THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
802) Mojo — “New York City”
’68 sunshine pop A-side/’69 album track is a California tourist’s itinerary for New York City. “I want to go down to the Village . . . . take in a coffee shop or two.” NYC should have ditched “I Love New York” and picked this for an ad campaign! It could have persuaded Lou Reed to play it!
The Mojo Men were certainly fluid. They were great when they were all men (see #140). They were even better when singer Jan Errico joined from the Vejtables (see #84) (and they eventually dropped the “Men” to become simply “Mojo”). They were best (see #275, 720, 787) on their and Jan’s first and only album — ‘69’s Mojo Magic (including “NYC”). Jud Cost’s liner notes to the Mojo Men comp Sit Down . . . It’s The Mojo Men states, the album was “[s]addled with one of the most hideous album covers in music history — colored blossoms layered over a group mug shot [and it] sank without a trace.” The group folded soon after. A shame, because Mojo Magic is one of the most glorious sunshine pop albums ever released.
Richie Unterberger tells us that:
One of the earliest San Francisco rock bands, the Mojo Men had local hits on the Autumn label with “Dance With Me,” “She’s My Baby,” and a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Off the Hook” in the mid-’60s. Their early sides displayed a raunchy but thin approach taken from the mold of British Invasion groups . . . . In 1966, after female drummer Jan Errico joined from the San Francisco folk-rock group the Vejtables, they moved to Reprise and pursued folky psychedelic pop directions, and had a Top 40 hit with a Baroque arrangement of Buffalo Springfield’s “Sit Down I Think I Love You” in 1967. In their later days, they developed more intricate arrangements and harmonies that reflected the influence of the Mamas & the Papas and Jefferson Airplane . . . .
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
801) Country Weather — “Fly to New York”
I’ve never played a jam before, but today I give you a cool one by Country Weather, the great San Francisco band that never quite made it despite being a mainstay at the Filmore, the Avalon Ballroom and Winterland. As Alec Paleo says, it “has the distinct whiff of Syd-era Floyd, though melded to a spaced guitar-scape that could have only evolved from late 1960s San Francisco” (liner notes to the Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970 CD comp), and as William Ruhlmann says, the band “echoes the spacier aspects of the Dead on psychedelicized tunes such as . . . the group-composed improvisation ‘Fly to New York'”. (https://www.allmusic.com/album/country-weather-mw0001433141) The song was never officially released, as the band never snagged a record contract, but was on a one-sided promotional LP that the band made.
As to the disc, guitarist Greg Douglass explains that:
After our name change to Country Weather, we needed a promotional tool to get us gigs and to, with any luck, get some airplay on the newly formed underground rock FM stations KMPX and KSAN. We . . . cut five tunes, including “Fly to New York”. We had 50 copies of our efforts made. We got lots of airplay on both radio stations, which helped our budding career immensely. Our manager, Bob Strand, was a brilliant and aggressive promoter of the group and he made the most of the records. There were six EPs given to band members and two to the radio stations; I have no idea where the other 42 ended up. They are worth a great deal of money now. I wish I’d kept my copy. . . . In the end, “Fly to New York” . . . got a lot of airplay. . . . . It was basically just a demo, meant for getting gigs and hopefully gaining airplay on the radio. . . . It was carried by hand from place to place by our manager. . . .
The group was formed in the San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek, CA, by high school students . . . as a cover band called the Virtues in 1966. . . . In 1967, they auditioned for promoter Chet Helms, who suggested they change their name and stop playing covers. Soon after, they became Country Weather. Over the next few years, they played frequently at such San Francisco venues as the Avalon Ballroom, the Fillmore Auditorium, and Winterland, opening for many of the renowned acid rock bands of the day, as well as up and down the West Coast. But they were never signed to a national record contract. In 1969, they recorded their own one-sided, five-song disc, which earned airplay on local radio stations. Country Weather disbanded at the start of 1973 . . . .
For decades, [it] was known, if at all, as a band name on several of the eye-popping psychedelic posters advertising rock concerts in San Francisco in the 1960s and early ’70s, alongside better known performers scheduled to play halls like the Fillmore. . . . Country Weather was an eclectic outfit with at least two distinct musical identities, which may have foreshadowed its eventual breakup. On the one hand, there are the pop-oriented songs written by rhythm guitarist and singer Steve Derr. . . . The band also echoes the spacier aspects of the Dead on psychedelicized tunes . . . . Contrasting with these styles is the blues-rock approach of lead guitarist Greg Douglass (the only one who went on to significant recognition later on). . . . [who] seems to want to turn Country Weather into Cream, and indeed the band’s dissolution was precipitated by his and drummer Bill Baron’s departure to form a Cream-like power trio.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
800) New York Public Library — “Got to Get Away”
After yesterday visiting “the freaked-out, drugged-up street world of New York’s Lower East Side” circa 1968 (Mister Mark, http://thedirtymindofmistermark.blogspot.com/2010/11/lotti-golden.html?m=1), I thought I’d let us listen to New York Public Library — a British band! — appropriately play “Got to Get Away“, a ‘68 UK A-side. A lovely tune — as Anhalter Udo puts it “so simple & so powerful – this was a great flower song on the way to more peace in the dreams of this time” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhWR95X6LK8)
As to the NYPL, it was a “BBC session band . . . [that] debuted in ‘66 with a Rascals cover and then disappeared for two years, returning with this aggressive pop tune, like a milder Wimple Winch [see #49, 384].” (liner notes to the English FreakbeatVol. 5 CD comp)
The liner notes to the Piccadilly Sunshine: Volumes 1-10: A Compendium of Rare Pop Curios from the British Psychedelic Era CD comp, give us a few more details:
[The band] hailed from Leeds in 1961 as The Cherokees who [had] . . . a handful of minor hits after debuting with Seven Golden Daffodils in 1964. After their 1966 attempt at Chris Kenner’s Land of 1,000 Dances and battling it out with the Loose Ends with a version of the Rascals’ “I Ain’t Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore” . . . [they] changed their name to New York Public Library. . . .
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[Lottie Golden takes us] to Fay’s, the meet-up spot for her coterie of malcontents. Anabell’s gonna be there, Silky’s gonna be there, Billy is gonna drop by, Celia’s gonna come by. But for Fay, whose French poodles keep her satisfied, it’s her doctor’s pills that keep her high, and she’s in trouble with the meds. “Hey man, did you hear what happened to Fay? Yeah, it’s really a drag, what a bring-down. So where do you want to go? Rosie’s? That’s cool. Out of sight man, we’ll dig it!” And so the whole party up and moves to Rosie’s. No pause for introspection on poor Fay’s demise, no lessons learned, none of that crap; the good times must roll on. That’s kind of the M.O. of Motor-Cycle. If something heavy happens, slow the music down for a second, give a wail, then move on. With a crowd this colorful, there’s always another story to tell.
An amazing LP released on Atlantic Records in 1969, signed to the label by the legendary Jerry Wexler, “Motor-Cycle,” has remained a cult favorite for 45 years . . . . The album’s lyrics are autobiographical giving us a time-capsule glimpse into art and street life in NYC in the late 60’s . . . Golden pays homage to girl groups with an eclectic jazz, soul, funk, rock montage like nothing you’ve heard. . . . Kerouac meets psychedelic masterpiece . . . .
