THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,043)The Kinks — “Lavender Hill”
Turn on, tune in, and drop out Kinks-style.
DJ Stereo Faith tells us:
“Lavender Hill” is a gorgeous, yearning music hall meets psych rarity . . . . Initially recorded during the late ’60s, during the We Are The Village Green Preservation Society era, the song did not see light until it was released on the odds ‘n’ sods collection, The Great Lost Kinks Album in 1973. The song is built around a minor key oboe and harpsichord vamp, a cascade of backing vocals and one of Ray Davies‘ very best lead vocal turns. The song is also helped along by some deeply wistful and poetic lyrics. . . . It remains one of The Kinks‘ very best song . . . .
[T]he group recorded a song that was considered to be a follow-up single from . . . the timeless “Waterloo Sunset”: “Lavender Hill”. . . . [P]sychedelic rock reached an apogee during 1967, and with “Lavender Hill” The Kinks recorded an earnest foray into the genre. . . . Despite being shelved in favour of the brilliant “Autumn Almanac” (which reached number 3 in the UK charts in October 1967), “Lavender Hill” is a more-than-worthwhile experiment conducted by a peculiar band at the peak of their powers. Lyrically, Ray Davies hits a poetic and observational note . . . but in a vibrant fashion, depicting a land where the “sun saturates [him] with love”, birds “sing sweet melodies”, and it’s ultimately run on “sugar and milk”. . . . Davies channel[s] a spirit of unreality akin to . . . Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his preternatural poetry. His vocals are drenched in reverb and carry the same endearing vulnerability that blessed “Waterloo Sunset”; coupled with the hypnotic melody, Davies’ performance is a lysergic delight. . . . [T]here’s no discernable chorus but rather a refrain (“Lavender Hill for me”) that comes at the end of the verses, whilst there are two different bridges into the second verse and eventual outro to the song. There is a peak-and-trough quality that makes the outtake an involved listening experience, almost emulating the euphoria and come-down that comes with indulging in psychedelics. Only in this case, there’s no sign of existential dread. . . . Avory’s jazzy and imprecise delivery . . . nicely balances the celestial and soft tones of the songs that are provided by Davies’ vocals and the angelic backing vocals by Quaiffe, Dave Davies, and Rasa Davies (Ray’s wife would record vocals during this period). The psychedelic aesthetic is perfectly rounded off with the use of the mellotron, which adds a trippy, ethereal edge to the song (if it needed anymore) . . . . “Lavender Hill” . . . has all of the band’s whimsy packaged into a 3 minute, British, psychedelic expression of . . . a dreamy part of London.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,042)Samantha Jones — “Today Without You”
No, not from Sex and the City! This slinky “hideously rare and hard to find but brilliant” (doowopmike, https://www.45cat.com/record/pen703) and unforgettable Brit Girl classic inexplicably failed to become a megahit in the UK. Well, it did win Samantha “the Radio-Télé Luxembourg Grand Prix International Song Contest” (https://www.toppermost.co.uk/samantha-jones/) and charted in Belgium and the Netherlands. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Jones_(singer)) The song was produced by ex-Teenage Opera producer Mark Wirtz. Samantha says it “was successful all over the continent. But I absolutely hated it! However, Mark liked it and pushed for its release. And, certainly, when I sang it around Europe everybody loved it”. (https://www.toppermost.co.uk/samantha-jones/) Wirtz and everbody in Europe were right!
Bruce Eder tells us about Ms. Jones:
A one-time key member of the Vernons Girls, Samantha Jones bidded fair for stardom in her own right in early-’60s England — some think she might even have been a potential rival to Dusty Springfield had things gone right — but somehow she never made the cut. . . . She’s distinguished herself among the dozens of women who passed through the ranks of the Vernons Girls and had sung on all of the group’s early-’60s hits for English Decca before exiting in 1964. Jones signed with United Artists . . . . [She] was modestly successful in England despite a powerful voice and great songs to work with, and her magnum opus . . . “I Deserve It[]” . . . compares favorably with the best work of Darlene Love or the Ronettes with Phil Spector, never even got released in the U.K. until 1994. She later scored hits in the category of Northern soul and retreated to more of an MOR style in the 1970s.
[Samantha Jones] is regarded by very many lovers of the 60s Brit Girl genre as one of the very best, and one whose failure to ever dent the British charts is both baffling and unjust. She was born Jean Owen in Liverpool . . . . As the 60s got under way Jean was working in the offices of Jacob’s biscuit factory. She answered an ad in the Liverpool Echo for a girl soprano for a group that did television work. She got the job and the group turned out to be the Vernons Girls who had been regulars on shows like 6.5 Special and Oh Boy! There were around 16 in the group at that time but the company decided to reduce it to a trio, and Jean would eventually find herself recruited to join Maureen Kennedy and Frances Lea. She would emerge as the main lead singer and over the next few years the girls would record several singles for Decca. Released in 1962, “Lover Please” was a great single . . . . In 1964, Jack Good put together a TV special, Around The Beatles, featuring the Fab Four alongside the likes of Cilla Black, P.J. Proby, Millie and Long John Baldry. One musical item was to feature Cilla duetting with Baldry. But . . . as Sam explains . . . . [“]Cilla refused to do it – ‘it’ll spoil me image,’ she said . . . . In the show Long John starts singing, and Maureen . . . comes forward through the crowd and sings Lover Please at him. The cameras then cut to me and I move forward towards John and sing Forty Days . . . . That made quite a splash. John Lennon came up to me and said, ‘You shouldn’t be singing with these girls, you should be singing solo.’” Arranger Charles Blackwell also persuaded her to strike out on her own. . . . She was signed to United Artists and given a new name – Samantha Jones. . . . Singles and albums followed but somehow that British chart hit eluded her. One of her most commercial was 1967’s “Surrounded by a Ray of Sunshine . . . . Towards the end of the sixties, Sam signed with Penny Farthing Records . . . . [Her version of “My Way”] won her a Belgian music festival and reached No.4 on the Dutch charts. She would go on to win first prize in the Sopot International Song Festival in Poland with “He Moves Me” in 1971. Sam continued to record throughout the seventies and early eighties, finally bowing out of the recording scene and embarking on a new life producing shows for cruise ships.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,041)The Petards — “Rainbows and Butterflies”
Get hoisted by Germany’s own Petards with this ‘68 B-side, a pop psych masterpiece and “psychedelically-propelled opus” (liner notes to the CD comp Electric Sound Show: An Assortment of Antiquities for the Psychedelic Connoisseur). The band recorded the #1 in Germany A-side “in only 30 minutes”, but today’s song “needed 14 hours”! (https://www.bear-family.com/petards-the-the-petards-lp-180gram-vinyl.html)
The band’s website: (courtesy of Google Translate) tells us that:
The Petards were one of the most successful and popular bands of the Beat era in Germany in the 1960s, alongside bands like “The Lords” (see #335) and “The Rattles”. In its founding year in 1966, the original formation of the Petards consisted of Horst and Klaus Ebert, Rüdiger “Roger” Waldmann and Hans Jürgen Schreiber, who was replaced in June 1967 by Arno Dittrich – considered Germany’s best drummer at the time. Arno literally put the listeners into a trance with his solos. With him they won the SWF’s young talent competition. This enabled them to record their first LP “A Deeper Blue”. Their singles “Shoot Me Up To The Moon” and the follow-up “Golden Glass” took first place on . . . the SWF hit parade. In 1968 their second LP “Petards” was released with the No. 1 hit “Pretty Liza”. Th[at] year they [also] produced their single “Misty Island,” a sophisticated catchy tune that is still considered a classic of the Beat era. They toured through Germany and gave a few concerts in what was then the [USSR]. . . . In the pop poll survey conducted by the magazine “Musikexpress” they were voted the “best young group”. Their album reached 5th place in the “LP of the Year” evaluation. The group also produced cover LPs under pseudonyms such as ZONK and FLITTERMOUSE, for example with songs from Creedence Clearwater Revival. [Their] third LP “Hitshock” was released in 1970. Appearances on French television and in “Olympia” in Paris followed. Their single “Blue Fire Light” made it into the top ten of the French and Belgian charts. The boys also showed their musical versatility when staging a musical (Shakespeare) at the theater in the Hanseatic city of Bremen. As the organizer of the legendary “Burg Herzberg Festival,” the band started a tradition that continues to this day. At the debut in 1970, over 5,000 visitors came to see the stars of progressive German rock from CAN to FRUMPY to AMON DÜÜL II. At the end of 1970, the PETARDS said goodbye to Klaus Ebert, who went to Hamburg as label manager. As a replacement for Klaus, the band chose guitarist Bernd Wippich from 60 applicants, who played an ingenious “Hendrix guitar”. The double album “Pet-Arts” (Favorite Arts) was released at the beginning of 1971 as one of their best and most creative with lovingly sophisticated songs . . . . [O]n September 3, 1972, the Petards unpacked their instruments for the last time in the Western Saloon in Wiesbaden.
