The group, formerly the Liberators, was named by their manager Reg Calvert (who had brought fame to the Fortunes). Peter Chambers writes that:
Reg was an impresario, running clubs all over the country. [His] Clifton Hall became a ‘pop-school’, an academy of beat where new talent could be nurtured. Along with the likes of Danny Storm, The Fortunes and Screaming Lord Sutch, Pinkertons Assorted Colours were soon to become part of Reg Calvert’s unique empire. With the new name came the new image, brightly coloured suits were the order of the day, really putting the colour into Pinkertons. . . . Front man Sam ‘Widge’ Kempe was re-christened Samuel ‘Pinkerton’ Kempe and given an amplified auto-harp . . . to become the trademark of the band visually and musically. Although it was an unusual instrument for a beat band, the Lovin’ Spoonful had also experimented with the auto-harp . . . . [Their debut single, “Mirror, Mirror,” reached #8 on the UK chart, but while] Magic Rocking Horse . . . should have been huge . . . just as it was released . . . Reg Calvert was to lose his life in a bizarre shooting incident. Who knows if the lack of promotion and the lack of a manager contributed to low sales. Whatever the reason, it failed to chart . . . .
After the failure of “Magic Rocking Horse,” the band changed labels and changed names to the Flying Machine. In ’69, the Machine flew all the way up to #5 in the U.S. with “Smile a Little Smile for Me.”
* Vernon Joynson points out that “[a]s there was no colour TV[, Reg Calvert] insisted on the ‘assorted’ tag, which the group particularly hated and hassled him to drop until the day he died, subsequently hassling his successors until they agreed.” (Tapestry of Delights Revisited).
Joe Bataan (see #55). Boogaloo. Not down Broadway, we’re talking 106th and Lexington.
Richard Pierson in All Music Guide tells us that:
Born Peter Nitollano, of African-American/Filipino parents, Joe Bataan grew up in Spanish Harlem, where he ran with Puerto Rican gangs and absorbed R&B, Afro-Cuban, and Afro-Rican musical influences. . . . Self-taught on the piano, he organized his first band in 1965 and scored his first recording success in 1967 with “Gypsy Woman” on Fania Records. The tune was a hit with the New York Latin market despite its English lyrics . . . and exemplified the nascent Latin soul sound. In early anticipation of the disco formula, “Gypsy Woman” created dance energy by alternating what was fundamentally a pop-soul tune with a break featuring double-timed handclaps.
Don Snowden, also in AMG, says Bataan “shot to popularity in Latin music circles by covering soul hits, starting with a radical revision of Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions’ [see #118, 285] ‘Gypsy Woman’ that’s brassy and built around the chorus.” Mtume ya Salaame says the “only thing the Mayfield song and the Bataan song seem to share is the title and chorus. Joe’s song is louder, wilder and considerably more infectious, both musically and lyrically.” (http://www.kalamu.com/bol/2006/10/15/joe-bataan-“gypsy-woman”/).
Bataan himself describes “Gypsy Woman” in a must-hear interview:
“Gypsy Woman,” everyone knows was a Curtis Mayfield song. . . . I could pick songs. I knew songs that had the potential to be something, even though they were before. I knew songs that I could attempt to do differently so people might get a refreshing ear. That’s what I did with “Gypsy Woman.” I took the same song, put different music to the same lyrics and we had what we call a cha-cha with a backbeat. It was “Gypsy Woman.” This was one of the first that crossed over into the American charts. That was one of my first songs and it really put Joe Bataan on the map. I was really gearing for the Latin community, but it got a big black audience also. For a long time, you had people who loved Latin music, but they couldn’t understand it. If I said… [says something fast in Spanish], you wouldn’t know what I was talking about. What it did was allow the other masses that normally wouldn’t listen to Latin music, because it was done in Spanish, to listen to this. Some people called it boogaloo, I preferred Latin soul, and that’s probably why I survived those other boogaloo artists, because I had the mindset to change and say I was doing Latin soul and that’s what I’ve been known for 40 years.
What is boogaloo? Mtume ya Salaame, quoting an unnamed source, says:
Boogalu resonated particularly with African-American audiences. . . . Boogalu was inspired by the interaction between African-American dancers and Latin musicians in New York at nightclubs such as Palm Gardens Ballroom. They recount stories of how the structure and tone of Boogalu songs . . . were developed in an effort to appeal to African-American dancers who were not responding to their traditional mambos and cha cha chas.
Oliver Wang goes deep on Bataan:
[A] cohort of mostly Puerto Rican Americans—Nuyoricans—were coming of age, seeking a stake for their generation’s sonic sensibilities. Into that moment strode Joe Bataan, knife in hand. . . . [A]s a kid, he ran deep with the Nuyorican crowd . . . . In his teens, he helped lead a local Puerto Rican street gang called The Dragons, but a few stints in the pen encouraged him to seek a different path. He turned to music. . . . [I]n 1966, a “new breed” of Latin music was bubbling up in New York that would enrapture Bataan and his band: boogaloo [which] began as a dance craze . . . . By 1966, the dance had made its way into New York ballrooms and it was here that Nuyorican house bands began to tinker with it, giving birth to a distinctive Latin boogaloo style. . . . [A] young record executive trying to get his new Latin label off the ground . . . Jerry Masucci of Fania Records.. . . . found [with Bataan] more than just a musician; here was a voice that could sell to black, white, and Latino audiences. . . . [T]he first single Bataan recorded for Fania nodded to an earlier soul classic: The Impressions’ 1961 hit, “Gypsy Woman.” However, Bataan’s “Gypsy Woman” wasn’t a cover version. Beyond an opening line that riffed on Curtis Mayfield’s songwriting, Bataan changed everything else: the lyrics, the arrangement, the instrumentation, etc. Whereas The Impressions’ mellow original had more in common, aurally, with a bachelor pad exotica record, Bataan’s song was ferociously uptempo and unmistakably Afro-Cuban, opening with a lively piano montuno and background singers yelling, “She smokes, hot hot, she smokes!” . . . Other boogaloo breakout hits in 1967 . . . boasted memorable hooks but the singing was middling at best. By comparison . . . Bataan demonstrated that he could be a quadruple threat: singer, songwriter, pianist, and bandleader.
