Mike Morton Sound - Jennifer Jennifer/ See You Around

Label: Plexium

Year of Release: 1969

If you were in a charity shop and saw this one in the 7" singles box on the floor (because they're always on the floor, don't you find? Ooh, the knee and calf pain) you might skim past it, believing it to be an easy listening single or covers project. This would be a fair enough conclusion, given that The Mike Morton Congregation were a band who were heavily involved in cheapo LPs featuring covers of recent big sellers such as "Non Stop Party Hits".

"Jennifer, Jennifer" is credited to the Mike Morton Sound, though, and appears to have been a bona-fide attempt on Mike Morton's part at creating a hit of his own before he ended up collecting session group paycheques. As beat-orientated pop goes, it's quite good too. It starts off with a summery bounce, then suddenly, quite without warning, erupts into an uproarious, Blackpool Ballroom organ infested chorus. It repeats this pattern throughout and lacks a great deal of progression, but is interesting enough to hold its own. If its release date had been three or four years prior to 1969, it may even have stood a chance as a minor hit.

Mike Morton's Congregation were later responsible for the single "Burning Bridges", which featured prominently in the soundtrack to the film "Kelly's Heroes". We featured that on this blog back in 2014.

Sandra Bryant - Girl With Money/ Golden Hours

Label: Major Minor

Year of Release: 1967

One of many, many records that slipped out on Major Minor almost unnoticed in the sixties, "Girl With Money" is a brassy, bouncy and sassy record which has all the hallmarks of a mid-sixties beat pop (rather than 1967) production. Sandra Bryant's voice lets rip all across this and she pushes herself to the bluesy max, but it's possible that by this point the public's tastes were moving on to more progressive fare. It's a pity, as it's a strong piece of work which under other circumstances might have offered enough zest to succeed. 

Contrary to popular belief, the Sandra Bryant behind this disc is not the actress who appeared in "On The Buses", but a vocalist from Dagenham. She managed one other single on Major Minor, "Out To Get You", before disappearing from view. The label must have hoped that some of Sandie Shaw's local fairydust would land on Sandra's shoulders, but it clearly wasn't to be.

Ray McVay Band - Genesis/ House of Clowns

Label: Parlophone

Year of Release: 1966

Ray McVay was something of an eager beaver in the sixties and seventies. He worked on arrangements for a wide number of rock acts, as well as issuing swathes of easy listening LPs. While none of the latter were enormous sellers, many were intriguing Easy interpretations of the musical fads and fashions of the day. From "Golden Country Hits" to "Reggae Time With Ray McVay", he issued tons of albums with saucy ladies on the cover which put his own spin on the top pops.

Suffice to say, then, that despite the title of "Genesis", this isn't some kind of psych or prog workout. It starts out with a slightly "Open University" sounding beginning, then progresses into some twangy, instrumental beat. Given that the capable songwriting of Greenaway and Cook is behind the tune, it's got plenty of atmosphere and feels instantly familiar. In fact, the incessant guitar twangin', snare drum rolls and the deep "a doo doobee doo" backing vocals will transport you back to those carefree, innocent moments in your life. 

Ray was touring with Eddie Cochran and almost sat in the car seat that claimed Eddie's life in that fateful car journey, but had to take alternative travel arrangements at the last moment. Cochran may have passed on, but Ray went on to have a very long career, and presently works in the current line-up of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.

Reupload - Me Myself & Me Again - Blaze Away

Label: Antic

Year of Release: 1978

From the rear sleeve: "'Me Myself And Me Again' is actually Vivian Fisher, a 26 year old recording studio engineer and frustrated musician.  Despite dabbling in cornet, french horn, trombone and piano, Vivian really always wanted to play every instrument. Then, one day when recording a marching brass band in the street, he discovered that the sound was actually recorded in segments as the band moved past.  This gave him the idea of a multi-track recording of himself impersonating the sound and character of the different parts of a brass band - and 'Blaze Away' is the result".

I try to avoid blandly slapping the notes of record sleeves on to my blog entries, but I've been sitting here chewing my fingers for the last half an hour desperately trying to think of what to say about this disc, and I can't.  I just can't.  Ridiculing the contents would be too easy (and in any case, they are impressively done - you wouldn't be able to immediately tell they were entirely the mouth-work of a recording engineer). Praising this record as being a lost classic would be ridiculous, unless of course you are a fan of the military marching band oeuvre.  It is, however, an utter gem in the world of eccentric novelty records, and a triumph of decadent seventies music industry mayhem over common sense.  Perhaps somebody within Antic Records or Warner Brothers (their distributors) expected this to sell in large quantities, but it's hard to clearly understand why.