By the end of high school in 1967, Lotti had sung with bands up and down the East coast, taken up acting and entered the freaked-out, drugged-up street world of New York’s Lower East Side. “It was sort of like daring myself to see how far I could go.” . . . Lottie began writing songs about it all, then split. In late 1968, with producer-arranger Bob Crewe, she recorded an autobiographical album called Motorcycle, a synthesis of funky singing and honest, hip lyrics about urban teenage trauma. The music was a sometimes satiric melange of rock, jazz, blues and soul. . . . A whole underground world is candidly described, down to the last Seconal capsule.
Lotti Golden leads us into the bizarre excursions of the late-’60s underground freaks. So fertile was the music scene of that period that an album of restlessly epic roadhouse suites could be released on a major label. Golden gets help on Motor-Cycle from an impeccably arranged Atlantic Records session band. They give the album a wall-of-sound heft when called for and lay the foundation, in the midst of all that brass, with a flawless, swinging rhythm team. Then, at key moments, the curtain goes up and they’ve got rows of saxes, trumpets, vibes, and churchf*ckingbells behind them . . . . [T]he emcee for this aberrant cabaret is Lotti Golden, nexus of the intemperate adventure starring a cast of sex fiends, drug addicts, and other proponents of the In The Now school of living. Motor-Cycle is exactly the sort of hazy deviant party you always hoped the late-’60s was. It plays out roughly like this: Lotti’s got a thing for this kid Michael, who “lets me ride his motorcycle.” But Michael’s truth machine was starting to breakdown, so she heads to Fay’s . . . . [The album] is that rare party record that’s got a bizarre story behind it while still being a freak-show record that you can throw on at dance parties. To make a crude comparison, it’s as if The Velvet Underground recorded for Motown. In short: debauchery with a beat. Dig it.
New York’s East Village, is the home of the Fillmore East, the Electric Circus, the dubious refuge for strays, of communal-living, where the hippies congregate and the summer air is heavy with the sweet smell of marijuana. It was a strange, way-out scene for pretty, 19-year-old, middle-class Lotti Golden, who lived there for eighteen months and recorded her experiences on MOTOR-CYCLE . . . . “I began to meet kids who were part of the street life . . . . They groove, like my friend Wesley, who can go to Central Park and dig the trees. I mean really dig them. . . . But Lotti discovered evil too in the East Village. “Like there would be somebody saying, ‘I’ve got this new LSQ’ and you’d take it and you’d be paralyzed.” So her songs are the saga of that drug-ridden experience, a season in hell, with Lotti sounding like a “woman wailing for her demon-lover.” Her songs are like her voice, strong, natural, honest, unflinching. . . . in Gonna Fay’s, the whole crowd searches for where the drugs are—the “tuies” (Tuinal), “secies” (Seconal), “Scag” (heroin), “snow” (cocaine). . . . Lotti, who lives uptown now, has no regrets. “I found music in buildings, in sidewalk cracks,” she says. “You get flashes of perceiving differently, of doors opening, with drugs. But drugs are only a tool. And you can’t abuse the tool. I got out when I saw a lot of my friends getting hooked. It was nowhere.”
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The song comes from Hyman’s ’69 album The Age of Electronicus, which Matthias Kirsch calls:
[A]n amalgamation of hippie culture and avantgarde, spiced up with live drums on the tunes of the day . . . . Hard on the brink of sounding too hilarious, Dick Hyman always understands that the synthesizer ‘is not about to replace any instrument or orchestra’, but ‘when the synthesizer is used to create its own thing, the new aural events are remarkable for both the player-arranger and the listener.'”
Dick Hyman’s 1969 opus . . . [is] a visionary, funky excursion into the vast potential presented by the newly developed Moog synthesizer – stands as a shining example of the post-war avant-garde’s infiltration of the popular realm. Awash with creative optimism about the role of progress, change, and technology in society at large, it’s one of those obscurities that’s long been championed by diggers across the world, but has never fully gotten its rightful due. . . . [It] belongs to roughly the same canon of recordings as Wendy Carlos’ Switched-On Bach, Morton Subotnick’s Silver Apples of the Moon, Mort Garson’s Electronic Hair Pieces, and Raymond Scott’s Soothing Sounds For Baby. It encounters a forward-thinking artist harnessing the new possibilities presented by synthesisers, deploying it as progressive aural signifier within the popular realm, playfully diving in with covers of the Beatles’ Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da and Blackbird; Booker T. & The M.G.’s Time Is Tight and Green Onions; Aquarius from Hair, James Brown’s Give It Up or Turn It Loose; Burt Bacharach’s Alfie; and Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now. Joyous, funky as hell, and peppered with humor, The Age of Electronicus stands at the lofty heights beyond the exotica and kitsch temperaments that retrospectively burden many of its peers. Pushing the Moog to its limit – blended with primitive drum machines, repetitive bass lines, and robotic beats – it ventures into a world of space-age utopianism that presents a dreaming vision of a possible future that still might come. An absolute blast from start to finish, and a total immersion into the ’60s dream . . . .
One of the all-time great moog albums of the 60s – served up by pianist Dick Hyman, who’d cut a fair bit of more standard material in the years before – but who also turned out to be a wizard with the new electric instrument, helping it to find a very fresh sound! Unlike some of the more offbeat moogy records of the time, Hyman’s approach focuses right in on the groove – using lots of influences from both soul and pop, but also exploding the electronics at a level that take the moog way past some of the more simple moog cover records of the period.
While Robert Moog’s invention tends to time-stamp music with as much finality as Auto-Tune has done in this century’s first two decades, some of the former material has endured beyond cheap nostalgia thrills. And that includes this cover-heavy opus. . . . He applied his dexterity and ingenuity to the then-novel Moog synthesizer with both virtuosity and opportunistic glee. . . . Sure, Electronicus smacks of Moog-hysteria cash-in, but Hyman’s inventiveness with this familiar and relatively eclectic material raises the record high above most of its counterparts now moldering in bargain bins.
All that being said, Electronicus wasn’t as successful as Hyman’s first Moog album:
When the LP was released, the previous “Moog – The Electric Eclectics of Dick Hyman” was still in the Billboard Top 100 LP Chart. Surprisingly, “The Age of Electronicus” failed to repeat the success experienced by its predecessor . . . . [T]he now legendary “The Minotaur” . . . was the track [from Electric Eclectics] which got picked up by radio stations months earlier and was fundamental to the success of the previous album, becoming the very first single featuring a Moog synthesizer to chart. . . . The album only spent 11 weeks in the Billboard Top 200 LP Chart – peaking at #110 – and the poor performance of the “Green Onions b/w Aquarius” single, which peaked at #126, didn’t help the LP to reach the success I think it deserved. Furthermore, by the time “The Age of Aquarius” was released, record shops were also offering many other Moog albums . . . .