Here is a second helping of Glass (see #309). Light in the Attic Records says that “‘House of Glass’ is the impressive opening track, full of tension and convincing vocals over some 13th Floor Elevators style grooves”. (https://lightintheattic.net/releases/1758-electric-band). And Nathan Ford writes that:
Why more people don’t rave about this major label gem is a complete mystery to me. Lead single “House of Glass” has a menacing Doors vibe and almost sounds like a prototype for eighties neo-psychedelia in general. It’s reason enough to pick up a copy, but there’s plenty more to be enjoyed within including excursions into folky and country terrain and heaps of massive fuzz guitar leads.
Yeah, the song does sound like it was written in the ‘80’s or 90’s. Change the title to “House of Trash” or “House of Thrash”, and you’ve got a grunge hit!
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.
Bromley “never thought of himself as a singer. . . . “I was really only interested in performing on my own original recorded demos. . . .” (liner notes to the CD reissue of Sing). 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 noes to the CD reissue of Sing
Bromley wrote the B-side “Weather Man” with Graham Dee. He relates (liner notes) that the song “is a child’s song, but it was also a grown-up song about unrequited love.” “Weather Man” is indisputably “a classic slice of British sunshine pop” (liner notes). Reviewers often comment on how it and other of Bromley’s songs are imbued with the spirit of Paul McCartney: Marmalade Skies call it a “perfect little McCartneyesque tune” (http://www.marmalade-skies.co.uk/toytown3.htm), Rob Jones calls Bromley’s songs “Macca-esque psychedelia” (https://thedeletebin.com/2014/09/01/john-bromley-sings-so-many-things/), and John Reed calls Bromley “a singer-songwriter firmly rooted in the Macca tradition – and it’s possible to hear echoes of Beatles ballads such as Yesterday or Eleanor Rigby in many of his compositions.” (https://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/album/john-bromley-songs). I would venture to guess that Paul would be quite pleased to have written this beautiful and anodyne song.
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 . . . .
How can Kaleidoscope not bring a smile to your face and send you into a childhood reverie? (see #154) As David Wells says, it is “one of the most fondly remembered of the more cultish UK pysch pop bands, even if their fey sensitivity and high whimsy quotient is viewed with some suspicion by admirers of the more visceral, R&B-derived end of the psychedelic market” (Record Collector: 100 Greatest Psychedelic Records) — yeah, admirers like Richie Unterberger:
Highly esteemed by some collectors, Kaleidoscope epitomized certain of the more precious traits of British psychedelia with their fairy-tale lyrics and gentle, swirling folky sound. At times they sound like a far more melodic and accessible Incredible String Band. Their folky ballads have aged best, and although there’s some period charm to be found throughout their two albums, it’s all a bit too cloying to rank among the finest unknown psychedelia. Although they had a solid underground reputation in Britain, they never found wide success, and evolved into a similar group, Fairfield Parlour, by the end of the ’60s.
All Music Guide
As to “A Dream for Julie,” ZebedyZak comments:
After their sad flop with their debut single [“Flight from Ashiya”], Kaleidoscope tried again . . . . “A Dream For Julie” is a splendid piece of psych with sparkling keyboards and a guitar sound similar to the previous single. Add to that Peter Daltrey’s superb voice (and listen to those lyrics!) and we have one perfect single. It was, sadly, another miss. Once again, I don’t know why. Surely there were enough girls called Julie to appreciate this one in 1968.
Why indeed didn’t every Julie in the UK buy the ’45?! Julie Christie should be ashamed (unless she can produce a 45)!
Nuggets II also sends its accolades:
[It is] a classic specimen of what has become known as “fairytale psych.” The mostly English purveyors of this subgenre often drew from the fantasy world of their childhood storybooks. . . . “A Dream for Julie” is one of the genre’s most effective works, employing a bright, engaging melody and some sparkling guitar passages that successfully steer a course just wide of tweeness.”
Ah, “Shakin’ All Over,” it sends quivers down my backbone. The song has a long and proud pedigree, beginning as a #1 UK hit for (and written by) Johnny Kidd & the Pirates in ’60, then a #1 Canadian hit in ’65 for Chad Allan & the Reflections/The Guess Who, then thrillingly performed by the Who at the University of Leeds in ’70. But to my mind, the best version of this chestnut is the ’65 A-side by the Lords.
As John Einarson relates, “the record that put Winnipeg [and the Guess Who] on the [Canadian] national map” was born in England:
[Johnny] Kidd . . . explained, “When I was going round with a bunch of lads and we happened to see a girl who was a real sizzler, we used to say that she gave us ‘quivers down the membranes.’ It was a standard saying with us referring to any attractive girl. I can honestly say that it was this more than anything that inspired me to write Shakin’ All Over.”
