1) Jan Panter, “Stella in Lights”

Bruce Eder says that Jan “was part of the ubiquitous legions of girl singers who poured into London, and whose recorded work streamed out of the British record industry across the early to mid-’60s.” (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jan-panter-mn0000177791/biography) This was the B-side of an April 1969 single. As Marlon Brando once said, “STELLAAAAAAAA!!!”

2) Billy Nicholls, “Would You Believe”

Billy Nicholls’s Would You Believe was one of the two great lost albums of the 1960s (sorry, “Smile”).  Vernon Joynson says in The Tapestry of Delights Revisited: The Comprehensive Guide to British Music of the Beat, R&B, Psychedelic and Progressive Eras 1963-1976 that the album was Andrew Loog “Oldham’s attempt to concoct a British answer to the Beach Boy’s Pet Sounds.” The Immediate label cancelled the album’s release because of financial problems and “boxes of never-issued copies are said to have ended up as ballast for ships.”  So sad. Billy later became the Who’s music director.

3) Nick Garrie, “Wheel of Fortune”

Nick Garrie’s The Nightmare of J.B. Stanislas was the other great lost album of the 60’s.  If Nick’s French record company’s owner hadn’t committed suicide on the eve of Stanislas’s release, who knows what might have been. Stunning song — I was transfixed the first time I heard it and I have been a huge fan of Nick’s music ever since. I’ve had the pleasure of hanging out with him in Gstaad.