The Petards, one of Germany’s most successful beat-turned-innovative kind of psychedelic rock and pop bands, are absolutely marvelous musicians! . . . Having its origins in Schrecksbach, located in the Schwalm-Eder District in the State of Hesse, The Petards (whose name is derived from the French for “bullfrog,”* making the German name Die Knallfrösche an alternate name for the group) were the brainchild of two guitar-playing brothers, Horst and Klaus Ebert. Before The Petards . . . Horst and Klaus formed . . . The Magic Stompers, who were more of Dixieland and Skiffle styles, complete with cover songs. After The Petards were formed, they literally kicked things off by recording the ear-slaying, distortion-fueled garage rock of “Baby Run Run Run,” before producing more Beatlesque tunes such as the awesomeness that is “Right Time.” Note that the shrillness of the band’s early, garage rock-focused sound had actually caused them to be taken to court in Treysa for disturbing the peace! They even played a concert before the judge! The music of The Petards is a sonic dinner of multiple courses, consisting of songs in the manner of garage rock, beat, pop rock, psychedelia, hard rock and even prog. The band’s more poppier, light-hearted side is found in songs such as their first major hit single, “Shoot Me Up to the Moon,” as well as “Golden Glass” and “Misty Island.” On the flip side of that coin, they were able to produce more guitar-focused, hard rocking material on tracks such as “Keep On,” “Stone By Now,” “Good Good Donna.” . . .
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,040) Iron Butterfly — “So Lo”
Heavy metal founding fathers Iron Butterfly’s first LP is appropriately titled Heavy. Yet it contained this lovely ditty — “CLA-HA-HA-HAS-IC!! one of a kind. unique. dark, happy, spooky, in a psychic tongue-in-cheek and merry way…”. (starcloud49595, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-6cGbHKC934&pp=ygUUSXJvbiBodXR0ZXJmbHQgc28gbG8%3D)
Andrija Babovic writes that:
When Iron butterfly started playing the club circuit in ’66, there had never been anything that sounded like them. Dubbed “heavy metal”, Butterfly both directly and indirectly influenced more bands than arguably anyone else. . . . Heavy is essentially revolutionary . . . and it reflects the roots of hard rock. This album is definitely the “must have” LP for . . . those who just want to hear how heavy music started its development 45 years ago.
[Heavy] introduced the band’s dense sound fusing hard rock and psychedelia with a set of original songs plus a reimagining of Allen Toussaint’s “Get Out of My Life Woman.” While three-fifths of the band left after that debut, Heavy nonetheless began Iron Butterfly on a journey
Heavy makes good as a mighty impressive introduction to the band. As the title of the album so openly announces, Iron Butterfly was keen on targeting their music at the burgeoning underground audience of the day. Playing sweet pop little tunes geared for commercial radio was not the band’s motive . . . . Iron Butterfly really had their act together on this album, with each and every entry sporting memorable qualities. . . . Ambitious and enterprising, Heavy is regularly cited as one of the first authentic heavy metal albums. . . . Unified songwriting, strengthened by crack arrangements and some pretty fierce melodies, cause the record to be a brash and brain-twisting collection of sounds that flip back to a time when rules were meant to be broken in rock and roll. And in most instances, as is the case with “Heavy,” in the end a stunning piece of music was created.
The heavy, psychedelic acid rock of Iron Butterfly may seem dated to some today, but the group was one of the first hard rock bands to receive extensive radio airplay, and their best-known song, the 17-minute epic “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” established that more extended compositions were viable entries in the radio marketplace, paving the way for progressive AOR. The track was written by vocalist, organist, and bandleader Doug Ingle who formed thefirst incarnation of Iron Butterfly in 1966 in San Diego with drummer Ron Bushy. After the group moved to Los Angeles and played the club scene, they secured a recording contract and got national exposure through tours with the Doors and Jefferson Airplane. Following the release of their 1968 debut album, Heavy, original members Jerry Penrod (bass), Darryl DeLoach (vocals), and Danny Weis (guitar) left the band and were replaced by guitarist Erik Braunn and bassist Lee Dorman. Weis went on to join Rhinoceros. The new lineup recorded In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida later that year, which sold four million copies and spent over a year in the Top Ten. . . . A shortened version of the title track, which contained extended instrumental passages with loud guitars and classical/Eastern-influenced organ, plus a two-and-a-half-minute drum solo, reached number 30 on the singles charts. The follow-up album, Ball, showed greater musical variety and went gold, but it also marked the beginning of the band’s decline. Braunn left the group and was replaced by guitarists Mike Pinera and Larry “Rhino” Reinhardt, but the band’s success was largely over. Iron Butterfly broke up in 1971 . . . .
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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.
As to Módulos’ early years (they broke up in ’79), Aloha Picky tells us that (courtesy of Google Translate):
Within the sound fauna of rock in Spain at the end of the 60s there were forgettable emulators of the most significant groups of the British Invasion, with a special predilection for imitating the first compositions of the Beatles . . . . [T]he Modules [was] led by the great singer Pepe Robles. They both established themselves as pioneers of psychedelic and progressive music in the Peninsula, with writing in the style of groups such as: Vanilla Fudge/The Nice/Procol Harum/Gentle Giant . . . . As in extensions of pop songs with high quality melodies that express his homage to the Beatles, his favorite band, the Hollies or the Californian vocal groups, and baroque cuts, beautifully arranged and produced that are so reminiscent of the wonders of Left Banke’s baroque popas to the classical compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach. All of this was executed in a splendid manner, however they were excellent instrumentalists, with significance for the omnipresent keyboards of Tomás Bohórquez and the guitar of Robles, one of the best vocalists in the history of rock music in Spanish who impregnates his songs with heartbreak a captivating sad and melancholic tone. The Modules arose in Madrid in 1969, when the singer and guitarist Pepe Robles . . . who was also in charge of playing bongos and playing wind instruments, such as the flute or the oboe . . . was requested by the producer of the Hispavox label . . . impressed by his talent . . . to lead a new musical group.
Abraham says (at the Spanish Progressive Rock Encyclopedia site — so you know it’s authoritative!) (courtesy of Google Translate) that:
Modulos was an extraordinaire band formed in 1969, unfortunately too late for the classic rock of the 60’s and when the spanish labels were not decided for supporting the winds of change coming from the outside. Modulos created an own and distinctive sound without loosing the commercial punch . . . . In their sound they mixed the inherence of 60s’ spanish pop español with the intensity of Vanilla Fudge, the Cantatas of J. S. Bach or the delicious touch of Le Orme. That exceptional band was formed up by Pepe Robles, singer of a very large register, composer and remarkable guitarist. The rhythm section was for other two talented players: Emilio Bueno on bass and G. Reyzabal on drums and also on violin. Finally the chief on Hammond was Tomas Bohorque, howling like never heard before. In addition he played accordion and triangle, providing a characteristic “clinc”. . . . Innovative and avant-garde, they take care of their sound to the maximum. They were very professional (the first having an office in Madrid). Their first presentation was prepared until the smallest details. But that was never recognised. Too hard for their time, with too weak words compared to those of bands caming later. Their influences could be found in bands like Vanilla Fudge, Cream, Young Rascals, Italian progressives and lately Yes, but their hippism led them also to the west coast bands. They were pionneers and really good. Not an usual band. Their first three singles become hits but it was their first LP their actual “hit”. . . . Pure velvet, round in shape and content. For the first time in Spain a band gave more importance to the Long Play than to the singles. No one can miss hearing it.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,038)Washington DCs — “Any Time”
A Liverpool band named the Washington DCs? Well, I’m just glad they didn’t burn down the White House as a publicity stunt. If they’d been managed by Andrew Loog Oldham, they probably would have!
“Ring me anytime, love me anytime, I’m your anytime boy”. Uh, you should have hooked up with Billy Nicholl’s “day time, night timе, rag time girl”! (see #964)
As to the DCs:
A Liverpool band [which] sign[ed] to Ember in the early Sixties. After some considerably mediocre beat for Ember, the band started to shine after signing with CBS in 1966. CBS issued two singles . . . including their famed “Seek and Find” single before finally calling it a day. Miki Dallon stepped in two years later and issued their final single “I’ve Done It All Wrong” b/w “Any Time” on Domain records in 1968. . . . [T]his was easily their strongest, but failed to lift the band any further. Roger Saunders and Walter Monaghan teamed up with Bobby Harrison to form a revised line-up of progressive psych legends, Freedom in 1970.
liner notes to the CD comp Piccadilly Sunshine: Volumes 11-20: A Compendium of Rare Pop Curios from the British Psychedelic Era
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,037) Andwella — “She Taught Me to Love”
This number from Northern Ireland’s Andwella (see #714, 770) starts off with a Paul McCartney/Wings sort of vibe and then blossoms into a grand 70’s-sounding power ballad. How it is not on heavy rotation at every remaining classic rock radio station is just beyond me. At least it starred in a Guccicommercial and on Netflix’s Locke & Key a few years back. Too little too late!
