pete Gough adds that while “[t]he label states that [Sands’] single was produced by Bee Gees manager, Robert Stigwood, [Sands’ lead guitarist Pete] Hammerton has since said that Stigwood never attended the recording session and so the band produced it themselves.â (http://biteitdeep.blogspot.com/2013/02/sands-mrs-gillespies-refrigerator-1967.html?m=1)
As to Sands, the Middlesex band was â[o]riginally known as the Tridents . . . [and] first recorded as The Othersâ. (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited)âDavid Wells tells us that:
[B]y April 1966, [they] were regulars at the Marquee Club, often on a double bill with The Move. After being spotted at the Cromwellian by Brian Epstein, they signed to his NEMS management company, which in turn led to Robert Stigwood taking an avuncular interest in them. . . .âSadly Epsteinâs death a week before the release of the single saw it disappear without a trace.
liner notes to the CD comp Letâs Go Down and Blow Our Minds: The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1967
âSands split after this single with members Rob Freeman and Ian McLintock becoming Sun Dragonâ. (twerptwo, https://www.45cat.com/record/591017)
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,313) Brenda Holloway — âYou Can Cry on My Shoulderâ
Underappreciated (by Motown), Brenda Hollowayâs angelic voice took my breath away on this Berry Gordy-penned â65 A-side. How it only reached #116 is inexplicable, as is how Brenda didnât become a superstar.
After posting this blog, I read Motown Junkies’ paean to the song. Not only does MJ love it as much as I do, but says it in a way I could never hope to equal:
[“You Can Cry” is] an astonishing tour de force of a performance, imperiously magnificent . . . . Thereâs an epic sweep about this, a grand scale that probably did little to endear Brenda to screaming Beatlemaniacs â but theyâre not who this is for. More than ever before, Brenda is now being aimed squarely at the grown up market, the sort of ârespectableâ territory where Motown would later send forth Barbara McNair and even Diana Ross. Here â on the more grandiose, more intricately-detailed first mix (apparently carried out by Brian Holland), at any rate â the move pays off. . . . I adore this record. It restores my faith in Brendaâs judgement, her skillful, sensitive reading, her astonishing deployment of that voice. Of course, it also underlines how much of a sucker I am for big sweeping American torch songs played for melodramatic thrills; this style can get grisly if you mess it up, but when itâs as good as this, the rewards are massive, resulting in a magnificent record, an epic in the best sense. It works because Brenda is so, so good here, better than sheâs ever been, maybe better than she ever will be again. Brenda had started her Motown career doing this sort of thing, of course â both “Every Little Bit Hurts” and “I’ll Always Love You”, the sad and happy sides of the same coin, had been slow-burning torch ballads. The style of material had suited Brendaâs big voice off to great effect; a clever lady and a damned good singer, she was nonetheless prone to overcooking a vocal, swinging for the fences on the very first pitch and risking abandoning the tune in the process, and so hooking her up with tunes where that didnât matter â indeed, where her scarcely-harnessed raw power and that melisma could be an advantage â had made perfect artistic sense. But the public had other ideas, and after “I’ll Always Love You” flopped, Motown pushed her in a different direction, Mary Wellsâ cast-offs fitting her like a charity shop prom dress, fundamentally unsuited to her strengths while playing up her weaknesses. . . . [But here,] Berry Gordy doub[ed] down, confident in both his songwriting and his judgment: Brendaâs first sallies as The New Mary Wells had been underwhelming, so letâs go back to Plan A, Brenda the big-voiced MOR/jazz siren for the discerning record buyer, the new face of sophisticated soul. And not just go back, but go back in full effect, throwing all his chips on the table. He had the perfect song for the job, a song that ranks among his and Brendaâs very best. . . . Itâs a song, and a performance, of complete desperation, self-effacement to the point where all pride is destroyed; itâs the truest, harshest exploration od the nature of love weâve heard in months, maybe years, and it is a masterpiece. . . . Imagine the horrific mess that might have ensued, the prospect of an unattractive self-pity party drenched in inappropriate strings. But instead, it goes off perfectly, a missile to the heart that canât help but leave you gasping. . . . [Q]uite astonishing on every level â this is the standard by which every other all-or-nothing romantic epic should henceforth be judged. Magnificent.
One of the sexiest singers on the Motown label, Brenda Holloway was also one of its grittiest, with a strong gospel influence more typical of Southern soul than the companyâs usual polish. . . . Holloway . . . grew up in the Watts section of Los Angeles; as a child, she . . . began singing in church with her younger sister Patrice . . . . Hollowayâs first professional recording was made at age 14, backing 12-year-old Patrice on a locally released single. Brenda herself soon began cutting records on several different L.A. labels, and she and her sister also found work as session vocalists. In 1964, Holloway performed a rendition of . . . âMy Guyâ at a DJ convention in Los Angeles. Motown founder Berry Gordy happened to be there, and he was so struck by the power of her vocals . . . that he made Holloway his first West Coast signing . . . . Her debut single, âEvery Little Bit Hurts,â was an R&B smash that also reached number 12 on the pop charts . . . . [H]er first album [was] released in 1964. Holloway . . . found fans in the Beatles, who gave her an opening slot on their 1965 American tour. She scored several more R&B hits through 1965 . . . . However, Tamla scrapped a follow-up album . . . and Holloway began to feel that she was getting the short end of the stick. She frequently traveled from her home in Los Angeles to record in Detroit, and began to feel that the material she was given wasnât always up to snuff, perhaps because of her distance. She began to work more on her own writing, often in partnership with her sister, and with a bit of outside help they co-wrote âYouâve Made Me So Very Happyâ in 1968. Hollowayâs version was a minor R&B hit, but Blood Sweat & Tears turned it into a major pop hit the following year. Hollowayâs second album . . . was finally released in 1968, but that year she announced her retirement from the music business, citing her disillusionment with Motown and her fears of being drawn into the stereotypical hedonistic lifestyle (which conflicted with her still-deep religious convictions). She later married a minister and raised three daughters, returning to music in 1980 with [a] gospel album . . . .
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After hearing what Jose Feliciano had done to the song they decided to make it even jazzier and expressive and the result is nothing short of genius. Julie’s erotic and near-orgasmic delivery takes your breath away as she makes the tune her own and Brian’s sensuous organ lead is a treat, as well. This track is the highlight of the album and singularly worth the price of admission.
Thom Jurek writes of Streetnoise, âthe albumâ:
The final collaboration between singer Julie Driscoll . . . and Brian Auger’s Trinity was 1969’s Streetnoise — it was an association that had begun in 1966 with Steampacket, a band that also featured Rod Stewart and Long John Baldry. As a parting of the ways, however, it was Trinity’s finest moment. A double album featuring 16 tracks, more than half with vocals by Driscoll, the rest absolutely burning instrumentals by Trinity. (Auger on keyboards and vocals, Driscoll on acoustic guitar, Clive Thacker on drums, and Dave Ambrose on bass and guitars.) . . . It include[d] inspired readings of the hits of the day such as “Light My Fire[.]â. . . The music sounds as fresh and exciting as the day it was recorded. This is a must-have package for anyone interested in the development of Auger’s music that was to change immediately with the invention of the Oblivion Express, and also for those interested in Driscoll’s brave, innovative, and fascinating career as an improviser, who discovered entirely new ways of using the human voice. Streetnoise is brilliant.
JDBA&T* define Swinging London for me. âSadly short-lived, but the combination of Driscollâs vocals and sex appeal and Augerâs musicanship was stunning for a while.â (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited)
For a brief moment in time, âJoolsâ became âThe Faceâ of Swinging London. And what a face â huge eyes with dark shadow and long, long lashes dominated the heart-shaped, pale-lipped visage of this arresting beauty. Needing no unnecessary adornment, she wore her hair close-cropped and moved with a spiderâs shadowy grace under layers of chiffon and feather boa. Her deep voice was just as captivating and the detached way she deployed her vocals added to the mystique.
Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth
Jason Ankeny tells us:
As a teen [she] oversaw the Yardbirdsâ fan club, and it was the groupâs manager and producer Giorgio Gomelsky who encouraged her to begin a performing career of her own. In 1963 she issued her debut pop single âTake Me by the Hand,â two years later joining the short-lived R&B combo Steampocket alongside Rod Stewart . . . John Baldry and organist Brian Auger. After [it] dissolved, Driscoll signed on with the Brian Auger Trinity, scoring a Top Five UK hit in 1968 with their rendition of Bob Dylanâs âThis Wheelâs on Fire.â Dubbed âThe Faceâ by the British music press, Driscollâs striking looks and coolly sophisticated vocals earned her flavor of the month status, and she soon left Auger for a solo career. Her debut solo album 1969 heralded a significant shift away from pop, however, enlisting members of the Soft Machine and Blossom Toes to pursue a progressive jazz direction. Also contributing to the record was pianist Keith Tippett, whose avant garde ensembles Centipede and Ovary Lodge Driscoll soon joined. She and Tippert were later married, and she took her new husbandâs name, also recording as Julie Tippetts. With her 1974 solo masterpiece Sunset Glow, she further explored improvisational vocal techniques in settings ranging from folk to free jazz. Two years later, [she] joined with Maggie Nicols, Phil Minton and Brian Ely to form the experimental vocal quartet Voice . . . .
âAuger is one of the truly great Hammond slingers to come out of the UK in the 60s . . . . [He] wasnât any run-of-the-mill organ grinder hammering out blues riffs with his elbows either. His roots were in jazz and he had the chops to bring the heat. . . . [JDBA&T] created a grip of enduring dance floor classics, melding jazz, R&B, beat and psychedeliaâ. (Larry, https://funky16corners.com/?p=2674)
William Ruhlmann tells us:
[H]is swinging, jazzy keyboards remained at the fringes of British rock through the 1960s. His roots were in R&B-inflected jazz . . . and he thrived during the late â60s and into the 1970s by playing adventurous, progressive music . . . . [F]or decades, [Auger swung] between jazz, rock, and R&B . . . . [He] was raised in London, where he took up the keyboards as a child and began to hear jazz by way of the American Armed Forces Network and an older brotherâs record collection. By his teens, he was playing piano in clubs, and by 1962 he had formed the Brian Auger Trio . . . . [In] 1964, he won first place in the categories of âNew Starâ and âJazz Pianoâ in a readerâs poll in the Melody Maker music paper, but the same year he abandoned jazz for a more R&B-oriented approach and expanded his group . . . as the Brian Auger Trinity. This group split up at the end of 1964, and Auger moved over to Hammond B-3 organ . . . . By mid-1965, Augerâs band had grown to include guitarist Vic Briggs and vocalists Long John Baldry, Rod Stewart, and Julie Driscoll, and was renamed Steampacket. More a loosely organized musical revue than a group, [it] lasted a year before Stewart and Baldry left and the band split. Auger retained Driscoll and brought in bass player Dave Ambrose and drummer Clive Thacker to form a unit that was billed as Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity. . . . Open, was released in 1967 on Marmalade Records (owned by Augerâs manager, Giorgio Gomelsky), but they didnât attract attention on record until the release of their single âThis Wheelâs on Fire,â (music and lyrics by Bob Dylan and Rick Danko) in the spring of 1968 . . . . The disc hit the Top Five in the U.K., after which Open belatedly reached the British charts. Auger & the Trinity recorded the instrumental album Definitely What! (1968) without Driscoll, then brought her back for the double LP Streetnoise (1968) . . . . Driscoll quit during a U.S. tour, but the Trinity stayed together long enough to record Befour (1970) . . . before disbanding in July 1970. Auger put together a new band to play less commercial jazz-rock and facetiously called it the Oblivion Express, since he didnât think it would last; instead, it became his perennial band name. . . . Their initial LP, Brian Augerâs Oblivion Express, was released in 1971, followed later the same year by A Better Land, but their first U.S. chart LP was Second Wind in June 1972 . . . . Meanwhile, Auger had moved to the U.S. in 1975, eventually settling in the San Francisco Bay Area.
As to the breakup with Brian Auger & Trinity, Driscoll explains:
âI suppose, I had a lot to get off my chest really[. ] But as we were doing a lot of travelling, I would have my guitar with me. I bought myself a Martin in New York, which I still have and which I love, and I started writing a lot of material[.] I was always searching for my identity. I think it was almost inevitable that the songs I was writingâbecause they were based on the guitar âwould take on a different life. I suppose with hindsight, I was pulling in another direction. But I have to make this clear, it was not because I didnât love the work I was doing with Brian Auger and the Trinity. I loved it and I would love it to this day. Brian had found what he wanted to do and he perfected that. Whereas, I really needed to find something else.â
* ââThe idea of the Trinityâ, [Auger] reflects, âwas a combination of Blues, Motown and [the Jazz?] Messengersâ.â (Atavachron (David), http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=3300)
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What was distinctly Scottish was that old Celtic self-pitying doom and gloom in our character and in the music, those minor melodies. . . . Itâs just as well we remained a minor group; think of the kids that were saved from jumping off bridges[!]
As to George Gallagher and the Poets, the Herald (Scotland) writes:
[Gallagher had] an inherited regard for the principles of socialism and a love of football. Prodigiously gifted, he signed on as a youth player for Leicester City, aged 17. The solidarity of schoolmates won out and he became vocalist of a beat group, formed with his friends Hume Paton, Tony Myles, John Dawson and Alan Weir. They named themselves The Poets and â in an era when groups embraced gimmicks â created an appropriate look; vaguely Edwardian, with matching velvet jackets and tight trousers, and ruffled shirts intended to evoke Burns. The band were sporting this costume when, in 1964, they appeared in Beat News, a publication covering the Scottish music scene. It caught the eye of Andrew Loog Oldham . . . who was passing through Edinburgh Airport on his way to get married . . . . He . . . secured the singer’s address and made for Glasgow, where Gallacher lived. “It was a Sunday morning,” Gallacher would recount: “I was still in bed and my mother came in and said, ‘George, were you expecting the manager of The Rolling Stones?'”
The Poets were quickly signed to Decca by . . . Oldham, who produced for them a brace of highly-innovative singles, all co-written by Gallacher, and guitarists Hume Paton and Tony Myles. . . . The Poets followed manager Oldham into his new Immediate label venture, cutting two singles there including . . . âSome Things I Canât Forget,â the groupâs preferred choice for [a] topside. This was over-ruled by ALO in favor of âCall Againâââdepressing stuff⌠and we were depressed that it was going to be our single,â recalled Gallacher . . . . In early â66 . . . Gallacher left the Poets, disillusioned by lack of direction and momentum within the group, and the mess of ongoing management wrangles.
[The Poets were] the best Scottish rock group of the mid-â60s. . . . [T]hey . . . alternated between mournful, almost fey ballads and storming mod rockers. . . . A minor hit single right out of the gate and a management deal with [ALO] seemed to spell probable success. But the Poets fell victim both to subpar promotion and numerous personnel changes . . . Their first single, a characteristically moody original called âNow Weâre Thru,â made number 30 in the U.K. Yet that was to be their only taste of commercial success, despite a flurry of fine singles over the next couple of years. . . . [T]he . . . association [with ALO] may have worked against them, as he was naturally inclined to focus most of his energies upon the . . . Stones. The Poets were getting lost in the shuffle and discouraged, and by 1967 not one original member remained from the lineup that had first recorded.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,310) The Easybeats â âPeculiar Hole in the Skyâ
Here is the UK/Dutch immigrants to Australia Easybeatsâ (see #201) âpsych masterpieceâ (DK, http://www.milesago.com/RecommenEasysAnthology.htm), recorded in â67 as a demo for their friends the Valentines (yes, featuring a pre-AC/DC Bon Scott), released as an A-side by the Valentines in â68 (sung by Bon, âfabulous”, “one of the great Australian singles of the late 1960s” (Alec Palao, liner notes to the CD comp Peculiar Hole in the Sky: Pop-Psych from Down Under)) and finally as an Easybeat A-side in â69 (but against the bandâs will). Phew!
