Danny McCulloch - Blackbird/ Time of Man

"Waiter! Waiter! There's an animal in my soup!"

"No sir, you are mistaken, that's not an animal, it's Danny McCulloch who used to be in The Animals..."

Label: Capitol

Year of Release: 1969

Having been ignobly sacked from The Animals by Eric Burdon in 1968, Vic Briggs and Danny McCulloch picked themselves up, dusted themselves down, and set about working on a new project. McCulloch was quickly offered a solo deal by the American label Capitol, and Briggs sat contentedly in the production booth overseeing what would become the "Wings Of A Man" LP.

Despite its sumptuous psychedelic packaging and a relatively keen promotional push, that album has become somewhat lost at sea since its 1969 release. Never officially reissued on CD nor mentioned much in the adult rock press, it's been allowed to become an obscure Animals related curio which despite its scarcity can still be picked up for reasonable sums of money. 

Neither side of this 45 was included in the tracklisting, and it looks as if Capitol were keen to go for the old trick of using a Lennon and McCartney cover to ease McCulloch's passage to fame as a solo artist. This version of "Blackbird" latches itself firmly on to the struggle inherent in the lyrics, transforming the song from a delicate, finger-picked, country-boy ballad into cry of desperation. McCulloch wouldn't be the last person to attempt this - as we documented on here back in 2018, The Symbols also latched on to the undercurrent of black civil rights messages in the track and gospelised the song in 1971. However, rather like that version, this also sold poorly.

Following the failure of this single and "Wings Of A Man", McCulloch released one further American only 45 ("Hope") then finally slipped out the ecstatic mescaline inspired "Colour Of The Sunset" for the Australian Festival label in 1970, which was promptly picked up by Pye International in the UK but - perhaps due to its subject matter - sold poorly.

McCulloch would carry on gigging, session playing and recording down the decades, rejoining a revamped and Eric Burdon-less Animals in 1992, issuing another album "Beowulf" on Edsel in 1995, and "Back Again (Just For A Bit)" in 2013. Sadly, that title turned out to be horribly prophetic, and he passed away from heart failure in January 2015. 

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