Opportunity Knocks folk-beat bunch with debut single
Label: Pye
Year of Release: 1965
The Candy Dates were a much-fancied combo in 1965, having appeared on the hugely popular television talent show "Opportunity Knocks". Pye must have thought they were backing clear winners here - a group who already had huge mainstream exposure under their belts and some merry pop melodies.
In reality, the group's threadbare folk-beat sound didn't really sell through to the public very convincingly, and both this and the second single "Some Other Time" - already featured on this blog - largely sank. In this case, it's easy to hear what went wrong. It's a sandpaper rough sound, filled with harsh guitar strumming pushed to the forefront of the mix and colliding with the sugary sweet vocals. It's not unappealing, but it was surely neither pop enough, rock enough nor folk enough for 1965 audiences.
It's the b-side that's been picking up all the attention lately, with its appearance on the recent "Halcyon Days" box set putting it out of bounds for the purposes of this blog, but (luckily) freely available on both YouTube and Spotify. This is a strident, pounding mod beat sound which shows the group had many other strings to their bow.
The full line-up of the group is not well documented anywhere, although their bass player Dave Collman went on to join The Loose Ends who released the celebrated mod version of The Beatles' "Taxman" in 1966.
If anyone knows the identity and whereabouts of the others, please do let me know.
Oh yeah, and as always, if the previews below aren't working properly please go right to the source.
1 comment:
Many thanks.
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