Andwella’s — then Andwella’s Dream — first album is their most “famous” (among collectors). The “stunning debut LP ‘Love & Poetry’ . . . captures the moment when psychedelia was at the point of splintering into progressive and acid folk.” (https://www.irishrock.org/irodb/bands/andwella.html) Well, Philip Chevron — yes, of the Pogues — says that the band’s third album People’s People is “even better . . . . By th[is] time . . . [Belfast’s David Lewis] was at the top of his game, with a new maturity to his voice which gave added conviction to the material.” (liner notes to the CD reissue of Love and Poetry). I agree!
Of People’s People, the Numero Group says:
People’s People finds David Lewis and his band of freewheelers stripping their sound down to the essentials. Emerging from the psychedelic haze, the trio find themselves at a crossroads of American southern rock and a pastoral English countryside and deliver an album with booming harmonies and transcendental hooks that could go head-to-head with The Band or The Allman Brothers. The final chapter in the Andwella story has all the makings of a classic LP, and if not for the Reflection label’s own chaotic dissolution around the time of the release, it probably would have been . . . .
Now things weren’t too good for Andwella. Two albums of musical brilliance have been recorded and released with miserable sales and clearly something was gonna change and the musical climate was changing anyway. . . . The guitar flies out the window. So do dark progressive influences and psychedelic brain blasters. A friendly, pastoral, melodic, and song based album of very pleasant music and great lyrics is what lies in store for you . . . . Right off the album starts with one of their best songs in the soul influenced “She Taught Me To Love” and there’s not one weak track on the album, but I miss the soaring smashing guitar pyrotechnics and energy of the first two making the third a very different listening experience. Some songs sound like attempts at a hit single, but none of the emotional power is thrown out this is just the most introverted and most commercial of the three albums. . . . I can’t believe it didn’t work out better for the brilliant songs of David Lewis. He’d written three albums worth of greats and classics, but the record sales were poor again. Not surprisingly it was the last album. I feel very sad for Andwella. This album is beautiful. It isn’t quite as good as the first two or maybe it is. I leave that for my mood swings to decide. When I want to smile and relax I put PEOPLES PEOPLE on. When I want to fly out into a completely different world I put the first two on, but one thing can’t be denied- there’s a vision here and it’s a powerful one.
David Wells gives us some background on Andwella and David Lewis:
[Andwella was] primarily a vehicle for the varied talents of pianist, guitarist, songwriter and singer David Lewis. . . . Something of a child prodigy, Belfast-born Lewis had been writing songs since he was eight years old . . . by the age of 12 he was performing as a singer on various Northern Ireland TV shows. However, the Andwella’s Dream story really starts when he formed a Cream-style blues group, the Method . . . . [which] built up a bit of a following, and by March 1968 their leader was named alongside the likes of Rory Gallagher . . . in a Top 20 popularity poll of Ireland’s favorite rock and pop musicians. Flushed with such attention, the Method decided to move to London and try their luck . . . . Changing their name to Andwella’s Dream, they began to make the transition from covers to original material . . . .
Record Collector: 100 Greatest Psychedelic Records: High Times and Strange Tales from Rock’s Most Mind-Blowing Era
Philip Chevron adds:
Irish radio in the 60s . . . took money — in the legitimate enough form of sponsored programming — to play cover version records by Irish showbands, a handful of them sublime, the rest truly awful. The showbands were a genuine phenomenon. In a rural culture which was still hooking itself up the the electrical grid in that era and in which not even television had yet made a major impact, the better showbands could draw three to five thousand people every day of the week, in enormous dancehalls . . . . In this climate, it took guts for a musician not to be in a showband. Van Morrison and Rory Gallagher were the two most celebrated defectors but there were dozens more . . . . Britain and America aspired to an underground counter-culture, but Irish blues and rock was so involuntarily underground it was positively subterranean. . . . The more significant bands made this transition well. One such was Dave Lewis’s group The Method who . . . came out of the hub of the Maritime Hotel in Belfast . . . .
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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.
Celeste,” the closing track on Donovan’s 1966 Sunshine Superman album, is perhaps the singer’s most unjustly underrated track. . . .
[It’s] the natural climax to the Sunshine Superman album’s pioneering blend of rock, classical, and folk instrumentation. The main instrumental hook of “Celeste” is the first sound you hear: a wavering two-note, incantational tone combining the timbres of strings, reeds, and guitars. The sweetly crooned verses, in which Donovan excels at stretching out certain syllables for emphasis, seem to be mixing a paean to both a physical lover and to a muse that visits the singer/songwriter for inspiration. For 1966, it was an unusual ambiguously seductive lyric of the mystical kind that George Harrison would, later in the 1960s with the Beatles and in his early ’70s solo career, also explore from time to time. The melody weaves through an extremely attractive assortment of major and minor keys with unhurried ease. A sympathetic sitar, usually in the background but never used as a lead instrument, adds a suitable hint of Middle Eastern delights. Particularly lush and wondrous is the instrumental break, which provides the title for the song. For the word “Celeste” is not sung, but it’s a celeste* that becomes the lead instrument during that intermission.
* In fact, the name Celeste doesn’t appear in the lyrics. “An actual celeste – per the song’s title – makes its appearance around the 2:06 mark. Unlike a piano, the celeste (also known as celesta) employs its hammers to strike metal keys, not strings.” (Zero to 180, https://www.zeroto180.org/celeste-makes-a-tinkly-sound/).
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,035) Copperpenny — “Castles of Sand”
Before they hit it big in Canada, Ontario’s Copperpenny gave us this charming baroque pop number off its first LP. It is not Little Stevie Wonder’s “Castles in the Sand” or Jimi Hendrix’s “Castles Made of Sand”!
As to CP, John Bush writes:
In 1965, vocalist Kenny Hollis and keyboard player Rich Wamil formed a band, first known as the Penny Farthings. The Ontario-based duo changed their name to Copperpenny in 1966 and gradually added members Blake Barrett (drums), Ron Hiller (bass) and Bill Mononen (guitar). Canadian hits for Columbia (“Nice Girl”) and RCA (“Stop [Wait a Minute]”) followed in the late ’60s, along with a self-titled 1970 album. Copperpenny signed to a subsidiary of London Records in 1973 and released “You’re Still the One,” the single that put the band on the map. Sittin’ on a Poor Man’s Throne was also issued in 1973. Copperpenny signed with Capitol in 1975 and released The Fuse Album . . . one year later.
The band was formed in 1965 while the British Invasion had been in full force, and so naming the group “The Penny Farthings” (most likely taken from the name of a Yorkville, Toronto, coffeehouse), didn’t sound like such a bad idea. It was wisely changed to “Copperpenny” (or “Copper Penny” as shown on many of their singles), the following year. . . . “Baby Gives Me Everything” and “Beezel Bug” never charted, but in between, “Nice Girl” made an appearance at number 77 on the Canadian weekly RPM 100 Singles chart. Unfortunately, the pop-flavoured releases weren’t successful enough for Columbia to justify spending any additional effort . . . and so the group was dropped. Picking up the ball was Jack Richardson. His Nimbus 9 production company had recently signed a deal with RCA Victor to distribute a new project with The Guess Who, consisting of the Wheatfield Soul album and the smash single, “These Eyes.” After a second Guess Who LP was out of the way, Richardson took Copperpenny to RCA’s recording facility in Chicago to record ten songs. Rich Wamil . . . handled keyboards and lead vocals; Kenny Hollis . . . also sang lead vocals; Vern (Laverne) McDonald . . . played lead guitar; Bert Hamer looked after drums and percussion; and Paul Reibling played bass, but was soon replaced by ex-Rain member, Ron Hiller . . . . Wamil and McDonald also wrote all of the band’s material. The songs were described by Walt Grealis of RPM Weekly Magazine, as “bubblegum or heavy rock[.]” The first single from Copperpenny’s self-titled album was “Just A Sweet Little Thing,” a ray of sunshine pop in 1969. It didn’t chart, and neither did the grittier follow-up, “I’ve Been Hurt Before.” But eventually, the album’s best song, “Stop (Wait A Minute),” cracked the top 100 on the strength of a catchy chorus when Hollis and Wamil trade lead vocals. The song received a lot of airplay in Southern Ontario and kept Copperpenny on the road for most of the year, with the band occasionally opening for The Guess Who or The Five Man Electrical Band. Closing the 1970 debut album was “Stop The World,” a psychedelic track that lasted just under 9 minutes and finished with an explosion followed by the sound of a toilet flushing. . . . Although RCA widened its distribution of Copperpenny’s 1970 album into the U.S., the LP didn’t sell very well. The group was also barely getting by financially, so it’s not surprising then that within a couple years, only Wamil and Hollis remained from the original line-up. . . .