[Toronto’s] Quality Records . . . sent out radio-play copies across the country of a 45-rpm single mysteriously credited simply to Guess Who? With everything British dominating both the pop charts and the collective consciousness of teens, it was nearly impossible for homegrown recording artists to gain national airplay on radio stations. [The label] decided to hoodwink radio programmers . . . gambling on the fact the distinct British style and infectious sound of the 45, along with the ambiguous identity, would pique interest. The ruse worked. Within weeks, Shakin’ All Over was charting coast to coast, and by March it was either No. 1 or in the top 5 on every major radio station nationally. It was then that the mystery was revealed. Guess Who? was none other than Winnipeg quintet Chad Allan & the Expressions. Suddenly, Winnipeg became the rock ’n’ roll capital of Canada. What’s more, the single broke down the regional barriers that had prevented Canadian recording artists from achieving cross-country success. “The importance of Shakin’ All Over cannot be overestimated for the Canadian pop music landscape of early 1965,” states writer/broadcaster Bob Mersereau . . . . “There had been plenty of regional hits from local artists . . . that got the kids in say, Vancouver or Halifax all excited. But [n]ational No. 1s were reserved for the Beatles, and after them came a dozen more British Invasion artists. [R]egional acts barely had a prayer. But before programmers knew it, they’d been tricked into giving the mystery band an even playing field. Then the kids took over . . . .” What is further astonishing about the success of Shakin’ All Over is it was not the intended hit. It was [a] B-side . . . .
All well and good, but what about the Lords? Richie Unterberger writes in All Music Guide that:
Quite popular in [Germany], the Lords made no impression in the English-speaking world . . . . The[y] are one of those groups that have to be heard to be believed. Although they had the requisite moptop haircuts, their repertoire was surprisingly anachronistic at times, drawing heavily from not only German drinking songs, but American folk tunes, Lonnie Donegan’s skiffle, and the pre-Beatle British rock of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates. Whatever they covered [including “Shakin’ All Over”] — they made their own with frantically fast tempos, heavily accented Teutonic vocals (virtually all of their material was in English), and heavy overuse of tremelo guitar lines with mucho reverb, whammy bar, and Lesley organ-like effects. . . . [T]hey were fun, and they had the hearts of true rockers . . . . [T]hese covers are so eccentric, done as they are with heavy German accents and a hepped-up Merseybeat-like rhythm, that it’s a lot better and more interesting than most such cover-dominated albums of the time.
332) Freedom’s Children — “Stories Towards the North (Parts 1 & 2)”
As Nick Warburton writes in Ugly Things:
One of the best rock bands the world never heard? . . . Just another one of those “what if” stories by your average ’60s rock aficionado bent on hyping their favourite obscure band[?]* But in the case of South African acid-rock legends Freedom’s Children, there is some justification in the hyperbole. Formed at the height of the hated apartheid era, Freedom’s Children swiftly became South Africa’s most innovative sons, incomparable to anyone both musically and politically . . . culminating in the groundbreaking Astra album [’70], arguably one of the era’s most overlooked recordings. The problem was no one was listening beyond South Africa. . . . [N]ow with the cloak of apartheid lifted and a growing interest among ’60s aficionados of the hidden treasures to be found beyond British and American shores, perhaps the brilliance of Freedom’s Children’s music can finally be appreciated.
That quote is taken from Nick’s riveting, hilarious and moving retrospective and interview with band members. I highly recommend reading the whole thing. Here are a few tantalizing tidbits:
When Freedom’s Children tried to establish a profile in England during 1969, [as a result of] British policy on the apartheid system, most of the band’s members were refused work permits and could only play gigs illegally. All hope of establishing themselves on the burgeoning London rock scene was thwarted and with it any chance of launching the band on the international stage.
[T]he man responsible for providing the creative spark that drove the group through its glory years was poet, songwriter and bass player Ramsay MacKay[, who] was actually born in the Scottish Highlands [and a]rriv[ed] in South Africa . . . aged 7 . . . .
[As to the band’s name:] “You don’t call yourself Freedom’s Children in South Africa without a good reason,” says MacKay. “We were banned on most radio. Freedom’s Children meant something back then.” . . . [The] record label . . . was so scared of getting into trouble that it issued the group’s early recordings under the name, Fleadom’s Children. (Producer Billy Forrest later explained that . . . government-funded radio stations refused to play their singles as Freedom’s Children.)
[I]n March 1967, the group announced that it would be holding a “freak-out” . . . . According to MacKay, the band’s use of strobe lights was possibly the first time they had been used outside California. . . . “Due to the strobe lights and the intensity of volume people had epileptic fits. At this period in time, nobody knew that strobe lights gave people epileptic fits. This is how the band became notorious, because of society, the press, the police and even the Mayor of Durban who all tried to suppress [our supposed] brainwashing the youth.” So intense were the shows that some people ended up being hospitalised. . . . “It became known as having a ‘frothy’ and was quite a cultural event as people started having ‘frothies’ without being epileptic, but probably just stoned.”
[At] an audition to back American soul singer Geno Washington . . . “[h]e was just telling us, ‘play funky man, play funky’. . . . [W]e were this acid-freak group. We were looking at each thinking, ‘What the hell is funky?'”