A very versatile virtuoso, Dick Hyman . . . . can clearly play anything he wants to, and since the ’70s, he has mostly concentrated on pre-bop swing and stride styles. Hyman worked with Red Norvo (1949-1950) and Benny Goodman (1950), and then spent much of the 1950s and ’60s as a studio musician. He appears on the one known sound film of Charlie Parker (Hot House from 1952); recorded honky tonk under pseudonyms; played organ and early synthesizers in addition to piano; was Arthur Godfrey’s music director (1959-1962); collaborated with Leonard Feather on some History of Jazz concerts (doubling on clarinet), and even performed rock and free jazz; but all of this was a prelude to his later work. In the 1970s, Hyman played with the New York Jazz Repertory Company, formed the Perfect Jazz Repertory Quintet (1976), and started writing soundtracks for Woody Allen films.
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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. 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
797) The Crazy World of Arthur Brown — “Nightmare”
The most demented (and greatest) music video ever made, from the crazy mind of Arthur Brown (see #783), for a song that actually hit #56 in the UK and #107 in the U.S. Don’t just listen to me. CosmikDebriis says it’s “[t]he best rock video on Youtube” and doccyclopz calls it “[p]ossibly the greatest music video in the history of music videos.” (both at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpRG83Hi5q) Bert Spivey is spot on: “The parties back then must have been epic if someone walks into the room with his hat on fire and no one notices.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpRG83Hi5qA) Oh, and Gery Hatrix recalls “I was a camp counselor in 1969 and would play this at night in my cabin to quiet down the campers after ‘Lights Out”. It worked every time!!! They were scared sh*tless.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpRG83Hi5qA)
As to the song, Jason calls “Nightmare” “a powerful piece of early progressive rock with crazed vocals, thundering drums and soulful organ via Vincent Crane – a true classic.” (http://therisingstorm.net/the-crazy-world-of-arthur-brown/) 23 Daves says:
“Nightmare” is even more threatening than “Fire”, consisting mostly of a determined, full-on organ riff topped off with Brown’s demonic screaming. It’s not a bad record at all, but had Radio One played this during the daytime, it would have terrified the wits out of most of the nation – gone is the almost groovy hook, and instead there’s a lot of terror and minimalism in its place. No horn section this time, I’m afraid.
[It has a] melodramatic horror-movie vibe, complete with funereal organ and what sounds like a psycho’s heavy breathing. . . . Sinister mood established, the rock trio bursts to life driven by the Hammond organ of Vincent Crane. The story appears to concern young Hieronymous and the gods who visit him in his nightmares. The subject is hell, sin and a search for salvation.
The video comes to mind when reading Perry Jimenez’s contention that:
If it wasn’t for this underrated one-hit-wonder we wouldn’t even have Shock Rock, That’s Right, as in No Alice cooper seducing snakes and Killing chickens, No Ozzy Osburne biting off the heads of Bats and turning into a werewolf, no Kiss and Gene Simmons Bleeding from his tongue and breathing fire, and no Marylin Manson turning into a demonic hermaphrodite, let’s take some time to truly appreciate the legacy this man had made, and to think he did it by singing with fire in his head, Thank Mr. Arthur Brown, you have changed Rock and Roll for generations.
[He] was undoubtedly one of the memorable figures of British psychedelia. . . . [The Crazy World] had become a very popular attraction around London’s underground clubs, like the UFO . . . . They had a flamboyant stage act which often involved Brown appearing in a flaming helmet with bizarre facial make-up. Indeed, their act was so expensive to stage that Brown eventually [went] broke.”
The Tapestry of Delights Revisited
Mark Deming gives us some Crazy World history:
Arthur Brown burst out of obscurity in 1968 with “Fire,” an energetic and forceful fusion of blues, jazz, psychedelia, and embryonic hard rock . . . invoking the dangers of the dark side. . . . [I]t was the defining song of his career, but Brown’s oeuvre was impressively diverse. . . . The common thread that ties [it] together is his big, booming voice, over-the-top vocal theatrics, and a willful eccentricity that boosts the power of his music. . . . He was a member of the Ramong Sound [later to become the Foundations of “Build Me Up Buttercup” fame] . . . . [E]ager to launch a project that would match his outsized stage persona, he left the band to form the Crazy World of Arthur Brown . . . . Kit Lambert and Peter Townshend were part of the production team for their self-titled debut album. . . . [and] captured a grandiose sound full of drama and menace . . . . “Fire” . . . became a major hit on both sides of the Atlantic. The[ir] live show, which featured Brown wearing a helmet that spit fire and occasionally taking the stage naked, help spread the word about the group, and Brown became one of the most talked-about characters in British rock. In the wake of the success of their debut, [they] cut a second album, Strangelands. It was originally slated for release in 1969, but executives at Atlantic and Track felt it was too experimental for mainstream listeners, and it was shelved. (It received a belated release in 1988.)
The video is actually a scene from the British film The Committee, of which IMDb gives a brief synopsis — “A hitch hiker decapitates the man having picked him up while stopped by the side of the road to fix the car’s engine. A few day’s later he gets summoned to a committee, where he engages in different conversations, yet fears that his summoning is linked to the previous incident.” (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062820/) — and a fuller analysis:
This short experimental feature follows a young man (Paul Jones, vocalist for the band Manfred Mann) who is picked up by a successful but self-satisfied businessman (Tom Kempinski) while hitchhiking. Bored and exasperated with the businessman’s prattle, the young man succumbs to temptation while the mogul checks the engine of his Mercedes Benz, bringing the car’s hood crashing down on the man’s head. Feeling remorse later on, he sews the businessman’s head back onto his body, with the victim seeming no worse for wear. Years later, the young man is working with an architectural firm when he’s called upon to join a committee led by a powerful government official (Robert Lloyd). It soon becomes obvious that along with his other duties, the man is asked to account for his actions, which could easily have led to another man’s death. The Committee was shot on location at the London School of Economics, and features a musical score by Pink Floyd, which was composed and recorded shortly after Syd Barrett left the group. Influential theatrical rock combo The Crazy World of Arthur Brown also performs in the film. You’re probably expecting some silly, psychedelic curiosity (ooh, Pink Floyd and Arthur Brown!), but this film’s goals are surprisingly highbrow. The script’s dark, surreal satire is more likely to recall Camus, Orwell and Kafka than Timothy Leary. The heart of the tale involves a world where, similar to jury duty, people are called away to serve on philosophical committees for varying lengths of time. (One experienced participant remembers that his past group simply had to decide which of five oranges was the roundest.) Along the way, some vaguely drawn ideas about non-conformity and the individual’s place in society dart in and out of the frame. The film’s short duration doesn’t allow such themes to be fleshed out, but perhaps it’s just as well. Note that the lead character (credited only as “Central Figure”) is portrayed by Paul Jones, the ex-Manfred Mann singer who starred in the equally bleak, rock-star satire “Privilege” around the same time. The Pink Floyd aspect is minimal (some organ-led noodlings such as heard on Ummagumma and More), but you do get an outrageous, onscreen performance from Brown, complete with flaming helmet.