The definitive MILESAGO: Australasian Music & Popular Culture 1964-1975 tells us that:
In September [1969] the [Easybeats] made a short European tour and then reluctantly accepted the offer of a five-week Australian tour. Unfortunately, it was a considerable come-down from the heady days of their ’67 tour; the group were worn out, disillusioned, and at odds with their management – they saw the tour as a last-ditch attempt to bail the group out of its mounting pool of debts. Again they were victims of bad timing, having reverted to ‘no frills’ hard rock, while most of Australia was preoccupied with the burgeoning progressive rock and soul scenes. The situation was further complicated by Parlophone’s unwelcome release of “Peculiar Hole In The Sky” as a single, presumably to cash in on the tour. Although a fine piece of work in its own right, it was released against the band’s wishes, since it had been made purely as a demo for The Valentines. It flopped, which was no surprise for a slice of pure psychedelia which was by then about 2 years old.
The song reached #53 in Australia (Kent Music Report).
As to the Easybeats, Bruce Eder writes:
The Easybeats . . . met in Sydney . . . [but] lead singer Stevie Wright originally came from England . . . and bassist Dick Diamonde hailed from the Netherlands, as did guitarist Harry Vanda, while the others, guitarists George Young and drummer Gordon âSnowyâ Fleet, were recent arrivals from Scotland and England . . . . [They were] a piece of authentic Brit-beat right in the heart of Sydney. . . . After honing their sound and building a name locally . . . in late 1964, the group was signed to [Ted] Albert Productions who, in turn, licensed their releases to Australian EMI’s Parlophone label. . . . Working from originals primarily written by Stevie Wright, by himself or in collaboration with George Young, the group’s early records . . . were highly derivative of the Liverpool sound . . . . [but] they were highly animated in the studio and on stage, they looked cool and rebellious, and they sang and played superbly. . . . [T]heir debut single [was] issued in March of 1965 . . . . âShe’s So Fine,” their second . . . two months later, shot to number one in Australia and was one of the great records of its era . . . . Their debut album Easy, issued the following September . . . . [Their] attack on their instruments . . . coupled with Wrightâs searing, powerful lead vocals, made them one of the best British rock & roll acts of the period and Easy one of the best of all British Invasion albums . . . . In Australia, they were the reigning kings of rock & roll . . . assembling a string of eight Top Ten chart hits in a year and a half . . . . Their second album, Itâs 2 Easy, was a match for their first . . . whose only fault . . . was that it seemed a year out-of-date in style when it was released in 1966. . . . [They] could do no wrong by keeping their sound the same . . . . [but] George Young . . . had ideas for more complex and daring music. By mid-1966, the Wright/ Young songwriting team had become history, but in its place Vanda and Young began writing songs together. . . . In the fall of 1966, the Easybeats were ready to make the jump that no Australian rock & roll act had yet done successfully, and headed for England. In November of 1966 . . . the group scored its first U.K. hit with “Friday on My Mind[â, which] embodied all of the fierce kinetic energy of their Australian hits but . . . at a new level of sophistication . . . . It rose to the Top Ten . . . across Europe and much of the rest of the world, and reached the Top 20 in the United States . . . . The group spent seven months in England, writing new, more ambitious songs[, ] performing before new audiences, most notably in Germany . . . . [and] mov[ing] their base of operations to London . . . . Some of the songs were superb, but the[ir] . . . charmed existence . . . seemed to desert them in 1967-1968 — their single “Heaven and Hell” was banned from the radio in England for one suggestive line, and a six-month lag for a follow-up cost them momentum . . . . [But] the songs . . . were as good as anything being written in rock at the time. . . . By mid-1969, the band had receded to a mere shadow of itself, and their music had regressed to a form of good-time singalong music . . . . The band decided to call it quits following a return to Australia for one final tour . . . .
Perth pop group The Valentines was, for a brief period, one of the most popular bands in the country. Although they started out a energetic soul/R&B band, their best known image was associated with the so-called “bubblegum pop” phenomenon of 1968-70. But there was a wild side to the band which was evident in their live performances (and their off-stage carousing). . . . The Valentines formed in Perth in mid-1966, bringing together members of three leading local beat groups . . . . Playing a mixture of soul, R&B and mod covers, by the start of 1967 they were already Perth’s top group. A major drawcard was the double-vocal attack of dynamic frontmen Bon Scott and Vince Lovegrove, and within a few weeks of their live debut they were packing in crowds at their shows . . . . [T]heir local popularity came to the attention of Martin Clarke, who operated Perth’s only record label in the 1960’s, Clarion. The Valentines signed to Clarion in March 1967 and released their first single in May. . . . peaking at #5 on the Perth charts. The second single was a Beatlesque Vanda & Young composition, “She Said”, released in August ’67. . . . [and] ma[king] the lower reaches of the Perth Top 40. . . . The Valentines had become friends with The Easybeats, whom they supported when they toured Western Australia. Vanda and Young went on to write two more Singles specially for them. In early 1967 they won the Perth heats of the Hoadleys Battle of the Sounds and in July they flew to Melbourne to compete in the national finals, where they came in runners-up . . . . [T]hey moved to Australia’s pop Mecca [Melbourne] and they soon became a popular attraction on the booming local disco circuit. The third Clarion single, released in February 1968, was also their first original effort. . . . [L]oyal Perth fans boosted the record to number 30 on the local charts, but again it failed to chart in other cities. . . . In July they released their fourth and last single for Clarion . . . a faithful cover of The Easybeats’ . . . âPeculiar Hole In The Sky”. . . . never ma[king] it into the charts. . . . Their breakthrough finally came in 1969. . . . The “bubblegum” craze was by then in full swing . . . . The Valentines completely overhauled their stage act to include matching scarlet outfits, co-ordinated stage moves, exploding coloured smoke bombs and sparklers. On Valentines Day . . . they released their next single through Philips . . . and it went on to become their first Australia-wide Top 40 . . . . In July ’69 The Valentines had their second stab at the Hoadleys, but again they were runners-up . . . . In September they released their next single . . . and then took part in the historic Operation Starlift tour, which featured most of the leading acts of the day . . . . Needless to say The Valentines led the way in after-hours hijinks, with points being awarded for the most despicable acts. . . . As the bubblegum fad faded out, The Valentines . . . jettisoned the matching outfits and dinky tunes, and went for a more streetwise image, and a heavier sound . . . . The Valentines released their last single in March ’70 . . . . four months later . . . . the band split up. . . . Bon Scott went to Sydney where he joined Fraternity (1970-73) who enjoyed moderate success. After recuperating from a near-fatal motorbike accident in Adelaide he was invited to replace original AC/DC lead singer Dave Evans in late 1974.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,309) Mary Wells â âOperatorâ
Mary had a huge hit with âTwo Loversâ, written by Smokey Robinson, reaching #7 (#1 R&B) in December ’62, the month I was born. I wonder if my mother heard it. Here is the wonderful B-side, also written by Smokey.
Of “Operator”, Andrew Hamilton writes:
A song with absolutely too much potential to be a B-side, but it was; fans who flipped Mary Wells’ 1962 chart climber “Two Lovers” discovered another Smokey Robinson song and production that was just as good. Accompanied by the Lovetones, whose euphoric harmonies brighten the choruses, Wells delivers the clever lyrics with an aching sweet innocence. Brenda Holloway cut a clone-ish remake about three years later that came out as a single on Tamla Records minus the Lovetones but was still solid [and reached #78 (#36 R&B)].