[Mackay:] “South Africa [was] an extreme country because of the total cruelty and then everyone normalises it. That could drive you crazy on its own, and if you took acid on top of it…”
Astra remains a startling[] piece of work and dare I say it, a seminal album from that era. . . . [that created] an atmosphere that reflects perfectly the turmoil which characterised the apartheid era . . . . [with an] overall sense of isolation, fear and repression. . . . [and a vocal which] growls with anger at the injustice of the political situation home and abroad.
[“W]hen the Americans landed on the moon . . . we took all our beds and put them in a semicircle around this little black and white TV,” explains MacKay on the inspiration behind his writing for the album. “Anyway, we took this acid and when they landed on the moon we were tripping. It was such an experience, I shall never forget it and that’s what Astra appeared out of.”
As to “Slowly Towards the North,” which comes off like a solemn organ/bagpipe-led procession, Astra‘s CD reissue liner notes state:
There are many fans who believed that Astra, with songs like the Kid Who Came From Hazareth, the Homecoming and Slowly Towards the North, was based on the life of Jesus. Not so says [lead guitarist] Julian [Laxton:] “It was a concept album, but the story about the album being about Christ is not true. But who knows what was in Ramsay’s head when he wrote the songs. He was interested in many different things and read a lot, so he got his ideas from all over the place.” . . . Slowly Towards the North was — “I think”, says Julian — about his dream of one day returning to his native Scotland.
333) John and Philipa Cooper— “Man in a Bowler Hat”
Apparently Freedom’s Children’s lead guitarist Julian Laxton was involved in the recording of The Cooperville Times, the Coopers’s only album (’69), even though “he can’t remember the album, band or session.” (http://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2014/01/philipa-and-john-cooper-cooperville.html?m=1). Well, just like the saying goes, “If you remember the ’60s, you really weren’t there.”
The album is “[s]pooky psychedelic folk rock . . . featuring the unmistakable guitar sounds of Julian Laxton” and “[u]nquestionably one of the rarest South African albums ever” (https://www.lpcdreissues.com/item/cooperville-times-2), a “South African psych-pop rarity . . . buried so far beneath the drifts of history that even the skilled archivists of the Shadoks label had a hell of a time digging up the original recordings for reissue.” (James Allen, All Music Guide).
Allen goes on:
Recorded right in the psychedelic sweet spot of 1968 and released the following year, The Cooperville Times is the only album by brother-and-sister duo John & Philipa Cooper. It blends the pop and folk ends of the ‘60s U.K. psych spectrum . . . . All the hallmarks of the paisley-patterned era are here — Baroque bits of harpsichord accompaniment, pastoral flute lines, tremolo guitar — just the sort of touches guaranteed to make psych collectors foam at the mouth.** . . .
As to the enchanting “Man in a Bowler Hat,” Allen says:
[W]hile [John’s] got a strong melodic sense with memorable hooks to spare, his lyrics are particularly meritorious; on the surface, they seem to delve into the trippy, canyons-of-your-mind territory so common to psychedelia, but a closer listen reveals that Cooper has a well-developed sense of poetic imagery, and a gift for surreal settings. When he sings about the “Man in a Bowler Hat,” for instance, he’s in keeping with the surrealist tradition of the legendary Magritte painting that is the song’s namesake.
John Samson concurs:
“Man In A Bowler Hat” tips it’s, erm, hat to the artist Rene Magritte . . . and his picture of a man in a bowler hat (you know the one). It’s a folky tune that weaves a grating fiddle and searing, if somewhat muted guitar . . . . Lyrically, [it] seems to try capture the emotions while wondering round an exhibit by Magritte . . . . suggest[ing] someone lost in the surrealism of the artist’s work. But these lines could equally be applied to listening to this song. Somewhat surreal, certainly magical and rather dreamy, it will have your mind spinning around.
This amazing album has the same class as those by Billy Nichols, Duncan Browne and Blossom Toes. . . . full of ideas and masterfully played. This album would have been a great success if it was produced in the UK. It just has the right feel, with the combination of great songs with a ‘60s art vibe. . . . a perfect slice of ’69 underground folk-rock.
I normally shy away from ultrarare psych nuggets. The fetishization of a recording’s rarity can and often does obscure any clear-eyed assessment of the music itself, and when discussions about a record revolve around the object and not the music, well, those discussions are more appropriate for Antiques Roadshow . . . . So, yes, discussing the [album] would be entirely conducive to crate-digging one-upsmanship (look what I found!) and nothing more,*** except for the insignificant trifling issue that its first four songs [including “The Mad Professor”] are actually stupendously deliciously excellent. It’s true: Even when considered on their own merits and not as crate-digging artifacts, these songs are great. . . . Perhaps one of the rarest albums from South Africa.
** So that’s what was wrong with me! I thought I had been bitten by a rabid dog . . .
*** Yeah, this hits pretty close to home too!
334) John and Philipa Cooper — “The Mad Professor”
Ioannis Katsigiannis says of this song, also from Cooperville, that:
The Mad Professor” is a fairly standard axe-wailer recast by its explosive intro and unusually funky drum pattern (which is absolutely begging to be sampled by the RZA) into something at once odder and more engaging. . . .
The song sort of reminds me of McCartney’s oft-maligned “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” (in a good way!).
