Peter Sarstedt's brother with some breezy but introspective pop
Year of Release: 1969
We've featured Clive Sands on this blog before with his frankly brilliant version of "Witchi Tai To", though this single is a bird of a very different feather. Where "Witchi Tai To" was a piece of summery psychedelic fantasia, all woozy chanting and haunting organ lines in a heat haze, "A Very Lonely Man" is breezy pop. The sort of pop that turned up more frequently in the early seventies, in fact - you can imagine Edison Lighthouse covering this one.
The flip "You Made Me What I Am" has a much more bluesy feel and will probably appeal much more to "Left and to the Back" readers, coming across like a Stones track being given a pop makeover. In fact, it was the work of Clive Sands' own pen.
Somewhat sadly, this release didn't transform Robin Sarstedt's luck, and was as much of a flop as his previous three releases on Simon Napier Bell's SnB label. After this, CBS clearly opted not to release any more of his recordings, and he shifted over to RCA to release a couple of other flops under the name Clive Sarstedt. By 1976 he was back on Decca under the name Robin Sarstedt with the top three single "My Resistance Is Low", and his previous struggles were quickly forgotten.
3 comments:
Thank you David !!
Greetings Albert
I don't know what your other readers like, but the more songs you can post that are like Edison Lighthouse the better. That being said, I wouldn't consider this song in that regard. The production is too sparse and no strings!
The b-side was later reused on Napier-Bell's "Out Of Borstal" album with new vocals over the same backing track.
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