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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. 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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Its lack of success can perhaps be put down to its subject matter and fluffy hippy-isms seeming antiquated as the seventies dawned, but it’s still one of the finest pop examples of the psychedelic genre. Penned by John Carter and Russ Alquist . . . it appears to be a ballad on the subject of materialism backed with shimmering effects, gut-thudding, plunging basslines, and Eastern-styled instrumentation. For all that, at no point does it seem like a cheap novelty item, nor over-the-top – it’s just a marvellous piece of songwriting and production which earworms you immediately after the first listen.
Bassist Chris Randall recalls that “[w]e didn’t do all that many live gigs but spent out time writing stuff, being silly and worrying our parents almost to death.” (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited)
Band members Steve Gould and Andrew Curtis went on to prog band Rare Bird.
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23 Daves delves further into the song and the Answers:
There seems to be a misconception in some circles that the minimal, wiry, angular, paranoid rush of a noise frequently associated with amphetamines only occurred when punk broke. . . . “Just A Fear” is, it has to be said, a startlingly forward-thinking single, combining many of the kind of minimalist, dischordant structures and production techniques post-punk would utilise many years later. The skeletal, persistent main riff here could just as easily grace an early Fall single, and whilst the track does occasionally find its way back on to the main roads of convention at points, it’s still as uncommercial as sixties beat pop ever got. [I]ts astonishing this ever got released at the time. The Answers only released two singles, both this and “That’s What You’re Doing To Me”, before their guitarist Tony Hill was poached by cult psychedelic legends The Misunderstood.
The Answers from South Shields in the North East of England . . . . Tony Hill . . . left The Answers to join the definitive line-up of psychedelic legends the Misunderstood and after that formed heavy progsters High Tide. J. Vincent Edwards went solo after the band split, appeared in the London production of Hair, and later went on to be a successful songwriter and producer.
J. Vincent Edwards himself says that: “IT WAS GREAT FUN BEING PART OF THE ANSWERS WE LEFT SOUTH SHIELDS FOR FRANCE PLAYING ON US ARMY BASES FOR 3 YEARS AND BACKING A FEW FRENCH SINGERS IN THE STUDIO LOVE AND PEACE VINNY” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfdV22pyru8). Oh, and 67 Supernaut says “Wow! Far Out Man. Great Song Man. Really Crankin This one Up!” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfdV22pyru8)
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
794) Freda Payne — “Unhooked Generation”
Which soul song has the greatest, oft-samples. guitar riff? I’d suggest this ‘69 A-side by the great Freda Payne. Sally O’Rourke says that this “debut single by the First Lady of Invictus Records . . . allowed Holland-Dozier-Holland* to go in a funkier, racier direction than they could have taken the Supremes at Motown.” (http://www.rebeatmag.com/jukebox-the-unhooked-generation/)
Juno (“world’s largest dance music and equipment store. . . . [b]ased in London”) says:
It was recorded in 1969 and features a golden production touch that made it a hugely popular tune for sample-hunting producers in the hip hop world. The killer guitar hook intro is particularly popular and was most notably used by JVC Force in their ‘Strong Island’, tune.
As to the pleasure of Payne, Greg Prato tells us that
The multi-talented Freda Payne is best known for her singing career, yet she has also performed in musicals and acted in movies over the years, and was briefly the host of her own TV talk show. Born . . . in Detroit . . . . Payne[] . . . began early singing radio commercial jingles, which brought the young vocalist to the attention of several music-biz heavyweights. Berry Gordy, Jr. attempted to sign Payne to his then-burgeoning record company Motown, while Duke Ellington employed Payne as the featured singer with his renowned orchestra for two nights in Pittsburgh, resulting in [him] offering the teenager a ten-year contract. But in both cases, Payne’s mother turned them down. During the early to mid-’60s, Payne established herself as a fine jazz vocalist, touring the country with bothQuincy Jones and Bill Cosby, and issuing a jazz/big band-based album in 1963 . . . . Payne enjoyed further exposure via appearances on such TV shows as Johnny Carson, David Frost, and Merv Griffin. But it wasn’t until Payne signed on to the Invictus label in 1969 (headed by longtime friends/former Motown songwriters/producers Eddie Holland, Lamont Dozier, and Brian Holland and issued the fine album Band of Gold that she scored her breakthrough hit single, the album’s title track, which peaked at number three in the U.S. and topped the chart in the U.K. in 1970.
Gordy put the three together in the early ’60s, after it became evident that Eddie Holland wasn’t going to last as a solo act. The laundry list of Holland-Dozier-Holland hits seems endless; they include “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Baby Love,” “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love,” “This Old Heart of Mine,” “Nowhere to Run,” “I’m a Road Runner,” and many others. They produced gems for the Supremes, Junior Walker & the All-Stars, the Four Tops, Martha & the Vandellas, the Isley Brothers, and the Elgins until they left in 1968. After moving from Detroit to Los Angeles, the trio created the Hot Wax and Invictus labels. Freda Payne . . . [was] among the[ir] acts that scored hits in the early ’70s. . . . Dozier then decided to start a solo career, and the long partnership ended.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
793)Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention — “Flower Punk”
Have I given you enough flower power that you’re sneezing and wheezing? Well, here is the antidote — Frank Zappa’s utterly hilarious deflowering. Son Raw says “Like the best satire, ‘Flower Punk’ is equal part tribute and slag, a speedy cartoonish homage to Hendrix’s version of Hey Joe that just so happens to disrespect the original song’s entire target demographic.” (https://www.passionweiss.com/2009/08/16/sach-o-frank-zappa-flower-punk/)
François Couture explains:
“Flower Punk” is one of a handful of songs appearing on the Mothers of Invention’ LP We’re Only in It for the Money . . . which criticized the way the hippie lifestyle had become fashionable, and thus was emptied of its sociophilosophical contents in the late ’60s. . . . The lyrics of the song feature a series of questions and answers like: “Hey Punk, where you goin’ with that button on your shirt?/Well, I’m goin’ to a love-in to sit and plays my bongos in the dirt.” A handful of flower power clichés are mocked that way over a devilishly fast uneven rhythm pattern . . . . After a while, the vocals are replaced by multiple sped-up voices speaking incoherently, delivering even more clichés . . . . Frank Zappa explains in the liner notes that the teenager’s brains blow up due to drug consumption.
People at the time maybe saw Zappa as counter-culture because he wrote weird music and had unkempt hair like all the other freaks, but that’s only a bird’s eye view of the man and his work. Look at the disdain he shows for the ‘institutionalized hippiedom’ (as High Fidelity referred to it) and its burgeoning commercial appeal on We’re Only In It For The Money and on Flower Punk in particular, and you’ll see him calling out all the fakes and the Johnny-Come-Latelies: the ones jumping on the corporate-approved bandwagon with the hope/expectation of making some coin and getting laid. . . . Flower Punk sets the scene with the choice of cover, ripping off the cliched standard Hey Joe . . . but this time played in 7/8 to cock a snook at the non-musos, and sped up twice as fast on Zappa’s Variable Speed Oscillator. The lyrics nail all the Scott McKenzie stereotypes one by one: Hey punk, where you going with those beads around your neck/ that button on your shirt/ that flower in your hand/ that hair on your head – with the responses as shallow as the image drawn: I’m goin’ up to Frisco to join a psychedelic band/ to the love-in to sit & play my bongos in the dirt/ to the dance to get some action, then I’m goin’ home to bed. . . . For me, the real cynicism is in the spoken musings of said Punk though: in the left channel, sped up, Zappa is talking about how he’s just learnt the guitar, can strum some chords pretty well and hopes a girl in the audience will notice him and hook up with him; in the right channel, regular speed, he’s wondering what he’ll buy with all his imagined future royalties – a bike, no – a car, no – a boat, no – real estate… and then hopes that girl in the audience will notice him and hook up with him. . . . Ironically, We’re Only In It For The Money was Zappa’s most commercially successful LP of the early period.