331) The Tallifer Group — “This Happiness Feeling”
“This Happiness Feeling” was the A-side (’68) of the only single by this Aussie band. It is the PERFECT sunshine pop song — perfect melody — perfect lyrics. Well, the sun does shine a lot in Australia. “Micko’s Aussie Rock & Pop Legends (..well mostly)” posted the song on YouTube and says:
A terrific psych/folk single by little known Aussie band The Tallifer Group. . . . was the only recorded evidence of the band . . . released in October 1968. I’ve heard The Tallifer Group were from Sydney, however “This Happiness Feeling” only briefly charted in Melbourne, reaching #39 & staying for 2 weeks so they may have hailed from that city.
Such a perfect song, and yet the Tallifer Group is so little known that Micko makes this desperate plea: “So who were The Tallifer Group &/or T.R. Brinstead [(the songwriter)?] I can’t find any other band listing for him. And does anyone know the other band members, where the band came from & what happened to them[?]
Tom does Sam and Dave! — from his ’67 album 13 Smash Hits and ’68 album Tom Jones’ Fever Zone (and an A-side in Lebanon). Stephen Cook says of the album in All Music Guide that:
Tom Jones dives into a soul bag to bring on the hot flashes, lending his sweat-drenched vocal thrusts to . . . Sam and Dave[‘s] “Hold On, I’m Coming” . . . . [Fever Zone] will have you and your guests screaming for some good scotch to wash those fever-busting aspirin down.
Hallelujah — Jones’s version is so lascivious that he makes Sam and Dave sound like choirboys (not an easy feat)! Of course, Tom Jones needs no introduction, but I’ll just note that:
Tom Jones is one of the most popular vocalists to emerge from the British Invasion. . . . [H]is vocal style, a full-throated, robust baritone with little regard for nuance or subtlety, remained a swaggering constant. . . . No matter the style or song, Jones’ powerful, one-of-a-kind voice is instantly recognizable . . . . “It’s Not Unusual,” released in early 1965, became a number one hit in the U.K. and a Top Ten hit in the U.S. The heavily orchestrated, over-the-top pop arrangements perfectly meshed with Jones’ swinging, sexy image . . . .
Stephen Thomas Erlewine AMG
And I’ll note that he has a new album — Surrounded By Time — out at 80 years of age which topped the UK charts!
“Game of Love” is a track on Ike and Tina’s (see #212) most successful album, ’70’s Workin’ Together, which reached #25 (yes, the “Proud Mary” album). As Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes in All Music Guide, Workin’ Together “feels like a proper album, where many of the buried album tracks are as strong as the singles.” That pretty much sums up “Game of Love.” Revered rock critic Robert Christgau commented that “[s]omeone named Eki Renrut contributes a pretty fair do-right-man song.” (https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_chap.php?k=T&bk=70). It’s a do-right-man song all right. It take a lot of chutzpah or obliviousness for a man like Ike to write a song like this — a line in the sand for a jerk of a boyfriend — for Tina. Yeah, that was Ike all right!
“Plus Rien,” a ’67 B-side, is another wonderful exercise in yé-yé by Annie Philippe (see #206). It has a soaring melody but bitter lyrics that say good riddance to a lover.
What is yé-yé? Matt Collar explains:
Yé-yé pop showcased young, cherubic-voiced female singers framed against dance-ready beats and rock & roll hooks in songs often riddled with thinly veiled sexual innuendo. It was bubblegum pop meets softcore porn and it was massively successful in Europe from the late ’50s through the ’60s.
[N]o amount of money was spared in a song’s production, and subsequently many of Philippe’s cuts, including tracks like . . . “Plus Rien[]” . . . are lush productions replete with orchestral flourishes, ripe horn parts, vibrant backing vocals, and, as always, the fertile guitar buzz of an electric rock quartet underpinning it all.
Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide’s master of the putdown and the backhanded compliment, says this of Philippe:
[She was a] secondary French pop-rock singer of the 1960s who had her moments . . . [Her songs were characterized by] consciously over-cute girlish delivery, bouncy tunes, and (perhaps inadvertently) eclectic production, in which Spectorian arrangements, American girl-group influences, smooth mainstream French pop orchestrations, melancholy ballads, groovy jazzy organs, bad Dixielandesque show tunes, and more all swam in the same stream. Philippe was not quite as overtly childish in her vocal style as [France] Gall was. On the other hand, her material was not quite as interesting.
SMOKE!!! But I’m not sure the comments are justified. For me at least, Annie’s best songs — such as “Plus Rien” — reach the absolute pinnacle of yé-yé. Maybe I’m a sucker for bad Dixielandesque show tunes?
Forget Astrid Kirchherr, “Mr. Clock” is the ultimate expression of rock ‘n’ roll existentialism — from the perspective of a grandfather clock questioned as to whether it would have been better had the person that made it never made it at all. The song also sounds very reminiscent of the New York Rock Ensemble’s “Mr. Tree” (see #40), except that “Mr. Clock” came first. Jason calls it “quirky” and a “successful foray[] into 1966 psychedelia.” (http://therisingstorm.net/fapardokly-fapardokly/); Mark Prindle calls if a “dark artsy arpeggiator” (http://www.markprindle.com/fapardokly.htm); and Kevin Rathert calls it “a mellow tune, with [the] drums . . . a perfect affectation of the track’s title, along with climbing bass . . . more gorgeous vocal harmonies, and coo coo bird sound effects providing a perfect ending.” (https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2017/06/fapardokly-fapardokly-1967-review.html). I find it enchanting.