Highschool friends Ken Hollis and Rich Wamil began jamming together in the garage in 1965, and formed their first group, Penny Farthings soon after. Adopting a name they felt reflected the British Invasion they were hearing on the airwaves, they soon became staples around the Kitchener, Ontario area. Members came and went over the next few years, but with Hollis on vocals and Wamil on keyboards and vocals, the lineup by ’68 also featured guitarist Vern McDonald, Paul Reibling on bass, and drummer Bert Hamer. While writing some material, they shopped some demos around while pounding the streets, eventually catching the attention of execs at Columbia. The first thing the label did was suggest a name change, so Copperpenny was born . . . . By that summer, they’d recorded some material, and three tracks were picked as singles over the next few months – “Baby Gives Me Everything” . . . followed shortly after by “Nice GiRL” . . . and “Beezel Bug” . . . . None shook the world’s foundations, nor did they live up to the expectations of some of Columbia’s staff, although “Nice Girl” did make it to #77 on the Canadian RPM chart. This was despite label brass putting little or no effort into promotions . . . . They hooked up with RCA Records and went into the studios in Chicago with famed producer Jack Richardson (Guess Who, among a million others). While finishing up work on their upcoming debut album, they continued playing gigs, highlighted by an opening slot for Led Zeppelin in Kitchener. Their self-titled debut album was in the stores in the spring of 1970, and RCA and Richardson’s Nimbus 9 both released singles. But the lollipop melody of “Just A Sweet Little Thing” and the grittier “I’ve Been Hurt Before” both failed to chart. But the final single, “Stop (Wait A Minute)” cracked the top 100, fuelled by Wamil and Hollis trading lead vocals on the song. It got good airplay in the GTA and throughout southern Ontario. With “Stop (Wait a Minute)” getting decent airplay in the Detroit market, thanks to southern Ontario radio’s support, RCA was encouraged to widen its distribution into the US, but the album still failed to make a dent. Also featured was the psychedelic “Stop The World,” a nine minute epic that when added to the rest of the album, had the critics totally baffled as to what direction the band was going was. The band kept on the road for the better part of a year, opening for the likes of The Guess Who and 5 Man Electrical Band. Throughout ’71 the band continued to tour while writing their own material. But by the following summer, only Hollis and Wamil remained from the original lineup, due in part to what some members claimed to be financial mismanagement, where their manager Dick Wending kept a reported 51% of all bookings and recording deals.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,034)Lea Riders Group — “Dom Kallar Oss Mods”/”They Call Us Mods”
From one of “the most powerful rhythm & blues based Swedish 60’s bands” comes this ’68 B-side and title track to the Swedish flick of the same name. It is a “towering 1968 psych masterpiece” (Swedish Progg Blog, http://swedishprogg.blogspot.com/2018/08/made-in-sweden-complete-albums-1968-1970.html?m=1), “[I]nspired psychedelic madness” that is the band’s “shining moment . . . with a grinding guitar riff and birdcall blasts of guitar distortion backing the garbled English-Swedish lyrics of failure and alienation” (Richie Unterberger, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-lea-riders-group-mn0000788055#biography), “[a] free form freakout stepped in guitar . . . . with a few seconds of chill out strings for a closer and voila, I’ll have a pint of whatever these critters are on, thank you very much…”. (Lindsay Hutton, liner notes to the CD comp Searchin’ for Shakes: Swedish Beat 1965-1968)
As early as 1961, Hawkey Franzén together with two friends formed the band Red River Band . . . . More members were added and after 1963 they called themselves Lea Riders Group. Many members came and went, but the founder and frontman Hawkey Franzén was always in the band. After playing at schools and party places . . . the band got the chance in 1966 to play in Stockholm. There, they quickly made a name for themselves . . . . A number of singles were recorded and released by Philips. They . . . got to record some of the film music for Dom kallar oss mods. . . . In mid-1968, several of the members felt that gigs and altercations did not lead the group forward, and the group disbanded in May of that year. Out of the ashes of Lea Riders Group, Made in Sweden was formed shortly afterwards . . . .
The Lea Riders Group weren’t the best Swedish band of the ’60s, but in a field crowded by imitators of British Invasion acts, they were one of the most original. Nothing else they did was nearly up to that level of inspired psychedelic madness [of “Dom Kallar Oss Mods”], although they did release five singles between 1966 and 1968 (all of their other songs were entirely in English). Guitarist and singer Hawkey Franzen wrote virtually all of their material, which pursued a jagged rock-blues line and some petulantly rebellious lyrics . . . . A pretty strange group in the context of mid-’60s Sweden. . . .
The first in Stefan Jarl’s Mods Trilogy, the film documents the life of two teenagers, Kenta and Stoffe. With interviews from the two boys and their friends about their hedonistic lifestyle, and what their future holds, the film explores the highs and lows of mod life in 1960s Stockholm, Sweden.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity* define Swinging London for me. “Sadly short-lived, but the combination of Driscoll’s vocals and sex appeal and Auger’s musicanship was stunning for a while.” (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited)
“Auger is one of the truly great Hammond slingers to come out of the UK in the 60s . . . . [He] wasn’t 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. . . . [JDBAT] created a grip of enduring dance floor classics, melding jazz, R&B, beat and psychedelia”. (Larry, https://funky16corners.com/?p=2674)
For a brief moment in time, ‘Jools’ became ‘The Face’ of Swinging London. And what a face — 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 spider’s 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
Of course, Driscoll’s re-recording of “This Wheel’s on Fire” as the theme song to Absolutely Fabulous, but did you know that three songs from JDBAT’s ’67 debut LP Open resulted in four absolutely fabulous music videos, surely the greatest of all pre-MTV videos? Well, they did and I feature them all today, cause whatever I choose is cool because I am cool!
“Idea was a television special starring the Bee Gees with Brian Auger and The Trinity, Julie Driscoll and Lil Lindfors. It was aired on 11 December 1968 on Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen] ZDF. It was directed by Jean-Christophe Averty. Belgian artist Guy Peellaert provided art direction. This special was intended to promote their new album Idea on French television. The Bee Gees performed ten songs from their Horizontal and Idea LPs.