[âOperatorâ has] simply ceased to make sense, because technology [has] made the terminology obsolete. . . . Whatâs an âoperatorâ? . . . I can work out whatâs happening by the context: Mary first expresses gratitude to the telephone operator whoâs trying to place a call between her and her absent boyfriend, and then complains to the operator because the call isnât going smoothly (she canât make out what heâs saying â Did he say that his love was true? Did he say that his love was mine? Did he say he was coming home? Did he say where he has been? â and doesnât like to be interrupted; she then gets cut off, and asks to be reconnected). But itâs no longer an experience I can relate to, or at least not in the same way as Maryâs listeners may have done in 1962. Now, thereâs potential there â the song lets us learn about Maryâs relationship purely from her anxious one-sided conversation with the unheard operator, and we never hear a single word exchanged between Mary and the boy himself, which is quite a clever trick. Instead, Smokeyâs monologue leaves it to Mary to reveal whatâs happening by having her express her insecurities as the call gets beset with technical problems: It shouldnât take this much time⌠Itâs unfair to make me wait any longer⌠What is the hold-up, please? Doesnât he have change?.
[T]ry as I might, I just canât get into the sort of headspace where it would be acceptable for someone at a telephone company to be listening in on, and interjecting during, my own private romantic conversation, and so the whole thing feels somewhat artificial. . . . Smokey seems to have been having an off day crafting believably-flowing conversational dialogue [and] the tune doesnât serve the lyrics well . . . . The band donât help matters, either, seemingly bored by yet another Smokey Robinson midtempo calypso number . . . .
I wasnât bored, I was bowled over by yet another Smokey Robinson midtempo calypso number. It couldâve even been about smoke signals!
For something about Mary, Richie Unterberger writes:
[F]or a brief moment, Mary Wells was Motown’s biggest star. She came to the attention of Berry Gordy as a 17-year-old, hawking a song she’d written for Jackie Wilson; that song, “Bye Bye Baby,” became her first Motown hit in 1961. The full-throated approach of that single was quickly toned down in favor of a pop-soul sound. . . . [T]he soft-voiced singer found a perfect match with the emerging Motown production team, especially Smokey Robinson[, who] wrote and produced her biggest Motown hits; “Two Lovers,” “You Beat Me to the Punch,” and “The One Who Really Loves You” all made the Top Ten in the early ’60s, and “My Guy” hit the number one spot in mid-1964, at the very height of Beatlemania. Mary . . . left Motown almost immediately afterward for a reported advance of several hundred thousand dollars from 20th Century Fox. . . . Wells and her husband-manager felt Motown wasn’t coming through with enough money for their new superstar . . . . It’s been rumored that Wells was being groomed for the sort of plans that were subsequently lavished upon Diana Ross; more nefariously, it’s also been rumored that Motown quietly discouraged radio stations from playing Wells’ subsequent releases. . . . [She] enter[ed] the pop Top 40 only once (although she had some R&B hits). . . . [H]er ’60s singles for 20th Century Fox (whom she ended up leaving after only a year), Atco, and Jubilee were solid pop-soul on which her vocal talents remained undiminished.
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âSheâs a Ladyâ and other Sebastian songs were used in the Broadway play Jimmy Shines starring Dustin Hoffman. Sebastian told Pop Culture Classics that:
It was frustrating. Oh, my God, so frustrating. That project, they had âSheâs A Lady.â They had a couple good songs. But when I was called into the first meeting, they said, âWe really appreciate your doing this project.â I said, âYes, and listen, you really donât need to worry about a huge musical bill, because Iâm used to working with four people.â The producer leaned forward and said, âCould you do it with three?â [Laughs]ââ And that was like the template for the entire experience. It kept coming back. . . . I was told, âLook, this isnât a musical. This is a play with a few songs.â âOkay.â So, the fact was that they used a couple of tunes of mine that I thought were appropriate. But then they didnât like go the whole distance. The thing was never recorded. The music was always the poor stepchild, So it was a really frustrating experience. And sometimes itâs not hard being gay. That was one of those times.â
[Sebastian] grew up in Greenwich Village . . . . By . . . 16, he was stepping onto the stages of coffeehouses and folk clubs, and by . . . 18 he was appearing as a sideman on recordings. In 1964, he joined the Even Dozen Jug Band . . . . [and] was also briefly in Mugwumps, along with future Lovin’ Spoonful guitarist Zal Yanovsky and future . . . Mamas and the Papas’ Cass Elliot and Denny Doherty. In the winter of 1964-1965, he and Yanovsky began assembling the . . . Lovin’ Spoonful . . . . In the meantime, he continued his session work . . . . [I]n the summer of 1965 [the Spoonful] released their first single, “Do You Believe in Magic,” on which he sang lead vocals (as he did on all the group’s singles while he was a member, in addition to writing or co-writing all their hits). It peaked in the Top Ten, and so did its follow-up, “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice,” while a[n] . . . album . . . spent eight months in the charts. The third . . . single, “Daydream,” was a number one hit, accompanied by a . . . LP that reached the Top Ten. The group’s fourth single, “Did You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mind?[]” . . . reach[ed] the Top Five, and the fifth single, the timely “Summer in the City,” became a gold-selling number one hit . . . in the summer of 1966. . . . . [After] a soundtrack album for the Woody Allen film What’s Up, Tiger Lily? . . . . their sixth consecutive Top Ten hit, “Rain on the Roof,” followed by their seventh, “Nashville Cats[]â . . . simultaneous with a Top 20 showing for the band’s third album . . . . “Six O’Clock” gave them another Top 20 hit by June. That summer . . . Yanovsky and Boone were arrested on drug charges, resulting in Yanovsky’s departure . . . replace[d by] Jerry Yester. . . . “She’s Still a Mystery” became their eleventh consecutive Top 20 hit . . . but Sebastian was becoming dissatisfied, and after . . . a fourth LP . . . he quit the band. . . . [He] ultimately reject[ed] an offer to join a trio of his friends who went on to become Crosby, Stills & Nash. . . . [âSheâs a Ladyâ] was released on Kama Sutra, but Sebastian had determined to leave the label and he signed to . . . Reprise . . . . Kama Sutra . . . felt he still owed them an album, and a legal battle ensued which delayed the release of his debut solo album for a year. Although Reprise won the right to release John B. Sebastian, and did so in January 1970, Kama Sutra’s parent company, MGM . . . also put out its own version . . . which was then withdrawn. In the meantime, Sebastian . . . made an inadvertent but memorable appearance at . . . Woodstock . . . . John B. Sebastian . . . ma[de] the Top 20 . . . and [his] solo career really took off when he was featured on the . . . Woodstock soundtrack album . . . and in the documentary film . . . . MGM . . . . obtained a tape of a concert he performed . . . and released it . . . . Another legal battle ensued, and this album too was withdrawn. . . . Sebastian released his second studio album, The Four of Us, in August 1971 . . . [which] sold disappointingly. Tarzana Kid, which followed in September 1974, missed the charts entirely, and Sebastian’s recording career was virtually moribund when he was asked to write a theme song for . . . Welcome Back, Kotter, which premiered in September 1975. Sebastian [also sang] âWelcome Back[]â over the credits each week. . . . [A] single version . . . topped the charts in May 1976 . . . .
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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! (ârelating 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 entertainmentâ â dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the âgreatest songs of the 1960âs that no one has ever heardâ that are available on Spotify — now over 750 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
1,307) Peter, Paul & Mary — âThe House Songâ
This lovely, wistful, song was written by Noel Paul Stookey, âPaulâ from Peter, Paul & Mary, and was a â67 A-side for the trio + the B-side of their â69 #1 hit âLeaving on a Jet Planeâ.
Of the song, Matthew Greenwald writes:
Sort of a little interior drama, “The House Song” utilizes the theme of a house being abandoned and sold to relate to a crumbling love affair. The overall effect is quite melodramatic, and this is neatly echoed by the simple folk figures in the melody. The sense of grandeur, however, is underlined by a fine string arrangement and harmony vocals from Mary Travers. Although not the strongest song on Album 1700, it fits in with the bittersweet feel of the album’s other songs quite well.
[It] was an extended metaphor that began a journey of self-discovery for the songwriter. ââThe House Song’ was a curiosity for me because it truly began as a song about a house and then transformed itself,” Stookey recalled. “It began walking, it became the shell of my life, and it was a beginning, really. ‘The House Song’ was very significant for me because it was the beginning of telling the truth about my life, which then required me, in a sense, to take seven years off to implement because prior to that I had not been playing with a straight deck.”