Who was Fapardokly? Well, it was largely Merrell Fankhauser. As Richie Unterberger tells us in All Music Guide:
[T]here was never a group called Fapardokly;* the 12 songs on their self-titled album were recorded by Merrell & the Exiles, a Southern California [surf rock] group headed by legendary cult folk-rocker Merrell Fankhauser. That group cut several singles for the tiny Glenn label before heading off in a psychedelic direction and mutating into H.M.S. Bounty [see #10, 235]. The equally tiny UIP label decided to gather a few of the Glenn singles, add a few more psychedelically oriented tracks that Merrell and his group had recorded, and release the package as the work of . . . Fapardokly.
And the name? Merrell Fankhauser reveals its origin:
We got a gig at a little club in Pismo Beach [California] called ‘The Cove’. And we soon had a dedicated following, but we didn’t have a name for the band! I wanted to go in a more psychedelic direction and I sat down with a pen and paper and took the first two letters of the members last names and it came out FA (Fankhauser) – PAR (Parrish) – DO – (Dodd) KLY – (Dick Lee). FAPARDOKLY.**
The album is rightfully considered a classic. Unterberger says that “[a]lthough it was not recorded or intended as a unified work, [the album] stands as one of the great lost folk-rock classics of the ’60s.” Jason agrees, calling “[t]he whole album . . . a mini gem of mid 60s folk-rock.” Rather calls it “top flight from beginning to end.” What did Fankhauser think?
We thought some of the Fapardokly songs were great but [it] mixed several years of songs that were not in the correct order they were recorded in and we thought that was wrong, and we hated the weird picture on the back that Glen rushed us into a funky studio in Hollywood to shoot, and said that’s good . . . . We really didn’t think the album would do much, little did we know this album would become one of the most collectible and valuable albums of the 60’s. A sealed mint copy can still bring $1,000!
What happened next? Well, Fankhauser says it involved outlaw bikers (sort of like Angels Die Hard comes to life!) —
We just kept playing as Fapardokly at The Cove in Pismo and I took a few of the LP’s to producers and managers in L.A. One night a motorcycle club called Satan’s Slaves came into the Cove and took over. They made us play one of my new originals ‘Rich Mans Fable’ (later to be on the ‘HMS Bounty’ LP) for over a half hour, and ordered us not to stop till they told us. The owner of the club and the bar maids just stood scared behind the bar and watched this like it was a strange scene from a 50’s movie! When the motorcycle gang had their fun they backed a Harley up to the front door, revved it up and filled the place with smoke and roared off into the night . . . .
** Mark Prindle cheekily suggests that the name “successfully ensur[ed] that the band would remain every bit as obscure as The Beatles would’ve had they called themselves “LEMCCHAOSTAR”.” Hmmm, I don’t know. I think the Beatles would have done OK even if they had called themselves Epstein and the Four Blokes Who Will Like Each Other Until Yoko Won’t Take a Hint.
“Night of the Lions” was Mark Eric’s ‘69 A-side, an album track off of A Midsummer’s Day Dream — his sole sixties album — and on the soundtrack to the “relatively routine biker-exploitation” movie Angels Die Hard (Fred Beldin, All Music Guide). I love the song and the album, as does Lightning Baltimore, who says “I am in love with this album! Don’t tell my husband, OK? I don’t need him getting needlessly jealous; it’s not like I can have a serious relationship with a hunk . . . of polyvinyl chloride.” (http://lightningjukebox.blogspot.com/2011/03/mark-eric-of-lions.html). Without knowing whether she could in fact or did have such a relationship, I won’t tell if you won’t.
On the other hand, a commenter to Baltimore says “that song sucked so bad, i dont have the words to describe it!” And Beldin says that “much of the [soundtrack’s] self-consciously ‘modern’ material sounds laughable today (and likely was in 1970). . . . [C]hamber-pop/surfer kid Mark Eric contributes the annoying ‘Night of the Lions.’”
Annoying? I’m sending the Angels after Beldin!
Mark Eric [Malmborg] was a California Golden Boy. Bad-cat says that he “was the stereotyped Southern California teenager – blond, tanned, good looking, great teeth, complete with a love of surfing and music” and Bryan Thomas says in AMG that he “was leading the Southern California dream life in his teens — surfing by day and writing songs about girls by night — before his musical talents drew him to Hollywood. . . .” I think they’re getting Eric confused with me, but in any event, let’s continue.
As to the album and Eric’s career, Bad-cat says:
[It] is probably the best Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys album they never released [Wait a second, what about Smile?! Anyway, Eric is] someone who managed to nail that unique mid-1960s Southern California vibe that mixed Beach Boys and sunshine pop. Interestingly, Eric and . . . former Animals guitarist Vic Briggs apparently wrote these twelve tracks intending to place them with other acts. . . . but the results were so impressive that [they were] release[d as] a Mark Eric effort. Musically the album was already several years out of step with popular tastes so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to see the parent LP and singles vanish directly into cutout bins. Sadly that effectively ended Eric’s recording career . . . .
It is true that the album looked back. “Mark . . . focused on the pre-LBJ . . . America, one that longed for the girls of summer, cruising and sailing away on a wave: concepts that, by 1969, were outdated but had not quite yet achieved retro-cool status.” (Steve Stanley’s liner notes to the album’s CD reissue). Mark Eric himself lamented that “[t]here was no promo done from the record label. They just let it die. No release party. No live dates. Nothing.” (liner notes to the CD reissue).
