Express Delivery - Lazy Butterfly/ Leaving Home Number 9

Folksy hippy festival pop backed with bluesy blow-out

Label: Philips

Year of Release: 1971

Mungo Jerry - so much to answer for. The soaraway success of "In The Summertime" led to a number of other bright, bouncy and slightly rustic festival-friendly tracks seeping into the marketplace, very few of which had any major impact. There's no doubt that there was room for catchy, rootsy simplicity as well as hard rock in the post-psychedelic hippy scene, but that space seemed to be limited to only a couple of artists at a time.

Whatever the odds, I'd argue that Express Delivery were utterly doomed by the release date of this track. Launched on 10th December 1971 at a point where butterflies weren't so much lazy as stone cold dead, the track's carefree skipping down country lanes cried out for a summer release. In the run-up to Christmas, it must have sounded ludicrously out of place with the general public mood.

The B-side "Leaving Home Number 9" takes a different tack, being a bluesy work-out which might find more appreciation among "Left and to the Back" readers. As you can hear, my copy is faintly scratched and needle-damaged on that side, so whoever previously owned it obviously gave the flip a lot more plays and appreciation. 

Once again, Express Delivery were one single wonders and I have no idea who they were or what became of them. I'm going to hazard a guess that the Kitteridge credited on the A-side was Les Kitteridge, who also wrote "Go Call Mary" for Abel Fletcher, an equally obscure release which came out on the small Concord label in 1970. Certainly, Campbell Connolly, who owned that label, get the publishing credit which is a huge giveaway. As for whether he was actually a member of Express Delivery or a jobbing songwriter, though - I'm afraid I know as much as you (or possibly less).

The writers of the flip also turn up as composers on the flip of a 1972 flop record on Bumble entitled "Ayeo", with the curiously titled "A Heavy Drinking, Ego Shrinking Doctor" (don't go looking on YouTube for it, it isn't there).

And that concludes the sum total of all I know. If anyone knows more, drop me a line. 

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