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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 750 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
1,306) Jim Sullivan — âHighwaysâ
An eerie, prophetic and âbeautiful . . . song . . . . What a voice, what a talent sadly lost to the desert forever. . . . Sublime genius.â (drumgold23)
Of âHighwaysâ, James Allen tells us:
The [albumâs] lyrics are those of a man with wandering on his mind, especially [âHighwaysâ], in which Sullivan’s mind’s eye moves out among the stars. It’s probably this track that inspired the . . . alien abduction theories about Sullivan’s disappearance, and as unlikely as that scenario may seem, it’s nice to imagine Sullivan smiling down from some unearthly plane.
Early singer-songwriter sounds with lots of personality and atmosphere. The setting is light folkrock with excellent vocals that seem almost too good for such an obscure title. This guy has lived, man, and seen a few things in life, which gives the album a certain country music vibe without actually sounding country at all. . . . A surprisingly good westcoast . . . Van Morrison feel.
The Acid Archives, 2nd Ed.
James Allen adds:
U.F.O. is one of those albums whose backstory looms so large that it threatens to overwhelm the actual music, which would be a shame, because it’s a bit of a lost classic of the singer/songwriter realm. Southern California troubadour Jim Sullivan . . . was a big man with a big voice who built up a small regional following in the late ’60s and convinced an old friend to start a label for the sole purpose of releasing his debut album in 1969. The limited-run release eventually became a high-priced holy grail for record collectors, partly because of its quality and rarity, and partly because of the mysterious Sullivan story. In a nutshell, after recording only one more album, Sullivan took off on a road trip in 1975, during which he literally disappeared, never to be seen again, despite the best investigative efforts of family, friends, and admirers. His car was found still containing his wallet, guitar, and other possessions, with no trace of their owner. Several theories about his fate sprung up, from murder to alien abduction. Despite the album’s humble origins, it sounds more like a major-label recording than a lo-fi D.I.Y. effort. This has a lot to do with Jim’s benefactor hiring top-flight L.A. Wrecking Crew musicians Don Randi, Earl Palmer and Jimmy Bond, and then there are Bond’s string arrangements, which bring an atmospheric, orchestral feel to Sullivan’s simply conceived, acoustic guitar-based tunes. Sullivan’s deep, bluesy singing falls somewhere between Fred Neil and Tim Hardin, as does his songwriting, which subtly tweaks conventional folk-blues templates without veering into psychedelic, post-Dylan excess.
Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Jim Sullivan only released two albums, one in 1969 and a second in 1972, but neither sold well, although his talent was obvious, and itâs easy to imagine that he would have eventually have had a commercial breakthrough had he not mysteriously vanished in New Mexico in 1975, a disappearance that has yet to be solved or explained. A fixture on the West Coast and Malibu music scene, Sullivan, a former high-school quarterback, rubbed shoulders with the hip and famous in the late ’60s and early ’70s . . . taking a bit part in the film Easy Rider, writing songs full of restless despair that he sang in a rich, Fred Neil-like voice, and winning over crowds wherever he played. . . . After a second album in 1972, Sullivan began to think his career might stand a better chance in Nashville, and he left California to drive to Tennessee in March of 1975. He checked into a Santa Rosa, New Mexico motel en route, although it was unclear whether he stayed there — his Volkswagen Beetle was found at a remote ranch 26 miles outside of town with his guitar, clothes, and wallet inside, and he was reportedly last seen walking away from the car. He was never seen again, and no trace of him was ever found. The whole thing eerily echoed some of the themes Sullivan had dealt with on his U.F.O album six years earlier, further giving a unique album an even odder resonance.
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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 750 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
1,305) Jacqueline TaĂŻeb — âLe CĹur Au Bout Des Doigtsâ/”The Heart at Your Fingertips”
Tunisian-born yĂŠ-yĂŠ great Jacqueline TaĂŻeb(see #39) took Paris by storm with â7h du matinâ/â7 in the morningâ, about a schoolgirl waking up and wishing that Paul McCartney could help her with her English homework. Here is another classic track â a â67 B-side with a great horn fanfare. BeyoncĂŠ should have taken a sample, but Danish band Asteroids Galaxy Tour already beat her to it.
Jacqueline recalls (courtesy of Google Translate):
The record company assigned me a genius arranger, Jean BouchĂŠty, a man who worked for Michel Polnareff, for example. He always recorded his arrangements in London, and I found myself at 17 in a London studio with big names, chosen by BouchĂŠty, who were on all the records I recorded at that period.
My father, a dental surgeon, gave me a guitar for my 12th birthday . . . . [and] a slightly older friend taught me chords and my goal became to compose songs. I could no longer leave my guitar, I took it everywhere and sang the hits of the moment and my first compositions. The one that made friends laugh was â7 a.m.â. During the summer holidays in Tunisia, I am surrounded by friends and I put on my show. Thatâs when Rolande Bismuth, the editor of the already famous Michel Fugain, passed by and said to me âthatâs what youâre doing, hereâs my card, come see me in Paris in Septemberâ. I went there and it all started: contract then recordings in sight! All these titles were recorded in a great studio in âswinging Londonâ at the end of the 60s, with crazy English musicians, led by Jean Bouchety, an exceptional arranger, who let me express my ideas despite being 18 years old. . . . Magical memories that often come back to me…
Jacqueline TaĂŻeb arrived in France at the age of 8 with her parents. She released her first album in January 1967, a maxi 45 rpm with which she achieved good success thanks to the title 7 hours in the morning. H[er] second album was released in April 1967 . . . . Several records followed without achieving the same success, and Jacqueline TaĂŻeb temporarily disappeared from the French recording landscape. She reappeared in 1978, writing for others and producing several records under her own name, without however attracting the general public. At this time, she composed the title Ready to Follow you for Dana Dawson, a young singer from New York.
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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 750 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
1,304) John Carter — âConversations (In a Station Light Refreshment Bar)â
An unreleased joyous gem of a demo by Ivy Leaguer and UK songwriter extraordinaire John Carter (see #1,201). Forget San Francisco, letâs go to a station light refreshment bar!
Tim Sendra writes:
One of the leading tunesmiths of the â60s and â70s English pop scene, John Carter was responsible for writing big hits and timeless classics like âCanât You Feel My Heartbeatâ by Hermanâs Hermits, âMy World Fell Downâ by Sagittarius, and the Music Explosionâs âLittle Bit oâ Soul[]â . . . . the Ivy Leagueâs âFunny How Love Can Be,â the Flowerpot Menâs âLetâs Go to San Francisco,â and âBeach Babyâ for First Class. Typified by harmony vocals, simple melodies and, during the psychedelic era, very soft Baroque arrangements, the songs and productions Carter was a part of helped define the sound of English pop during his heyday. . . . Carter began writing songs at the age of 15 with classmate Ken Lewis. Inspired by the first wave of rockers . . . they worked up a batch of songs and in 1959, left their hometown [of Birmingham] for London . . . . find[ing] a publisher right away . . . . In 1960, they moved over to Southern Music and . . . began singing . . . under the name Carter-Lewis. . . . [and then] Carter-Lewis & the Southerners . . . . Between 1961 and 1964 they issued seven singles . . . . [t]heir sound was firmly rooted in the tradition of the Everly Brothers . . . . Though . . . a popular live act, the two songwriters quickly figured out that it made more sense financially to stay behind the scenes instead. Carter in particular exhibited no interest in becoming a pop star . . . . They soon shifted to cranking out demos . . . . [With] Perry Ford, [they] started . . . the Ivy League in late 1964 . . . . [W]hen the Rockinâ Berries turned down the song âFunny How Love Can Be,â the group released it themselves and had a Top Ten hit. Their sound was pitched somewhere between Del Shannon and the Beach Boys . . . . Carter left the band to head back to the . . . studio . . . with new [writing] partner Geoff Stephens. Along with songs penned for the Ivy League . . . the pair had hits with Manfred Mann, Mary Hopkin, the New Vaudeville Band, and Hermanâs Hermits. Carter even ended up singing lead vocals on âWinchester Cathedral[.]â . . . [H]e was also working in the studio with a pair of songwriters, Robin Keen and Mickey Shaw, who he had signed to his newly formed music publishing company. Every week the pair would meet with Carter and play him the songs they had written. Heâd pick his favorites and they would assemble a crack team of musicians to record them. Though they continued to work in this fashion for almost two years, they only issued one single, 1966âs âWhite Collar Worker,â [as] the Ministry of Sound. . . . Lewis left the Ivy League in 1967 and paired up with Carter again. . . . âLittle Bit of Soulâ [became a hit] . . . . [as did t]heir soft psychedelic confection âLetâs Go to San Franciscoâ . . . . Once again, Carter and Lewis decided not to go on the road and hired a band to go out and perform as the Flowerpot Men . . . .