Let’s begin with the cover. Frank Zappa knew exactly what he was doing by lampooning The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, released just seven months previously. . . . We’re Only In It For The Money was a sustained and hilarious interrogation of hippiedom. And what better way was there to grab the world’s attention than with a jab at the darlings of the pop world? . . . In an interview with Stereo Review from 1979, the composer looked back at the furor he’d caused, “If you stop and think about it, putting out an album like that would be a very courageous thing in the middle of hippie hysteria. I did two things that were definitely a no-no then. One, making fun of The Beatles, you couldn’t do that; and two, I made fun of the hippies, and you couldn’t do that either… Looking at it now, maybe it was an easy target. But you try it in 1967.” . . . Less foreboding but equally cutting were the near-constant digs . . . at what Zappa perceived as an inherent phoniness at the core of the hippie movement. “Who Needs The Peace Corps,” “Absolutely Free,” and “Flower Punk” are among the most potent putdowns of the tie-dye brigade. Speaking about the latter . . . Zappa was unrepentant, “I didn’t really expect any group who was singing about flower power to believe in it. And that’s the thing that was really bugging me about the whole thing, because the audience that was going along with the fad of flower power was being fed all this garbage and never stopped for a moment to question the integrity of the people who were whipping it on ’em. And when I made my statement of ‘Flower Punk’ I got cast in a negative light as being some sort of ghoul who wouldn’t go along with the sweetness and light that was pervading the United States in 1967.”
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
792) The Floor — “Hey, Mr. Flowerman”
Here’s a bouncy, infectious Danish delight from the Floor’s only album (see #640). As Swingin’ Shakespeare might say, something is groovy in the state of Denmark!
Richie Unterberger tells us that:
Evolving out of the Hitmakers, the Danish band Floor made one pop-psychedelic album in 1967, 1st Floor. . . . [I]ndebted to [the] poppier side of British psychedelia, it’s a diverse record with some strong material, incorporating ornate, classical-influenced arrangements, singalong Brit-pop melodies, and cheerful pop/rock harmonies.
[L]ittle of the material was written by the band. . . . [b]ut it’s nonetheless decent, tuneful material with some attractive vocal harmonies . . . .
According to a Danish website (courtesy of Google Translate):
[The Hitmakers made their recording] debut in the summer of 1963 with the Beatles[‘] I Saw Her Standing There. In 1963-64 [they] toured a lot in Finland with great success . . . . [T]hey were the warm-up band for the Beatles in K.B. Hallen, 4 June 1964. . . . [T]he Hitmakers had to wait for an actual Danish breakthrough until Stop the Music, December 65, which was launched in TV’s »Klar i Studiet«. [They h]ad great success in 1966 with the parody album Træd an ved makronerne. In November 1966, the group was on a short tour in England . . . .
In the summer of 1967, the Hitmakers changed their style to a softer flower-power-inspired pop. Expanded in autumn 1967 with and the group changed its name to The Floor. Despite two singles and the very ambitious 1st Floor-LP . . , which had been one of the most expensive Danish rock productions to date, the group did not manage to maintain its previous popularity. . . . Floor disbanded in the summer of 1968…. The Hitmakers were definitely among the top groups of the barbed wire* era . . . .
* Danish Wikipedia notes that “barbed wire music”/”Pigtrådsmusik” “is a Danish expression from the early 1960s. . . . originally a derogatory term for Danish rock music, which referred to the ‘noisy’ guitar sound.” (https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigtr%C3%A5dsmusik)
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
791) Paul Parrish — “Flowers in the Park”
’68 folk rock stunner with psychedelic touches . . . from Detroit . . . with a little help from the Funk Brothers and a future Motown producer . . . WTF? Man, it works. Parrish recalls that:
I had a nihilistic friend who saw nothing but doom and gloom everywhere. I was thinking of so many of my contemporaries who were filled with doom and gloom. And I was saying “No, it’s not that way. If you look carefully, the flowers in the park are growing.” It was a song of hope. I love that song.
liner notes to the CD reissue of The Forest of My Mind
“Flowers” is from Parrish’s album The Forest of My Mind, which Phil Cho describes as “a wonderful trip through mellow, psychedelic folk . . . . [with p]astoral imagery . . . featured throughout . . , adding to the magical and somewhat haunting quality to Parrish’s voice.” (https://insheepsclothinghifi.com/album/paul-parrish-the-forest-of-my-mind/)
Alex Koump tells us about Parrish and the album:
On a map of the psychedelic landscape, down a ways from the windmills of your mind and not too far from Strawberry Fields, somewhere between Itchycoo and MacArthur Park, you might find the forest of Paul Parrish’s mind. The Michigan native could be best remembered for a couple of singer-songwriter albums on the Reprise and ABC labels in the 1970s, or as one-half of Parrish and Toppano in the 1980s…or perhaps as the lead vocalist of The Brady Bunch theme during the sitcom’s first season! But before all that, Parrish signed with MGM’s short-lived Music Factory label for a 1968 one-off: The Forest of My Mind. . . . [T]he troubadour delivered psychedelia ripe for the flower-power generation, with images of nature, seasons, animals and the elements recurring on almost every track . . . , [a] soft throwback to a time when everything was beautiful – and a little mysterious, too . . . . [I]t may be one of the least Detroit-esque albums to come out of the Motor City as it by and large steered clear of R&B. So it might come as a surprise to some to find that veterans of Motown house band The Funk Brothers, including drummer Uriel Jones and bassist Bob Babbitt, played the exquisite arrangements here. Those charts came courtesy of the team of guitarist Dennis Coffey (a Funk Brother himself) and Mike Theodore . . . . The luscious production on Forest was handled by Clay McMurray . . . [who] tapped into a Donovan-esque delicacy, dappled with sunshine.
Paul Parrish’s debut is a bright, excellently produced LP filled with remarkable sunshine-dipped folk-pop songs along the lines of Donovan. Replete with flute, strings, and slight psychedelic effects, the album gets by on the strength of Parrish’s songs, especially tracks like . . . “Flowers in the Park.” Each track is ripe with rainbow-colored imagery and the requisite amount of forest/meadow scenarios. You’d want to dismiss it as merely kitsch if Parrish’s vocals weren’t so sweet and persuasive — in the end, you’re singing along and holding hands with whoever might be near. . . . a detached yet pleasant, love-struck, and extremely wide-eyed version of psychedelic sunshine pop.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
790) O.P.M.C. — “Easter Song”
Richie Unterberger says that this yearning and affecting folk-rocker “sounds like the late-’60s Hollies trying to go a little folkier.” (https://www.allmusic.com/album/amalgamation-mw0001282367) “Hey, come on home for Easter.”