Of this Open track and ’68 B-side (France) (that did not feature Driscoll) and the accompanying video:
“What the Hell! This mind blowing!!! What music – what a video – 1968?! This has to be one the best things ever heard and seen on You Tube/what a gem !!!!!!” (gnjp8340, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1nmBJwmQy4)
“Black Cat” is where [Open] REALLY comes to life and hits you straight between the eyes. It’s a storming Jazz rocker with Brian Auger taking lead vocals. This is where Brian Auger gets to display his amazing dexterity on the Hammond organ with some incredible keyboard runs. His fingers literally fly over the keys like lightning on the . . . video that accompanies this barn-storming song. This song is no timid ‘Black Cat’. No, this is a growling black panther which leaps out at you and grabs your attention right from the first blast from Auger’s powerful Hammond organ.” (Psyechedelic Paul, http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=3300#reviews)
“Auger wasn’t much of a vocalist, but he could dig deep and get the emotion out of a song — especially in a funky number like ‘Black Cat,’ which featured a killer though uncredited studio horn section. ” (Thom Jurek, https://www.allmusic.com/album/open-mw0000205733)
“‘Black Cat’ is a positively storming, monster of a tune, with a vocal by Auger (not all that common), heavy horn chart and some absolutely fiery Hammond action. . . . [I]t has more than enough momentum for the dancers (it’d fit right in if anyone ever decided to do a recreation of Swinging London right, I’m giving you the stink eye Austin Powers).” (Larry, https://funky16corners.com/?p=2674)
Here Brian Auger & the Trinity and the Molly Dancers perform on West Germany’s Beat Club:
Here it is in Italiano!:
Here are Spain’s Los Dixie’s with a cool ‘68 cover:
1,032) Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity — “Break It Up”
“Probably the greatest 60’s music video. . . . Years ahead of its time. Yes, the “Season of the Witch” video has an awesome set. It just drags a bit in length . . . and, in my opinion, is a rather underwhelming cover. Now, “Black Cat” I had neither heard before nor seen its video — and, wow! Yes, incredibly visually dynamic for its time. For me, it’s a tie between “Cat” and “Break.” This video, to me, is the best overall package — the strongest song with strong visuals.” (jeremyr.3180, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X__eAdLX1UY&list=PL_TaS3ukydpI4xuEvGkasrIajJW0P3bjw&index=6)
“This one is very nice . . . but to me lacks the spark of genius of Cat (the sliding perspective in the white room making it look like musicians are zooming around) or the raw manpower of Witch (a huge set constructed with many very specific effects in mind).” (lqr824, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X__eAdLX1UY)
“A warped Big Ben chime then introduces the Booker T/Stax influenced Break It Up, which really should be kept a secret from the samplers. Driscoll’s vocals sound more assured with this original number, going into Aretha Franklin territory in style, if not spirit. The vocal improvisations intertwine well with the piano, and the fadeout comes all too soon.” (Certif1ed, https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=17035)
1,033) Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & the Trinity — “Season of the Witch”
As to this Open track and ’68 A-side (France) and its two fab videos:
“One day, I will reach Queen Witch levels this powerful. In honor of Halloween and the Season of the Witch, I present the indomitable JULIE F*CKING DRISCOLL, babes!” (Delia Celeste, https://face.gta.world/posts/419387)
“[T]he real highlight of the album . . . a song originally co-written and recorded by Scottish songsmith Donovan in 1966 and also famously covered by Vanilla Fudge . . . . This is spooky bedknobs and broomsticks music to listen to under a full moon on the night of Halloween with a glowing hollowed-out pumpkin for company, although in reality, the song is probably no more scary than a box of Black Magic chocolates.” (Psychedelic Paul, http://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=3300#reviews)
“A reading of Donovan’s “Season of the Witch” that single-handedly established [Driscoll’s] reputation as a vocalist of great interpretative ability and emotional dexterity. Almost eight minutes in length, it is the perfect interplay for the quartet with its dark, smoky swirling energy and extant soul groove, and capos the album on a high note, making it a delightful precursor to the classic Streetnoise which was to follow.” (Thom Jurek, https://www.allmusic.com/album/open-mw0000205733)
Finally, Matthew Greenwald:
The final selection on the brilliant and underrated Open album, [JDBAT’s] reading of Donovan’s classic “Season of the Witch” fits the band’s jazzy/psychedelic threat like a glove. Taken at an even slower tempo than the author’s original, the song meanders around a downtempo, soul-intensified groove. Featuring both Julie Driscoll’s dark, soulful vocals and Brian Auger’s evocative Hammond organ, this song focuses on the band’s strongest overall vibe, to great effect. A slightly disturbing, dissonant, and powerful harmony vocal section in the middle of the song adds to the overall Halloween vibe and give the listener an even more accurate picture of the darkness that was already at hand throughout the counterculture movement. Cut at approximately the same time as the excellent Al Kooper/Stephen Stills version to be found on Super Session, one of these covers most likely influenced the other in terms and mood and feel.
Here is the utterly fab video of the song from the Norwegian TV special Groovy:
Here is all of Groovy:
Here is a live performance:
As to Julie Driscoll, Jason Ankeny tells us:
As a teen [she] oversaw the Yardbirds’ fan club, and it was the group’s manager and producer Giorgio Gomelsky who encouraged her to begin a performing career of her own. In 1963 she issued her debut pop single “Take Me by the Hand,” 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 Dylan’s “This Wheel’s on Fire.” Dubbed “The Face” by the British music press, Driscoll’s 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 husband’s 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 . . . .
As to the breakup with Brian Auger & Trinity, Driscoll explains:
“I 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 writing—because they were based on the guitar —would 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 didn’t 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.”
[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 ’60s 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 brother’s 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 “New Star” and “Jazz Piano” in a reader’s 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, Auger’s 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 Auger’s manager, Giorgio Gomelsky), but they didn’t attract attention on record until the release of their single “This Wheel’s on Fire,” (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 didn’t think it would last; instead, it became his perennial band name. . . . Their initial LP, Brian Auger’s 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.
Open has been unfairly characterized as a kind of groove jazz rip, one that combines Wes Montgomery, Jimmy McGriff, and the rock sensibilities of the psychedelic era. Whatever. There are many tracks here, from deep grooved funky jazz to lilting ballads and greasy blues numbers and the skronky exotica number “Goodbye Jungle Telegraph.” Auger may not have been as gifted an organist as Alan Price technically, but he could more than hold his own on the Hammond B-3 (as evidenced by the first two tracks here which are instrumentals, “In And Out” and “Isola Nate”). He was also able to pull more sounds out of the instrument than any of his peers.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,030) Ralph McTell — “Bright and Beautiful Things”
Dare I feature a wisp of a song whose lyrics are based on the nursery rhyme “Little Miss Muffett” (at least until they take an unexpected turn)? I do dare, especially since the song is by Ralph “Streets of London” McTell (see #907) and has the most beguiling and gorgeous melody. If you don’t like it, you can sue me in folk court! And I just might play Paul McCartney’s “Mary Had a Little Lamb” to boot!
Mark Deming delves into Ralph McTell:
Best remembered for writing the classic and much-covered song “Streets of London,” Ralph McTell is one of the most enduring figures on the British folk scene. A talented guitarist and songwriter who also possesses a strong and expressive voice, McTell has enjoyed a long and successful career in the U.K . . . [but] he’s only attracted a cult following in the United States . . . . Early efforts such as Spiral Staircase [from which today’s song is drawn] . . . were the foundation of [his] reputation with his often witty and just as frequently poignant songwriting and warm, rich vocals. . . . [I]n the ’80s he scored unexpected success composing music for children’s television . . . .
McTell was born Ralph May in Farnborough, Kent, England . . . . Ralph’s father Frank McTell . . . abandoned the family in 1947, and Winifred McTell raised her sons . . . on her own in the South London town of Croydon. Frank showed an interest in music at an early age, and when he was seven, his uncle gave him a harmonica and he learned to play. When the skiffle boom hit the U.K., Ralph bought a used ukulele and . . . quickly taught himself to play and formed a band. . . . [When he] had grown tired of school he] signed up for the Junior Leaders Battalion of The Queen’s Surrey Regiment. Military life proved even worse than education, and after six months he was discharged and he enrolled in college, studying art. . . . McTell immersed himself in beat literature and American folk, jazz, and blues music. . . . [H]e took his cues from Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Robert Johnson, and Blind Willie McTell, taking his new stage name from the latter. . . . [H]e took off to travel along the south coast of England and the rest of Europe, where he made his way around hitchhiking and busking. . . . [He] tried out a conventional career as a teacher but continued playing folk clubs around London. He began a long tenure at Les Cousins in the Soho section of the city and there he began to make a name for himself. A music publisher was impressed by McTell’s early songs and secured a recording deal for him. His first album, 8 Frames a Second, was released . . . in 1968; Capitol Records issued it in North America, to little response. . . . McTell began attracting a large audience as a live act, mixing vintage blues and original material in his sets. In 1969, McTell issued his second album, Spiral Staircase (which featured his first recording of “Streets of London”), with the third, My Side of Your Window, following several months later. . . . [I]n December [1969 he] was headlining his first major London concert. . . . [and i]n May 1970[ he] sold out the Royal Festival Hall and was booked to play the Isle of Wight Festival . . . .
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,029) Los Vidrios Quebrados — “Una Manera de Vivir”/”A Way of Living”
Los Vidrios Quebrados (The Broken Glass) (see #763) are “unanimously considered as the great lost band of Chilean rock and, along with Los Mac’s [see #123, 203] . . . the prime movers of psychedelic rock in the country”. (liner notes to the CD reissue of Fictions). They give us an infectious number “about the break with the aspirations of [their] parents (“I love poetry and music and I don’t want the plans they have”) (Marisol Garcia, Canción Valiente: 1960-1989 Tres Decadas de Canto Social y Politico en Chile/ Brave Song: 1960-1989 Three Decades of Social and Political Song in Chile) (courtesy of Google Translate)) that opens with the riff from the Hombres’ “Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)”!
The liner notes elaborate:
In a list of the pioneers of Chilean psychedelic rock music, it is impossible to omit the [band]. They are among the most important band in this musical style to emerge from Latin America during the 1960s. [It had] just one single, “Friend” . . . and one album, “Fictions” (1967) . . . . A love of the Beatles, the Kinks, Yardbirds, and the Byrds united three of its members, who studied law at the Catholic University. . . . [Juan Mateo O’Brien, guitarist and lyricist, notes that] “Oddly, we sang in English and had a Spanish name, whereas the other groups had English names and sang in Spanish. Everything with us was the other way around from the norm in the Chilean musical atmosphere.[“] . . . The band obtained a recording contract at their first public appearance as Los Vidrios Quebrados, in a festival of the Catholic University, in 1965. . . . [O’Brien says that] “At our first concert, we played three songs and we had a record contract!”
liner notes to Fictions
O’Brien notes that “we were young university students, we were very arrogant, arrogant and smug. We made music that we felt was ahead of the times, with a very high vision of ourselves.” (https://soloartistaschilenos.cl/?p=17569)
And band member Héctor Sepúlveda recalls that:
Los Vidrios Quebrados began in 1965 at the Catholic Law School. . . . We started with instruments made by ourselves and we played in schools. . . . When we were studying law we started out calling ourselves The Lawyers, then we called ourselves Los Cuervos, until finally we became Los Vidrios Quebrados. We started doing covers of The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds . . . . To get a song out, I had to go to a wurlitzer [jukebox] that was in a business near my house, to catch the melodies and tones and then I would come home to get it out. We cut the guitars, we glued them and we assembled the frets by eye and saw. . . .