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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! (ârelating 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 entertainmentâ â dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the âgreatest songs of the 1960âs that no one has ever heardâ that are available on Spotify — now over 750 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.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,303) Bobby Jameson — “Metropolitan Manâ
Who else but Bobby Jameson (see #219, 1,255) would give us an ultra-rare anti-Vietnam War single (âVietnamâ/âMetropolitan Manâ), both sides searing indictments seething with anger . . . in early â66?! âJameson’s howl of rage was released on a 45 and went nowhere.â (Jon Savage, https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/nov/10/savage-song-bobby-jameson) For me, MM, the B-side, is the greater song.
Jon Savage tells us that:
After recording a couple of 45s with Frank Zappa, Jameson found himself in a studio working with the Leaves â a local band who had released a couple of killer singles, âToo Many Peopleâ and their cover of âHey Joeâ. What they concocted was an all-time garage-punk classic . . . . [T]he session was filmed by director Robert Cohen for [the â60âs exploitation flick] Mondo Hollywood]. Cohen wrote that Jameson “. . . fulfill[ed] one or more of the three required criteria: 1. Be typically Hollywood (ie trying to live-out a dream self-image in the LA area) 2. Or be very WEIRD, or 3. Be both 1. and 2.â âVietnamâ is the highlight of a patchy film in which genuine culture participators . . . jostle against irritating attention seekers. . . . [As Jameson] loses himself in the song’s abrasive noise, you can feel the madness of the times.
1965 was a big year for me. I took my first LSD trip and started using downers on a regular basis. My first acid trip was with Danny Hutton, who went on to Three Dog Night fame. . . . When it was over I was different. My use of downers gave me a sense of well being like nothing I’d ever known in my life. . . . When I mixed them with booze I would fight anyone anywhere. This became a trademark of mine over the next number of years and got me into a whole lot of trouble. After being bounced off the wall by Randy Wood at Mira’s offices [see https://bobbyjameson2.blogspot.com/2009/04/friday-march-7-2008-part-40-no-contract.html?m=1] I vowed that no one would ever touch me again in the music business and I made that promise stick without exception. As far as LSD went it altered all of my perceptions about everything and I used way too much of it. After Chris Lucey [see #219] was finished I figured I was too at least where Mira Records was concerned, but Pam Burns kept after to me to go back and cut a single for Mira, telling me that Randy was ashamed of what he’d done to me and wanted to make it right by letting me make a record of my choice under my own name. I was being confronted with a number of issues and had received a letter from my mother containing my draft notice. The war in Vietnam was really starting to escalate and I was going to get sent there. “Jesus Christ man just what I needed,” I thought, when I first saw it and found out I was 1-A which meant I was on my way there period. This fact, as you may have guessed, was the reason I wrote the song “Vietnam.” Randy Wood was not too keen on this selection, but said, “If that’s what you want to cut then go ahead.” I wrote “Metropolitan Man” as a b side and gathered the guys from “The Leaves” together to record the two songs. The Leaves were also on Mira and had recorded my song “Girl From The East” off the Chris Lucey album for their album after scoring a cover hit with “Hey Joe”. I was lucky to have their help and the record came out pretty well I thought. There were 2 versions of “Vietnam.” I wrote the song at the end of 65 and made a demo of it with just me, guitar, and harmonica. The version with a band was cut in early 66. As promised, it was released on Mira-Mirwood, but was never promoted whatsoever. Randy was reluctant to back an anti war song on his label so the record just died without ever getting a chance. I once asked a group of LA DJ’s at the Whisky A Go Go (Reb Foster) why they never played any of my records in L.A. and one of them told me I was using the politics of anti war demonstrations to further my own career. He (Foster) was referring to the anti war demonstrations that were beginning to occur on the Sunset Strip with great regularity at the time. They all laughed when he said that and chimed in, “Yeah, you’re too political.” . . . Randy had kept his promise alright, but had managed to kill the record anyway. I never knew whether he did it on purpose or just didn’t get the point with “Vietnam”. Hell there was a war going on and a lot of people didn’t like the war so one would think that a song as relevant as “Vietnam” would have had a real shot if Mira/Mirwood would of gotten behind the record. . . . It was basically Pam Burns that kept any balance going between Randy and me. She was stuck in the middle, because she worked for and liked Randy, but she really believed in me so she was always the one who kept things from going out of control around Mira. As usual I made no money for recording or writing “Vietnam/Metropolitan Man” and unfortunately I was getting used to that so it kind of seemed natural. . . . When “Vietnam” was recorded with The Leaves, Bob Cohen filmed it for a movie he was making . . . [I] was going out with a girl I’d met at “The Trip” on Sunset Blvd. It was a new rock n roll club on Sunset Blvd. and she was a cocktail waitress there, her name was Gail Sloatman. If you’ve ever watched “Mondo Hollywood,” an depending on which version you watch, there is a scene at the beach where I am with a girl, that’s Gail, I drive away with that girl in a Corvette. . . . [S]he became Mrs. Frank Zappa about a year later.
West Coast folk-rocker Bobby Jameson is best known â or, perhaps, not known at all â for Songs of Protest and Anti-Protest [see #219] the sought-after cult LP he recorded under the alias Chris Lucey. . . . Jameson cut his debut single, âI Wanna Love You,â for the Talamo label in early 1964. The record was a regional hit, and even earned him an appearance on American Bandstand. Although the follow-ups . . . went nowhere, Jameson nevertheless captured the attention of Rolling Stones producer Andrew Loog Oldham, and in late 1964 he flew to London to record the Decca single âAll I Want Is My Baby,â co-written by Oldham and . . . Keith Richards . . . . After a 1965 one-off for the Brit imprint, âI Wanna Know,â Jameson returned to Los Angeles, where he befriended producer Marshall Lieb. . . . [who] was in the midst of helming the debut Surrey Records release by folkie Chris Ducey, but with the album covers already printed and the disc ready to ship, contractual snafus forced the project into limbo. Lieb coerced Jameson into writing and recording a new batch of tunes based on Duceyâs existing song titles, and after some creative tinkering with the cover art, [the album] â now credited to Chris Lucey and, for reasons unknown, featuring a photo of Rolling Stone Brian Jones â finally hit retail. Promoted via what was then the most expensive and lavish Billboard advertising supplement ever printed, the album â a deeply idiosyncratic psych-folk opus . . . proved a commercial flop . . . . Jameson did not resurface until mid-1966, releasing âGotta Find My Roogalatorâ â arranged by Frank Zappa . . . . He then signed to Verve, where the Our Productions team of Curt Boettcher, Jim Bell, and Steve Clark helmed his 1967 LP Color Him In. That same year, Jameson also appeared in the infamous American International Pictures documentary Mondo Hollywood . . . . A 1969 album for GRT, Working!, proved Jamesonâs swan song. During the â70s, his frustrations with the music industry manifested themselves in substance abuse and two suicide attempts. . . . After he left the music business in 1985, he lived so quietly with his mother in San Luis Obispo County, California that many thought he was dead. He didnât resurface until 2003, when he learned that Songs of Protest and Anti-Protest had been reissued unbeknownst to him . . . .