Teun van der Slikke and Scotsman Barrie Webb were the pair behind O.P.M.C., who issued an obscure album in Holland that’s variously dated as having been released in 1970 and 1971 in different discographies.
Though this is usually classified as a Dutch rock album by the few collectors who are aware of it, this early-’70s LP in fact seems like a more natural emulation of British (and sometimes American) folk-rock music than many such productions of the era from Continental Europe. In this case, there’s a good reason for that, as O.P.M.C. featured the talents of a Scotsman (Barrie Webb), along with those of Teun van der Slikke. The LP is fair, though not outstanding, folk and folk-rock with a moody streak and a stylistic unevenness that almost create the impression of being the work of more than one artist. . . . It’s an undoubtedly diverse effort that lacks distinction more due to its average material than its eclectic scope.
Hey, Richie, I think O.P.M.C. is fairly outstanding!
Soundolm adds
O.P.M.C. centered around Barrie Webb and Teun van der Slikke with different line ups during their existence. . . . Even ex-Outsiders’ legends Leendert Busch and Appie Rammers were at once among the O.P.M.C. line up! Amalgamation was their first LP, released in 1970 and featuring a mix of psychedelic folk, drugged-out spacy guitar and haunting melodies that some sources have considered to be vaguely reminiscent of Love’s Forever Changes.
“These two young men could have had the music world at their feet. If you listen the songs on this OPMC album, it will become apparent to you that they both loved the Beatles, yet they still managed to make their own style of music with ‘A little help from their friends'” · Robbie Dale Robinson (Admiral MBF. Retired)**
* Soundolm tells us that O.P.M.C. stands for “Oldest Professional Music Company”, “as they were living in the famous Amsterdam Red Light District in those days”. (https://www.soundohm.com/product/amalgamation-3)
* * “Robbie Robinson . . . better known by the name Robbie Dale and nicknamed The Admiral, was a British radio disc jockey who was the chief DJ of Radio Caroline during the 1960s.”(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robbie_Dale)
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
789)Powder — “Flowers”
Before Thomas and Richard Frost had a minor hit and created one of the great lost albums of the 1960s (see #209, 211, 247, 385, 595, 775), they had ignited Powder (as in gunpowder), the first and greatest U.S. Who-inspired mod band, and gave us another of the great lost albums of the 1960s. Notice a trend here? Anyway, the first Powder song I feature is definitely not power pop but the glorious ballad “Flowers” (that ended up in the ’69 Cher movie Chastity (with the vocals switched after a falling out with management). Got it?
Mark Deming gives us the story:
After the Beatles broke big in America in 1964, plenty of young American rockers began following the lead of their peers in the U.K., and very few did so with greater enthusiasm than Powder, a California-based combo whose explosive style was rooted in their enthusiasm for the Who, the Small Faces, the Creation . . . . [G]uitarist Richard Martin, aka Richard Frost, . . grew up in San Mateo, California, not far from San Francisco. Frost became a rock & roll fan at an early age, and had already played in a handful of local acts with his brother Thomas Martin (aka Tom Frost) when the British Invasion struck in 1964. The Frost Brothers formed a band called the Newcastle Five, whose jangly style was informed by the new British sounds and early folk-rock. The Newcastle Five were playing clubs in San Francisco when they were spotted by Ray Columbus, a rock & roll singer from New Zealand who had come to the United States in hopes of advancing his career. Colombus invited the Newcastle Five to be his backing band, and the new combo took on a new name, the Art Collection. . . . and released [with Columbus] a fine example of fuzztone proto-punk, “Kick Me,” in 1966 . . . Columbus didn’t stay with the group long, and as the first waves of the San Francisco psychedelic sound began to appear, the Frost Brothers relocated to Los Angeles in search of an audience for their louder, wilder sounds. . . . [They] caught a lucky break in 1967 when they were hired to be Sonny & Cher’s backing group for a nationwide tour. In addition to a well-paying road gig, th[is] . . . gave the[m] connections with Sonny Bono, who had launched his own music production concern, Progress Production Company, with producer Denis Pregnolato. . . . Progress signed them to a deal, and the group cut an album . . . with Bono and Pregnolato as producers, that they planned to lease to Atco Records. However, the deal went sour when Progress demanded the publishing rights to the songs, and the album was shelved. Powder soon broke up . . . .
Crescendo follows crescendo, and power chord follows power chord. For The Who, “I Can see for Miles” was the apex of this style. But this is not The Who. Instead, it is a band from California called Powder whose shelved album from 1968 was crammed with thrilling, British-influenced gems. . . . [that] filtered a British sensibility through an American outlook. . . . Martin confirms that “we were Who fanatics and got hold of the My Generation album before it was released in the States. People used to think we were from Britain because of our stage attire.”
And Alec Palao provides a vivid description: “Rich and Tom read the British mags like Rave, dressed in dandified threads brought directly from Carnaby Street . . . dug the latest hip UK sounds on import-only singles and albums . . . . and were forever being asked by fans whether or not they were from England.” (liner notes to the Biff! Bang! Powder CD comp)
Oh, what could have been. Derek Anderson:
Sonny Bono pitched the potential album to the wrong man. Sonny choose to take Powder’s recording to Atlantic Records’ Ahmet Erteugen. However, he was better known for jazz, R&B and soul. Only later, would Atlantic Records become a rock label. . . . So, it’s no wonder . . . Erteugen didn’t show any interest . . . . Following the disappointment of the recording sessions, Sonny and Cher’s management team decided to concentrate on Chastity, a film starring Cher. Powder were meant to contribute some of the music. However, in early 1969, drummer Bill Schoppe quit . . . . decid[ing] to wander down the spiritual path that was proving popular in San Francisco. . . . Powder’s biggest mistake was turning down Mercury Records to sign for Sonny and Cher’s management team. That must have seemed like an opportunity of a lifetime. It proved not to be the case.
All it’s possible to think is “how did a band this great, this melodic and this potent escape attention at the time?” . . . After looking at their contemporary context, it becomes clear why Powder didn’t attract widespread attention. They simply didn’t fit in. . . . Rich Martin (later Frost) declares “we revelled in not conforming to the San Francisco sound – it was a badge of honour and a bit of rebellion against what was popular.” . . . Powder played San Francisco but weren’t part of the ballroom scene. They were suburban and definitely not hippies. . . . Musically, the San Francisco narrative for 1967 was . . . dominated by lengthy songs, jamming and a general looseness. . . . The kinetic, sharp-edged Powder were something else. Their heads were filled with neon visions of a concise mod-pop rather than notions of soundtracking journeys to inner space.