I went to England in 1969. The idea was to go together with Los Vidrios Quebrados, but it couldn’t be done . . . . In England I played on the street and the best I achieved was opening for the Family group at The Marquee . . . where even Hendrix played.
We sang in English to differentiate ourselves from the commercial music of the time, the New Wave [Nueva Ola]. . . . The lyrics spoke of the things that happened to us on a daily basis, of the lack of freedom, of those tied up for having long hair, in short, we wanted to be spokespersons for people who were experiencing the same thing, in a very formal world. Although we started doing covers, all the songs on our album were original. Parenthetically, we recorded the Fictions album in just 9 hours.
Ana Maria Hurtado says that “Sepúlveda returned to Chile in 1971 and joined former Blops [see #541] drummer Pedro Greene to form the jazz-rock group Nuevas Direcciones in 1975 . . . . He is currently the only one from Los Vidrios Quebrados who continues with music, giving guitar classes at his house, parallel to his profession as an astrologer.” (https://www.musicapopular.cl/grupo/los-vidrios-quebrados/, courtesy of Google Translate)
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,028) O.V. Wright — “Eight Men, Four Women”
From a “truly incendiary deep soul performer” (Bill Dahl, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ov-wright-mn0000457807/biography) (see #71, 274, 773), comes a timeless ’67 A-side that reached #80 (#4 on the R&B chart). Ray Ellis tells us that “[a] ‘jury of love’ theme comprising O.V.’s tortured vocals, sparse accompaniment from what was to become the core of the ‘Hi’ house band featuring a dominant guitar figure courtesy of Mabon ‘Teenie’ Hodges and pleading femme back-ups from [Donna] Rhodes-[Charlie] Chalmers-[Sandra] Rhodes [Al Green’s back-up singers] places this firmly in the ‘classic’ category.” (liner notes to the CD comp O.V. Wright: Giant of Southern Soul 1965-1975)
A few quotes get right to the core of Wright:
Al Green producer Willie Mitchell (see #181, 551) proclaimed that “When you gave O.V. Wright a song, the song belonged to him. Nobody would do it that way again. In fact, I think O.V. Wright was the greatest blues artist I’ve ever produced.” (liner notes to the CD comp O.V. Wright: Giant of Southern Soul 1965-1975)
Bill Bentley writes that “[t]he staff writers for Back Beat would marry the pain of the blues with the uplifting joy of religious music for an intensity bordering on the fearful. Wright’s blend of heaven and earth would prove to be the ultimate complement for this soul synthesis over and over again. . . . ‘Eight Men, Four Women[]’ . . . cement[ed] that connection.” (liner notes to the CD comp The Soul of O.V. Wright)
And Bluesman Mark writes:
[H]as a singer ever sounded so desolate, so lost, so obsessed with sadness as [O.V. Wright] always did? . . . [H]is songs were often largely tailored to his unique style of “eloquent desolation” . . . . [Wright] always sounded like a man on the edge in songs like . . . “Eight Men, Four Women”, & he could wring pathos from every line he sung. And don’t take “eloquent” as meaning he sounded sophisticated. OV was as “country” sounding as any southern soul singer ever got. The eloquence comes from how he phrased the songs, how he found the potential of inherent sadness in any song. OV always sang like he was staring into a vast, cold void. . . . If you haven’t experienced OV Wright’s music, I suggest that you do so. Just make sure you’ve got some good whiskey handy.
O. V. Wright’s melismatic vocals and Willie Mitchell’s vaunted Hi Rhythm Section combined to make classic Memphis soul during the early ’70s. Overton Vertis Wright learned his trade on the gospel circuit with the Sunset Travelers before going secular in 1964 with the passionate ballad “That’s How Strong My Love Is” . . . . Otis Redding liked the song so much that he covered it, killing any chance of Wright’s version hitting. . . . [I]t took Memphis producer . . . Mitchell to wring the best consistently from Wright. Utilizing [his] surging house rhythm section, Wright’s early-’70s Backbeat singles “Ace of Spades,” “A Nickel and a Nail,” and “I Can’t Take It” rank among the very best Southern soul of their era. No disco bandwagon for O. V. Wright — he kept right on pouring out his emotions through the ’70s . . . . [He] died at only 41 years of age in 1980.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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.
[Embryo’s debut album Opal is o]ne of those historically important albums, one of those that made Germany the third force in 70’s rock after UK and US and second in prog (after UK and before Italy and France kicked in). . . . Embryo became internationally reknowned for their particularly free and ever inventive jazz-rock often tainted with world music . . . . Christian Burchard is of course one of the founding members of Amon Duul II but also the leader in this band.
Jean Jacques Perez expands (into the ether, courtesy of Google translate)):
One of the emblematic figures of the German progressive scene, between krautrock and jazz rock and even ethnic music. . . . Far from commercial pressures, EMBRYO will allow itself great musical freedom.
Created in Munich in 1969, the group . . . . quickly entered the studio to publish its first album entitled Opal on the Ohr label the following year. . . . [which] unveil[s] a strange and experimental album of jazz influence with a good dose of psychedelia, rock, blues and soul. Let’s call it kraut-jazz.
Starting with the eponymous title, the disc goes into a crazy rhythm’s & blues where the violin immerses us in a disturbing and hypnotic atmosphere, reinforced by a guitar under acid and heavy. . . . a dazzling and fascinating moment of music which explodes in our face and invades our brains with a trance that takes our temples by the fingers. EMBRYO . . . showed that Germany was the third producing force in pop, behind the USA and England.
The original band arrangement wouldn’t last long and would only play together on this debut album OPAL, which gives album #1 a very unique overall sound in the vast canon of EMBRYO’s eclectic output. Even right from the start EMBRYO stood out in the pack of the Krautrock scene with a keen musical vision already polished to near perfection as they delivered tight jazz-rock compositions with African percussive drive and plenty of throwbacks to the most kosmsiche representations of the German psychedelic scene. OPAL deftly straddles the line between the psychedelic aspects of Amon Duul II type of Krautrock with that same heavy bass driven groove . . . yet incorporates a seriously fierce delivery of not only post-bop driven jazz but also the more avant-garde sax frenzied touches . . . of what Ornette Coleman created all throughout the 60s. The tracks keep a fairly busy high-powered tempo with nice chord changes and instrumental tightness that was above average for many bands of the era in the Krautrock world. While most tracks are instrumental there are brief moments of vocals (in English) . . . but are usually semi-spoken in dramatic poetic prose rather than bursting into fully-fledged singing but soulful outbursts of singing do occur (“You Don’t Know What’s Happening” for example.) Needless to say, the vocals are not the strong point and hint to a clear Can connection however the music itself is much more dynamically performed with a strong emphasis on a heavy busy groove with lots of jazzy touches alongside various ethnic influences ranging from the African percussive drive to . . . rather Middle Eastern touches . . . . While EMBRYO would go on to develop even more sophisticated albums and become one of the most revered and well known of the German bands that outlasted the majority of its contemporaries, this first offering that finds itself more rooted in the 60s heavy psych scene is quite the treat itself as there are no weak tracks but rather one grooviliscious ethnic jazz jam after another.
Out of all the bands that emerged out of Germany from the big bang of progressive rock developing during the late 1960s, EMBRYO has sustained itself throughout the decades into the modern day mostly due to its being a musical collective that has seen over 400 members come and go throughout the years with Christian Burchard serving as the founder and driving force, however much of this longevity also comes from it having emerged as one of the most creative and versatile bands that has been filed under the umbrella term Krautrock. While that label more often than not connotes some sort of psychedelic mind bending qualities (Amon Duul II, Exmagma, Guru Guru) prevalent in the music, it also covers the heavier blues oriented rock bands with progressive touches (Birth Control, Electric Sandwich), the more electronic oriented artists with rock elements (Kraftwerk, Neu!) as well as the jazz-fusion crowds such as Eiliff, Brainstorm and Out Of Focus. EMBRYO stood out in that it pretty much tackled all of the above with not only a heavy emphasis on jazz-rock but also managed to slip in healthy doses of 60s infused psychedelia, traces of blues oriented rock, electronic atmospheric ambience and went even further by tackling a wide variety of the world music stock by incorporating many styles of ethnic music. . . . .