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,302) Barry Fantoni — âLittle Man in a Little Boxâ
Here is an âevocative” Ray Davies song (liner notes to the CD comp Piccadilly Sunshine: Volumes 1-10: A Compendium of Rare Pop Curios from the British Psychedelic Era), that âhe wrote and produced for his friend Barry Fantoni who was a member of Private Eye magazine . . . fit[ting] neatly within the remarkable songs Davies was now churning out for the Face to Face era Kinksâ. (biffbampow, https://www.45cat.com/record/tf707) â[T]he sound here is a mix of almost folk-rock hinting at sonny & cher/ray davies with dylan like delivery!â (Puresandoz 25, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN30VOn6DsU) The song âwas listed on Radio London’s Fab 40 for two weeks at #27 (22nd May 1966) and at #36 (29th May 1966)â. (RogerFoster, https://www.45cat.com/record/tf707)
[Fantoni] was certainly a man about town as they say with a finger on the pulse…wrote for private eye magazine/cartoonist/jazz musician(played sax)/script writer/actor and t.v.show presenter! here though on his debut single ‘little man in a little box/fatman’ fontana records ’66 a song that ray davies of the kinks had writtern for a production company but picked up by barry…my good friend pete eden & his co-producer/song writer mate geoff stephens produced this 18/2/66 with no kinks involvment only that ray was there to ‘over see’ things! . . . [Fantoni] appeared in several films along the way including ‘just like a woman/the strange affair & otley’ & others… [and] also wrote for the satirical show ‘that was the week that was’ and ‘journey to the unknown’ t.v.series 1968….
â[A]t the time, [Fantoni was] hosting a teenage music based show on BBC Television, A Whole Scene Going, The Kinks appeared on the final edition performing âSunny Afternoonââ. (biffbampow, https://www.45cat.com/record/tf707)
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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! (ârelating 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 entertainmentâ â dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the âgreatest songs of the 1960âs that no one has ever heardâ that are available on Spotify — now over 750 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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Steve Leggett bemoans the fact that We the People ânever captured any kind of national attention, which is hard to believe given the vitality, quality, and proto-punk punch of the bandâs material. . . . usually delivered with a punk intensity and sneering vocals that are all the more striking because they are actually based around fully realized melodies.â (https://www.allmusic.com/album/too-much-noise-mw0000796014)
Richie Unterberger gives some history:
One of the most versatile mid-â60s garage groups â indeed, they were for the most part too accomplished and pop-savvy to truly merit the garage band tag â We the People had some big hits in Florida, but never broke out nationally, despite releases on the large RCA and Challenge labels. Veterans of Orlando garage [bands] . . . all found their way into We the People, who made their first single for the local Hotline label, âMy Brother the Man,â in early 1966. âMy Brother the Manâ was a smoking, almost-crazed, hard garage-punk number, a path the band continued to follow on their early Challenge singles âMirror of Your Mindâ and âYou Burn Me Up and Down.â . . . Yet at the same time they could throw in gentler and more lyrically and melodically subtle originals . . . . Unusual for a garage band, they boasted two prolific and talented songwriters in Tommy Talton and Wayne Proctor. . . .
Proctor left the band in â67 as âI had become 1-A on the armyâs list, and was sure to be drafted. I knew I had to do something if I didnât want to go to Vietnam, so I quit the band and enrolled in college.â (https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2014/09/we-people-interview.html)
J.M. Dobies gives a sense of the scene:
Summer 1966. At places like the Orlando Youth Center, Leesburg Armory, or the Coconut Teen Club . . . . [h]undreds upon hundreds of teens are dancing to the beat stomped out by one or more of the top local bands. . . . On Monday morning, the band members will be back in class, subject to being hassled by teachers about the length of their hair, but on the weekends, they are rock & roll stars. Theyâre totally boss, man.
Band members Terry Cox and David Duff reflected on the changing scene, giving the most concise, incisive and hilarious analyses of the same that I have ever read:
Terry Cox: âI can almost pinpoint the day where everybody who was dancing around, jumping around, raising hell, packing the place, instead sat down on the floor and expected to hear âIn-a-Gadda-Da-Vida.ââ
David Duff: âThe mood changed. And it was a change for the worse. I can remember playing in Gainesville at the University of Florida. We go set up in one of the frat basements and play all night, and thereâd be nobody in the room. Everybody was upstairs in their rooms, smoking dope and having sex. I liked it better when everybody danced.â
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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 750 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
1,300)Paul Williams — âSomeday Manâ
Paul Williams was only just beginning when he and collaborator Roger Nichols [see #631, 828, 1,054] came up with this wonderful ode to just abiding. And the Monkees (sans Peter Tork) were only just ending when they released it (before Williams) as a cool Davy Jones-sung A-side, only reaching #81.
As to Paul Williams, Mark Deming writes:
Paul Williams remains one of America’s best recognized all-purpose celebrities in the ’70s and ’80s — while plenty of folks are aware that he was a songwriter, vocalist, and instrumentalist, he also acted in movies and television, was a frequent guest on leading talk shows (he appeared on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson over a dozen times), competed on game shows of all sorts, and was as likely to pop up in a Planet of the Apes sequel as he was to write a hit song. . . . Williams developed a passion for both music and acting, and began appearing in school theater productions as well as local talent shows. A medical condition stunted Williams’ growth, preventing him from becoming taller than five feet, two inches, and at one point he considered a career as a jockey. But his love of the stage won out, and Williams did regional theater . . . before returning to California and joining a repertory theater company . . . . Williams hoped to break into the movies, but . . . his career in Hollywood didn’t take off right away. After a spell as a comedy writer . . . Williams teamed up with songwriter Biff Rose, providing lyrics for Rose’s melodies, and the two enjoyed a windfall when Tiny Tim recorded their song “Fill Your Heart.” The tune ended up on the B-side of Tim’s smash single “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” and after getting his foot in the door of the music business, Williams formed a band with his brother Mentor Williams called the Holy Mackerel [see #24]. . . . but its sole . . . album was a commercial disappointment, and Williams set out on a solo career as he worked on his songwriting. Williams cut his first solo album for Reprise, 1970’s Someday Man, but it fared no better . . . . It was when Williams landed a job as a staff songwriter at A&M Records that his career finally started to click; working with Roger Nichols . . . he penned “Out in the Country,” which became a major hit for Three Dog Night, and the group had major chart success with two other Williams tunes, “Just an Old Fashioned Love Song” and “The Family of Man.” And a tune Williams and Nichols wrote for a bank commercial enjoyed an impressive second life when the Carpenters cut “We’ve Only Just Begun” and it became a massive chart success. . . . [H]e was cast in a supporting role as an orangutan in 1973’s Battle for the Planet of the Apes, and in 1974 he did double duty on Brian DePalma’s cult classic Phantom of the Paradise, composing songs for the film and playing sinister rock & roll mogul Swan. Williams also earned an Oscar nomination for writing the song “Nice to Be Around” for the movie Cinderella Liberty, a Song of the Year nomination after Helen Reddy cut “You and Me Against the World,” and in 1976 he . . . [took] home an Oscar for the love theme from A Star is Born, “Evergreen.” . . . While all this was happening, Williams somehow found time to cut five more albums for A&M . . . . Between his songwriting work and his acting gigs in everything from the TV shows The Odd Couple and The Love Boat (he also co-wrote the theme song for the latter) to the movie Smokey and the Bandit, Williams was seemingly everywhere, and in 1979 he won another Grammy . . . for the song “The Rainbow Connection,” written for The Muppet Movie. . . . [B]y the mid-’80s, Williams’ career had gone into a major slump; by his own admission, he had developed a serious addiction to drugs and alcohol during his years in the spotlight, and it wasn’t until 1990 that he got clean and sober and began rebuilding his life and career.