In subsequent years - and largely thanks to Danny Baker talking about it on his radio show - this has become a much sought-after novelty record, to the extent that a copy in VG condition sold on ebay for £26 earlier in 2012.  The market has subsequently become saturated with the little bleeders ever since, to the extent that you can pick up copies for a much more reasonable price now (as I did).  The demand is explicable in that there's an innocence and eccentric frivolity to this which perhaps manages to remind people of a time when lowly studio engineers could see their name up in lights with one single daft idea - these days, of course, this would probably just end up becoming one peculiar YouTube clip buried among the wobbling pile of online attention seekers.

The B-side attempts to explain how the record was made by breaking down the individual components, but in all honesty, it's not essential listening.  Should the conjuror really give away his tricks, in any case?

Vivian apparently now works as a Sound Operator in the West London studio centre of BSkyB, returning to the back-room world from whence he came - but for a certain segment of the population, he will always be the one-man military marching answer to the Flying Pickets.  The time when he records an album of covers of songs by Nirvana and The Sex Pistols surely can't be far off.

Sydney Elliott - Who Dat Girl/ Strawberry Blonde

Label: Spark

Year of Release: 1969

In the late sixties, the sound known as reggae (or "The REGGAE, ow!" as Johnny Johnson and His Bandwagon confusingly referred to it) was scorchingly popular with crossover hits emerging left, right and centre. This led to numerous small British independent labels trying to sign whatever club acts were based in London at that time, with Beacon Records jumping on both a bunch of mysterious sorts called Brixton Market, and the initially ska influenced Black Velvet. A lot of this material was slightly popped up for mainstream consumption, to varying degrees of success.

Spark, on the other hand, had Sydney Elliott on their books, who turned out this cultishly popular little single in 1969. "Who Dat Girl?" isn't 100% authentic reggae either, having an overly strict arrangement which sounds very Anglicised. The track itself is a bouncy, joyful affair about women in miniskirts, though, which was an incredibly popular lyrical topic during this period. Sydney delivers it well, and while your classic reggae DJ probably isn't going to spin it, it's an interesting period piece. It throws a tiny chunk of bubblegum into the blender and sounds like a possible hit.

The flip "Strawberry Blonde" is, as you might have guessed, about the desirability of ladies with that particular colour of hair, even going as far as to praise their cooking abilities. I doubt he did a scientific study on their souffle making abilities before recording the track, so it's best to take his words with a large pinch of kitchen salt (while also hiding behind the excuse that this was 1969 and these ideas about women's roles in the home hadn't quite fallen out of fashion yet).

Sydney Elliott was a popular club draw in the sixties and seventies, issuing another record on Spark (the rather more soulful "If Music Be The Food Of Love") and another for CBS ("Desperation") before disappearing from the recording studio vocal booth. He later became the uncle of the considerably more successful Maxi Priest, and the father of Jacob Miller of the reggae group Inner Circle.

The Legends - Sometimes I Can't Help It/ Jefferson Strongbox

Label: Heart 
Year of Release: 1970

I'm sure almost everyone reading this will be aware of Dan Hartman. He's the author of hundreds of songs, some of which have since become a lingering presence on oldies radio - "I Can Dream About You", "Relight My Fire", "Instant Replay" and "Free Ride" are among his most known and appreciated, but there's a cornucopia of songs beneath that surface. He enjoyed a fruitful stint as a writer and performer in the Edgar Winter Band, and acted as a producer for Muddy Waters among others.

If you associate Hartman with his most well-known disco singles, his rock output comes as something of a shock. But he was nothing if not versatile as a songwriter and performer, as "Sometimes I Can't Help It" proves here. The Legends were his brother Dave Hartman's band, and he sneaked into their ranks at the age of thirteen. They issued a number of records on small, independent labels before signing to Epic in 1972, including this self-released square shaped flexidisc - which I assume was either sold cheaply at gigs or given away as a promotional item.

"Sometimes I Can't Help It" has a growl and a roar to it not unlike Steppenwolf at their most raucous, and The Legends here sit neatly on the border of sixties garage and seventies rock. It's a brilliant listen and shows that even at this point, Dan Hartman had developed some serious songwriting chops.  The Legends would turn out not to be the stars the Hartman brothers hoped they would become, but within a couple of years Dan would join forces with Edgar Winter and taste actual success. By 1978, the unlikely allure of the disco beat would set in, and his career would take another twist with the success of "Instant Replay".

Sadly, he passed away following complications with AIDS in 1994, but the legacy he left behind is not just vast, it's rather varied too. Different periods of his career mean different things to different people, and this screaming little single is an example of how raucously Rock he could be.

Jackie Lee and The Raindrops - There's No One In The Whole Wide World/ (I Was The) Last One To Know

Label: Oriole

Year of Release: 1962

Another Oriole obscurity, this time from blog favourite Jackie Lee, who has already appeared here twice (with the theme from "Inigo Pipkin" and the rather magical "Space Age Lullaby"). Jackie Lee's career is long and tremendously varied, and her attempt - with her group The Raindrops - to represent Britain in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1962 is often skated over. It shouldn't be altogether surprising that it's not very prominent on her CV. Failing to do well at Eurovision is a known career-killer, and failing to present Britain at Eurovision by getting past the "Song For Europe" heats is also often an embarrassing indignity (ask Justin Hawkins). Far from simply failing to represent the UK, this song actually finished ninth on the scoreboard, making it a complete no-hoper.

She's got absolutely nothing to be ashamed of here, however. "There's No-One In The Whole Wide World" is a beat pop ballad performed with the warmth you'd expect from her, adding an extra dimension to the otherwise fairly standard backing. It's sweet, innocent and trots along neatly, but is actually quite Beat by the Eurovision standards of the time, which may be why it didn't do very well. It pricked up John Lennon's ears at the time, though, and caused The Beatles to cover it a number of times during their 1962 gigs. So far as anyone is aware, though, the Fabs never demo'ed this in any way.

Jackie Lee's career would obviously continue throughout the sixties and the seventies, issuing a vast array of work including the Northern Soul classic "I Gotta Be With You" under the name Emma Rede. 

Reupload - Off Side - Match Of The Day/ Small Deal

Label: Pye International
Year of Release: 1970

Since its introduction in 1970, the "Match of the Day" theme on the BBC has become one of the most instantly recognisable television themes in Britain - if not, according to the Performing Rights Society, the most recognisable. More suggestive and indicative than any news broadcast theme (even the BBC World News channel's bleeping ambient effort) or even the wailing harmonica of "Last of the Summer Wine", some of us were born with this theme and know, within the first few milliseconds of the first note, what it's representing.

Trying to listen to it with a fresh pair of 2017 ears strapped firmly to my ageing head, it does seem a strange choice for a tune despite its endearing familiarity, and I'm clearly not alone in thinking that - my Canadian wife when she first heard it burst out laughing at the absurdity of a celebratory Herb Alpert styled quasi-Mexican ditty introducing a modern British football programme. Clearly at the time of commissioning the piece had South American connotations which seemed entirely synonymous with the big game, but there's definitely something a little unlike Auntie Beeb about the whole thing. However, I for one am happy about the fact that it's what we've got - it's a happy, chirpy clarion call which you can imagine beckoning members of any British family in from their bedrooms, kitchens and even bathrooms, like some soccer orientated Pied Piper of Hamlet with, er... a football for a head.

Whatever your personal feelings on the piece, it's one of the few television themes which has wormed its way so much into the British psyche that it conjours up memories and emotions from even the the most steely hearted football fan. As Paul Whitehouse once observed on an episode of "The Fast Show" in the guise of Ron Manager - "Match of the Day? Da da da da da-da-da-da da? Somehow comforting, isn't it, you know?" In summary, then - do I expect any non-British reader to really get the appeal of this record? No, not really. In the absence of any context at all, it probably sounds like a cheery piece of easy listening and not much more (and I'd be really curious to read your thoughts on it if it's unfamiliar to you, actually).

The single you can hear below isn't, of course, the original theme commissioned by the BBC but a very close and crafty approximation recorded by Mike Vickers for the benefit of Pye Records. It wasn't a hit, but in recent years has become a massive collector's item purely due to the B-side, a Vickers-penned piece called "Small Deal", which has apparently become popular with DJs who are keen on the "funky loops" it offers. To my ears, "Small Deal" is a dramatic piece of library music which offers nothing especially outstanding, but my DJ'ing chops are definitely not adequate enough to be able to hear what possibilities it might afford.

Mint copies of this frequently go for £20 plus on ebay. As you can hear, mine isn't exactly mint, but it's good enough, and certainly gives you a fair idea of what's on offer. Not that, in the case of the A-side, you'd really need telling.