Sgt. Smiley Raggs - Smoke, Smoke/ Hey Na I Think I Love You

Songwriter Kenny Young producing Autumnal popsike under a psuedonym

Label: Decca

Year of Release: 1970

Where do you even begin with a songwriter like Kenny Young? So wide and diverse was his output, from soul to psychedelia to bubblegum to art rock and synth-pop and back again, that he makes being a writer seem like a positively sensible move. After all, while the Rolling Stones can never stray more than a step away from their formula without fans losing interest, someone like Young could leap and jump wherever he so pleased and place his work with whomever he chose, reaching new audiences at the drop of a hat.

Far and away his most known song is "Under the Boardwalk", but there's a mountain of tunes beneath that as well, from Status Quo's "Gentleman Joe's Sidewalk Cafe", The Seekers' "When Will The Good Apples Fall" and Reparata and The Delrons' "Captain Of Your Ship". 

Rather like Jonathan King - with whom I suspect he otherwise had little in common - Young also had a habit of either fronting bogus groups. He was a pivotal founding member of Fox who were a "proper" group, but besides them were acts like San Francisco Earthquake (in the sixties) and Yellow Dog (in the seventies) and this peculiarly cheerful military type Smiley Raggs who was simply Young in uniform.

 He managed two singles under this guise, "King's Row" in June 1970 and this follow-up on 6th November of the same year. It's a gentle, misty Autumnal ballad whose release date was presumably trying to capitalise on the hitherto untapped Guy Fawkes Night single-buying market, but it failed miserably and has long been cast aside as one of Young's less notable works. Let's not be too dismissive here, though - despite its seventies release date, this is unquestionably popsike and could easily have come out three years earlier, potentially to more success. Certainly, the habit of singers dressing in military garb was more of a "thing" then as well (see also Jimi Hendrix and, erm, Whistling Jack Smith). 

After this flopped, it's reasonable to assume Young just dusted himself down and moved on to the next project, if indeed he stopped to think about its failure at all. Songwriters often have that luxury. Bands don't. 

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