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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.
English songwriter John Bromley has written “over 200 works with over 60 recorded and performed worldwide by major artists such as Shirley Bassey, Sacha Distel, Petula Clark, Richard Harris, Paul Anka . . . John Farnham”, Jackie De Shannon and the Ace Kefford Stand. (Facebook). He also recorded some of his songs in the 60’s, releasing them as singles (backed by The Fleur De Lys (see #32, 122) which were eventually collected on his sole album, ’69’s Sing (see #337, 350, 703).
Appropriately, it’s Bromley’s voice that stands out here, with lyrics that touch on a very important ingredient to be found on a certain kind of psychedelia that was in it’s last phase by the time this song had been recorded. This song is rich with contrast, between the clanging guitar and the sweetness of the strings. You can practically hear the kaleidoscopic colours in this tune, as should be expected in a psych tune. The key ingredient here is the childlike nostalgia that this song evokes, lyrically speaking. For me, that’s what makes this something of a lost British psychedelic classic. It rings with hazy reminiscence that can be found in the best of the genre.
[My London flatmate John Raine was] very much in love with a girl . . . . It was an on-off relationship. In one of his melancholy moments, despite never having written a song before, he handed me a few scribbled heartfelt words . . . . His lyrics now comprise the verses of the song . . . but I added the hook: “We used to do so many things,” and put some music to it. I used the song on the Sing LP mainly out of respect for my flatmate . . . and to acknowledge the pain his heart was feeling for his lost love. Les Fleur De Lys were also in there, live, for the whole session. Bryn [Haworth] took hold of the guitar lick that I showed him, but made it his own. The Fleurs grooved along without any written music to guide them.
liner notes to the Songs CD (an expanded CD reissue of Sing)
Bromley “never thought of himself as a singer. . . . ‘I was really only interested in performing on my own original recorded demos’”. (Mark Johnston’s liner notes to Songs). The way he was discovered comes right out of a movie:
[He was working in a record shop in London when Graham Dee] overheard a bored Bromley busking behind the shop’s counter with a cheap plastic guitar. Graham was . . . trying to place the tune that was being sung. . . . [and] was suitably impressed to learn that the song that he thought he recognized, “What a Woman Does”, was actually a John Bromley original. . . . “He asked me to hold on and he ran around the corner and came back five minutes later asking if I could slip away for twenty -minutes to record a demo of the song.” . . . Dee ran off with the demo to Atlantic Records’s European managing director Frank Fenter[, who] was impressed enough by what he heard to rush John into his office the very next day. John was shocked, “Frank loved the song . . . . he offered me a recording contract for three singles and one album on the spot! I was hoping to get one of my songs placed with a major act by Frank, not a recording contract for myself.”
Mark Johnston’s liner notes to Songs
If Bromley’s singles had been released a year or two earlier, they would likely have received the rapturous reception they deserved. Rob Jones perceptively notes that:
[B]y 1969, there had been a bit of a shift where this approach was concerned since the height of the psych period in 1966-67. The world had become less optimistic and open to whimsy by then, two years after the summer of love, and after some of the figureheads of the civil rights movement were no more. British psychedelia had begun to mutate into a more “progressive” and serious direction to contrast the nostalgic and twee nature of what psych bands had created. King Crimson’s In the Court of the Crimson King is a good example of a darker, and less romanticized musical and thematic landscape from bands in Britain by the end of the 1960s when Bromley’s record came out. Perhaps this is why [Sing] didn’t take off. Bromley eventually left the music business for a time, escaping the ins and outs of an often callous industry. This record has been a sought-after treasure for vinyl collectors over the years since, an artifact perhaps of a lost era that is attached, ironically, to a new kind of hazy nostalgia for many. Listening to this song now, it’s easy to appreciate its charms . . . .
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,025) Inez and Charlie Foxx— “Don’t Do It No More”
Everybody have you heard, he’s gonna cheat on me! A cheatin’ lover slowburner from sister and brother Inez and Charlie Foxx. No one hit wonderbird, Inez was “one of the most underrated of all the female singers of the 60s and 70s”. (Sir Shambling’s Deep Soul Heaven, http://www.sirshambling.com/artists_2012/F/inez_charlie_foxx/index.php)
Michael Jack Kirby tells us:
Charlie was the more musically inclined as a child; he sang with the Gospel Tide Choir, which Inez later joined. Heading to New York in 1960, little sis got the first break while Charlie, three years older, was still struggling to wedge his foot in a door . . . . Calling herself Inez Johnston, her first professional recording session was for Brunswick Records in the fall of 1960 . . . . Sue Records owner Henry “Juggy” Murray used to tell the story of how the struggling pair approached him one winter 1963 day outside the Turf restaurant . . . . They pitched an idea for a song and, impressed with such brashness and confidence, he invited them upstairs, several floors above the Turf, to the Sue offices where they sang “Mockingbird” on the spot. The tune’s origin can be traced to a softly-sung children’s song, “Hush Little Baby,” specifically the opening lines ‘Hush little baby don’t say a word, mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird…if that mockingbird don’t sing, mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.’ . . . It had a rhythmic, in-your-face quality a world away from the original song and Juggy was sure it would be a hit if recorded exactly as the two had presented it to him. A session was set up . . . . Inez sang, Charlie answered and the back-and-forth wordplay resulted in a distinctively unique recording . . . . Juggy felt the record would do better if he positioned it as an Inez Foxx solo single . . . . [which] reach[ed] number two on the R&B chart at the end of August . . . while simultaneously entering the pop top ten. . . . Making Inez a star became Murray’s main focus. “He’s the One You Love” came next but struggled; the perception may have been that “Mockingbird” was a novelty one-shot. The Foxx siblings returned to the nursery rhyme concept for third single “Hi Diddle Diddle” . . . and it charted briefly in December. . . . “Ask Me” was in and out of the charts in January 1964. “Hurt By Love” managed a two-month run in May and June. The records continued to credit Inez Foxx, ignoring the two obvious voices on every song. Charlie kept his ego in check, as he was really more interested in writing and learning the producing end of things. Five more Symbol singles were released, uneventfully, through early 1966 . . . before they parted ways with Juggy Murray. [They i]mmediately signing a deal with the Musicor label . . . . Musicor started Dynamo Records to focus on R&B artists, in the process granting them permanent billing as Inez and Charlie Foxx. Inez blossomed as a live performer during this time; she appeared more self-assured, acquiring a flamboyant wardrobe (she often donned a tiger-striped outfit) while Charlie supplied the backbone. . . . The second Dynamo single, “I Stand Accused” (an R&B hit for Jerry Butler in ’64), reached the charts in the spring of ’67. “(1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count the Days” was their biggest single for Dynamo, going top 20 on the R&B charts at the beginning of 1968 while spending several weeks on the pop charts. . . . Charlie was doing more writing and producing for other acts . . . . [and] Inez and Charlie . . . grew apart as an act in the early 1970s. She belted out one final R&B hit for Dynamo, “You Shouldn’t Have Set My Soul on Fire,” in 1971. Her solo career was reignited two years later at Stax Records in Memphis with a series of releases on the Volt label . . . .
As is quite obvious from their vocal approach, they sang together in local churches, and after they left [high school], Charlie tried to get into pro sports as a basketball player or American footballer, while Inez decided on a gospel career, joining the Gospel Tide Chorus. Her talent was spotted by local impresario Charles Fuller who persuaded her to go solo, and who also suggested moving into the secular arena. She journeyed to New York and made her first two records for Brunswick . . . . Charlie joined her there having failed to make it as an athlete in the early 60s and they resumed their singing and songwriting partnership.. . . For Inez and Charlie – as well as Juggy Murray – the problem later in 1963 was how to follow up a surprise novelty smash. Not surprisingly perhaps they went with another similarly styled and paced “Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush” and then with the bouncy “He’s The One You Love” but neither made the top R & B charts. Their next two 45s “Hey Diddle Diddle” and “Ask Me” both just made it into the top 100 R&B placings as 1963 moved into 1964 . . . . The quality of their 45s throughout 1964 was very high indeed. Starting with the splendidly hard R&B of “Hurt By Love” which put the duo back in higher reaches of the charts, “La De Da I Love You”, based on the Supremes “Where Did Our Love Go” riff but featuring incomparably better vocals, and finishing with the “High Heel Sneakers” sound of “I Fancy You”, this was music to savour. . . . Their final Symbol 45 was “Hummingbird” which was heavily influenced by the more modern dance sounds coming out of Detroit . . . . In 1966 the duo signed to Musicor, a subsidiary of Scepter/Wand . . . . [B]y the end of 1967 [Charlie] decided that he’d had enough performing leaving Inez to carry on as a solo act. By the end of the decade he was . . . running his own Tee Off label . . . . Even though Inez had another seven Dynamo 45s over the next couple of years, there was only one hit, the excellent big production number “You Shouldn’t Have Set My Soul On Fire” at the start of 1971 . . . . She journeyed south to Memphis, signing for Stax who placed her on their Volt logo for one memorable album and five superb singles. . . . By 1975 her career was over, suddenly and without any apparent explanation. . . .