Paleo tells us that “Flowers” was “[n]ot intended for the projected album . . . . [but e]armarked for the soundtrack of Sonny and Cher’s “message” movie Chastity . . . . [When] the album was shelved, ‘Flowers’ appeared on the soundtrack with Pregnolato’s voice dubbed over Rich’s”. (liner notes to the Biff! Bang! Powder CD comp)
Clint Hickman summarizes Chastity:
Go on a cross country adventure with Cher in her first dramatic film, Chastity. Chastity . . . is a lonely young girl who is hitchhiking across the country in hopes of finding someone to love her and make her forget her disturbed past. She does find love with a man whom she calls Andre . . . . Chastity feels that the relationship is getting too serious so she decides to run. She goes to Mexico where she starts working at a whorehouse, there she befriends the strange lesbian owner . . . . Chastity is looking for a mother figure in the woman, but the woman has different feelings for Chastity. She soon realizes that this is not the life for her and decides to return to Andre and try to start a new normal life. Things are good, but not for long as Chastity’s dark disturbed past will never let her feel loved by anyone.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
788) The Mystic Astrologic Crystal Band — “Flowers Never Cry”
’67 A-side is L.A. psych/sunshine/baroque pop heaven from the band’s first album The Mystic Astrologic Crystal Band Featuring Steve Hoffman.
Man, people either love or hate this band. In the former category, Albeth Paris writes in the LP’s original liner notes that:
[The band] was wholly conceived in [Steve Hoffman’s] own mind originally . . . and then brought to fruition after many months of auditioning, rehearsing and recording!! . . . Hoffman . . . was discovered by his Manager and Producer, Clancy B. Grass III, in a little known teen-age club in West Covina [California] . . . . [H]e simply walked up to Mr. Grass and said. “I write great songs and you have got to listen to them!” It only took one song to prove that here was a potential “giant” as far as the recording industry was concerned, and from that point on the two of them have worked together to create this album!! . . . [T]he consensus of opinion has been that this group has all the qualifications necessary to become the largest, most successful group ever to come from the U.S.A. In fact, it has been suggested that The MYSTIC, ASTROLOGIC, CRYSTAL BAND could be the “heir apparent” to the throne currently held by The Beatles!!! A very big statement, but listen to STEVE’S songs, hear what he has to say and how the band says it, pay attention to the musicianship of the group and then you too will be saying “Why couldn’t they?”… [C]ontained herein are the greatest sounds ever to be put together by an American group for more than five or six years!!!
Wait, too over the top, was this a prank? No, Albeth was not only a real person, she was a member of the Paris Sisters!
Now, let’s move to the dismissive side. Richie Unterberger, the master of the put-down, writes that:
A third-tier late-’60s L.A. psychedelic outfit, the Mystic Astrologic Crystal Band were not as weird as their name indicated. They were, more to the point, as trendy as their name led one to believe, recording common-denominator psychedelic pop . . . that emulated much of the form, but delivered little in the way of lasting content. Steve Hoffman wrote all of the group’s material, which largely consisted of passable emulations of the Association, the Seeds, and much of the L.A. psychedelic pop that fell between these extremes. Their sound is so anonymous, in fact, that one suspects they were only playing psychedelic music because it was fashionable — if it were 12 years later, they may have opted to wear skinny ties and sound like the Knack instead. Perhaps that’s too harsh an assessment, but there’s not much to put your back against on their albums, despite their status as collector’s items.
Stressing the lighter, sunnier side of the L.A. psychedelic sound (with occasional Seedsish bits), it’s well-produced, and full of the requisite bright harmonies and occasional spacy effects. But there’s so little that grabs your attention that it sometimes sounds like one of those anonymous bands that recorded soundtrack material for late-’60s hippie exploitation films.
Hey, Richie, I love those late-’60s hippie exploitation flick soundtracks!
Edward Dunbar piles on:
Their eagerness to adopt such a myriad of styles is akin to shifting through a record store’s bargain bin — gems are far and few between. . . . Hoffman fails to elevate the music beyond mere imitation while relying too heavily on sounds that were probably already considered cliché back then. Hoffman could write a catchy tune, but the utter lack of originality is increasingly obvious throughout the album’s short run time. . . . this is the sound of a band dreaming of a psychedelic odyssey while facing the reality of their own limited creativity.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
787) Mojo — “Flower of Love”
This wonderful ’69 B-side alternates between gentle balladry and jaunty interludes, with “The Entertainer”-style piano on occasion, all about a woman “sad and lonely somewhere . . . waiting for someone to love”.
The Mojo Men were certainly fluid. They were great when they were all men (see #140). They were even better when singer Jan Errico joined from the Vejtables (see #84) (and they eventually dropped the “Men” to become simply “Mojo”). They were best (see #275, 720) on their and Jan’s first and only album — ‘69’s Mojo Magic. Jud Cost’s liner notes to the Mojo Men comp Sit Down . . . It’s The Mojo Men states, the album was “[s]addled with one of the most hideous album covers in music history — colored blossoms layered over a group mug shot [and it] sank without a trace.” The group folded soon after. A shame, because Mojo Magic is one of the most glorious sunshine pop albums ever released.
Richie Unterberger tells us that:
One of the earliest San Francisco rock bands, the Mojo Men had local hits on the Autumn label with “Dance With Me,” “She’s My Baby,” and a cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Off the Hook” in the mid-’60s. Their early sides displayed a raunchy but thin approach taken from the mold of British Invasion groups . . . . In 1966, after female drummer Jan Errico joined from the San Francisco folk-rock group the Vejtables, they moved to Reprise and pursued folky psychedelic pop directions, and had a Top 40 hit with a Baroque arrangement of Buffalo Springfield’s “Sit Down I Think I Love You” in 1967. In their later days, they developed more intricate arrangements and harmonies that reflected the influence of the Mamas & the Papas and Jefferson Airplane . . . .
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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. 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
786)Joyce’s Angels — “Flowers for My Friends”
Where have all the flowers gone? This “Great Hippie Dippie Track about some Cheerful Guy giving Flowers away” (Vintage Vinyl Via Valves, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-tMQ1Z9I-8), “a nice Psych Pop Hippy dancer track about a happy chappy giving flowers away, aaah simple times”( tea biscuit, https://www.45cat.com/record/mm526), solves the mystery!
Clearbluesky writes that “Flowers” “received quite a bit of airplay on Radio Caroline South during August & September ’67 but being on Major Minor* that shouldn’t come as any surprise. Very much of it’s time but still a good record”. (https://www.45cat.com/record/mm526)
Joyce’s Angels “remain somewhat of an enigma to most British psychedelic fans”. (liner notes to the Piccadilly Sunshine: A Compendium of Rare Pop Curios from the British Psychedelic Era: Volumes 1-10 CD comp), but laineycrusoe is able to give us some history:
Joyce’s Angels was an English duo consisting of brothers Chris and Nick White, who got signed . . . after Bill Farley heard some of their demos. This was the only single they released, though they did record a followup single ‘Here Is the Night’, but it was never released as far as I’m aware. Chris White . . . would go on to release the album ‘Mouth Music’ in 1976 and have a top 30 hit the same year with ‘Spanish Wine’.