Bryan Thomas adds that:
[The album] is . . .one of the more perfect blends of soft pop and surf pop, with appropriately accenting vibraphones and French horns, pseudo-studio jazzy/soft pop melodies, “bah bah bah” harmonies, and moody string arrangements reminiscent of Curt Boettcher’s productions of Sagittarius and the Millennium. Eric’s charming, somewhat imperfect falsetto (in a somewhat obvious homage to Brian Wilson) hints at a subterranean layer of loneliness throughout.
But “Night of the Lions” — the hardest track on the album — did make it into Angels Die Hard. Wanna hear one of the album’s softer gems? Gotta wait (or find it yourself) — they didn’t make it into a biker flick! What was the movie about? Videobeat sums it up:
The local rednecks frequent a juke joint [but] a nasty bunch of hicks . . . don’t like bikers. The film opens with townsfolk leaping from their pick-ups wielding two-by-fours, pipes and other bludgeoning devices to kick the you-know-what out of the Angels who merely stopped in for a drink. The Angels are doing a good job of whooping some hillbilly butt when the sheriff arrives . . . . The Angels drunkenly agree to leave town. The next day . . . the[y are] sitting in what looks like a junkyard, drinking beer and reading poetry, when they discover that the town rednecks have just murdered an Angel on the other side of the town line. The Angels . . . return to town and proceed to wreck a pool joint and rape a . . . waitress . . . . But believe it or not, the bikers are the good guys in this film.
Don’t worry about Eric, though. Bad-cat let’s us know that he “subsequently turned his time and attention to modeling, commercials and acting, briefly appearing in a number of early-1970s television shows including The Partridge Family and Hawaii 5-0.”
This ’66 A-side was Anderson’s first. It is “a stunner” (liner notes to The Hot Generation: 1960s Punk from Down Under comp) and “a superb beat number with a great guitar riff” (Vernon Joynson, Dreams, Fantasies & Nightmares: Australia). The “unique and rip-roaring guitar solo” was apparently by Vince Maloney, who went on to be a member of the Bee Gees from ’67-’69 (http://www.milesago.com/Artists/anderson-greg.htm). The song is a great R&B number written by Allen Toussaint, first recorded by Benny Spellman, also recorded by the Artwoods, and transmogrified by Maloney’s whip-cracking riff.
Anderson had an interesting upbringing:
His parents had a whip-cracking act, and at fifteen months old [he] was appearing with them on tour in England . . . . At seven he took part in the Moomba Rodeo Festival as a trick rider and by the time he was ten [he] was appearing on major television shows and performing his own stage show for Coca Cola . . . . At 15 [he reached] the Grand Final of the prestigious television talent quest Showcase . . . . By the mid-Sixties [he] was a regular on the Melbourne pop circuit . . . .
In ’70, Anderson secured his only Australian chart hit (#21), “No Roses for Michael,” the theme song for an Australian TV movie about heroin addiction among the youth. When the Robert Redford fluck The Electric Horseman came out in 1980, Anderson “was asked to appear at the . . . Australian premiere, for which he created an elaborate costume with hundreds of lights on himself and his horse, and he then adopted the title of ‘Australia’s Electric Horseman’. (http://www.milesago.com/Artists/anderson-greg.htm). The rest is history.
Check out the cool video of Anderson “singing” the song on TV accompanied by fresh-faced Aussie dancers. The video poster on You Tube notes that “the visuals here are somewhat at odds with [a punk song]. Strict presentation requirements . . . at the time are the likely reason.”
’68 track from the album The Sandie Shaw Supplement is a lovely song by Carole Bayer Sager. Shaw also had a ’68 TV show of the same name, but of course most of the episodes were lost when the BBC wiped them. Yes, one of the BBC’s many crimes against Swinging London (see the Swinging London page). At the very least, we need a truth and reconciliation commission!
Sandie Shaw “was seen as epitomizing the ‘swinging Sixties’, and her trademark of performing barefoot endeared her to the public at large.” (https://www.vintag.es/2021/09/sandie-shaw.html). The Second Disc reminds us that:
Shaw was one of U.K. pop’s most notable female performers, thanks to her idiosyncratic performances (she was often seen on Top of the Pops and other British pop shows performing to her singles while barefoot) and reputation as an interpreter of other peoples’ songs. Between 1964 and 1969, Shaw had eight U.K. Top 10 hits . . . including No. 1 singles “(There’s) Always Something There to Remind Me” (the first hit interpretation of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David classic, before Naked Eyes made it a U.S. hit in the ’80s), “Long Live Love” and “Puppet on a String” – the latter of which, although not a favorite of the performer’s, earned her wider acclaim when her performance won the Eurovision Song Contest. It was the first time a British act took home the prize.
Not to be confused with Marianne Faithful’s “Sha La La Song” (see #111). the Janglers’s ‘66 A-side/album track is actually a cover of a number that Stevie Wonder recorded when he was 12 years old, written by Wonder’s mentor and Motown producer/songwriter Clarence Paul. The Janglers turn the song into a mod stomper, in my mind outdoing the original. German rockers the Rattles also recorded the song, but with lackluster results.
