Warren Davis Monday Band - Love Is A Hurtin' Thing/ Without Fear

Soulful second single from Croydon lads

Label: Columbia

Year of Release: 1967

To any onlooker, The Warren Davis Monday Band must have had it all (apart from, perhaps, a snappy and decent sounding name). A handsome actor-and-model-turned-singer in Max Spinks, aka Warren Davis. Bill Wyman's seal of approval and seat on production duties for their storming debut 45 "Wait For Me". They even had connections too, in their friendships with Procol Harum and support slots with The Yardbirds.

The group began life as The Boardwalkers and in that guise slipped out a vanity pressed single in "My Pussycat Is Missing" which later got compiled on to the Purple Heart Surgery compilation series. While the start of their career brimmed over with promise, their line-up was ever-evolving and the atmosphere within the group somewhat fractious, with Spinks by many accounts being singer, wheeler-dealer and all-round ace face, and the rest somewhat bolted on as his lower paid back-up. Sax player Phil Houlton has been quoted as saying: "For me, it wasn’t a very happy band. Spinks did all the hustling [for gigs] and kept very tight control of the money; I don’t think we got as much as we should have got. But then again, he did all the hustling, so he probably deserved extra money. I was very pleased to leave him to be honest.”

Guitarist Rob Walker has been equally unflattering, stating: "There were better bands around playing the same kind of stuff that we were. Not that it was what prompted me as I had had enough of the band anyway... The Warren Davis Monday Band would have to rely on a lot of luck to be successful."

Blimey! But perhaps Walker was underselling and understating the group's talents somewhat. While their 45s give no indication that they had the strengths of the biggest or most innovative groups of the day - one can imagine knees buckling and gills getting greener to the sound of their friends Procol Harum's debut 45, for example - what they were capable of was a thoroughly punchy sound on vinyl. Their debut "Wait For Me" proves this undoubtedly, but this follow-up is two sides of sweaty, smoky, honking basement soul too, with Lou Rawls' "Love Is A Hurtin' Thing" being adapted neatly on the A-side and the group original "Without Fear" on the flip upping the urgency and the tempo. Both sides are worthy additions to anyone's collection and highlight a tight band with more to offer.

This, though, would be it. There's a very decent article about the group on The Strange Brew website where I've found the above quotes, and it does a great job of explaining their revolving doors line-up and brief dalliance with the stars of the day, but ultimately it would seem that theirs was an all-too-common tale in the biz. You can have musicianship, tunes, looks and connections, but if you don't have the necessary chemistry, things will quickly disintegrate.

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