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,024) The Small Faces — “My Way of Giving”
We should all give thanks for the Small Faces’ way of giving, pilgrim! First a Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane written Small Faces (see #969) demo that Decca released after the band left for Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate label, then an almost hit in the UK (#48) for Chris Farlowe (see #473), then a track off of the Small Faces’ first Immediate album, then an EP track for French rock icon Johnny Hallyday, then a track off of Rod Stewart’s Gasoline Alley, “Giving” “is a[] gem . . . with a psychedelic aftertaste in the melody and [Steve] Marriott doubling on both electric and acoustic guitars to accompany those 2 glorious minutes.” (Sergio Ariza, https://guitarsexchange.com/en/unplugged/413/small-faces-small-faces-1967/) Happy Modsgiving, everyone!
Andrew Hickey tells us that “[t][he first work the [Small Faces] did for [Immediate] was actually for a Chris Farlowe single. Lane and Marriott gave him . . . “My Way of Giving”, and played on the session along with Farlowe’s backing band the Thunderbirds. Mick Jagger is the credited producer, but by all accounts Marriott and Lane did most of the work”. https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-159-itchycoo-park-by-the-small-faces/
While the Small Faces hardly need an introduction, here is an introduction by Bruce Eder:
Small Faces were the best English band never to hit it big in America. Outside Europe, all anybody remembers them for is their sole hit, “Itchycoo Park,” which was hardly representative of their psychedelic sound, much less their full musical range — but in England, Small Faces were one of the most extraordinary and successful bands of the mid-’60s, serious competitors to the Who and potential rivals to the Rolling Stones. Lead singer/guitarist Steve Marriott’s formal background was on the stage; as a young teenager, he’d auditioned for and won the part of the Artful Dodger in the Lionel Bart musical Oliver! Marriott was earning his living at a music shop when he made the acquaintance of Ronnie Lane (bass, backing vocals), who had formed a band called the Pioneers, which included drummer Kenney Jones. Lane invited Marriott to jam with his band at a show they were playing at a local club — the gig was a disaster, but out of that show the group members decided to turn their talents toward American R&B. The band — with Marriott now installed permanently and Jimmy Winston recruited on organ — cast its lot with a faction of British youth known as the mods, stylish posers (and arch enemies of the leather-clad rockers, sometimes with incredibly violent results) who, among their other attributes, affected a dandified look and a fanatical embrace of American R&B. The quartet, now christened Small Faces (“face” being a piece of mod slang for a fashion leader), began making a name for themselves on-stage, sparked by their no holds barred performance style. Marriott had a uniquely powerful voice and was also a very aggressive lead guitarist, and the others were able to match him, especially Jones, who was a truly distinctive drummer.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,023) Tina & David Meltzer — “Pure White Place”
We got the beat! Well, at least we got the greatest 60’s beat(nik) musicians — Tina & David Meltzer (see #873, 874) — giving us a “truly great” song from an album [Poet Song] filled with “excellent, psych-tinged moody folk” (Patrick Lundborg, The Acid Archives, 2nd ed.) It “does have some great songs, my favorite being the haunting ‘Pure White Place.’ For anyone who is enamored of that point in the 60s when anything seemed possible, and all forms of music and poetry could be combined into a glorious hybrid, this release will be appreciated in a major way.” (Poetic Psychedelia, https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B0002WTK1G)
Of Poet Song, Richie Unterberger writes:
Tina & David Meltzer’s late-’60s album is a pleasing, though not great, entry in the large field of San Francisco Bay Area psych-folk-rock. Naturally there are similarities to the 1967 album by the Serpent Power [see #873], which the Meltzers fronted. But the mood here is more subdued, folky, and occasionally orchestrated, with some violins, cello, mandolin, French horns, clarinet, and sax in addition to the folk-rock guitars. The cops from the likes of Country Joe & the Fish and the Jefferson Airplane are toned way down, and the music is broken up by a half-dozen spoken poems by David Meltzer with gentle guitar backup. Tina Meltzer takes the lead vocals more often than David Meltzer on the purely musical selections — a wise choice as she has the better voice, her rich and clear tones and phrasing suitable for the contemplative, wistful mood of the songs. . . . It’s a good record for sunny, solitary mornings.
John McMurtrie wrote of David Meltzer upon his death that:
Fellow Bay Area Beat poet Diane di Prima called Mr. Meltzer “one of the secret treasures on our planet. Great poet, musician, comic; mystic unsurpassed, performer with few peers.” His friends Greg and Keiko Levasseur wrote . . . that “We have lost a great poet, scholar, musician, and jazz historian.[“] . . . Mr. Meltzer wrote more than 40 volumes of poetry . . . . Lawrence Ferlinghetti . . . wrote that Mr. Meltzer was “one of the greats of post-World War II San Francisco poets and musicians. He brought music to poetry and poetry to music!”
Raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Meltzer got an early start as an artist; he entered a competition at age 11 with a poem about the New York subway system. “I owe my own fluency with language to Brooklyn,” Mr. Meltzer said . . . . “Everyone talked about everything, from the Dodgers to the revolution.” . . . Pushed into exile in California,” as he put it, living “as an alienated teen in L.A.,” Mr. Meltzer met artists who fueled his creativity. By age 20, he was recording poetry with jazz musicians in Los Angeles . . . .[He] was the youngest poet to be featured in Donald Allen’s anthology “The New American Poetry, 1945-1960.” He also wrote fiction. “I wrote 10 novels for a company run by gangsters,” Mr. Meltzer told The Chronicle. “The books were pornographic and political, too. I call them ‘agit-smut.’ . . . From 1977 to 2007, he taught in the Humanities and Graduate Poetics programs at the New College of California in San Francisco.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. 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
1,022) Chapter Four — “In My Life”
No, not John Lennon’s “Life”! Rather, the greatest British freakbeat ever laid down by Americans, two members of Jay and the Americans that is (who, of course, were Americans)! This, their only A-side, is “a vicious slab of freakbeat with a guitar sound that could almost be Sonic Youth! Devastating!!!!” (belmontrecordshopct, https://www.discogs.com/release/1064309-Chapter-Four-In-My-Life) Mr Happening calls it:
Explosive! Malevolent prime Brit pop-art mixed up with demented US psych punk. Several guitars battle with minor chords, sustain and a fuzz box, going all eastern psychedelic in the manic break.
“I wanna spend all my money with the richest man. I wanna know how it feels, to starve with the poor, picking out of garbage cans”. It is brooding, dark and foreboding, asking fundamental questions about our very existence and our purpose in this “sick, sick world”. Like a teenage mystic in the throws of extreme acid/dope paranoia, the singer resembles someone either on the verge of a mental breakdown, or a crystal clear white light revelation about The Meaning Of Life. “I wanna know the feeling, of not feeling anything, at all.” . . . This 45 was their sole effort and only ever released in the UK. One of the few pieces of information I’ve managed to find, suggests this was just released to fulfill publishing/ contractual obligations or something. Criminal. “I wanna know about going to sleep knowing I’ll wake, to no tomorrow.”
Sweet Floral Albion: The Journal of British Psychedelia tells us that despite longstanding rumors to the contrary, Chapter Four was not in fact Jay and the Americans. How does SFA know? It went straight to the source and asked American #1 Jay Black, that’s how. But two of the Americans, Kenny Vance and Marty Sanders, did co-write the song and were indeed the core of Chapter Four. See: http://www.marmalade-skies.co.uk/sfa13.htm.
Pay to Play! The Off the Charts Spotify Playlist! + Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock Merchandise
Please consider helping to support my website/blog by contributing $6 a month for access to the Off the Charts Spotify Playlist. Using a term familiar to denizens of Capitol Hill, you pay to play! (“relating to or denoting an unethical or illicit arrangement in which payment is made by those who want certain privileges or advantages in such arenas as business, politics, sports, and entertainment” — dictionary.com).
The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.
All new subscribers will receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock magnet. New subscribers who sign up for a year will also receive a Brace for the Obscure 60s Rock t-shirt or baseball cap. See pictures on the Pay to Play page.
When subscribing, please send me an e-mail (GMFtma1@gmail.com) or a comment on this site letting me know an e-mail address/phone number/Facebook address, etc. to which I can send instructions on accessing the playlist and a physical address to which I can sent a magnet/t-shirt/baseball cap. If choosing a t-shirt, please let me know the gender and size you prefer.
Just click on the first blue block for a month to month subscription or the second blue block for a yearly subscription.
Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelations😊 