Ola & the Janglers were a leading Swedish pop group (see also #196) founded in Stockholm in 1962 (the year I was born!). They are most well known for being the first (though certainly not the last!) Swedes on the US Billboard top 100 chart (reaching #82 with Chris Montez’s “Let’s Dance” in ‘69). But they were much more than that:
The breakthrough for Ola & The Janglers came in 1965 when their second single She’s Not There was released . . . . This cover of the Zombies[‘s] song went up to . . . 10th place . . . . Of the six singles released in 1966, five ended up [in Sweden’s top 10]. . . . [They] were now one of Sweden’s four biggest pop bands together with The Hep Stars, Shanes and Tages. The band’s enormous popularity with thousands of young teenage fans in the audience created almost hysterical events at the pop band’s gigs in the Swedish folk parks. During the years 1966 and 1967, Ola & The Janglers stood at the absolute top. Two LPs and five singles were produced and released in 1967. Despite the England tour and songs played on Radio Luxemburg and not least the hit with Let’s Dance in 1969, Ola & The Janglers never broke through abroad.*
Richie Unterberger gives the Janglers a wholly unjustified write-up in All Music Guide:
[L]ike numerous Continental bands, they were pretty derivative of British and American rock trends. Even stacked up against other long-lived Swedish bands of the era, such as Tages, they don’t stand up as among the best, or certainly among the more original. Still, for the most part, they have an enjoyably competent period sound, more influenced by the moody, keyboard-driven sound of the Zombies than many groups were. . . . There are too many non-notable covers of American rock and soul hits, but even some of these have bashing energy that make them a little better than you’d expect . . . .
Well, I guess today is the perfect day for this song, the second A-side (’68) by the band from Sussex University. Jo-Ann Greene calls it “a wonderful piece of psychedelia whimsy” in All Music Guide. She goes on to say that:
Some bands are deservedly obscure, some fall from grace into that state, and some just never really had the opportunity to be anything but; Ice fall into that latter category. This late-60s Brit band received a leg-up from the BBC, and even made the occasional TV appearance, but lack of label support brought Ice’s spread to an abrupt halt. . . . [T]he group were also equally adept at vocal-drenched pop, delicate rock ballads delivered in a very English fashion, and more emotive R&B/soul-fired numbers. . . . [Y]ou begin to see their label’s problem, for how do you package a psychedelic pop/rock-R&B-soul band for the mass market, even if the group did boast a superb singer, phenomenally intricate arrangements, and a totally unique musical vision? They couldn’t. Easier to just let them melt away . . . .
Wait, ice man comes, the ice man comes, the ice man cometh — I have an idea for a play here!
This ’66 A-side is a “fuzz-heavy” garage classic (Bryan Thomas, All Music Guide). The single even sold well . . . in northern Minnesota. What is it with northern Minnesota? Zimmerman . . . Vaqueros . . .
I’m a teenage boy. I don’t know what to do or say. . . . I’ve got growing pains, growing pains, and I’m breaking away from all those chains.
OK, now for a British beat group that is actually British! “To Me” is a gorgeous ballad (see also #208) that dares to clock in at only 1:45. Bruce Eder says about this wonderful track and the wonderful album from whence it came (65’s Coast to Coast) that:
[“To Me”] might be as fine as anything that Lennon and McCartney wrote on the Beatles’ first three albums, with its exquisitely lyrical saxophone break . . . . Had there been an actual rock press in 1964, or if the Dave Clark Five had been taken more seriously sooner, Coast to Coast would probably be regarded today as something close to an essential British Invasion record . . . .
The Golden Earrings are my favorite British beat group . . . from Holland! But not only could they sound just as if they had washed up on a bank of the Mersey, a feat in and of itself, they also wrote great songs. Unlike some groups, they didn’t have the luxury of having Lennon and McCartney donate to the cause. The Earrings have earned a lot of good will in my book — everything that happened in the 70’s is forgiven!
“Dream” comes from their second album, 67’s Winter-Harvest, on which they really blossomed (like tulips!). Mark Deming writes in All Music Guide that:
[They] sounded like a crack British Invasion-era outfit who had made a wrong turn somewhere when they cut . . . Winter Harvest, but they were inarguably a stronger and more ambitious group a year after releasing their debut. All 14 songs . . . were originals . . . and the stylistic range of this collection is noticeably wider. . . . If [their first album] Just Earrings was [their] Please Please Me, Winter Harvest is their Rubber Soul, an album that masterfully consolidates their old strengths while revealing many new ones. This LP isn’t quite up to the lofty level of the Fab Four’s early masterpiece, but it stands comfortably beside the work of most of the better-known English acts of the period, and remains impressive [today].
And Kieron Tyler chimes in that:
The Golden Earrings were riding high in 1966. Their first three singles had been massive Dutch hits, and the previous year had seen the release of their classic debut album Just Earrings. Although it would be another seven years before Radar Love became an international hit, and another three before they would first play America . . . [they] were already making records that should have been heard beyond the borders of their native Holland. . . . Winter Harvest marries a tough mod-beat approach to sensitive minor-key melodies . . . . While other Dutch legends . . . were unhinged and freaked-out, The Golden Earrings focused their energies on structure and songwriting. The irresistible Winter Harvest is a testament to their success. . . . a quantum leap. . . . the sound was of a band that were in total control and utterly confident.
Indisputably, Winter Harvest “is one of the essential Nederbeat/Dutch 60s albums . . . a hidden gem of mid 60s rock n roll. . . .” (http://the rising storm.net/the-golden-earrings-winter-harvest/).
“Dream” is a bouncy number that sounds just like . . . no, not “I’m Only Dreaming,” but “I’m Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves (but without the bouncy lyrics). I’m thinking of changing my blog’s descriptor to “the greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard but that everyone has nicked.” I’m available as an expert (in my own mind) witness if anyone feels like suing.
Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelations😊 