By the time âSomeday Manâ was issued as a stand-alone single in 1969 . . . the vertiginous drop in the bandâs popularity was there for all to see. Peter Tork had quit after the dismal TV special and the commercial belly flop of Head â not because of these failures, but just because it was time. . . . The remaining three . . . ploughed on. . . . Davy Jones finally managed to persuade Screen Gems to allow him to record a song they did not own. . . . [It] allowed Jones to bring in a song by a young singer-songwriter Paul Williams. . . . Davy Jones said that he loved Williamsâ work from the first hearing . . . Here was a song which fitted well with Jonesâ own interests and strengths, had all the components of a hit in the pop scene of 1969 â a real find. The first hurdle to clamber over was that . . . the watertight contracts which locked in outright ownership of everything Monkee to Columbia and Screen Gems meant that only songs published (that is owned) by Screen Gems would be issued under the bandâs name . . . . [P]erhaps the unmissable decline in the groupâs commercial fortunes forced something of a rethink and permission was granted to Jones to go ahead and record the song Regardless it is arguable that Jones recording Williamsâ tune did him a great favour and him titling his album after the song shows it was to some extent his calling card at this time. It did The Monkees and their fans a favour too, giving us a late career highlight albeit one which drifted by almost unnoticed at the time . . . . Davy reminisced about how he came to record âSomeday Manâ: âI went to Screen Gems many, many times with Paul Williams tunesâŚbut they felt they were too sophisticated. This one was all right. They accepted that.â . . . [Producer] Bones Howe recalled . . . . âPaul Williams and I were friends going back for a long timeâŚI played it for Davy and he liked it. We were able to convince Colgems that we could do an outside songâŚI kept saying to them âFind me another song thatâll knock this one out of the boxâ. And no-one could find a song that everybody liked betterâ.â
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! (ârelating 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 entertainmentâ â dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the âgreatest songs of the 1960âs that no one has ever heardâ that are available on Spotify — now over 750 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 song is from an album that is âan astonishingly good collection of the post-Move recordings of Rick Price, both solo and in his collaboration with Birmingham rock singer Mike Sheridan, originally . . . released circa 1970. The music is an often appealing mix of psychedelia, pop/rock, and art rock, rather McCartneyesque at times but in the best possible way”. (Bruce Eder, https://www.allmusic.com/album/this-is-to-certify-gemini-anthology-mw0000378704)
â[T]he pair created some of the most beautiful music of the era . . . chockfull of timeless chamber pop. . . . [A] âhoneybusâ baroque pop ride . . . was the main one they were taking on the This Is To Certify album”. (Garwood Pickjon, https://popdiggers.com/rick-price-mike-sheridan-this-is-to-certify/)
The LP is âa 24 carat classic of the late 60s British baroque-pop genre, chock-full of winsome melodies, gossamer-light harmopnies and exquisite string arrangements . . . that exists comfortably alongside the best works of Honeybus, or perhaps even the Move of âBeautiful Daughterâ and âThe Girl Outside.â (David Wells, liner notes to the CD comp Rick Price & Mike Sheridan: This Is to Certify: The Gemini Anthology)
Jason:
This is one of the better albums coming from the Move family tree. It was released in 1970 though it has a clear 1967/1968 sound and is one of the best albums of its kind. Rick Price entered the Move sometime in the late 60s, contributing bass and guitar to âShazamâ, âLooking Onâ and âMessage From The Country.â Mike Sheridan had previously been leader of the Nightriders which were a Birmingham group that specialized in the merseybeat sound and 50s rock n roll. The Nightriders were sort of a breeding ground for future Move members, most importantly Roy Wood. During Priceâs tenure with the Move, he and Sheridan started writing songs together for the above album. Both Sheridan and Price share vocals and writing chores on an album that veers into power pop, psychedelia, sunshine pop and progressive pop. There are horn and string arrangements on this beautiful album that recall some of Paul McCartneyâs soft moments on the Beatlesâ classic White Album (think âMartha My Dearâ or even the Moveâs great âBeautiful Daughterâ). . . . This is an exceptional if little known Move album . . . .â
Rick Price was probably the least-known member of the Move, if only because he never really established a well-defined musical (or personal) identity of his own . . . . This is to Certify: The Gemini Anthology, released at the start of the 1970s, seems hardly to have sold at all in its own time. . . . Price was born in Birmingham, England . . . . His earliest band of any note was the Cimarrons, who sounded a lot like the Shadows (or tried to). . . . [H]e moved on to the Sombreros, who changed their name to Sight & Sound a little later. Their original focus was harmony vocals, their influences the Four Seasons and the Beach Boys, but by 1967 they’d started doing songs in keeping with the psychedelic boom. And by that time, Price had started a songwriting partnership with Mike Sheridan, the former leader of Mike Sheridan & the Nightriders. The group recorded three singles, “Ebenezer,” “Little Jackie Monday,” and “Alley Alley,” all co-written by the duo and none successful. The group eventually deteriorated into more of a musical comedy outfit. One day in early 1969, after a performance in front of a club audience that included Roy Wood, the leader/principal composer of the Move . . . offered him a spot in the group. He joined just as “Blackberry Way” was making its way up the U.K. charts to number one. He was with them through the brief period of cabaret performances, plus their first (and only) tour of the United States, and lasted two years with the group. Price even recorded most of the original bass parts to the first Electric Light Orchestra album, although the latter were re-recorded by Wood . . . . From there, Price moved into an ultimately unhappy contractual relationship with Gemini Records, recording This Is to Certify . . . . Then he was . . . in an outfit called Light Fantastic, who showed a lot of promise but could never get it together in terms of recording. This was followed by a stint in the progressive rock band Mongrel . . . . From there it was on to Wizzard, Roy Wood’s new band . . . . last[ing] through 1975, then Price moved on to the Wizzo Band, playing pedal steel guitar, no less.
[A]t age 19 Mike began to play piano in the Maypole pub on Saturday nights. One night a Teddy Boy approached Mike and said he was entering a competition in which the aim was to find the ‘Elvis of the Midlands’ and asked Mike to back him on piano. The ‘Elvis’ got through to the final round . . . but didn’t show up. Mike was asked if he’d like to continue and won the competition as a singing pianist. While working a regular Friday night playing piano . . . Cyril Viles asked Mike if he would like to join . . . The Chequers. Mike . . . joined . . . adopting the stage name of Mike Sheridan. . . . The group played a few gigs and members changed frequently . . . . Upon Billy King’s departure the group became Mike Sheridan and The Night Riders . . . . [A]n EMI producer for Columbia records, came up to Birmingham for a two day audition of local beat groups . . . . Mike Sheridan and The Night Riders were one of the five groups to pass the audition . . . . The five groups . . . were signed . . . to the Columbia label. [They] were sent the test recording of “Tell Me What’Cha Gonna Do” to rehearse. . . . [T]he single was a flop. . . . âPlease Mr. Postman” . . . . failed to chart [but] sold well locally and gained the band a favourable reputation. . . . Roy [Wood] joined . . . after answering an ad in the Birmingham Post & Mail. . . . [and led] them into harmonies and introduced comedy into the act on stage by doing impersonations of Donovan and Dusty Springfield while wearing a suitable wig. The first single to be recorded with Roy Wood on guitar and backing vocals was a cover of The Shirelles’ âWhat a Sweet Thing that Wasâ . . . released in June 1964. This was followed by recording a version of The Rip Chords’ âHere I Stand[.]â In early 1965, the group went to Germany to undertake a series of bookings. Upon their return . . . the group name was changed to Mike Sheridan’s Lot. . . . Their final single released at the beginning of January 1966, was “Don’t Turn Your Back on Me” . . . . [T]he band had almost played throughout the entire country, acting as support for the likes of The Beatles, The Who, Small Faces, Them . . . and many others. Roy Wood left . . . to become a founding member of . . . The Move . . . . Mike Sheridan carried on . . . for a short while before he also left . . . . [A] young guitarist named Jeff Lynne . . . answered an advertisement in the local paper, bec[ame a] new member. . . . The Nightriders became The Idle Race. Mike Sheridan would later become a member of Sight and Sound that also included Rick Price, followed by recording as Sheridan and finally hooking up with Rick Price to record as Sheridan and Price. Mike Sheridan would also record an album of material with the members of Wizzard sans Roy Wood as Elmer Goodbody Jnr but only one single was released.
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! (ârelating 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 entertainmentâ â dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the âgreatest songs of the 1960âs that no one has ever heardâ that are available on Spotify — now over 750 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 Revelationsđ 