Offered With Very Little Comment #5 - Nanette Workman, The Odd, The Memories, Dane Hunter, Soft Sensation

Some regular readers will be aware of the fact that from time to time, I throw a whole batch of singles up on to this blog in one swoop while writing very little about them.

This is usually for one of a few very simple reasons:

• I know virtually nothing about the artist(s) in question
• I have very little to say about the music
• The record in question didn't really seem to me to warrant a lot of dissection. Nothing wrong with that. Sometimes things just are what they are. 

So then, with no apologies offered for the lack of background reading, and with no expectations raised, please see the latest batch behind the link.

Artist: Nanette

Single: Every Night When I Cry Myself To Sleep/ Jamie

Label: Columbia

Year of Release: 1970

This is the the work of Canadian singer Nanette Workman (not to be confused with the eighties 'face of Fairy Liquid' Nanette Newman) recorded while she was trying to break her career in Britain. It didn't come to much, but the B-side "Jamie" here shows she could perform with groove and sass when she wanted. 

Artist: The Odd

SIngle: Last Time I Saw You/ Look Into My Eyes

Label: OK

Year of Release: 1984

Hands up if you've ever bought a cheap single just because the band were wearing unusual trousers. We've all been there, surely? Sadly, The Odd aren't as bizarre as either their name or their legwear would suggest, and both sides of this are fairly straightforward light eighties rock (though the flip hints towards a track that might have been a bit more raucous without the slightly deadening production). 

OK was also a Scottish label for Scottish pop groups, so I'm not too sure what Tony, Paul, Neil and Dave were doing posing by Tower Bridge in London. It's a tremendously sixties British Invasion styled sleeve for what is a very eighties sound. 

Artist: The Memories

Single: A Summer Song/ Words I Remember

Label: Rex

Year of Release: 1967

Across the sea in Ireland, it's Irish light entertainment and gig circuit stalwarts The Memories with a single described by an eBay seller as "Popsike". Yes, and the wind I broke first thing this morning was "Freakbeat", obviously.

To be fair, unlike my morning misfortune, this is a very well performed and arranged piece of melodic harmony pop, just as you'd expect, and I'm the fool for thinking three quid could have bought me anything else. The group finally hit the top spot in the Irish Charts with "The Game" in 1990.

Artist: Dane Hunter

Single: Evergreen Tree/ Too Late

Label: Oriole

Year of Release: 1965 (or 1995 if you believe the flipside)

"Blimey Dave, is that a really obscure and late Oriole single, a label who legendarily wiped all the master tapes on a regular basis?" Damn right it is, although don't all rush forward at once expecting a Joe Meek obscurity - this is actually a rather dated sounding (for 1965) bit of Cliff Richard-esque pop. It's also very scuffed up. 

Dane Hunter also covered Ray Pollard's stupendous 45 "The Drifter" for the British market, but it ended up unreleased (until Record Collector magazine came along and rescued it with a limited pressing). 

Artist: Soft Sensation (actually Owen Gray and Maximum Breed)

Single: Sitting In The Park/ Red Window

Label: Revolution

Year of Release: 1969

An absolutely wonderful, richly atmospheric five minute version of this had come out prior to this one, and still remains commercially available. Seemingly it was deemed too long for radio, and this is a rather rudely truncated version which wasn't a hit either. 

The B-side is the real obscurity here, being a reggae instro very few of you are likely to have heard before.