My brother, Chris was a great musician and prolific songwriter. He sent several demos to London studios and our voices were picked up by . . . Bill Farley. Chris didn’t write this song, or the flipside, but we thought it was a start in the recording world. Unfortunately, we were conned out of any royalties as we didn’t have a contract. (I was 16 and Chris was 18 at the time.). Chris arranged our vocals, which was his forte, but another guy (I wont mention his name here) added a top vocal in the verses – a bit off-key! – so probably had the money.
Major Minor was founded by pirate radio station Radio Caroline’s founder Ronan O’Rahilly in 1966 and its then manager and record producer, Philip Solomon. The label was distributed by Decca Records, with an eclectic roster of artists . . . . Major Minor had its first UK #1 single with “Mony Mony” by Tommy James and the Shondells in 1968. Astute licensing deals of obscure or controversial recordings which ‘captured the moment’ also helped the Major Minor label to gain strong sales, such as the single “Je T’Aime . . . Moi Non Plus” which reached the UK #1 spot in 1969.
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
785) Alan David — “Flower Power”
Flower power. What is it good for? Absolutely everything! Say it again!
Happening45 calls this British ode to flower power, titled appropriately “Flower Power”, “probably a bandwagon zeitgeist jumping effort, or a pee-take, or a genuine ode to the new aquarian age peace n love movement.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km6YUqha01I) I’ll let you decide!
Alan David was “an actor and singer . . . who scored a few minor hits with a handful of releases for Decca, Polydor and Page One records in the mid to late 1960’s. This is his last single from 1968 and encapsulates the swinging period in a colourful and fitting fashion.” (liner notes to the Piccadilly Sunshine: A Compendium of Rare Pop Curios from the British Psychedelic Era: Volumes 1-10 CD comp)
IFA Berlin notes that “David appeared, playing himself as a singer in a band, in the film Gonks Go Beat (1965), and co-hosted the BBC2 TV show Gadzooks, It’s The In Crowd in June, 1965 with Lulu.” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6oxwh6UHIU
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THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
784)John Williams — “Flowers in Your Hair”
Staying with the flower children theme, here is a ’67 A-side from John Williams, no, not that John Williams — I’m talkin’ about the one who hung out with Jimmy Page! (see #402 for the B-side) “Flowers” is “a cheery hippie ditty” (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited) that is “full of peace and love in full-on 1967 hippy mode” (happening45, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PdXBhjKkWw), “[e]phemeral and perfect”. (Aquariumdrunkard, https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2014/02/06/john-williams-flowers-in-your-hair/) David Wells notes that the “lovely” song “was issued as a single . . . to coincide with his marriage”. (liner notes to Let’s Go Down and Blow Our Minds: The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1967 CD comp)
“Flowers” was actually commissioned as a British response to Scott McKenzie’s “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair)”! Williams recalls that:
‘Flowers in your Hair’ was arranged for release to coincide with my marriage to Maureen (Maureeny Wishfull) on the 10th August 1967. I think it was actually released shortly before this. Tony Calder asked me to write a song when he returned from America earlier that year, having heard a demo of Scott McKenzie’s ‘San Francisco’ and he wanted a quick English production on the same theme to mark the “Summer of Love”, which he and Andrew Oldham thought would mark the year and lead to a long-term trend in popular culture. I went away and wrote it and brought it back to Immediate’s offices in Baker Street, and played it to Jimmy Page and Tony Calder. I can’t remember their reaction but for some reason it wasn’t taken up by Immediate (possibly because they were in financial difficulties by then) so I recorded it at the same studio in the Old Kent Road where the “John Williams” album was made. . . . I can add that Maureen and I are still together and our sons and daughter are all musicians . . . .
Brothers John and Berne Williams fronted R&B band The Authentics, cutting an unreleased single with Jimmy Page before the Giorgio Gomelsky-produced “Honey Love” was issued in June 1965 in the name of Brothers William. John was already writing songs for the likes of Julie Driscoll when he signed a publishing deal with Jimmy Page . . . . Page placed his material with such bands as the Mindbenders and The Quik, while Williams also recorded a couple of solo albums and a brace of 1967 singles [including today’s song].
Discogs adds more about Page:
The Authentics . . . . had a residency at the Marquee [in] London supporting The Yardbirds. Indeed, Berne Williams introduced Jimmy Page to the Yardbirds. They recorded one unreleased single with Page as producer and harmonica and guitar. John . . . recorded an album with Jimmy Page and Big Jim Sullivan under the name Maureeny Wishful.
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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. 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
783) The Crazy World of Arthur Brown — “Give Him a Flower”
The Crazy World’s ’67 B-side proves that even the god of hellfire can be won over by flower power and give a flower to the eight stone bully who kicks sand in his face, pours suntan lotion into his lemonade and takes his girl.
David Wells calls “Give Him a Flower” a “fabulous flower power send-up” (Record Collector 100 Greatest Psychedelic Records: High Times and Strange Tales from Rock’s Most Mind-Blowing Era) and notes that the New Music Express’ Charles Shaar Murray described the song as “possibly the only recorded example of British psychedelic stand-up comedy” Hey, what about Peter Cook’s and Dudley Moore’s “The L.S. Bumble Bee” (see #60)?
Brown himself recalls that “Flower” “became the anthem for the hippies — they would all sing the chorus”, and that “the studio version was scaled down from the live show, where ‘it would go on for like twelve, twenty minutes — there would be all these jokes, little skits.’” (liner notes to the Real Life Permanent Dream CD comp)
Arthur Brown, Vernon Joynson writes, “was undoubtedly one of the memorable figures of British psychedelia. . . . [The Crazy World] had become a very popular attraction around London’s underground clubs, like the UFO . . . . They had a flamboyant stage act which often involved Brown appearing in a flaming helmet with bizarre facial make-up. Indeed, their act was so expensive to stage that Brown eventually [went] broke.” (The Tapestry of Delights Revisited)
Mark Deming gives some World history:
Arthur Brown burst out of obscurity in 1968 with “Fire,” an energetic and forceful fusion of blues, jazz, psychedelia, and embryonic hard rock . . . invoking the dangers of the dark side. . . . [I]t was the defining song of his career, but Brown’s oeuvre was impressively diverse. . . . The common thread that ties [it] together is his big, booming voice, over-the-top vocal theatrics, and a willful eccentricity that boosts the power of his music. . . . He was a member of the Ramong Sound [later to become the Foundations of “Build Me Up Buttercup” fame] . . . . [E]ager to launch a project that would match his outsized stage persona, he left the band to form the Crazy World of Arthur Brown . . . . Kit Lambert and Peter Townshend were part of the production team for their self-titled debut album. . . . [and] captured a grandiose sound full of drama and menace . . . . “Fire” . . . became a major hit on both sides of the Atlantic. The[ir] live show, which featured Brown wearing a helmet that spit fire and occasionally taking the stage naked, help spread the word about the group, and Brown became one of the most talked-about characters in British rock. In the wake of the success of their debut, [they] cut a second album, Strangelands. It was originally slated for release in 1969, but executives at Atlantic and Track felt it was too experimental for mainstream listeners, and it was shelved. (It received a belated release in 1988.)
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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. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
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Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelations 