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.